Cappelletti (also called Hamilton and Pottage [1] ) is one of many defensive bridge bidding conventions used in the card game contract bridge to compete or interfere in the auction when an opponent has opened one notrump (1NT). Usually attributed to Michael Cappelletti and his longtime partner Edwin Lewis, origin of the concept is also claimed by Fred Hamilton, John Pottage and Gerald Helms. [2] Cappelletti can show a variety of one- and two-suited hands while retaining the penalty double for stronger hands.
Cappelletti is particularly recommended for use against a weak 1NT opening (12-14 HCP) but can also be used against stronger 1NT openings (15-17 HCP). [3] Cappelletti can be employed in either the direct or balancing seat.
When holding 15 or more high card points (HCP), a Double is for penalties.
With 9-14 HCP, other overcalls are artificial bids promising either a one-suited or two-suited holding. Importance is given to the state of vulnerability and the location of the values, which should be concentrated in the suit or suits held.
Over the 1NT opening, the over-calling opponent (known as 'Intervener') makes one of the following artificial bids to indicate a one-suited or a two-suited hand:
All artificial bids must be alerted.
This variant reverses the 2♣ and 2♦ bids above, so that for hands with both majors it is similar to the Multi-Landy convention.
With a strong hand of his own, (13+ HCP) Advancer may think that the defensive partnership could have the possibility of a game call themselves.
To explore this possibility, any bid by Advancer beyond the natural conclusion of the Intervener calls described above, is invitational to game.
Such a bid shows most importantly the High Card Points range in Advancer's holding (which should be 13+ HCP — at weakest, Intervener has promised only 9 HCPs, and since bidding is now advancing to the 3-level, 13 HCP in advancer's hand guarantees a minimum joint holding of 22 HCP for the partnership).
(Advancer should consider that if he makes a 3-level bid in a suit ranking above the 'Cappelletti' suit, then there may be no exit to bidding short of a Game Call anyway — consider if you will be forcing a de facto game call by advancing the bidding in this way, and what are the probabilities of the partnership holding supporting this?)
The most common and most useful circumstance for this, is when the defender's own game call is likely to be 3NT. Look at the following scenarios:
So if Advancer's holding is 14+ HCP and with stops in the other suits, (bearing in mind that partner might have shortage in at least one of them so those stops need to be dependable), Advancer might extend the bidding to 2NT asking Intervener 'are you top or bottom of your points range partner?'.
With only 9-10 HCP, Intervener either passes, or if his own suit is likely to perform better, signs-off by re-bidding his own suit.
But with 11+ HCP, thus promising a partnership holding of at least 25 HCPs, Intervener advances to a game call of 3NT.
Finally if Advancer has shortage in the Capelletti suit then 3NT is passed, but with 3+ card support for partner's Cappelletti MAJOR suit, then sign-off by correcting to a game call in the major suit.
(With the opposition opening 1NT it is unlikely you would want to go beyond 3NT if the Cappelletti suit is a minor).
So if Advancer is holding 14+ HCP and three cards in hearts, Advancer should extend the bidding to 3♥ asking Intervener 'are you top or bottom of your points range partner?'.
With only 9-10 HCP Intervener now assesses the his shortage points using, possibly, the method of 'Losing Trick Count' and thus decides whether to pass 3♥ or sign-off with a game call of 4♥.
Of course with 11+ HCP Intervener doesn't need to think before signing-off with a game call of 4♥.
So with Advancer's holding of 14+ HCP but only two cards in hearts (happens to be merely two small values for example) Advancer bids 2NT inviting Intervener to bid his minor. So the bidding sequence has now been 2♥-2NT-3♦.
Advancer now has to assess what the joint holding is; Partner likely has stopping values in Hearts, but anyway partner's length assures the Heart suit is safe. Provided that Advancer has stopping values in the other three suits in his own holding (bearing in mind that partner may not have stopping values in Diamonds, merely 4-card length), the only question for Advancer is whether or not the HCP holding for the partnership is strong enough for 3NT.
Unless Advancer has 16 HCP minimum, this becomes a judgement decision (can we afford the risk of 1-off? do I hold 14 HCP? 15 HCP or better?
Given that Partner's range could be as little as 9 or 10, if I hold 14 HCP then the balance of our holding is more likely than not to equal 25+ HCP, and finally, with our holding being this high, we know where most all outstanding cards are i.e. in Opener's hand, so does that possibly help us to place the lead into Opener's hand leading towards a tenace perhaps in ours, or to finesse?
Much to consider but so many likely situations that support a 3NT call for our partnership.
Stayman is a bidding convention in the card game contract bridge. It is used by a partnership to find a 4-4 or 5-3 trump fit in a major suit after making a one notrump (1NT) opening bid and it has been adapted for use after a 2NT opening, a 1NT overcall, and many other natural notrump bids.
Standard American is a bidding system for the game of bridge widely used in North America and elsewhere. Owing to the popularization of the game by Charles Goren in the 1940s and 1950s, its early versions were sometimes referred to simply as 'Goren'. With the addition and evolution of various treatments and conventions, it is now more generally referred to as Standard American. It is a bidding system based on five-card majors and a strong notrump; players may add conventions and refine the meanings of bids through partnership agreements summarized in their convention card. One standardised version, SAYC, is widely used by casual partnerships and in online bridge.
Acol is the bridge bidding system that, according to The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge, is "standard in British tournament play and widely used in other parts of the world". It is a natural system using four-card majors and, most commonly, a weak no trump.
Polish Club is a bridge bidding system which was developed in Poland, where it is the most popular bidding system, and which is also used by players of other countries. It is a type of small club system.
In the card game of bridge, the unusual notrump is a conventional overcall showing a two-suited hand. It was originally devised by Al Roth in 1948 with Tobias Stone, to show the minor suits after the opponents opened in a major.
A bridge convention is an agreement about an artificial call or a set of related artificial calls. Calls made during the auction phase of a contract bridge game convey information about the player's card holdings. Calls may be "natural" or "artificial".
The Jacoby transfer, or simply transfers, in the card game contract bridge, is a convention in most bridge bidding systems initiated by responder following partner's notrump opening bid that forces opener to rebid in the suit ranked just above that bid by responder. For example, a response in diamonds forces a rebid in hearts and a response in hearts forces a rebid in spades. Transfers are used to show a weak hand with a long major suit, and to ensure that opener declare the hand if the final contract is in the suit transferred to, preventing the opponents from seeing the cards of the stronger hand.
A bidding system in contract bridge is the set of agreements and understandings assigned to calls and sequences of calls used by a partnership, and includes a full description of the meaning of each treatment and convention. The purpose of bidding is for each partnership to ascertain which contract, whether made or defeated and whether bid by them or by their opponents, would give the partnership their best scoring result.
Preempt is a bid in contract bridge whose primary objectives are (1) to thwart opponents' ability to bid to their best contract, with some safety, and (2) to fully describe one's hand to one's partner in a single bid. A preemptive bid is usually made by jumping, i.e. skipping one or more bidding levels. Since it deprives the opponents of the bidding space, it is expected that they will either find a wrong contract of their own, or fail to find any. A preemptive bid often has the aim of a save, where a partnership bids a contract knowing it cannot be made, but assumes that, the penalty will still be smaller than the value of opponents' bid and made contract.
These terms are used in contract bridge, using duplicate or rubber scoring. Some of them are also used in whist, bid whist, the obsolete game auction bridge, and other trick-taking games. This glossary supplements the Glossary of card game terms.
In the card game contract bridge, a takeout double is a low-level conventional call of "Double" over an opponent's bid as a request for partner to bid his best of the unbid suits. The most common takeout double is after an opponent's opening bid of one of a suit where the double shows a hand with opening values, support for all three unbid suits and shortness in the suit doubled. Normally, the partner of the doubler must bid his best suit but may pass if (a) his right hand opponent intervenes or (b) on the more rare occasions when his hand is such that he wishes to convert the takeout double to a penalty double.
In the card game contract bridge, DONT is a conventional overcall used to interfere with an opponent's one notrump (1NT) opening bid. DONT, an acronym for Disturb Opponents' Notrump, was designed by Marty Bergen, and is therefore also referred to as "Bergen over Notrump". Although the method is often criticized for being too nebulous, it remains fairly popular. The convention was first published in the September/October 1989 issue of Bridge Today.
In contract bridge, various bidding systems have been devised to enable partners to describe their hands to each other so that they may reach the optimum contract. Key to this process is that players evaluate and re-evaluate the trick-taking potential of their hands as the auction proceeds and additional information about partner's hand and the opponent's hands becomes available.
In the game of contract bridge, CRASH is a defense against a strong 1♣ or a 1NT opening that first appeared in 1976 in an article by Kit Woolsey in The Bridge World. Within the CRASH framework, intervening calls after the 1NT opening denote either (a) two-suited hands of the same color, the same rank, or the same shape or (b) a natural one-suited hand.
In contract bridge, an overcall is a bid made after an opening bid has been made by an opponent; the term refers only to the first such bid. A direct overcall is such a bid made by the player seated immediately to the left of the opener, i.e. next in the bidding rotation; an overcall in the 'last seat', i.e. by the player to the right of opener, which is made after two intervening passes, is referred to as a balancing or protective overcall.
EHAA is a highly natural bidding system in contract bridge characterized by four-card majors, sound opening bids, undisciplined weak two-bids in all four suits and a mini notrump, usually of 10–12 high card points.
Inverted minors refers to a treatment introduced by the Kaplan–Sheinwold (K–S) bidding system for the popular card game bridge. The original structure of Precision, another bidding system, also employed inverted minors over a 1♦ opening. However, the treatment is no longer restricted to users of these bidding systems. although partnerships that use a Short club system tend also to use the convention only after a 1♦ opener.
Bridge base basic, also known as BBO basic, is a bidding system for the game of bridge based on the Standard American Yellow Card (SAYC). It is simplified, suitable for beginners, and widely used in internet bridge, particularly on Bridge Base Online. It is taught in Fred Gitelman's educational software called Learn to Play Bridge that is available as a free download from the American Contract Bridge League's website.
Unusual vs. unusual is a competitive bidding convention used in contract bridge by the opening side after an opponent has made an overcall showing two suits.
Astro is a contract bridge bidding convention used to intervene over an opponent's one notrump (1NT) opening bid. The name is derived from the initials of the surnames of its inventors - Paul Allinger, Roger Stern and Lawrence Rosler.