In contract bridge, a relay bid is a conventional bid that usually has little or no descriptive meaning but asks partner to describe some feature of his hand. A relay is often the cheapest bid available but need not be. Stayman and Blackwood are common examples of relay bids.
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.
The rationale for introducing relay bids emerged from the idea that it is not always the best use of bidding space for both partners to describe their hands. Instead, only one partner can make the cheapest bids available (relays) while the other describes his hand. This is especially useful when the asker has a balanced or very strong hand.
Relay bidding systems are for the most part based on relay bids: in most sequences (especially forcing ones), one partner just relays while the other describes his hand in a highly codified manner. While relay systems offer a higher level of exchanged information than natural systems, they also have the drawbacks that they are complicated to memorize and often exclude the players' judgment, particular in regard to honor location, which can be crucial.
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.
Information is the resolution of uncertainty; it is that which answers the question of "what an entity is" and thus defines both its essence and nature of its characteristics. Information relates to both data and knowledge, as data is meaningful information representing values attributed to parameters, and knowledge signifies understanding of a concept. Information is uncoupled from an observer, which is an entity that can access information and thus discern what it specifies; information exists beyond an event horizon for example. In the case of knowledge, the information itself requires a cognitive observer to be obtained.
There is often confusion between puppet bids and relays. A puppet bid requests partner to make the cheapest bid regardless of his hand. A relay bid requests partner to make a descriptive bid in response. The descriptive response can be natural (as in Stayman) or coded (as in Blackwood). A "marionette" bid is similar to a puppet bid except that it allows responses other than the cheapest bid with certain uncommon hand types. Thus technically it's a relay but with the cheapest bid expected most of the time.
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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 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.
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.
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.
Zar Points (ZP) is a statistically derived method for evaluating contract bridge hands developed by Zar Petkov. The statistical research Petkov conducted in the areas of hand evaluation and bidding is useful to bridge players, regardless of their bidding or hand evaluation system. The research showed that the Milton Work point count method, even when adjusted for distribution, is not sufficiently accurate in evaluating all hands. As a result, players often make incorrect or sub-optimal bids. Zar Points are designed to take many additional factors into consideration by assigning points to each factor based on statistical weight. While most of these factors are already implicitly taken into account by experienced players, Zar Points provides a quantitative method that allows them to be incorporated into bidding.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 bridge, Namyats is a conventional agreement to open hands with a long major suit that are too strong for a direct preemptive opening with a 'two-under' transfer bid. When the long suit is in hearts, opener bids 4♣ and when in spades bids 4♦. Accordingly, the method was originally named 'Four Club and Four Diamond Opening Transfers'; it is also referred to as 'Mitchell Transfers', after the developer of this bidding method, Victor Mitchell. The name 'Namyats' is the surname of Mitchell's bridge partner, Samuel Stayman, spelled backwards. In England, this convention is known as 'South African Texas', a name borrowed from a similar variant on the Texas transfer convention played over 1NT opening bids.
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.
XYZ is a bidding convention in contract bridge.
Vanderbilt Club was one of the earliest bidding systems in the game of contract bridge. It was devised by Harold S. Vanderbilt, who had in 1925 devised the game itself. It was published by him in 1929. It was the first strong club system. An updated version was published in 1964. As of 2017, it has long been obsolete.