page/content in preparation  15.05.09
HOW TO PLAY
The content of this page intends to give general outlines and does not treat specific situations.
 

BASICS
The game consists of dealing, mixing, the auction (bidding) and play, after which the deal is scored..
Scoring is based on values for tricks and additional premiums, refering to number of tricks.
The game takes about 10 minutes to play and is usually refered to as "deal".
The numer of possible deals is 635.013559.600

The mecanical aspect of playing is laid down in the LAWS resp. rules.

Which card and when  to play  is a matter of experience.
    To this topic, more then 5000 bokks have been published.
    National Organisations give recommendations and offer help.
   A general description is found in WIKIPEDIA inclusive links.

General experience in Trump Play: eliminate the trumps of the opponent first;
in No-Trump play: care for cards which give you the lead.
There are  four main ways of taking a trick by force:
x-- establihing long suits;
x-- playing for the opponents high cards to be in a particular position ( if their ace
    is to the left of your king, your king might be able to take a trick).
x-- playing a high card that no one else can beat;
x-- trumping an opponents hight card;

TOURNAMENT PLAY
There is no play without organisation and scoring !
Little attention has been paid so far to the influence on results by organising
bridge events and scoring methods.
The 2008RevisedLAWs carry sistematical descriptions as to methods and  procedures.
Whenever four players unite to play bridge, they must agree on the numer of
deals to be played. In tournaments, where more persons are playing, the number
of deals is fixed by the organisator.
To eliminate fortuitouness ( good or bad cards), deals are played from both sides,
( Up to 2007  as team-of-four, now in progress for other forms).
Deals might be selected according to given principles, if players agree.
Known forms are: by distribution, difficulty to find maximum tricks, out of
past "great" events, simultan tournaments, etc.
 

INTERCLUB GAMES
Two clubs may have an internal tournament by showing both clubteam results in separate
in the winners list of the Sorer#1. This is done by adding the prefix Y or Z with the names
of the combattants in the players list. Both clubs play at the same time at the same place,
or using duplicatet boards in the home place.
The Scorer#1 has the possibility to show 48 lines a each board.

SIMULTAN TOURNAMENTS
In simultaneous tournaments all participants play the same board at the same time in many clubs.
Everything is as always, but you must lay boards or you  get prepared boards . When the game
is over, you will get a printout of your peronal result. There you will know your performance
by the percentage in a kind of super- board, where 1000 pairs or more participated.
The most present score and how often a specific  score is to be found (frequencies) is a valuable
additional information. Also, you will receive a sheet with the distribution.
You may play the boards anew at home and detect better ways to act.
Sometimes there are special features offered by the sponsoring organisation: i.e. boards
selected by the frequency of their appearance – not only by random of the PC -  or boards
specially choosen by built in difficulties in bidding, play and counterplay.
In addition to the informations presented at you home club, you can see all results in the internet.

It is the modern EDP technique and the internet which give you the chance to take part in
Simultaneous events within your own club. But complex evaluation programs and the adjoined
administration works are not gratis. As a general rule you have to count on 4 US$ per person.
This low price is possible by the effect of rationalisation of the EDP (Electrical Data processing).
Remember: there are no journeys to the place of tournament; no overnight spending,  etc..
Last not least in comparison to other „big“ events: the known and familiar atmosphere in your home club.
 

RUBBER
Up to 1920 players used to play  any number of deals in private sessions.
Some players agreed to a certain structure in the deal sequence, to minimised the effect of
good and bad cards, and this procedure was called "RUBBER".
Rubber is based on counting tricks: if you made a trick score of 100, you did win
thew first "manche". For the next manche, you enterd in the status of "in danger", which meant
that not fulfilling a contract gave more score to the opponent.
If your opponent won the second manche, both parties were "in danger" for the third manche.
Two manches won was victory, and a new rubber had to be started ( if desired)

By this, the bridge gane had a given structure in entent and time. Many expresions of
the RUBBER were used in the foolwing new aerea of duplicate bridge.
Duplicate a deal  is the basic condition for any tournament, not known in the
rubber time.
 
 

HISTORY
B E S S E
 Jean Besse ( 1914-1994) , a former member of the Law commisssion
of the World Bridge Federation, recommended playing from both sides.
His idea: "when a deal is played and noted on a team of four sheet,  the
players give their (played) cards to their left-hand-opponents. The deal
is then played for the second time with all cards visible on the table ...
The idea is for the players to help each other to find the ideal result
during the replay. This will be recorded as the result from the "other table".

20.05.09