Players are named North, East, South, and West. North-South makes a pair and East-West another.

There are various trick-taking games possible to play with 3 or 5 players, but "Bridge" is played only with 4 players.

To play bridge, you need a deck of 52 cards with 4 suits/symbols. There are 13 cards in each suit. Suits are called ♠ Spades, ♥ Hearts, ♦ Diamonds, and ♣ Clubs.

The highest card in each suit is the Ace, followed by the King, the Queen, and the Jack - we call them honors. Low cards rank from 10 to 2.

A trick is a set of 4 cards, one from each player's hand, placed face up on the table.

 There are 13 tricks in one game.

Players play the cards one after another in a clockwise direction. We call the first card the opening lead.

Players must follow the suit of the first card led. They do not have to play a higher one if they wish not to. The highest card in the suit wins the trick.

The player who wins the trick leads into the next one.

If a player cannot follow the suit, he can play any card from his hand, but cannot win the trick, unless there are trumps in the game.

Players can choose one of the suits as trumps at the beginning of the game (bidding phase). If a player cannot follow suit, (s)he can play a trump to win the trick. 

If other players also use a trump card in the trick, the highest trump card wins it.

Players can choose to play without trumps, in that case, only the highest card in the suit led wins the trick.

The first phase of the game is called the "bidding". Players exchange information about their hands and set up a contract that suits them the best. The pair that offers the highest contract wins the bidding. They become the declaring side and the other pair becomes defenders.

In "card play", each partnership tries to win as many tricks as possible. The declaring side tries to make the contract they have chosen in the bidding, the defenders try to prevent it.

The "scoring" system makes bridge a unique game. In tournaments, you compare with other players that hold the same cards as you do. The score for each contract depends on its level, type (suit of trumps, NT), and how many tricks each partnership won in the card play. 

The contract determines the type of the game (trumps or no-trumps) and the level (how many tricks each pair must make to win).

The level of the contract determines the number of tricks that the winning side has to win in the card play.

Players can agree on trumps to have an advantage in the card play. The decent advantage is to have 8 trumps together over 5 trumps in the opponent's hands. We call it a "fit". If the partnership does not find a fit, they should play a no-trump contract. 

There are 7 levels of the contract. The first 6 out of 13 tricks (lower half) are called the "book". To get the number of tricks needed to make the contract you add 6 to the level of the contract. 1^st level is the lowest and the declaring side commit to win 7 tricks (6+1), 7^th level is the highest and the declaring side must win all 13 tricks (6+7).

Players offer contracts one after another, we call it making a "bid". In order to offer a contract, players have to bid a higher contract than the previous one. For this purpose, suits are ranked with clubs ♣ as lowest, diamonds ♦, hearts ♥, spades ♠, and no-trump NT contract is the highest on all levels.

If a player does not want to bid, he can "pass" and give a chance to other players. Each player can bid multiple times even if (s)he passed first.

The bidding ends when 3 players pass consequently, except in the first round where each player has the right to make a bid.

The player of the partnership who offered the type of contract (trumps, NT) first becomes the "declarer", his partner is the "dummy". The opponents are called "defenders".

The defender to the left of the declarer leads to the first trick, which we call the "opening lead". After the opening lead, the dummy puts all the cards on the table face up.

The declarer chooses the cards both from his and the dummy's hand.

The final phase of the game – scoring starts when all 13 tricks have been played. In order to speed up the game, the declarer can claim all the remaining tricks if (s)he thinks (s)he has all the highest cards left in the game.