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- Don't put drinks on the table.
- Don't speak loudly when there are other tables around you (e.g. at a bridge meetup). Use a somewhat-hushed voice.
- When you are the declarer, you're supposed to thank the dummy when they finish laying out their cards for you.
- When you lay out your cards as the dummy, the suits should be in this order: Spades, Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, from left-to-right, from the perspective of your partner, the declarer (so from your perspective the order will be reversed, and the cards will be facing away from you).
- You can't touch your bidding box until it is your turn.
- Keep the bidding cards on the table until you see the first card, because it helps the person playing the first card to make his decision.
- It's normal to allow the declarer to have a few minutes to decide on a plan after he sees the dummy's cards.
- When you lose a round you put the card horizontal, face down in front of you. If you win, put it vertical face-down.
- Having your partnership's positions (North / East / West / South) with a red background on the plastic hand-container means that your partnership is "vulnerable", which means you lose more points if you lose, and win more points if you win.
- "Lead" / "leading" is the first person to put a card down.
- "Ruffing" means to play a trump-suit card in a non-trump-suit trick.
- The "STOP" card is used to announce when you're jumping / skipping a level when making a bid. For example, if the current bid is One Heart, and you bid Three Diamond, that's a jump.
- If you win the bid you're supposed to keep the card from the bidding box displayed so people can remember the trump suit and contract.
Names of people I've met at the meet-up
- Donna - From philadelphia, is totally new to the game, is learning it with her husband Jim, who is from California, IIRC.
- Wendy - friendly Australian woman
- Philip - from Ireland, is totally new to the game, seemed a little standoffish.
- Charles - Was explaining the game the first lesson I went to, overweight, seems knowledgeable, but wasn't explaining the absolute basics very well IMO.
Bridge vs. Chess
My thoughts
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