Bridge Bidding
The first phase of any bridge hand is bidding. On this page you’ll find bridge bidding, bidding systems, and bidding theory. As well, we’ll present places where you can join other bridge players and talk about bridge.
The Latest
BridgeDocs: Your Go-To for Organizing Bridge System Notes – BridgeDocs is an intuitive platform designed for bridge players to organize, build, and refine their bidding systems with ease. Offering features like a comprehensive Convention Library, System Templates, real-time collaboration, and tools for managing multiple systems, BridgeDocs makes it simple to build your bidding system. Read more here
In your opinion what is the worst convention – Gabi Levy posed this on Bridge Winners in preparation for an articleon his website bridge-tips.co.il – and there were over 250 replies last I looked! Follow the conversation here (and by the way, I happen to love Drury)
CueBids – Connect to your partner and start bidding. No need to be online at the same time. Compare with professionals and friends. Get instant feedback. Free.
The latest version of the ACBL Convention Charts is available at https://web2.acbl.org/documentLibrary/about/Convention-Charts.pdf. The main change is to change the upper masterpoint limit for the Basic chart so that it applies only in more limited events (300 MP cap rather than 750). The full list of changes is at https://web2.acbl.org/documentLibrary/play/Convention_Chart_Changes.pdf. This also includes the changes made earlier this year to allow Multi in the Platinum Pairs and Reisinger.
GLOSSARIES & DICTIONARIES
The Bridge World Magazine has a fantastic Bridge Dictionary – not to be missed!
Wikipedia Glossary of Contract Bridge Terms
Funbridge offers a complete Bridge Glossary
ACBL has a Bridge Glossary on their Learn to Play Bridge pages.
BridgeBum offers a complete listing of Bridge Bidding Conventions
The Bridge Players Dictionary – Compiled and edited by Randall Baron, Illustrated by Jude Goodwin. This is a ‘hold in your hand’ dictionary – great for gifting!
BIDDING & DISCUSSION FORUMS
Bridge Winners – This is a forum-type website where players discuss the game which, over the past few years, has become the ultimate place for current news, articles, problems, and lessons for the card game bridge.
Rec.Games.Bridge GOOGLE GROUPS (RGB) with over 3,000 current topics and lots of great bridge teachers and experts sharing their knowledge of the game. RGB is the granddaddy of online bridge discussion forums – it was around before the world wide web!
IN THE WELL – from Bridge Winners. A growing list of expert players answer your questions – this story is posted at the top of the page. A stranger is being shown around a village that he has just become a part of. He is shown a well and his guide says, “On any day except Thursday, you can shout any question down that well and you’ll be told the answer.” The man seems impressed, and so he shouts down: Why not on Thursday? The voice from in the well shouts back:Because on Thursday, it’s your day in the well.
Bridge Base Forums : Lots of activity and interesting topics including Book Reviews.
THE CONVENTION CARD
BridgeWinners.com Convention Card Editor : Join Bridge Winners for free and you’ll find all sorts of wonderful stuff including a great ONLINE Convention Card Editor. Fill it out, save it, view it, print it – awesome.
ACBL Convention Card Editor : Download a PDF file that you can edit and print.
How to Fill Out The New ACBL Convention Card – Six part series by Larry Cohen
LEARN BIDDING SYSTEMS
Two Over One Bidding System : Lots of information here from Karen Walker. Also links to further resources.
SAYC – The ACBL Standard American Yellow Card (SAYC) was created to be the required system to be used in a Standard Yellow Card event. The object was to provide a simple, modern method that will lead to a good, solid understanding in a partnership when both players have read this booklet. Bridge App Here. Wikipedia Page Here. Booklet Here.
ACOL : 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. The Bridge Doctor will help you learn this system. Or visit the ACOL BIDDING website
Standard Dutch Bidding System AKA Biedermeijer Red
LEARN POPULAR CONVENTIONS
ACBL’s Commonly Used Conventions : With only 15 words allowed during an auction and just 13 cards in each suit, bridge players have invented dozens of special bids, called conventions, to describe their strength and hand patterns. Great list of conventions here.
Jeff Tang’s Bridge Conventions : Lot’s of conventions on this Bidding page, part of Jeff Tan’s excellent site.
Bridge Buff : A good Conventions page from Bridge Buff.
Baker Bridge – Bidding Conventions with Practice Deals
PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE
Correct Contract – A website where you and your bridge partner(s) can practice bidding. This isn’t a new site but we’ve just found it and it looks to be very useful! Spring 2022
Daily and Weekly Bridge Puzzles – a page on Great Bridge Links.
Intermediate/Novice Bidding and Play material can be found in the Great Bridge Links Classroom
SAYC : STANDARD AMERICAN YELLOW CARD Bidding Practice website and app.
Nikos Sarantakos’ Bridge Page Luxembourg : Articles and Quizzes. Originally published in Dutch and/or the Greek Bridge Federation magazines, Nikos Sarantakos presents problems from real-life deals played at the highest levels. In each problem, you face a decision, usually concerning a call or an opening lead.
Australian Bridge Magazine Online Bidding Forum. Five problems are posed every two months and visitors are invited to submit their answers with comments. The most interesting comments are presented with the answers. These are the same five problems that we run in the magazine. This allows us to also show the scores from the expert panel in the magazine.www.australianbridge.com, Paul Marston, Publisher and editor
SOME TOOLS FOR THAT
Biddingquest– bridge-bidding practice software that features bidding contests on prepared boards with a partner.
Double Dummy Corner : Started in January 2001 for the benefit of people interested in double dummy bridge play problems. Its main purposes are to provide a repository of every worthwhile DD problem that has ever been published; and to provide a medium for publication of new problems for competitive solving. It is updated every Sunday, in principle, subject to the vagaries of the webmaster’s personal life. (September 2009)
Bid-em-ups for Partnership Bidding Practice courtesy of Larry Cohen. Great hand printouts, new set each month.
1.3 of BbnOrganiser. This program enables you to organize your personal bridge bidding system. Tis Veugen (December 2006)
PlayBRIDGE : Bridge Hand Generator : It is a bridge education tool to be used to practice bidding, visualize hands or resolve what-if situations. It also produces duplicate forms pre-filled with computer generated deals. You can generate random deals, seed your hand with selected cards or specify your strength and distribution requirements. I hope that the Internet bridge playing community will find playBridge useful and fun.
PEOPLE AND THEIR SYSTEMS
Everything That Matters (ETM) Bidding Systems and Conventions
ToyBridge blog It covers my play experiences with some side tracking into system design and evaluation. I have been updating it roughly every 3 days for about 6 months now and would very much like to be included on your link site. Daniel Skipper
Hondobridge Howard Schutzman’s site contains free lesson material to download and most lessons are presented as excellent bridge movies, compliments of Kia Azziz,
The Composite Club – new link. book by Bill Hodgkiss on a strong club bidding system. Apart from the 1C opener, the system is largely based on natrual bidding. It is descibed in two forms: BASIC for easier assimilation and ADVANCED for more interested readers. Books.
BridgeHands Bridge Encyclopedia – new bridge instruction website. BridgeHands offers a well-indexed complete Bridge Encyclopedia with conventions and play narratives, comprehensive Laws reference for players/Directors, Tourney bulletins, free monthly eMagazine Newsletter, webhosting, reviews for cruise and books (including ordering). Owner : Michael Nistler
Contract Bridge on Wikipedia : a community of sites dedicated to providing high-quality informative web content, similar to Wikiverse above. Available in 16 languages. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. In the English version, started in 2001, members are currently working on 1,030,462 articles. Anyone can drop in and correct, update or add to the content.
The Modest Club – New Bridge Book : The Modest Club gives you dynamic distribution data fast. Think hard, right away. Project the possible auctions. Be prepared to handle surprises. Be ready to create them, too. Ted Warner, author.
Daniel Neill’s cool links to systems and other bridge sites.
The ETM Bidding Systems – by Glen Ashton. The “Everything That Matters” methods are systems, conventions, and bidding approaches designed to keep the important while eliminating the unnecessary.
L_system – Bidding System. L system is for the idea of light opening: open the 5 card suit with 8-12HP, since the range is of highest probability. If we overcall with these hands, why not bid at the first chance.
Prism Signals The sole content of the site is an 11 chapter e-book entitled Prism Signals. A hyped description- A Revolutionary Defensive Signal…Defender Signals Declarer’s Distribution. A more down to earth description (a quote from the forward)- “The purpose of these pages is to demonstrate one fact: The four hands of a bridge deal are structurally interdependent.”
