Basic Bidding | Weird Bidding | Declarer Play | Defensive Play | Defensive Carding
Academics
The Basics
If you are just starting to play, the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) has some educational software, which can help. You can find this at http://www.acbl.org/. On the home pages, under Learn, click on Free Lesson Software. If you are a member just enter your ACBL Member Number and email address. Otherwise, just enter your Name and email. You may as well request both lessons. You will receive an email from ACBL. Follow the ACBL email directions to open the ACBL downloads webpage. You do not have to store the lessons (I did and made a special folder within 'c:/temp'.) Instead, you can just run the files to install the software. Once the software is installed, it can be run from the Program area in Windows. Not sure if this works on a Mac.
It is very important that you understand the ACBL convention card and be able to fill it out. Playing the basic Yellow Card or a basic two-over-one game-force card will get you through many casual partnerships. ACBL has provided guidance at ACBL Convention Wisdom. If you want to know more, see ACBL Yellow Card or Wikipedia OK Bridge 2/1.
Special Stuff
You can learn a lot in classes. But here we deal with some specific issues. Want to know more about the two Two Diamonds Waiting response to 2♣? How about Upside Down Attitude and Count? See below.