The game of Bridge has always fascinated me. No one in my family played so I never had an opportunity to learn this game. My family played a lot of Rook, which in some ways is similar to Bridge. Trying to learn to play bridge when no one you know plays the game can be somewhat challenging. Although there is still a lot I do not know about Bridge, here is what I've learned so far and rescources that have helped me understand the game.

What I knew about Bridge was that it was game played by four people. Partners sat across from each other. A round of bidding takes place where you say how many tricks you can win in excess of six so if you bid three spades then you must actually win 9 spade tricks. There is a lot more to bidding and the bidding phase that will be covered in future articles. A standard card deck is used where ace is the high card and two is the lowest.

As you can tell, my knowledge was very limited. Since so much information is available through the Internet, it would be silly not to go online to see what I could discover about Bridge. The problem with searching for good, basic information about Bridge on the Internet is that you find a lot of pages dedicated to Bridge but are meant for those with some background in the game. Luckily not all web pages are like this, and I was able to find a couple of good resources.

Bridgehands.com has been most helpful in learning about Bridge and all the different aspects of the game like bidding, hands, etc. Since there are so many terms connected to Bridge, the encyclopedia at Bridgehands is especially useful.

Besides learning about Bridge on the Internet, Tutorial Bridge, a PC software game, has helped me practice actually playing the game. The best feature of this game is that it truly explains each move made in the game. It has demo version which lasts for ten days before the software no longer functions.

Now that I'm becoming immersed in the game of Bridge and have played a few games through Tutorial Bridge, it might be time to broaden my horizons. Hopefully I can recruit some friends to play Bridge and can further my Bridge knowledge. Next part of my series on Bridge will cover Bridge Lingo--terms and definitions that are good to know when playing the game.