Hi. Welcome to our fourth
class. Today we're going to
take a close look at the 13
cards you are dealt at the
beginning of a bridge deal.

We'll examine the hand,
and even look at some
strategies for taking tricks,
so hold onto your hat, or
should I say mouse!

The cards have been dealt. You have 13 of
them in your hand. Most people arrange the
cards by alternating the suits by color,
black-red-black-red or red-black-red-black,
so you can see what you're doing.

However, this is an example of how a bridge
hand looks in a newspaper column or
magazine or bridge book.

The suit at the top is spades. The next suit
is hearts. The next suit is diamonds. The
suit on the bottom is clubs. Black, red,
red, black.

This is because the newspaper diagram
shows the suits in order of rank. Remember
rank? Spades are first, then hearts,
then diamonds, then clubs. When
you're actually holding the 13 cards
in your hand, however, you might
arrange the cards as below:

A K 3 2       T 8       K 4 3       A 9 8 2

I've put the hand back into "newspaper hand"
order, because that way you'll always see
the suits in the order of rank and there'll
be no confusion -- you'll always know which
suit is which.

Just to review, in this type of notation,
spades are always on top, followed by
hearts, then diamonds, then clubs:
S, H, D, C.

Notice anything else about the arrangement
of the cards? Besides the suit ranks, the
cards in each suit are arranged from left
to right. The highest card is to the left and
the lowest is to the right. For example,
look at the spade suit. The ace is on
the left, followed by the king, then the 3
and then the 2. All the suits are sorted this
way. I see there's a question from Norm

Do you gotta
arrange your
cards this
way? I mean,
if you're an
experienced
card shark,
you don't
really gotta arrange 'em
so carefully,
right?

(There's one in every class.) No, Norm,
you don't gotta do it. There's no rule in
bridge that forces you to arrange your cards
this way, but it sure helps a lot!

By sorting the cards from high to low, you
get a clear view of all 13 cards and their
association with each other. When you
play bridge, as you'll soon see, putting
your cards into this pattern will help
enormously in remembering which cards
have been played.

Let's look at this hand from another angle.
Suppose you're the opening leader. You
would like to win a trick. Hey, that's the
object of the game, isn't it?! Well, most of the
time tricks are won with "honor" cards.

Honor cards are aces, kings, queens,
jacks, and tens. The kings, queens and
jacks have pictures on them. The aces
and tens don't have pictures, but they
are honor cards anyway. Sometimes
you can win tricks without having to use
an honor. The non-honor cards, all the
rest from 2 to 9, are called "spot
cards." On this hand that I've dealt
you, how many honor cards do you have?

No peeking by scrolling down, please!
Answer and then scroll.....

Right! (Oh, I do hope you got it right.
If you didn't it's surely a reflection on
your teacher!) You have five honor
cards: the ace of spades, the king
of spades, the ten of hearts, the ace
of diamonds, and the king of clubs.

In order to win a trick, you must play, face
up on the table, the highest card of the
four cards that were played (one from each
player). In real life you don't have to
play the highest card to win the trick,
because if your partner plays a high card,
that might be good enough -- remember,
it's just as good if partner wins the trick
as if you win it -- they all go into the
same pile for your side when you're
keeping score of the tricks.

Suppose you are the opening leader and
you start by playing the ace of spades. This
card will win the trick because aces are high
-- they are the highest possible -- they
can't be beaten. Suppose you are the
opening leader and you lead the king of
spades, instead of the ace.

Is this card certain to win the trick?
What do you think?

Yes! Because you have the ace of
spades in your hand, which is the only
card higher than the king. Since you
have it, nobody else does, and,
therefore, nobody else will be able to
put the ace on your king. The king
must win the trick.

Suppose you lead the king of clubs
instead of the king of spades.

Are you certain to win the trick?

No! You don't have the ace of clubs, so
somebody else does, and that person
who has the ace might play the ace and
then he wins the trick instead of you.
So it was a better strategy to lead the
king of spades than to lead the king of
clubs, because you held the ace of
spades with it! Think about this.