By Bridge Club EXCO ‘25
A deck of cards is distributed amongst 4 players—2 partnerships—each vying for victory. The atmosphere is tense as you take a peek at your own hand, then begin to wonder what your partner on the other side of the table is holding.
Welcome to the game of Bridge.
A typical hand and bidding box
We begin with the first phase: bidding. The aim is simple, to bridge (haha, get it?) the gap of information between yourself and your partner. Using only 15 legal words which cumulatively form only 38 possible bids, your partnership must now narrow down which one of the 635,013,559,600 possible hands you have been dealt. Staring into the eyes of your partner, you make your bids, praying each time that he can read the codified messages you are sending him. Efficient and effective communication here is key. After all, with each additional bid you make, you promise to make a greater number of tricks (think of this as “winning” a round).
Sometimes your partner falters, pausing and pondering for a long time, before hesitantly deciding on an appropriate response. You worry about the potential misinformation he is hurling at you, but alas, at the Bridge table, your partner’s words are all that you have to trust. Sometimes, though, he perks up and responds with exactly what you hoped for. You and your partner fall into a rhythm, almost like you are having a conversation, and by the end of it, you can predict with great certainty the exact cards he holds in his hand.
Having a little fun with our bidding
Confident, you move on to the second phase: play. The aim is equally simple: to play (of course!) and take the number of tricks you promised when bidding—or to stop the other partnership from doing so. The room is silent except for the erratic drumming of players’ hearts as one card after another is played, and partnerships start to find out if their communication during the bidding phase was actually accurate. Did your partner really have the amazing hand he claimed he did? Or did he “scam” you? It all comes out here.
A casual game in progress
One common question asked about Contract Bridge is, of course, about its inherent luck factor: how can any card game not include any aspect of luck? In a Contract Bridge tournament, every partnership competing against one another will play an identical set of boards and they will see the exact same cards. At the end of a round, each game result will be compared with the results of other players who played the same hand, giving an excellent measure of how well you actually played. Therefore, in Contract Bridge, what truly matters is how you choose to play the cards you are dealt, and the more skilled partnership will always emerge victorious in the long run.
If you’ve done a quick search on Google, and want to understand just what mystifying terms like “endplay”, “finesse”, or “dummy” mean, or just want to get into the game of Bridge with no stakes involved, our club is the place for you! We welcome anyone to join, whether you have experience or not. The abundance of notes and resources prepared by CCA members, alongside the experience of our coach, will help to ensure that you have no dearth of people to turn to for help.
Our sessions are held every Wednesday, from 8-11am, and there is an additional session on Friday afternoons for Y6s (timing TBC). During CCA sessions, we attend lessons by our coach, listen to sharings by fellow club members, as well as play in friendly mini-tournaments. Throughout the year, we also take part in various competitions such as National Schools Teams, Hwa Chong Cup, and our very own Raffles Pairs.
Snapshot from a CCA session
Ultimately, however, the biggest draw of Bridge Club is our community. Here in Bridge Club, we are bonded by our love for playing card games and the conversations we exchange over the table while playing. To us, what sets Bridge apart from other card games is that it is a partnership game. There is something innately beautiful about the fact that no matter how good you and/or your partner might be, unless the two of you play in harmony, it will be difficult to obtain a good result.
For many of us, despite having joined Bridge Club with no prior experience in Bridge, the club has quickly become a home. If you’re looking to pick up something fun and new in JC, or to prepare yourself for those future college dorm games, then do consider joining Bridge Club!
Our people!
