Roman Club (Italian : Fiori Romano) is an artificial bridge bidding system devised in the 1950s by Giorgio Belladonna and Walter Avarelli of Italy's Blue Team. They used it to win twelve WBF World Teams Championships, three Olympiads and numerous European and National titles. A variant, Little Roman or Arno, was played by their Blue Team-mates Massimo D'Alelio and Camillo Pabis Ticci.
Once radical, Roman has long been superseded by more advanced relay systems, but it was remarkable for the ideas it introduced or fostered in the bridge world. So was teammate Eugenio Chiaradia's Neapolitan Club and its offspring, Forquet–Garozzo's Blue Club.
The convention got banned at the time for play in tournament
Roman Club can be classified as a "small club" system, where 1♣ opening bid has a wide range of meanings. In Roman, it includes weak balanced hands, stronger hands with secondary club suit, and very strong hands. Other 1-bids are made in strict accordance with canapé principle (shorter suit first).
Roman is notable for its emphasis on distinguishing opening hands into groups by distribution and responding hands by strength. The general opening bid structure is:
The general responding structure divides hands into:
Like opener, responder may make their first bid in a 3cs to prepare a canapé.
The strong emphasis on distribution of openings simplified the bidding structure in many respects but did not overcome the classical weakness of canapé, where it is very difficult to distinguish strength range as easily as in a long-suit-first system. Opening three-card suits was also an obvious exposure in competition.
Unlike many other artificial systems, Roman does not use 2♣ bid for hands with primary or secondary club suit (2♥/2♠ offer some compensation though). As result, some hands with club suit are difficult to bid (e.g. both 1=3=4=5 and 2=2=2=7 hands have to be opened 1♦ with rebid in clubs).
The Roman bidders used a negative double only up to 1♠ overcall over their 1♣ opening, and not elsewhere, making the balanced structure also vulnerable to interference. Nonetheless, the emphasis on distribution was a lesson well-learned by later theorists in relay systems.
Some other innovations Roman collected into their system included:
Roman's supposed weakness in competition promulgated by advocates of the bidding systems widely promoted in North America (particularly 2/1 enthusiasts) have emphasized the supposed difficulty of clarifying strength in canapé and complain of the sheer complexity of the system (much greater than the contemporary Schenken or later Precision) led to its present obscurity in ACBL-sponsored events. Along with Blue Club, the other major Italian system, Roman has remained popular in European countries. In the 50s and 60s it was ground-breaking in its strong hand classification, artificial sequences and asking bids, which laid foundations for the Relay and Forcing Pass systems that succeeded it. Under the guidance of Benito Garozzo the basic system has undergone several major revisions which have improved its deadly accuracy in game and slam bidding.
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.
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.
The Strong Club System is a set of bidding conventions and agreements used in the game of contract bridge and is based upon an opening bid of 1♣ as being an artificial forcing bid promising a strong hand. The strong 1 ♣ opening is assigned a minimum strength promising 16 or more high card points. All other bids would therefore be limited to a maximum of 15 high card points. There are several variants of the strong club system and all are classified as artificial because the bids are highly codified.
2/1 game forcing is a bidding system in modern contract bridge structured around the following responses to a one-level opening bid:
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.
The forcing notrump is a bidding convention in the card game of bridge.
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 long suit, usually a major, 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.
Blue Club is a bridge bidding system, developed mainly by Benito Garozzo. It was used by the famous Blue Team and became very popular in the 1960s. It has gained a strong following ever since.
Canapé is a bridge bidding method in which the second suit bid may be longer than or at least as long as the first. The name Canapé is the french word for "an appetizer".
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.
Flannery is a bridge convention using a 2♦ opening bid to show a hand of minimal opening bid strength with exactly four spades and five hearts. It was invented by American player William (Bill) L. Flannery.
Lionel is a contract bridge bidding convention used in defense against an opposing 1NT openings. Using Lionel, over a 1NT opening of the opponents:
In the game of bridge, Ghestem is a conventional overcall structure, using 2NT, 3♣, and the (non-jump) cuebid over an opposing opening at the one level to denote two-suited hands in two of the remaining three suits.
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.
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 Boring Club is a bidding system in the card game contract bridge, designed by Lucas Smid of the Netherlands. In this system all balanced ('boring') hands, that in most natural systems would be opened 1NT or would be opened in a suit at one level with the plan to rebid 1NT or 2NT, must be opened with 1♣. The general idea behind this system is to get the information about the shape of the hand across to partner in the first bid.
The Useful Space Principle, or USP, in the game of contract bridge was first articulated in a series of six articles in The Bridge World, published 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, CoCa or Comfy Canapé is a conventional defense against opposing 1NT openings. When playing CoCa, over a 1NT opening of the opponents, both a double as well as a 2♣ overcall are conventional and establish spades and hearts, respectively as anchor suits. Higher overcalls can be either natural, or conventional.
The Carrot 1NT is a contract bridge convention, in which a 1NT opening bid shows a balanced hand 13–17 HCP. With 13–14 HCP, the opener may not have a 4-card major. With 15–17 HCP, all balanced hands may be opened 1NT.