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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 it at the regional level.
In the partnership card game contract bridge, the Blackwood convention is a bidding convention developed by Easley Blackwood in 1933 and still widely used in the modern game. Its purpose is to enable the partnership to explore its possession of aces, kings and in some variants, the queen of trumps to judge whether a slam would be a feasible contract. The essence of the convention is the use of an artificial 4NT bid made under certain conditions to ask partner how many aces he has; responses by partner are made in step-wise fashion to indicate the number held.
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.
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.
A game try in the card game of bridge is a bid that shows interest in bidding a game and asks partner to help in making the decision.
A bridge convention is an agreement about an artificial call or a set of related artificial calls. 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".
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.
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 enables a player to gain information about the quality of the top trumps held by his partner.
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.
Jacoby 2NT is a bridge convention in which a bid of 2NT over partner's opening bid of one heart or one spade shows a hand with both
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.
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.
A reverse, in the card game contract bridge, is a bidding sequence designed to show additional strength without the need to make a jump bid; specifically two suits are bid in the reverse order to that expected by the basic bidding system. Precise methods and definitions vary with country, bidding system and partnership agreements.
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 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.
Bridge base basic, also known as BBO basic, is a bidding system for the game of bridge based on the Standard American Yellow Card (SAYC). 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.
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.
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
- ↑ Manley, Brent; Horton, Mark; Greenberg-Yarbro, Tracey; Rigal, Barry, eds. (2011). The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge (7th ed.). Horn Lake, MS: American Contract Bridge League. p. 266. ISBN 978-0-939460-99-1.
- Francis, Henry G.; Truscott, Alan F.; Francis, Dorthy A., eds. (2001). The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge (6th ed.). Memphis, TN: American Contract Bridge League. ISBN 0-943855-44-6. OCLC 49606900.