About

What parts of bridge count as being truly bizarre? After all the first convention you learned probably seemed very odd at the time i.e. What? bidding a suit I don't have??! Are you CRAZY? What if partner passes?. Anyway below is a list of my favourite queer stuff.

Table of Contents

  1. Invisible Cue-Bids
  2. The Grosvenor Gambit
  3. Under-Ruffing
  4. Signalling to Dummy
  5. The Forcing Pass
  6. Tell-Tale Signs
  7. Bidding at the Eight Level

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Invisible Cue-Bids

This is where you bid a suit that the opponents have implied but not actually bid. The term is coined by Pavlicek and Root in Modern Bidding Conventions. Here is one of their examples:

Partner  Opp.  You

1        2NT    3

Since the opponent's 2NT was unusual showing both minors, your 3 is cuebidding one of his implied suits. It is employed here to show at least a limit raise in hearts.

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The Grosvenor Gambit

This is supposedly a psychological ploy to demoralize the opponents. It is used in the situation where the defenders recognize a sure way to get a contract down but reject this winning line in favour of one where the declarer has a chance to make a contract. Because declarer does not trust this chance he rejects it and not only does not make his contract but ends up kicking himself.

I have to put my hands up here and admit to having done this gambit many times - but always by accident. An entertaining article about it originating from Bridge Today is given here.

Not to be confused with the illegal Chicago Convention.

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Under-Ruffing

To play a smaller trump than one that is already ruffing a trick is definitely peculiar. However the ACBL Encyclopedia of Bridge lists four situations where it is necessary. These cover: trump reduction for a trump coup, avoiding discards in other suits, saving a card to lead in another suit, and to avoid a premature squeeze (ouch). To this I would add: to avoid an end-play?

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Signalling to Dummy

This is when declarer makes a signal e.g. high-low to let his partner know information about his hand. Although partner is dummy (a.k.a table) and can't act on this information since he is not playing, the point of this manoeuvre is to reduce his stress so that he is in a better shape to play the next hand.

After all which Bridge player has not been a bit tense waiting to see if partner was really in posession of all that which he promised for the contract? Not an issue in online games like okbridge of course where dummy is shown declarer's hand and every weakness of his play is cruelly exposed.

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The Forcing Pass

As defined by the ACBL Encyclopedia of Bridge this is a pass that forces partner to take action. But presumably not the action of leaping across the table to throttle you for misinterpreting his forcing bid or takeout double.

When the forcing pass is part of a bidding system as an opening bid then the ACBL gets a bit sniffy and does not permit it on the grounds that "the ACBL has a policy against destructive systems - systems aimed at disrupting the opponents rather than arriving at the correct contract". But it is surprising that the preemptive bid and the weak two bid are not banned likewise.

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Tell-Tale Signs

Tell-tale signs apply to all card games, not just Bridge. Here are some that a player makes when they look at their cards:

  1. When a player picks up his cards he looks at a bad hand longer than a good one.
  2. If he has good cards, the rate of his blinking increases. Sun-glasses hide this tell-tale sign.
  3. With good cards his pupils widen: the dark points in the centre of the eyes grow involuntarily. Dark glasses help here as well.
  4. When a player has a good hand he will avoid eye-contact with the other players. On the other hand if he looks directly at the others then he probably has bad cards.
These are some of the most common tell-tale signs. In summary, a player with good cards tends to reduce his gestures - he looks at his cards only briefly and avoids eye contact with the other players. Top players can control even these small signals.

Translated from Die Sprache des Korpers.

Regarding widening pupils, I heard that the same thing usually happens when a man looks at a picture of a woman. Whatever your thing is, I suppose.

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Bidding at the Eight Level

Undoubtedly a legend, but anyway the story goes that at one time you were allowed to bid at the eight level i.e. a somewhat implausible contract to make 14 tricks out of 13. I suppose this desperate action would be justified if you are absolutely sure the opponents have a grand slam cold. Then you would be saving against their score of 1440 to 2220 points depending on suit and vulnerability. For example, if you go off six tricks doubled non-vulnerable it costs you a mere 1400 points.

Another scenario where you actually make a plus (!) is described in the book Low Bridge and Punk Pungs (Hellman S., 1924) where the narrator Dink O'Day, playing auction bridge, picks up a hand with 11 clubs with 5 honours, plus the ace and the ace. The opponents bid 7 but Dink bids bids 8 and is, not surprisingly, doubled. He makes all the tricks and claims 60 for honours plus 100 for making a grand slam. Minus 100 for going one down doubled, he's plus overall.

All I can say is that if you do decide to bid 8 then don't be upset when you are doubled. And for goodness sake don't redouble!

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