| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| Coordinator: | |
| When: | Weekly on Tuesday mornings 10:00 am-12:00 pm New Brighton Cricket & BC |
| Venue: | New Brighton Cricket and Bowling Club |
Welcome to our Bridge group page
The Wallasey u3a Bridge takes place in New Brighton Cricket and Bowls Club every Tuesday throughout the year starting at 10.00.am and finishing at 12.00
The group has over thirty members and typically a session will have 24 people playing at six tables. Except in the summer each session begins with a short lesson on different aspects of bridge followed by playing bridge. During the summer Chicago bridge is played but for the rest of the time duplicate bridge is played.
Although bridge is a competitive game the atmosphere is friendly and relaxed and half way through our sessions play stops for coffee and biscuits. If you are already a U3A member then you can contact me at the monthly meeting, otherwise please click on the Group Coordinator`s name, Sue at the top of this page.
Bridge is played using a pack of cards and four people sat at a table. It involves two teams called pairs – a pair is two people who sit opposite each other as a team. Play starts by shuffling a pack of cards (52 cards) and then dealing each of the four people 13 cards. The cards are then sorted into suits in order of rank – an ACE is the highest then the KING etc.
The essence of the game is that one player leads a card followed by the other three people playing a card of the same suit. This set of four cards is called a TRICK – there are 13 tricks in a pack. The highest rank card in the four cards played wins the trick. Each pair plays to win as many tricks as they can e.g. if one pair wins 8 tricks then the other pair will have won 5 (the total being 13). Playing out all the 52 cards (13 in each hand) is called a hand of bridge. Play now continues with a fresh shuffle, and play of the cards.
There are four parts to playing bridge:
- 1. The shuffle, deal and sort of the cards
- 2. The auction (describing the hands) to decide a target number of tricks called the contract
- 3. The play of the cards to win tricks
- 4. Scoring
There is much more to the game than this but it is a truly wonderful card game involving a lot of skill.