Improve Your Bidding Judgment


Book Description

Beginners at bridge are taught rigid rules to apply to bidding, rules that involve point count, losing trick count and other evaluation methods. But they quickly discover that there are more situations where the rules don't apply than where they do. This book addresses a gap in bridge literature by discussing how to make decisions in the auction: when to be aggressive and when to pull back, when to take saves, when to double the opponents, and so forth. Filled with real-life examples, practical advice and helpful quizzes, this will help any reader become a better bidder.




The Two-Over-One Game Force System


Book Description

The Two-Over-One Game Force System is an improvement over the Standard American System that has been in effect and played by bridge players for many years. The advantage of the 2/1 System is that it allows the partnership to know that game is possible with only a single bid. I have presented the fundamental aspects of the bidding structure in this book. While many players claim they play 2/1, this is not the case. They have allowed the bidding structure of Standard American to prevail, like bidding suits up the line or ignoring the Walsh club. I have tried to change behavior by presenting a series of bids geared toward the 2/1 bidding structure where simply stated means that any auction that starts with an opening one-bid that is followed with a response at the two level of a lower-ranking suit represents a game forcing bidding sequence. Included in the book is Bergen, Reverse Bergen, and Combined Bergen raises, inverted minor suit raises with crisscross and flip-flop, cue bidding, modified scroll bids, and a Modern Splinter Convention. The Chapter on Slam bidding has been expanded to include asking for aces and kings simultaneously, the Baron 4NT convention, expert Gerber, and more. Material on Roman Jump overcalls, the Mc Cabe Adjunct and the Reverse Mc Cabe Adjunct, Bergens Jacoby 2NT bids, Meckwell major suit bids and Meckwell responses to minor suit openings, minor suit Stayman, Kokish Relays, Tartan Weak Two Bids, The Walsh Club Convention, the Principle of Restricted Choice, additional methods for interfering over the strong precision club bid, Variable Roman Keycard Blackwood, Spiral Scan bids, the Swedish 2NT bid, and the Modified Blooman convention when interfering over strong or weak notrump bids. Also included is an update of the Minorwood and the Roman Keycard Blackwood Conventions, Two-Way New Minor Forcing with modified Wolff Signoff bids and new bidding sequences using Mini/Weak notrump. The topic of Offense to Defense Ratio (ODR) is included in this revision as well as expanded bidding sequences when opening and responding to the bid of 2 playing the The Two-Over-One Game Force System and new Bridge Rules have been added to Chapter 10. Finally, four-way transfers as played by experts, the nebulous 2 convention, a 1430 6-pac RKCB Convention that does not require the queen asking bid, hand evaluation using Zar points, and the use of vacant places (spaces) when playing a bridge hand have been added to this edition. Neil H. Timm is professor emeritus from the University of Pittsburgh, where he taught statistics for thirty-five years. He has written several books on Multivariate Analysis and Linear Models. This is the 6th edition of his book on the Two-Over-One Game Force System. He has also written a book on Precision. He has developed a new bidding system called Modified Scroll Bids, Montreal Relay bids, a new modern splinter convention and a new 1430 Roman Keycard Blackwood system that replaces the Jacoby 2NT response when opening a major to facilitate slam bidding.




2/1 Game Force a Modern Approach - Second Edition


Book Description

The 2/1 Game Force bidding system is an improvement over the Standard American System that has been in effect and played by bridge players for many years. The advantage of the 2/1 system is that it allows the partnership to know that game is possible with only a single bid. In this book, I have tried to present the fundamental aspects of the bidding structure for playing a pure Two-Over-One Game Force system of bidding. This is not a book on conventions, it is a book about bridge that incorporates conventions that allow the partnership to reach game or slam. In this regard, I have incorporated modern methods for hand evaluation developed by Marty Bergen. New bidding conventions like SARS (Shape Asking Relays after Stayman), Quest transfers, and an overview of Bridge Rules and Laws that I hope will improve your approach to the bidding structure you may use today. In this second edition, I have included additional Bridge Rules, expanded and added material in several sections and included many more conventions common to the 2/1 Game Force System. This edition includes the Montreal club and diamond relay bids, the Kennedy club, the Kaplan interchange bid, the Ekren 2? convention, picture bids, the forcing pass, masked mini splinters, the Ingberman and Ping Pong conventions, and the Marvin two spades convention, among others. Finally, a new chapter on Precision called Simplified Precision has been added.




2/1 Game Force a Modern Approach


Book Description

The 2/1 Game Force bidding system is an improvement over the Standard American System that has been in effect and played by bridge players for many years. The advantage of the 2/1 system is that it allows the partnership to know that game is possible with only a single bid. In this book, I have tried to present the fundamental aspects of the bidding structure for playing a pure Two-Over-One Game Force system of bidding. In this book, I have tried to change behavior by presenting a series of bids geared toward the 2/1 bidding structure that includes Bergen, Reverse Bergen, and Combined Bergen Raises, inverted minor suit raises with crisscross and flip-flop, cuebidding, modified scroll bids, and many more methods not used in Standard American or Precision. In the fourth edition, the Minorwood Convention has been expanded and several variations of the Flannery Convention are included in this edition. I have added the Hello and SCUM conventions used to interfer over strong notrumps and a Modified Landy convention designed to compete over partnerships that employ a weak notrump bid. The Equal Level Conversion (ELC) double is discussed in Chapter 6 and additional material on slam bidding has been added to Chapter 3. The material on two-way new minor forcing and the Gazilli Convention has been expanded upon in Chapter 1 and Jacoby transfers with a superaccept structure has been added to Chapter 2. Finally, a new chapter that reviews the new Italian System of bids called Fantunes has been included in this edition. The System has been modified to be in compliance with the General Convention Chart.




To Bid Or Not to Bid


Book Description

To bid or not to bid -- the perennial dilemma in competitive auctions. The easy answer to the question lies in the correct use of the Law of Total Tricks. The LAW has been part of bridge literature since the 1950s, but it was in this book that Larry Cohen brought it to the attention of the majority of bridge players. Still the most lucid explanation of the LAW ever published, this is a book that every bridge player needs to own, to read, to re-read, and to study in order to improve their results.




The Optimal Modified 2/1-Club System


Book Description

My goal for “The Modified Optimal 2/1-Club System” is to show how to use the Optimal Point Count (OPC) method of hand evaluation developed by Patrick. Darricades in his book “Optimal Hand Evaluation” (2019) to improve the dialogue between two players to achieve an optimal bridge contract. The primary objective is to demonstrate how to apply the new system approach to contract bridge by illustrating a more accurate method of hand evaluation whether you play 2/1, Standard American (SA), Acol or Precision, among others. The Two over One (2/1) Game Force bidding system was an improvement over the SA System that has been in effect and played by bridge players for many years. Many claim that the advantage of the 2/1 system allows the partnership to know that game is possible with only a single bid provided one has 13+ points. As we shall see for suit contracts it is only true if the opening 2/1 bidder has 15 points, not 12/13 points since 25/26 points do not result in game whenever a singleton in one hand finds “wasted honor points” in partner’s hand. Yet, most 2/1 conventions call for 13+ High Card Points (HCP). Another flaw of the 2/1 approach is the fact that opening 1-level suit bids have a wide bidding range (12-21). To eliminate this flaw, the principles of Pinpoint Precision with 1*= 18+ points and new responses associated with a new and improved hand evaluation method. A major flaw of most Strong Club opening bids is that they are based solely on HCPs with opening bids of 1*=16/17+ HCP. To correct these flaws among others, the search for a better hand evaluation method and a better bidding system has been unrelenting. Hand evaluation methods have been popularized by Milton Work, Charles Goren, Marty Bergen, and Petkoy Zar, and others. All falling short when applied to the commonly used “dialogue” bidding systems. The Optimal Point Count (OPC) method of hand evaluation corrects the many flaws of prior hand evaluation methods when applied to any bidding system. In this book many “traditional/standard” bidding practices that do not help to show suit fi t and distribution are to be avoided or re-defined. Splinters and mini splinters which show the location of voids and singletons to help locate wasted honors, the XYZ bidding convention, cue bidding, and new bids for the investigation of game and slam are among the cornerstone conventions reviewed in this book. Newly defined 2 and 3-level bids to show hands with 6/7+card suits are defined to prevent the opponents from finding their optimal contract and to improve upon difficult bidding sequences using traditional bidding strategies. The evaluation of one’s Offense to Defense Ratio (ODR), why many well-known bidding sequences must be avoided, and an analysis of several old “standard” bridge laws/rules are reviewed to show why they need not be used to improve one’s judgement if one employs the OPC method.




2/1 Game Force a Modern Approach


Book Description

This book covers basic and advanced features of the Two-Over-One (2/1) Game Force bidding system which include Bergen and Combined Bergen Raises, inverted minor suit raises with criss-cross and flip-flop, cue bidding, modified scroll bids, and many more methods not used in Standard American or Precision. This is not a book on conventions, it is a book about bridge which incorporates conventions which allow the partnership to reach game or slam. In this regard, I have incorporated modern methods for hand evaluation developed by Marty Bergen. New bidding conventions like SARS (Shape Asking Relays after Stayman), Quest transfers and an overview of "Bridge Rules and Laws" which will improve your approach to the bidding structure you may use today.




2/1 Game Force a Modern Approach - Third Edition


Book Description

The 2/1 Game Force bidding system is an improvement over the Standard American System that has been in effect and played by bridge players for many years. The advantage of the 2/1 system is that it allows the partnership to know that game is possible with only a single bid. In this book, I have tried to present the fundamental aspects of the bidding structure for playing a pure Two-Over-One Game Force system of bidding. This is not a book on conventions, it is a book about bridge that incorporates conventions that allow the partnership to reach game or slam. In this regard, I have incorporated modern methods for hand evaluation developed by Marty Bergen. New bidding conventions like SARS (Shape Asking Relays after Stayman), Quest transfers, and an overview of Bridge Rules and Laws that I hope will improve your approach to the bidding structure you may use today. In this second edition, I have included additional Bridge Rules, expanded and added material in several sections and included many more conventions common to the 2/1 Game Force System. This edition includes the Montreal club and diamond relay bids, the Kennedy club, the Kaplan interchange bid, the Ekren 2? convention, picture bids, the forcing pass, masked mini splinters, the Ingberman and Ping Pong conventions, and the Marvin two spades convention, among others. In the third edition, I have made corrections brought to my attention by several readers. The chapter on slam bidding has been expanded to include asking for aces and kings simultaneously, the Baron 4NT convention, and more. New material on Roman Jump overcalls, the Mc Cabe Adjunct and the Reverse Mc Cabe Adjunct, Bergens Jacoby 2NT bids, Meckwell major suit bids, and Meckwell responses to minor suit openings, more on interference over strong no trump, minor suit Stayman, Kokish Relays, and several other conventions have been added to this latest edition. Finally, new chapters on Transfer Precision, the Meckwell Precision (Meckwell Lite) Bids are also included in this issue. The Meckwell Lite material (chapter 18) was developed by a Luke Gillespie and Jim Streisand and is included in the book with their kind permission.




How to Improve Your Bridge


Book Description




Building a Bidding System


Book Description

This book discussed the theory of bridge bidding for advanced players, with emphasis on the principles that need to underpin an effective bidding system. These include the concepts of Useful Space, Relays, Transfers, Dialogue Bidding, as well as the conflicting needs for a system that is robust, antagonistic, and also accurate. The ideas are illustrated with dozens of example hands from championship play, showing how these principles work in practice. The book will appeal to serious tournament players.




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