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.

UPDATES

In your opinion what is the worst conventionGabi 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


Funbridge offers a complete Bridge Glossary https://www.funbridge.com/glossary-bridge

BridgeBum offers a complete listing of Bridge Bidding Conventions https://www.bridgebum.com/

The Bridge Guys – this was a classic website started by Raymond W. Burckholter and Klaus Schroder in 1998, but for some reason the site was taken down in 2018. Someone has re-launched the site – and you can still find an excellent glosaary there.  https://bridgeguys.online/

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!

Ask a bridge expert in the well - Great Bridge LinksIN 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.

NEW FROM BRIDGE WINNERS – YOU HOLD Bridge App: Now you can ask the members of the leading Internet bridge community, Bridge Winners, about a problem you faced at the bridge table. Tell them “you hold…” and what the auction is, and you’ll soon get votes and comments from people around the world. Or answer the problems yourself and see if the best bridge players agree with you. Apple Store | Google Store


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.

ACBL’s page How to Fill Out The New ACBL Convention Card Article series by Larry Cohen


LEARN BIDDING SYSTEMS

Two Over One Bidding System :  Lots of information here from Karen Walker. Also links to further resources.

Two Over One with Val Covalciuc : This site offers an interactive book on the Two over One bidding system. Each of the sixteen playbooks has an informational page, a quiz + eight practice hands. also there are 32 practice hands to test the students knowledge of the basic concepts. Alert – this is not a ‘for free’ site.

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 

MUTOS system – Eugeen Vannuten Bridge System, MUTOS (MUlti and Transfer Oriented System)

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,

Great Modern Conventions (not currently available). Will you add a link to my new site describing some conventions I have written? I hope you enjoy, Mo Clark

 Book: 1/1 Game Force (not currently available), Henryk Mach. It provides information in the following categories: bidding systems, conventions, bidding theory, and humor.

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.

Mark Abraham – The server upon which my bridge systems page was located suffered a catastrophic failure recently and is not being resurrected. . I would be grateful if you would update your links and bookmarks accordingly. For those who don’t know, or have forgotten, there are descriptions of a number of symmetric relay systems, including strong club and strong pass methods, mostly with transfer-opening styles. There are also links to several other exotic Forcing Pass systems and bidding conventions. Regards, Mark Abraham

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.

 The Blue Team Club Home Page – A site dedicated to the famous bridge system played by Forquet, Garozzo, Franco, etc. The site is not yet in English, but the English version of the Arturo Franco and Benito Garozzo’s System Notes is available for download. It is a very interesting 73 page system, more or less the same used by De Falco and Ferraro to win the las European Championship. Marco Pancotti.

 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.”

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