Rosenkranz double

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The Rosenkranz double and Rosenkranz redouble are elements of a bridge bidding convention invented by Dr. George Rosenkranz, collectively known as the Rosenkranz double. [1] It is a double made by the advancer (partner of the overcaller) in an auction where opener, overcaller and responder have all bid different suits. It is used to describe the advancer's top honor card holdings in the overcaller's suit.

Contract bridge card game

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.

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.

George Rosenkranz Hungarian Mexican chemist and executive, bridge player and writer

George Rosenkranz is a pioneering Mexican scientist in the field of steroid chemistry, who used native Mexican plant sources as raw materials. He was born in Hungary, studied in Switzerland and emigrated to the Americas to escape the Nazis, eventually settling in Mexico.

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Original version

The conventions come into play when the auction has started with: (a) an opening bid by the opponents; (b) a direct overcall by partner at the one-level; and (c) a bid or negative double (that is, not a Pass) by the opener's partner, responder. Two cases follow: (1) if responder bids below two of opener's suit, Double by advancer is a raise of the overcall and promises a top honor; (2) if responder doubles, Redouble by advancer has the same meaning. Either way, advancer's natural raise to the two-level denies possession of a top honor in that suit. A top honor is either the Ace, King or Queen.

The negative double is a form of takeout double in bridge. It is made by the responder after his right-hand opponent overcalls on the first round of bidding, and is used to show both support for the unbid suits as well as some values. It is treated as forcing, but not unconditionally so. In practice, the negative double is sometimes used as a sort of catch-all, made when no other call properly describes responder's hand. Therefore, a partnership might even treat the negative double as a wide-ranging call that merely shows some values.

Showing the top honor may allow the overcaller with a serrated holding to lead the suit safely; while denying the top honor (and thereby suggesting strength elsewhere) encourages the overcaller to lead a different suit.

Reverse Rosenkranz

Subsequent to creating the Rosenkranz double and redouble, Rosenkranz announced in a letter published in the ACBL's Bridge Bulletin[ citation needed ] [2] that he had adopted a proposal by Eddie Wold to switch the meaning of the two sequences, so that the advancer's immediate raise now showed the Ace, King or Queen honor, while the double (and redouble) denied it – a treatment known as "Reverse Rosenkranz". The term "Guildenstern" (alluding to Shakespeare's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) is also used[ citation needed ] for these sequences, an independent creation of "Reverse Rosenkranz".

Edward M. "Eddie" Wold is an American professional bridge player from Houston, Texas. Wold is a graduate of Rice University. Wold is an accomplished teacher and plays regularly at Houston's Westside Bridge Academy, particularly in that club's Saturday afternoon "common game," where over a thousand pairs from all over the country play identical boards.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern characters in Hamlet

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. They are childhood friends of Hamlet, summoned by King Claudius to distract the prince from his apparent madness and if possible to ascertain the cause of it. The characters were revived in W. S. Gilbert's satire, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and as the alienated heroes of Tom Stoppard's absurdist play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which was adapted into a film.

The reasoning for the reverse treatment is that a better hand for the bid suit (by virtue of the additional honor strength) should raise the level of the auction to make things difficult for the opponents.

Variations

Munson (or "Tolerance Redoubles") [3] is an alternative, created by Kitty Munson Cooper, in which the redouble shows shortness (one or two cards) including the ace or king. After a Munson redouble, overcaller's spot-card lead in his suit is a suit preference signal showing which side suit overcaller prefers partner to lead back (shift).

The Rosencranz redouble is also used to indicate a doubleton honor in overcaller's suit. [4]

The Snapdragon double is a convention used by advancer when the other three players have shown three different suits without a jump. It shows length in the fourth (unbid) suit, and tolerance for partner's suit (10x or better).

The snapdragon double is a bidding convention in contract bridge. It is a call of double by fourth hand, when three different suits have been bid by the first three players and shows a good holding in the fourth suit and tolerance for partner's suit.

Related Research Articles

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 basically 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 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.

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 sacrifice, 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.

Lebensohl is a contract bridge convention used by responder after an opponent's overcall of a one notrump (1NT) opening bid in order to compete further in the auction without necessarily committing the partnership to game. Lebensohl can also be used after opponents' weak-two bids and in responding to a reverse by partner.

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.

Bridge bidding systems that incorporate a strong 2 clubs opening bid include modern Standard American, standard Acol, 2/1 game forcing and many others.

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, 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.

In the card game bridge, a forcing pass is an agreement or understanding that a pass call obliges the partner to bid, double, or redouble over an intermediate opposing pass, i.e. partner must "keep the bidding open".

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."

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.

The support double is a bridge convention used to distinguish between three-card and four-card support for partner's suit response to one's opening bid in the scenario where his response is either overcalled or doubled by the opponents. A call of two in partner's suit indicates four-card support and a call of double promises three-card support; if partner's suit bid is doubled instead of overcalled, a redouble serves the same meaning as double. The convention was invented by Eric Rodwell in 1974.

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.

References

  1. ↑ Francis, Henry G., Editor-in-Chief; Truscott, Alan F., Executive Editor; Francis, Dorthy A., Editor, Sixth Edition (2001). The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge (6th ed.). Memphis, TN: American Contract Bridge League. p. 393. ISBN   0-943855-44-6. OCLC   49606900.
  2. ↑ See also his letter to The Bridge World magazine of July 1998, page 19.
  3. ↑ The Bridge World, May 1997.
  4. ↑ Donald Farwell and Jason Rosenfeld, Bridge Baron Companion, Third Edition, Great Games Products, 2008, ISBN   978-0-9766156-3-7, page 186.
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