Bridge Drill — bridge practice for counting the hand
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Bridge Drill is a free bridge training table for contract bridge. You sit South at a
3D table with North, East and West around you, and drill the one habit every declarer
needs: counting. Not counting slowly, on paper, after the auction — counting fast
enough that it is already done by the time you play to trick one.
Six counting drills
- Counting HCPs — your hand flashes for a couple of seconds, then
you give its high-card points. The dummy follows.
- Counting shapes — the same two rounds, but you enter the length
of each suit instead of the points.
- Counting your own hand — points, honours and all four suit
lengths from one look.
- Counting the dummy hand — the same, for the hand you will play
from.
- Counting HCPs after the dummy reveal — the real declarer moment.
Your hand, then the auction, then the dummy hits the table. Work out what is left for
the defence and which aces and kings they hold.
- Counting shape after the dummy reveal — distribution patterns
for both hands, then which suits each side has a fit in.
Why counting
Every strong bridge player does the same thing before playing a card: counts. Points,
shape, honours, fits, controls. Done well it feels like seeing through the cards —
you know where the missing honours sit because you counted, not because you guessed.
That is a trained reflex, and a drill is how you train it.
How practice works
Pick a drill, set how many repetitions you want and how long each hand stays visible,
then start. A countdown runs, the cards appear for your chosen window, then they vanish
and you answer from memory. Every repetition is graded against the true answer, and a
training session tracks your runs across all six drills until you have passed each one
twice at 80% or better.
The table works as a plain bridge table too: deal a hand, build one suit at a time,
set the contract and declarer, reveal or hide any seat, play the cards out trick by
trick, or save a deal as a PBN-style string and load it back later.