Vanderbilt Club

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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.[ citation needed ]

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.

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.

Contents

Overview

In the Vanderbilt Club system, an opening bid of 1♣ is artificial [Note 1] and forcing, and shows a good hand. A response of 1♦ is an artificial negative. Other bids are "regulation bids". [1] :71-92 [Note 2] The system was published by Harold S. Vanderbilt in his 1929 book Contract Bridge. [1] It was the first strong club system. [2] :564 An updated version was published in 1964. [3]

In the card game contract bridge, a forcing bid is any call that obliges the partner to bid over an intermediate opposing pass. Owing to the partnership's bidding system or a bridge convention, partner must "keep the bidding open", i.e. not pass, thereby preventing his left-hand opponent from ending the auction with a pass and enabling the "forcing bidder" to bid further.

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.

Vanderbilt was a very early bridge theorist, because in his 1929 book he explained in detail the reasoning upon which his system was based: "In many Contract hands it is essential that an original bidder be assured of a second opportunity to bid". [1] :35-45

1929 system

The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge has called Vanderbilt's 1929 book one which "made a major contribution to the technical development of the game". [2] :669

<i>The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge</i>

The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge (OEB) presents comprehensive information on the card game contract bridge with limited information on related games and on playing cards. It is "official" in reference to the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) which authorized its production and whose staff prepared and/or supervised its various editions.

Uncontested auctions

Vanderbilt defines the potential of bridge hands in terms of quick tricks. [1] :28-30 [Note 3] In summary, Vanderbilt Club is: [1] :27-89

  • 1♦ response –artificial, fewer than 2 quick tricks
  • Other responses (including 2♦) –regulation, at least 2 quick tricks

In the game of contract bridge, a balanced hand denotes a hand of thirteen cards which contains no singleton or void and at most one doubleton. Three hand patterns are classified as truly balanced: 4-3-3-3, 4-4-3-2 and 5-3-3-2. The hand patterns 5-4-2-2 and 6-3-2-2 are generally referred to as semi-balanced.

Contested auctions

Vanderbilt distinguishes between informatory doubles and business doubles, two expressions known from auction bridge. [Note 6] Doubles should be informatory at the one-level; [Note 7] at the two-level if neither you nor your partner has previously bid; and perhaps at the three-level, depending on the player's judgment of the score and the bidding. Doubles should be made more freely in contract than in auction bridge, because the potential profit is greater.

Vanderbilt does not otherwise discuss bidding in contested auctions. [1] :93-102

Slam bidding

Vanderbilt describes three types of invitations to slam: bidding more than is needed to score game; bidding the opponents' suit; and introducing another strain after the partnership has agreed a strain.

He also says that some slams should be bid on the first round of bidding, because of the risk that partner might pass any lower bid. [1] :105-143

Bluff bidding

The expression psychic bidding is attached to Dorothy Rice Sims, who coined the expression in the 1930s. Vanderbilt described a similar type of maneuver as being known in 1929, but did not advocate it. [1] :143-144

Goulashes

A goulash is a variant of bridge in which the cards are not properly shuffled and are dealt several at a time. Vanderbilt gave some advice on how to play this unusual form of the game. [1] :147-152

1964 system

In its essentials, the 1964 system is the same as the 1929 system. However: hands are evaluated using the modern HCP method; there is an additional artificial bid (2♦, recommended for experts only); and some later-devised but by then well-established artificial bids are added (Stayman, Gerber, and Blackwood). [2] :564-565

  • Other responses (including 2♦) – natural, having one of those holdings or better

A 1966 edition of the Official Encyclopedia of Bridge named Vanderbilt's 1964 book as one of the "mandatory requirements for a modern technical bridge library". [2] :669

Notes

  1. ↑ Many of the terms Vanderbilt used in 1929 are obsolete. However, he defined "artificial" in essentially its modern sense, and may have added that word to bridge terminology. [1] :xviii
  2. ↑ The expression "regulation bid" is obsolete, and is not easy to define. Vanderbilt's 1929 book refers elsewhere to "the regulation or ordinary system of bidding", in the context of auction bridge. [1] :32 In auction bridge, the aim was to identify the best strain. Score bonuses for making game or slam accrued automatically; unlike contract bridge, where the bonuses are only scored if a partnership bids to the required level. By "regulation bid", Vanderbilt may therefore have meant "a bid which a sound auction bridge player would make". An approximate modern meaning might be "natural".
  3. ↑ In 1929, methods of hand evaluation such as honor tricks and point count had not yet been devised.
  4. ↑ Vanderbilt himself recognized that this definition was too broad, and that some hands with 3 or more quick tricks should not be opened 1♣. [1] :58-59
  5. ↑ Vanderbilt does not define the 1N opening directly. However, he describes it as a preferred alternative to 1♣. [1] :50,59 It therefore seems likely that he had in mind what would in 2017 be called a strong notrump.
  6. ↑ The usual modern expressions are respectively takeout double and penalty double, which have respectively very similar meanings to the two expressions used by Vanderbilt.
  7. ↑ This definition would include the negative double.

Related Research Articles

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.

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.

Auction bridge further derivation popular in the early 20th century

The card game auction bridge, the third step in the evolution of the general game of bridge, was developed from straight bridge in 1904. The precursor to contract bridge, its predecessors were whist and bridge whist.

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.

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.

Psychic bid is a bid in contract bridge that grossly misstates the power and/or suit lengths of one's hand. It is used deliberately to deceive the opponents. Normally, the psychic bid is made with a weak hand, overstating its overall strength, the length and strength in a particular suit, or both.

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.

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.

The weak two bid is a common treatment used in the game of contract bridge, where an opening bid of two diamonds, hearts or spades signifies a weak hand with a long suit. It is used in combination with the strong two clubs bid and is a form of preemptive bid. The term refers to an opening bid, and is not to be confused with the "weak jump overcall", which denotes a similar type of hand, but is bid over an opponent's opening bid.

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 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.

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.

In contract bridge, a strong two-bid is an opening bid of two in a suit, i.e. 2♣, 2♦, 2♥ or 2 ♠. It is a natural bid, used to show a hand that is too strong to open at the one level. Commonly used in the early days of bridge, most expert players converted after World War II to the now more common weak two bid retaining only 2♣ as a strong opening suit-bid and changing its meaning to artificial and forcing holding any suit. This was done on the basis that the weak two-bid would occur much more frequently.

In the game of bridge, a prepared opening bid is a bid which is not usual in the sense that it does not bid the longest suit first. The most common example of this is the better minor or short club opening bid.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Vanderbilt, Harold S. (July 1929). Contract Bridge: Bidding and the Club Convention. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ASIN   B000857ZZU.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Frey, Richard L., Editor-in-Chief; Truscott, Alan F., Executive Editor; Cohen, Ben, International Edition Editor; Barrow, Rhoda, International Edition Editor (1967). The Bridge Players' Encyclopedia. London: Paul Hamlyn. OCLC   560654187.
  3. ↑ Vanderbilt, Harold S. (1964). The Club Convention System of Bidding at Contract Bridge. Charles Scribner's Sons. ASIN   B0007DZWZI.
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