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Contract bridge, or simply bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck. In its basic format, it is played by four players in two competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other around a table. Millions of people play bridge worldwide in clubs, tournaments, online and with friends at home, making it one of the world's most popular card games, particularly among seniors. The World Bridge Federation (WBF) is the governing body for international competitive bridge, with numerous other bodies governing bridge at the regional level.
In the partnership card game contract bridge, the Blackwood convention is a popular bidding convention that was developed by Easley Blackwood. It is used to explore the partnership's possession of aces, kings and in some variants, the queen of trumps, to judge more precisely whether slam is likely to be a good contract.
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.
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 Grand Slam Force is a bidding convention in contract bridge that was developed by Ely Culbertson in 1936. It is intended to be used in cases where the combined hands of a partnership are so strong that a slam is a near-certainty and a grand slam is a possibility. It allows one partner to gain information on the quality of trumps in the other partner's hand.
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 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.
Bridge bidding systems that incorporate a strong 2 clubs opening bid include modern Standard American, standard Acol, 2/1 game forcing and many others.
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.
Gerber is a contract bridge convention devised by William Konigsberger and Win Nye from Switzerland who published it in 1936; John Gerber of Texas introduced it to North America in 1938 where it was named after him. It is similar to Blackwood but uses 4♣ instead of 4NT as a relay (asking) bid to inquire about the number of aces held by partner. A further relay bid may follow to inquire about the number of kings held.
In contract bridge, a cue bid is either a bid of the opponents' suit, or "slam seeking": a slam-investigating bid made during an auction's later rounds that shows control of a suit.
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.
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.
The Useful Space Principle, or USP, was first articulated in a series of six articles in The Bridge World, from November 1980 through April 1981. The USP is expressed succinctly in The Bridge World glossary as: "a partnership's assigning meanings to actions so that the remaining bidding space matches the needs of the auction."
In the card game contract bridge, Gambling 3NT is a special treatment of an opening bid of 3NT. The bid is used to describe a hand containing a minor suit of at least seven cards in length and headed by the ace, king and queen, at minimum. The bid has the dual objectives of preempting the opponents' bidding should they hold the majors and trying for a game in notrump on the gamble that partner might hold adequate support.
The San Francisco convention is a slam seeking convention in the game of contract bridge. It was devised in the 1930s, but soon became obsolete. The convention is of the type where one partner bids four notrump as an artificial inquiry, and the other partner shows high cards using an agreed set of codified responses.
Byzantine Blackwood is a bidding convention in the game of bridge. Devised by Jack Marx, it is a complex version of the Blackwood convention. Its premise is that both aces and kings may safely be shown in response to a Blackwood-type 4NT enquiry; provided that such kings are in well-defined key or half-key suits, there being no more than two such suits. The name was chosen to express the idea that Byzantine Blackwood is a development from Roman Blackwood, by analogy with the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Empire; rather than that the convention is of Byzantine complexity. It seems to be little used nowadays (2014), most experts employing some form of Roman Key Card Blackwood.
The Culbertson 4-5 notrump is a slam seeking convention in the game of contract bridge. It was devised in the early 1930s by Ely Culbertson. Most four-notrump conventions demand that bidder's partner define their hand using agreed codified responses. In contrast, the Culbertson 4-5 describes the bidder's hand, and invites partner to use their judgement in the light of that information.
In contract bridge, an asking bid is a convention used to seek a slam accurately. There are two types - colour asking bids and notrump asking bids. Constructed by bridge pioneer Ely Culbertson in the 1940s, they have been superseded by other methods; however, one remaining commonly used asking bid is the 5NT Grand slam force.
References
- ↑ Frey, Richard L., Editor-in-Chief; Truscott, Alan F., Executive Editor; Smith, Thomas M., Managing Editor (1971). Official Encyclopedia of Bridge, 2nd Edition. Crown Publishers, Inc. (New York). page 309.