Your First Bid

Naming Conventions in Bridge

• The first person to start the bidding process is called 'the dealer' however they may pass - the first person to actually make make a bid which is not pass, is called the opener. The first person to  bid in a new game not including Pass bids
• The opener's partner straight away acquires the name of 'responder'.



• You should have at least 13 TP to open the bidding. To bid a suit at any level you should have at least 4 cards or more in the suit (there are exceptions but these will be covered in later lessons), this is called a 'biddable suit'



• Start with your longest suit – “Length before Strength”. When you open with a bid at the level of 1 you are saying that you propose to win at least 7 tricks out of the 13 tricks available in the game. The first six tricks is known as "the book" and is the minimum number of tricks that you need to win before you can start accumulating points for your bid. If you bid at the 2 level you need to win the book.



• The basic six tricks that must be won by the declaring side. The first six "book" tricks are always presumed and are not accounted for in either the bidding or scoring. This means that a contract at the 1-level commits declarer to take at least 7 (that is, 6 + 1) tricks, and provides points only for the tricks above the base level of 6 in the book of 6 tricks plus an extra 2 tricks to make your contract.



• When you bid you are also nominating the suit you bid as the 'trump' suit. The number of times you can bid a suit differ according to whether you open a major or a minor suit and whether you have just 4 cards (only once) or if you have 5 or more cards (a rebiddable suit)



• The spade and heart suits are major suits, often referred to simply as the majors



• Diamonds and clubs are the minor suits, often referred to as 'the minors'