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 1950s and 1960s, its earliest 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 Modern Standard American. It is a natural 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.
Precision Club is a bidding system in the game of contract bridge. It is a strong club system developed in 1969 for C. C. Wei by Alan Truscott, and used by Taiwan teams in 1969. Their success in placing second at the 1969 Bermuda Bowl launched the system's popularity.
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.
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". A bridge convention is an agreement about an artificial call or a set of related artificial calls.
The Jacoby transfer, or simply transfers, in the card game contract bridge, is a convention in Standard American 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.
The weak two bid is a common treatment used in the game of contract bridge, where an opening bid of two diamonds, hearts or spades signifies a weak hand with a long suit. It is used in combination with the strong two clubs bid and is a form of preemptive bid. The term refers to an opening bid, and is not to be confused with the "weak jump overcall", which denotes a similar type of hand, but is bid over an opponent's opening bid.
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.
Developed by Oswald Jacoby, Jacoby 2NT is a bridge convention in which a bid of two notrump (2NT) over partner's opening bid of one heart or one spade shows a hand with both
Cappelletti is a bridge bidding convention for the card game contract bridge, primarily used to interfere over opponent's one notrump (1NT) opening. 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.
Slam-seeking conventions are codified artificial bids used in the card game contract bridge. Bidding and making a small slam or grand slam yields high bonuses ranging from 500 to 1500 points. However, the risk is also high as failure to fulfill the slam contract also means failure to score the bonus points for a game (300-500). Conventions have been devised to maximise the opportunity for success whilst minimising the risk of failure.
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 overcall.
In the game of contract bridge Fantunes is a natural bidding system initially developed Carlos Mosca and popularized by Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes - two players that were later found to be cheating and were banned from play by many bridge federations
The Romex system is a contract bridge bidding system designed by the Mexican bridge expert George Rosenkranz. Key features of Romex are the multiple meanings attributed to certain bids, namely the dynamic one notrump and the Mexican two diamonds.
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.
In the game of contract bridge, a balanced hand denotes a hand of thirteen cards which contains no singleton or void and at most one doubleton. Three hand patterns are classified as truly balanced: 4-3-3-3, 4-4-3-2 and 5-3-3-2. The hand patterns 5-4-2-2 and 6-3-2-2 are generally referred to as semi-balanced.
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 Standard American Yellow Card. 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.
Transfer Walsh is a bidding convention used in contract bridge. After a 1♣ opening bid, responses of 1♦ and 1♥ show heart and spade suits respectively. The "Walsh" terminology refers to the fact that these bids may conceal an equal or longer diamond suit. It allows opener to play a greater proportion of major-suit and no-trump contracts, particularly when using five-card majors.
Strong Notrump After Passing (SNAP) is a contract bridge bidding convention originated by Jeremy Flint and Tony Priday and is a one notrump bid by a passed hand in response to a one-level opening by his partner. It shows a relatively balanced hand with 9-12 high card points (HCP) and no five-card major that could have been bid at the one-level. The convention is intended to keep the contract at a low level when opener has a light or minimum hand. Accordingly, its application is more suited to part-score competitive bidding in matchpoint scoring.
