Four.

North and South are two people that are partners.

West and East are the other two people that are partners.

All the four players play at the same card table.

Partners sit opposite each other.

Bridge is a partnership card game that involves winning or losing tricks.

Partnerships bid for a contract known as bidding in the auction.

Highest bid declares the contract.

The other partnership then becomes the defense and tries to defeat the contract.

Then the card play begins to see if the contract is made or not made based on how many tricks are won or lost.

A trick is when each of the four players leads a card face up on the table.

All cards must follow the suit of the first suit led.

Example...If a spade is led first, the remaining three players must play a spade card in their hand if they have one.

The highest card wins the trick for the partnership.

How do the cards play?

Is Ace high?

Bridge hands are valuated by suit type and points.

The suit ranking goes by alphabetical order.

From lowest to highest suit order...

Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades.

Ace is the highest card.  A two card is the lowest.

The first Dealer is North.

The entire deck is shuffled.

All cards get dealt out.

Thus each person will each have 13 cards each.

During the course of one hand...13 tricks are available to be won.

The next hand will be dealt by East, then South, and the West.

How good is my hand?

Each player will organinze their hand by suits.

Hands are valuated by 'High Card Points.'

Aces = 4 pts.

Kings = 3 pts.

Queens = 2 pts.

Jacks = 1 pt.

A full deck thus has a total of 40 HCP (High Card Points)

If a player counts up to 13 or more HCPs,

He or she can bid in the auction.

You would bid