From: henk@pdsf.ssc.gov (Henk Uijterwaal)
Subject: Re: Help a beginner
Organization: Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 23:48:12 GMT

Harris Roth writes:
+> I have been to a bridge club a couple of times.  Most of my bridge playing
+> has been rubber bridge with friends.  Please help me to understand the
+> following.  Why is it that each team must disclose their bidding conventions?

I guess 'team' means 'pair'?

Bidding basically involves two things:

a) Determine the best contract for your side (by 'best' I mean the contract that
   will gain the most/lose the least amount of points on average, on this deal 
   for your side).
b) Keep the opponents from finding the best contract for their side. 

To accomplish (a) and (b), both players may exchange information about their
hands using a (very limited) language (1 thru 7, the 4 suits, NT, Pass, Double
and Redouble). However, the players are allowed to assign any meaning to these
bids in order to find the best contract as often as possible. 

In the early days of bridge all bids were natural ('n of a suit' only said that
you expected to make 'n' tricks with 'suit' as trumps). However, as the game
evolved, players found out that was often helpful to assign 'conventional'
meanings to a bid. ('n of a suit' became something special). Nowadays, everybody,
even beginners, uses conventional bids.

Now suppose that a pair did not have to disclose their conventions to the 
opponents. The game is then immediately reduced from an intellegent pastime to
complete guesswork. The first guy opens something and the next guy can only
guess what he has: the suit bid, the suit above or below the suit bid, just
a lot of points. It has become completely impossible to determine the best
contract for your side.

It's like playing chess but with using a dice to determine the movement of the 
pieces: Perhaps 5 year olds in kindergarten like it, but its not an intellegent
pastime anymore.

Now, you might argue that conventional bids should be forbidden but we have
already had that discussion in the 1930's. I doubt if anybody is willing to 
give up all conventional bids as of today.

+> If the game is truly competitive, why must opponents be told what a bid
+> means?

Otherwise its not competitive anymore but just something to waste your time.

+> From the articles that I read here, I get the impression that good
+> players will know what the opponents have in their hands from the bidding.

Anybody can draw conclusions from bidding and play since everybody has the 
same information about the opponents cards. It's just that the better
players will draw the correct conclusions more often. 
 
+> Please don't flame.  I truly am perplexed as to why a partnership must 
+> disclose their strategy for winning.  Maybe my poker mentality prevents
+> me from knowing the reason.

If you don't understand it now, stick to poker.

Henk.
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