[Toro]

Bridge is my 2nd favorite game but I don't get to play live unfortunately. But for the advice. Like poker you need to do a little research. Buy a book and learn some basic bidding.

Then like poker, you need practice. I play a lot on MSN Gaming Zone. It's free and there are tons of rooms at all different levels of expertise. Play on-line for a couple of weeks and you'll probably be able to not embarass yourself.

And when you're Dummy, like Poker when you're out of a hand, you should be following the play as a learning tool.

Good luck, it's a fun game.

P.S. One caveat on playing on-line. There are some jerks out there who will berate your play. I tend to get into giant pissing contests if I think my play was justified but probably the best thing is to just leave the table and go to another.

Edit: Also on-line you can choose to see your partners cards when you are Dummy. This is an excellent learning tool when watching soemone who knows what they are doing or even soemone who isn't because the mistakes become so obvious.