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MiniBridge Perhaps I should start without any bidding at all, with gateway game like Joe Golton suggested. I have found game MiniBridge - it is literarly "Bridge without bidding". There is a lot of READY material for MiniBridge - for example look at links on wiki, or at this booklet or interactive description.

Standard English Acol (pdf) is the system commonly used to teach beginners in the UK. Most bids are natural, it's got 4-card majors and strong 2 bids. To start with, you could ignore any conventions like Stayman or Blackwood and treat 2 clubs as a natural strong 2. These elements can be introduced at a later date. Getting up and running within 20 minutes is ...

A system is proper use of conventions. Genuine beginners don't need any conventions, so don't worry about what system to use. Just start with "If you have 13 points, bid your longest suit, or the stronger of 2 equal" and a few similar rules. (As Joe implied, use the weak or strong no-trump that is common in your area; neither is intrinsically more ...

2 sections to my answer: How to get up and running in 20 minutes Next steps to progress from the 20 minute version to solid Bridge beginner How to get up and running in 20 minutes It's simply not possible to play the full game of bridge itself after 20 minutes in a way that satisfies or even makes any sense. However, one can make use of a Gateway game ...

Play 4-card majors, with just Stayman and Blackwood as conventions, and jumps stronger than non-jumps. Any old books by Goren you can find at a used book store will serve as texts. When your players get a little better, show them Five Weeks to Winning Bridge by Sheinwold. Then let them loose. Alternatively, Edgar Kaplan's Bridge for Dummies is a good modern ...

It is a "sporting" rule as much as anything else. The opponents need to be given an opportunity to learn your bidding system. Some will take it, and some won't. But you can't have a situation where the opponents had "no chance" at understanding.

To address the second question - where would new bidding systems come from if all players were required to play the same system? How would one enforce that?

Imagine the opportunities for abuse. Without a disclosure rule, partners can make up any system they want and thereby communicate in illegal ways. There's really no difference to the other players between "qble and Monica's private bidding system that we won't disclose" and conducting the conversation in Swahili; either way it's obfuscating information ...

Definitely a reverse, say 15-16+ HCP + distributional values. Promises 5+ clubs. Can be a "waiting reverse" with only 3 diamonds to elicit more information from partner, with either 3 hearts or 6+ clubs. The point to a "waiting reverse" is when opener has multiple options for a non-ideal bid, and wishes to set the denomination after responder rebids. It ...

LHO has a hand with just too much defense for an opening 3S call. In particular, it probably has an outside Ace. Perhaps something like: AQJxxxx-x-Ax-xxx RHO's 2H call almost always shows 5 hears, unless a 2-over-1 must be bid first to show a limit raise in spades. This is confirmed by the diamond following bid. So RHO's hand looks something like this: ...

Overcalls have more offense and less defense than openers. Ironically, this means that your responses should be about the same for overcalls as for openers, for different reasons. Your partner's overcall shows about eight points as you said. Together with your six, that means 14 for your side and 26 points for your opponents. They probably have an eight ...

The book "Dummies Guide to Bridge" is a good modern introduction to the game. Starting with an explanation of the rules, it covers all aspects of play and bidding needed by beginners. The author, Eddie Kantar, is a former world champion and one of the most popular, and most respected, bridge writers of the 20th century. He writes with a light, slightly ...

Very few experts advocate, or use, the Rule of 20 as a primary guideline on bidding. Rather, it is used as a secondary measure to assist judgement on close calls, and to aid in discriminating between otherwise similar hands when making a call decision. The reason for this is that it is rather indiscriminate, and lacks the precision and accuracy of other ...

Yes! Never hide support and a smattering of points if it can be shown at the two level. Especially with 4-card support, any 4-4-3-2 hand with a couple of Q's is worth a raise to the 2 level. This is especially true in spades because of locking out the 2-level from the opponents. This gives partner a wealth of valuable information: Don't double on tricks ...

Typical advice is exactly the opposite. See: https://www.google.com/search?q=count+winners+losers+trump+notrump "In trump suit contracts, we count losers. (In notrump contracts, we count sure winners.)" This is a simplification, but with a trump suit you can often ruff when you cannot win tricks with high cards or set up intermediate or long suit winners. ...

In Notrump declarer typically must concede some tricks in order to set up length winners. The advice to count losers is a reminder to watch that setting up the ninth trick doesn't first concede the fifth defensive trick (assuming a 3NT contract; adjust for other levels). In a suit contract, declarer is more likely to be setting up tricks with ruffs, before ...

I am slightly more cautious than the average good duplicate player, but not much so. I only double when I can "see" where the defensive tricks for a two-trick plus set will come from. One obvious exception is aggressive part-score doubles at matchpoints when the opponents are vulnerable, and a +200 is usually tied for top. Update - To address the question ...

While I'd argue that you should always count both your winners and losers regardless of whether you have a trump, I think this advice stems from the reduced control you have over the game in a no trump bid. Since you have no trump suit that allows you to regain control, there is a greater ability for your opponents to exploit your losers. While personally, ...

A jump overcall is pre-emptive and generally shows the same values as a pre-emptive opening bid. So in this case 3S could show as little as 6 HCP with 7 spades.

1) Yes, there are systems that that open these ugly 11 counts (Repeat after me: Subtract a point for 4-3-3-3 distribution!), but they are (a) strong club systems that limit an opening bid to 15 or so HCP; (b) systems with a weak NT; or (c) systems with a strong club AND a weak NT. N.B. The average playing potential, in both NT and a suit contract, is almost ...

It's not completely a matter of the number of cards that you know as much as knowing the important features of the cards. For instance, it might be valuable to know that East holds one more small heart even if you don't need to know precisely which one it is. As Pieter Geerkens says, every card is potentially important, so it's definitely worthwhile to ...

Now that this is open again: Opposite a strong 1 NT, I bid 3D if it is natural, or I transfer to diamonds if that is available. If partner denies support for diamonds I bid 6D. If he shows support for diamonds I investigate 7D with what-ever methods are available to me. Consider where partner's 16 points are. An "unfortunate" hand from partner would be ...

You presume that standards have fallen, when in fact they have risen substantially. Bidding accuracy from the local club game to the highest levels is substantially higher than 50-60 years ago. You are comparing apples to oranges with your strong 1NT example. The modern 15-17 strong NT is all High-Card Points; Goren's 16-18 NT included distribution points ...

A complete history of scoring changes, coupled with the whys of those changes would be a complicated story. But those doubled contract penalty changes came about for a simple reason. A few pairs realized that preemptive bidding against slams was simply too much of a potential gain against slams, so the scoring change was implemented to prevent this. Compare ...

While I up-voted Pieter's answer, there are some additional points I might add. Different scoring methods can be crucially important to how you play the game of bridge. If you understand those differences, it might even make up a pure skill differential between two pairs. For example, if I compare IMPS versus matchpoints scoring, at IMPS scoring (thus teams ...

The best defense against being squeezed by declarer is for your partnership, you AND your partner, to be as knowledgeable in advanced card-play techniques (not just squeezes proper) as possible; and to have a complete count of the hand before declarer does.. Only by understanding which technique declarer is attempting, and the requirements declarer needs for ...

For the most part rubber bridge plays the same as IMPS, so let us instead distinguish between matchpoints on one side, and IMPS/Rubber on the other. The most important distinction is the basis for measuring risk and reward. As a general rule (see below for when this does not apply): In matchpoints, any play that stands to gain more often than not is ...

As Eric Murray famously said in the case of Crown vs St. Clair Bridge Club: "The game [rubber bridge] is only one of luck when played as the justices of the Ontario Superior Court play it in closed chambers." That is of course the same Eric Murray of the Canadian partnership Murray & Kehela that was widely ranked the third best in the world ...

Lead the ace of spades. Partner probably has the king for his overcall, or at minimum, JTxxx. By bidding the suit, partner says that he has it "covered," but would like to know what you have in it. So show him. "Lead partner's suit is the key here." In a suit contract, you should (usually) lead your aces before declarer can "sluff" off losers in the suit. ...

Acol and standard Goren are two well-known systems that use 4 card majors. A main reason for the popularity of five card majors at the present time is the popularity of IMP contests. Five card majors is superior for slam bidding, which is emphasized in IMPS, while four cad majors is superior at matchpoints. However the team games are the most prestigious ...

Declarer never needs to count all 52 cards, just like declarer never needs to make the contract. To be consistently successful declarer simply needs to be counting more cards than defenders are counting. Of course if the defenders are counting at least 26 each, declarer should be counting a full 52. There are two fundamental reasons why one must aspire to ...

Consider a few different scenarios: Partner overcalled 1S and contract is 3NT: Lead the spade A followed by the spade Q to unblock the suit. Presumably partner has 6 to the JT, and declarer just might be adventuring on a singleton K. Partner opened 1S and the contract is 3NT: Same reasoning, same lead. You opened and partner made a 1-over-1 bid of 1S, ...

There is a famous anecdote of Hans Kreijns (playing with Bob Slavenburg) overcalling Benito Garozzo's 4 Spades pre-empt with a 4 Spades overcall, on 4 to two top Honours, sometime in the 1960's. That's an overbid. Seriously, when I learned to play bridge in the early 1970's, overbidding was everywhere. Precision had just become famous, and everyone was ...