The Advanced American Bidding System


Book Description

Overview of the American Bridge Series The American Bridge Series is designed as a sequential set of bidding courses, suitable for self-study or classroom-style study under the guidance of a professional bridge teacher. Volumes I through III include declarer play and defense skills as they relate to the bidding skills taught in each text. Volume IV is reserved for true experts; thus, declarer play and defense lessons would be an insult and are not included. The entire series takes about five years of study and practice to complete. Volume I, The Basic American Bidding System was written for beginners and for social players who need to brush-up on basic bidding skills prior to tackling modern bidding methods. It features 5-card major suit opening bids, strong twos, and some basics of Forcing and Non-Forcing Stayman, Blackwood, Gerber, and few other things designed to form the framework for further study. Volume II, The Intermediate American Bidding System makes the transition to modern methods including weak two openings. It teaches all of the pieces of "Standard" American in a way that integrates all of the varied forms of same. Don't be thrown by the term "intermediate." Many duplicate players think that they have reached that level when they can no longer play in novice games. Not so. "Intermediate," as defined by the authors, can vary from folks with zero ACBL masterpoints to 2500 masterpoints. It's not the points that count, it's the skill level. Volume III, The Advanced American Bidding System presumes a complete understanding and skill with all of the material in Volume II. However, some of the Volume II material is repeated for intended redundancy, since the authors suspect that many folks who shouldn't be attempting to study Volume III will do so anyway. After all, "I'm a Life Master, I must be Advanced." The authors suggest that anyone not comfortable playing in Flight A at an ACBL regional or national tournament, or the World Bridge Federation (WBF) or other governing body equivalent thereof avoid purchase and study of Volume III until they have mastered all that is taught in Volume II. Volume IV, The Expert American Bidding System, (NOT YET RELEASED) presumes two years' experience with the bidding techniques taught in Volume III, and expert declarer play and defense skills. This is not a "Mom and Pop" book. It is for those who wish to successfully compete in such ACBL events as Flight A Grand National Teams, the Blue Ribbon Pairs, the Life Master Pairs, the Spingold, Vanderbilt, and Reisinger teams, etc., and International events like the Bermuda Bowl and Venice Cup, The London Times Pairs, the McCallan, etc. It features 4-card majors, the TEAS responses to no trump openings, weak no trumps, and a variety of other bidding methods which will get bidders to the optimum place but will require expert declarer play or defensive skills to maximize results. All four books emphasize sound, disciplined bidding and an underlying philosophy of "You bid your cards, I'll bid mine, we'll get to the right spot." By the time students complete study and practice of Volume III, they should be able to know what cards partner holds almost to the spot at the conclusion of an auction. In fact, Jerry and one of his partners were once accused of cheating when they got cocky and did this after an auction. The comment was: "How can you know what cards your partner holds?" Jerry's answer: "Isn't that the whole point of the bidding?"




The Basic American Bidding System


Book Description

Overview of the American Bridge Series The American Bridge Series is designed as a sequential set of bidding courses, suitable for self-study or classroom-style study under the guidance of a professional bridge teacher. Volumes I through III include declarer play and defense skills as they relate to the bidding skills taught in each text. Volume IV is reserved for true experts; thus, declarer play and defense lessons would be an insult and are not included. The entire series takes about five years of study and practice to complete. Volume I, The Basic American Bidding System, was written for beginners and for social players who need to brush-up on basic bidding skills prior to tackling modern bidding methods. It features 5-card major suit opening bids, strong twos, and some basics of Forcing and Non-Forcing Stayman, Blackwood, Gerber, and few other things designed to form the framework for further study. Volume II, The Intermediate American Bidding System, makes the transition to modern methods including weak two openings. It teaches all of the pieces of "Standard" American in a way that integrates all of the varied forms of same. Don't be thrown by the term "intermediate." Many duplicate players think that they have reached that level when they can no longer play in novice games. Not so. "Intermediate," as defined by the authors, can vary from folks with zero ACBL masterpoints to 2500 masterpoints. It's not the points that count, it's the skill level. Volume III, The Advanced American Bidding System presumes a complete understanding and skill with all of the material in Volume II. However, some of the Volume II material is repeated for intended redundancy, since the authors suspect that many folks who shouldn't be attempting to study Volume III will do so anyway. After all, "I'm a Life Master, I must be Advanced." The authors suggest that anyone not comfortable playing in Flight A at an ACBL regional or national tournament, or the World Bridge Federation (WBF) or other governing body equivalent thereof avoid purchase and study of Volume III until they have mastered all that is taught in Volume II. Volume IV, The Expert American Bidding System, (NOT YET RELEASED) presumes two years' experience with the bidding techniques taught in Volume III, and expert declarer play and defense skills. This is not a "Mom and Pop" book. It is for those who wish to successfully compete in such ACBL events as Flight A Grand National Teams, the Blue Ribbon Pairs, the Life Master Pairs, the Spingold, Vanderbilt, and Reisinger teams, etc., and International events like the Bermuda Bowl and Venice Cup, The London Times Pairs, the McCallan, etc. It features 4-card majors, the TEAS responses to no trump openings, weak no trumps, and a variety of other bidding methods which will get bidders to the optimum place but will require expert declarer play or defensive skills to maximize results. All four books emphasize sound, disciplined bidding and an underlying philosophy of "You bid your cards, I'll bid mine, we'll get to the right spot." By the time students complete study and practice of Volume III, they should be able to know what cards partner holds almost to the spot at the conclusion of an auction. In fact, Jerry and one of his partners were once accused of cheating when they got cocky and did this after an auction. The comment was: "How can you know what cards your partner holds?" Jerry's answer: "Isn't that the whole point of the bidding?"




The Intermediate American Bidding System


Book Description

Overview of the American Bridge Series The American Bridge Series is designed as a sequential set of bidding courses, suitable for self-study or classroom-style study under the guidance of a professional bridge teacher. Volumes I through III include declarer play and defense skills as they relate to the bidding skills taught in each text. Volume IV is reserved for true experts; thus, declarer play and defense lessons would be an insult and are not included. The entire series takes about five years of study and practice to complete. Volume I, The Basic American Bidding System was written for beginners and for social players who need to brush-up on basic bidding skills prior to tackling modern bidding methods. It features 5-card major suit opening bids, strong twos, and some basics of Forcing and Non-Forcing Stayman, Blackwood, Gerber, and few other things designed to form the framework for further study. Volume II, The Intermediate American Bidding System makes the transition to modern methods including weak two openings. It teaches all of the pieces of "Standard" American in a way that integrates all of the varied forms of same. Don't be thrown by the term "intermediate." Many duplicate players think that they have reached that level when they can no longer play in novice games. Not so. "Intermediate," as defined by the authors, can vary from folks with zero ACBL masterpoints to 2500 masterpoints. It's not the points that count, it's the skill level. Volume III, The Advanced American Bidding System presumes a complete understanding and skill with all of the material in Volume II. However, some of the Volume II material is repeated for intended redundancy, since the authors suspect that many folks who shouldn't be attempting to study Volume III will do so anyway. After all, "I'm a Life Master, I must be Advanced." The authors suggest that anyone not comfortable playing in Flight A at an ACBL regional or national tournament, or the World Bridge Federation (WBF) or other governing body equivalent thereof avoid purchase and study of Volume III until they have mastered all that is taught in Volume II. Volume IV, The Expert American Bidding System, (NOT YET RELEASED) presumes two years' experience with the bidding techniques taught in Volume III, and expert declarer play and defense skills. This is not a "Mom and Pop" book. It is for those who wish to successfully compete in such ACBL events as Flight A Grand National Teams, the Blue Ribbon Pairs, the Life Master Pairs, the Spingold, Vanderbilt, and Reisinger teams, etc., and International events like the Bermuda Bowl and Venice Cup, The London Times Pairs, the McCallan, etc. It features 4-card majors, the TEAS responses to no trump openings, weak no trumps, and a variety of other bidding methods which will get bidders to the optimum place but will require expert declarer play or defensive skills to maximize results. All four books emphasize sound, disciplined bidding and an underlying philosophy of "You bid your cards, I'll bid mine, we'll get to the right spot." By the time students complete study and practice of Volume III, they should be able to know what cards partner holds almost to the spot at the conclusion of an auction. In fact, Jerry and one of his partners were once accused of cheating when they got cocky and did this after an auction. The comment was: "How can you know what cards your partner holds?" Jerry's answer: "Isn't that the whole point of the bidding?"




Bridge Bidding


Book Description

This e-book present some of the most important bridge bidding systems used used in duplicate bridge tournaments, detailing the most known bridge bidding system, Standard American Yellow Card, by using a logical sequential order for openings, answers, competitive bids and defensive play in order to help the players during the games. Much of the complexity in bridge arises from the difficulty of arriving at a good final contract in the auction. 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. Standard American Yellow Card is a specific set of partnership agreements and conventions, using Standard American as a base. Standard American Yellow Card is a very specific collection of agreements, which can, of course, be modified and augmented by partnership agreement. In practical use, the term is often mis-used to refer to Standard American in general, or it could refer to a system that used SAYC as a base and made additional augmentations or changes to the base agreements.




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. Finally, a new chapter on Precision called Simplified Precision has been added. 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. 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, Bergen's 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.




The Casey Bridge Bidding System


Book Description

This book incorporates the 2/1 Game Force bidding system whenever the opener bids a major suit. This book is designed to improve your bidding of minor suit openings in 3 steps. The 1st step involves bids to hamper the opponents from finding their 4-4 spade fit. This involves the use of the Casey overcall and the Weak 1NT opening. It also involves the use of the Casey-Jacoby transfer to find a 5-card major in responder’s hand and the use of inverted minors. The 2nd step involves adoption of the strong 2 bid, a bid of 20-21p. This allows the opener to use the Casey Reverse to show a hand of 16-17p by bidding at the 2-level and to show a hand of 18-19p by bidding at the 3-level. The Casey Minor Rebid convention allows the opening to show a 4+ card suit at the 2 or 3-level. The third step involves optimizing your slam bidding with the Casey Trump Queen convention. It also involves the use of the Redwood Kickback convention for minor suit contracts and the use of the Fourth Suit Forcing convention to ascertain whether opener has 5 cards in his 2nd bid minor suit.




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.




The Casey 2/1 Bridge Bidding System


Book Description

This book incorporates the 2/1 Game Force bidding system whenever the opener bids a major suit. Five new conventions have been added to the 2/1 system. This book is also designed to improve your bidding of minor suit openings in 4 steps. The 1st step involves the use of the Casey-Jacoby Transfer and the Casey overcall (a 1NT bid shows 4 hearts). The 2nd step involves adoption of the strong 2 bid, a bid of 20-21p. This allows the opener to use the Casey Reverse to show a hand of 16-17p by bidding at the 2-level and to show a hand of 18-19p by bidding at the 3-level. The Casey Minor Suit Rebid convention allows O to show a 4+ card suit at the 2 or 3-level. The 3rd step involves optimizing your slam bidding with the Casey Trump Queen convention and the Casey-Minorwood Kickback convention. The 4th step involves the use of the Weak-1NT (a 1NT bid shows 4 hearts) and Weak-2NT bids, both designed to hamper the opponents.




2/1 Game Force System


Book Description

The 2/1 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 an initial single bid. This book is about bridge that incorporates conventions that allow partnership’s to reach game or slam. In this regard, I have incorporated modern methods for hand evaluation developed by Marty Bergen called the ADJUST-3 Method and Zar points, new bidding conventions like SARS (Shape Asking Relays after Stayman) and 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. Also included is the bidding structure are Bergen, Reverse Bergen, and Combined Bergen major suit raises, inverted minor suit raises with crisscross and flip-flop, cue bidding, modified scroll bids, and many more methods not used in Standard American or Precision. The bidding conventions in the previous editions have been enhanced, corrected, expanded upon, and reorganized with new ones added. Given the release of the new ACBL convention charts, the chapter with the modifications to Fantunes, in my prior edition, is no longer needed. Fantunes may now be played using the Open Convention Chart. The Mid-chart no longer exits. Hence, I have deleted the chapter and replaced it with a new chapter on Bridge Tips, and Agreements. New conventions include a Modern Splinter Bidding Convention, the Zirconia Convention, Unusual 2-level bids, Jump Transfer bids, a new Two-Way Check-back Convention, 1430 Modified Jacoby 2NT*, additional Bridge Rules with more examples, Four-Way Transfers with the range ask bid and more are included in this edition. 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 2/1 Game Force System and many new Bridge Rules have been added to Chapter 10. A copy of this book is on the web site www.bridgewebs.com/ocala. A hard copy is available from the publisher or from Amazon.com – search on neil timm.