Bridge Rules: The Complete Guide to the Laws of Bridge

The rules of bridge come down to a few principles: four players in two fixed partnerships, 13 cards each, an auction in which every bid must be higher than the last, and 13 tricks in which you must follow suit if you can. The highest card of the suit led wins the trick unless someone plays a trump.

The official rulebook is the Laws of Duplicate Bridge, written by the World Bridge Federation (WBF) and adopted by national bodies such as the ACBL in North America and the EBU in England. The current edition dates from 2017. Rubber bridge has its own, very similar code. This page covers what every player needs at the table, in the order a deal unfolds.

Bridge is played by four people at one table. The seats are named North, East, South and West. North-South form one partnership and East-West the other. Partners sit opposite each other, so your opponents sit to your left and right.

The game uses one standard deck of 52 cards with no jokers. Within each suit the cards rank from the ace (highest) down to the two (lowest). The suits themselves have no rank during the play; they only rank during the auction.

Partnerships are fixed for the session. In rubber bridge you may change partners after each rubber; in duplicate you keep the same partner for the whole event.

The dealer shuffles (or the player on the dealer's left does, in rubber bridge), the player on the dealer's right cuts, and the dealer deals the cards face down, one at a time and clockwise, starting with the player on the left. Each player receives 13 cards.

A misdeal (a card turned face up, a player with the wrong number of cards) means the cards are dealt again. In duplicate the cards are dealt once, before the session or by a dealing machine, and placed in a board: a tray with four pockets marked with the dealer and the vulnerability. The same board then travels from table to table. See duplicate bridge for how that works.

The dealer makes the first call. The turn then passes clockwise. A call is one of:

1. A bid: a level (1 to 7) and a strain (♣, ♦, ♥, ♠ or NT). A bid at the one level contracts for seven tricks, at the seven level for all thirteen.
2. Pass.
3. Double (X): legal only over a bid by an opponent, when that bid has not already been doubled.
4. Redouble (XX): legal only over an opponent's double of your side's bid.

Every bid must be sufficient: higher than the last bid. It is higher if it names more tricks, or the same number of tricks in a higher strain. The order from low to high is clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, notrump. A double or a redouble does not change the last bid; any later bid cancels them.

The auction ends when three players pass in a row after a bid, double or redouble. The last bid becomes the contract, doubled or redoubled if the last call was a double or redouble. If all four players pass with no bid, the deal is passed out: there is no play and no score for that deal.

Declarer is the player of the side that won the contract who first named its strain. In the auction above, North-South bought the contract in spades. South bid spades first (1♠), so South is declarer even though North made the final bid of 4♠.

A convention is a call with an agreed meaning that is not natural: Stayman, where 2♣ over 1NT asks for a major, is the classic example. The rules allow conventions, with two conditions:

• Full disclosure. Your opponents are entitled to know your agreements. You list them on a convention card, and when partner makes a conventional call you alert (or, for certain common calls, announce) so the opponents can ask what it means.
• Regulation. Each sponsoring body decides which conventions are allowed in which events. Most club games allow the common ones; some beginner games restrict artificial methods.

You must explain your agreement, not what you think partner holds. If you have no agreement, say so. The same call can carry a different meaning in each system: see what 2♣ over 1NT means in every system.

The player on declarer's left makes the opening lead, face down at duplicate (so partner can ask questions about the auction first), then turns it face up. Only then does dummy, declarer's partner, spread all 13 cards face up in suits, with the trumps on dummy's right.

Declarer plays both hands. Dummy may not suggest plays, but dummy may stop declarer from leading from the wrong hand and may ask declarer "no clubs?" when declarer fails to follow. After the opening lead, dummy's role is passive.

1. Each player, in clockwise order, plays one card to the trick.
2. You must follow suit if you can. This rule has no exceptions: holding the suit, you play the suit.
3. If you cannot follow, you may play any card. Playing a trump is a ruff; playing another suit is a discard.
4. The trick is won by the highest trump played. If there is no trump, it is won by the highest card of the suit led.
5. The winner of a trick leads to the next one.

There is no rule that forces you to win a trick or to ruff. You can always play low or discard when you are void, even if you hold trumps.

When all four cards of a trick have been played, the trick is quitted: turned face down. At duplicate each player turns their own card down in front of them, pointing it lengthwise toward the side that won the trick. Until your side has played to the next trick, you may ask to see the cards of the trick just played. After that, quitted tricks are not inspected, except with the director's permission.

A claim ends the play early. Declarer (or a defender) faces the remaining cards and states a clear line, such as "I draw the last trump and the rest are good." If the opponents agree, the score is settled. If they dispute it, the director rules, and any doubtful point is decided against the claimer: the director assumes the claimer could play carelessly, but not irrationally, in the line they stated. A concession is the opposite: you give up tricks. A concession of a trick that cannot be lost can be withdrawn if it is corrected in time.

The laws give a full scoring table. In outline:

• Making the contract scores trick points: 20 per trick in clubs or diamonds, 30 in hearts or spades, and 40 for the first notrump trick plus 30 for each one after.
• A contract worth 100 trick points or more is a game and gets a game bonus. Smaller contracts get a part-score bonus at duplicate.
• Slams (12 or 13 tricks bid and made) earn extra bonuses.
• Each trick short of the contract gives the defenders a penalty, larger when declarer's side is vulnerable or doubled.

The numbers are in bridge scoring and on one page in the bridge scoring chart.

Mistakes in procedure are called irregularities. At a club, you call the director when one happens. Players do not fix it among themselves at duplicate, because the laws often give the non-offending side options, and only the director can explain them.

A revoke is a failure to follow suit when you could have. If it is noticed before it becomes established, you simply correct it: you take the wrong card back and follow suit. A defender's withdrawn card becomes a penalty card, and the non-offending side may take back any card they played after the revoke.

A revoke becomes established when the offending player or partner plays to the next trick (or claims or concedes). Then it stands, and at the end of play the director usually transfers one or two tricks to the other side, depending on who won the revoke trick and later tricks. The full detail, with examples, is in the revoke.

A lead out of turn is a lead by the wrong player. The other side may accept it, and play goes on as if it were a normal lead. If the opening lead is made by the wrong defender, declarer may even accept it and choose to become dummy. If the lead is not accepted, the card usually becomes a penalty card and the correct player leads, sometimes with restrictions on which suit they may lead.

An insufficient bid is a bid that is not higher than the last one, such as 1♥ after 1♠. The player on the offender's left may accept it. If not, the offender must make a legal call. If the correction is the lowest sufficient bid in the same strain with the same meaning (1♥ corrected to 2♥, both natural), the auction continues normally. Otherwise, the offender's partner may have to pass for the rest of the auction, and there may be lead restrictions. The director also checks whether the correction gave the offending side an unfair advantage.

Other common irregularities include a call out of rotation, a card exposed during the auction, and a player with too many or too few cards. Each has its own law.

The rules of the auction and play are the same in every form of bridge. The formats differ in how deals are scored and compared:

In duplicate, luck of the cards is removed: a bad hand is bad for everyone sitting your direction. That is why most competitive bridge is duplicate.

You can drill these rules in a relaxed setting: BridgeDummy's Bidding Room lets you bid random deals with robot partners in the system you choose, so you can practice legal, sensible auctions without anyone waiting for you. For the play side, the MiniBridge rules page is a short summary of the card play for new players.