Notes for Beginners at Bridge

The following notes provide a complete introductory course in Bridge for beginners, focusing mainly on the Acol bidding system, but also on techniques for the play of the cards.

• No Fear Bridge Summary Sheet
• Bridge 1 – Basic Game
• Bridge 2 – Basic Principles of Play
• Bridge 3 – Bidding Balanced Hands – 1
• Bridge 4 – Bidding Balanced Hands – 2
• Bridge 5 – Bidding Balanced Hands – 3
• Bridge 6 – Finessing to Make More Tricks – 1
• Bridge 7 – Finessing to Make More Tricks – 2
• Bridge 8 – Bidding Balanced Hands – 4
• Bridge 9 – Bidding Balanced Hands – Summary
• Bridge 10 – Avoiding Blocking Winning Cards
• Bridge 11 – Bidding Unbalanced Hands – 1
• Bridge 12 – Bidding Unbalanced Hands – 2
• Bridge 13 – Defensive Play – 1
• Bridge 14 – Defensive Play – 2
• Bridge 15 – Bidding Unbalanced Hands – 3
• Bridge 16 – Bidding Strong Hands – 1
• Bridge 17 – Bidding Strong Hands – 2
• Bridge 18 – Pre-emptive Bidding
• Bridge 19 – Intervening Bids
• Bridge 20 – Intervening Bids with Strong Hands

The following notes, do not normally form part of the Droitwich U3A introductory Bridge course, though they could well form part of such an introductory course as they extend the material into issues of play techniques and hand evaluation, without changing any of the basic bidding system.

• Bridge 21 – Playing No Trump Contracts – Part 1
• Bridge 22 – Playing No Trump Contracts – Part 2
• Bridge 23 – Playing Suit Contracts – Part 1
• Bridge 24 – Playing Suit Contracts – Part 2
• Bridge 25 – Playing Suit Contracts – Part 3
• Bridge 26 – Counting High Card Points During Play
• Bridge 27 – Unbalanced Hand Evaluation
• Bridge 28 – Losing Trick Count

Of course, these notes need to be used in collaboration with practical experience of bidding and playing that is best done with a human instructor, ie as part of a “beginner’s class”.

© Les Hazlewood, 2023
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