basic rules of playing a bridge hand
The only way to learn to actually play bridge is to do it for real so these lessons on play are only intended to be an introduction to the playing and defending of the game and are far from complete. They should, however, give a good idea as to what the game is all about.
As mentioned in the bidding session, someone will eventually win the auction and one of those pair will become the declarer who has to play the contract. Their partner will automatically become the dummy and after the opening lead, will have to lay their cards face up on the table enabling declarer to play both hands. (Dummy does not get involved in the actual play). The game will look something like this at this point.
The opening lead takes place by the player to the left of the declarer and then the dummy hand is exposed. The cards are played clockwise and the hand that takes the trick must lead to the next trick. The hand would look something like this Except that the declarer's cards in the west hand can only be seen by him/her. Don't worry about the values of the cards for now.
In this picture the West hand is the declarer who must play the contract and s/he must play the cards in the west hand and in the East hand traditionally leaning over the table to do it: hence "Bridge". North and South become the defenders and they must act as a pair to try and defeat the contract. They are obviously not allowed to talk to each other during this process but they can make use of defensive techniques by giving signals with the cards they play.
Although the opening lead always comes from the hand to the left of the declarer, the lead for all the other tricks must come from the hand that takes the previous trick. This is vitally important and it means that if the declarer, for example, takes the trick in the dummy hand then the next lead must come from there. This can cause many headaches for inexperienced players.