Page 84 - Learn Bridge Ver2_Neat

< The dealer makes the first call;
< The player on the dealer’s left calls next;
< The auction proceeds clockwise;
< Each bid must outrank the previous bid (just like a real auction);
< A player may decide not to bid at any point. He does so by saying
‘pass’ or ‘no bid’ or using the pass card in a bidding box;
< A bid is a number between 1 and 7 followed by a suit or notrump.
Once you have decided what to bid you say that bid out loud (but
in most clubs you use a bidding box (see later).
The number of the bid indicates the number of tricks (plus 6) that
the declarer has to try to make, so, if the final bid is 1NT declarer
has to make 7 tricks with notrumps.

The rules to end an auction are these -
< If all four players pass without making a bid on the first round,
there is no play. This is called a throw-in and we deal the next
hand.
< When a player makes a bid, the auction continues until there are
three consecutive passes;
< The side that bid the highest sets the suit to be trumps and the
number of tricks to be won. The last bid becomes the contract;
< The player of the side who first bid the suit or notrumps in the
contract becomes the declarer.
< The suits are ranked in order
notrump (NT), then
spades (Í), then
hearts (Ì), then
diamonds (Ë), then
clubs (Ê) the lowest.

This means if the opening bid is, for example 1Ë and you want to bid
hearts you can bid 1Ì, however, if you wanted to bid clubs you would
have to say 2Ê.
Let us now look at an example auction to see how it works with the
auction shown.

In this hand (next page), West was the dealer and is the first to call. At

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