Bridge Is a Conversation is a guide to bridge fundamentals for players who already have an understanding of the basics of the game and the desire to improve their competitiveness at the bridge table. The goal is not to teach how bridge systems are built, nor to describe their content, but rather to clarify how to use them the way the best players in the world do and to offer an alternative to simply "playing by the book." You will find the game much more interesting, challenging, and enjoyable than you ever dreamed it could be. The principles in this book are valid regardless of the bidding system used. In sixty years of playing bridge, author Gerard Cohen has observed many games of bridge, and he brings that knowledge to this guide. His observations of how his partners, opponents, and others play that make them outstanding are key to the thoughts included here. He looked for patterns, drew conclusions and developed general concepts that those who haven't reached the top level yet can learn and apply for a chance at competing with the best. Take your bridge game to the next level with Bridge Is a Conversation.

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BRIDGE IS A CONVERSATION

PART I: THE AUCTIONBy Gerard Cohen

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright � 2011 Gerard Cohen
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-4505-1

Chapter 1: The Basic Principle of Bridge Conversation......................1Chapter 2: The Object of Conversations.....................................6Chapter 3: The Bridge Language Elements....................................8Chapter 4: Using Bridge Systems............................................13Chapter 5: Using Conventions...............................................16Chapter 6: Using Partnership Agreements....................................18Chapter 7: Format of a Conversation in Bridge..............................21Chapter 8: Components of Conversation......................................23Chapter 9: Starting the Auctions...........................................33Chapter 10: The Opening Statements.........................................36Chapter 11: The Responses to Opening Statements............................52Chapter 12: The Notion of Captainship......................................55Chapter 13: Pass by the Captain............................................57Chapter 14: Invitations by the Captain.....................................61Chapter 15: Answers to Captain's Invitations...............................69Chapter 16: Questions by the Captain.......................................73Chapter 17: Answers to Captain's Questions.................................80Chapter 18: Closing Statements by Captain..................................83Chapter 19: Integration of Artificial Bids in Auctions.....................88Chapter 20: Bidding Contracts Without Interference.........................97Chapter 21: Bidding Contracts with Interference............................102Chapter 22: Interfering with Contract Bidding..............................104Chapter 23: Guidelines for Questions by Captain............................107Chapter 24: Guidelines for Answers to Questions............................110Chapter 25: Organization of the Conversation...............................113Chapter 26: Recognizing the Nature of Bids.................................117Chapter 27: Integration of External Conventions............................121CONCLUSION.................................................................131

Chapter One

The Basic Principle of Bridge Conversation

When two people want to establish and maintain communication with each other, they use a language that both can understand and manipulate, such as English, Chinese, Hebrew, or body language.

Even "body language"? Yes! When I was at school and had an urgent need during a class, I had to raise my hand and wait for the teacher to respond to it. One single arm signal from him was enough to make me jump out of my seat and dash out of the classroom.

The interesting part of this short story is that the teacher was able to have two conversations at the same time, in two different languages. He conducted the class in French and communicated with me in body language, and neither of the conversations interrupted the other one.

Each one of these languages has vocabulary, grammar, and syntax—even body language.

We do the same thing when we play bridge. We may have a casual conversation with the other players around the table in English or Turkish or Japanese while simultaneously exchanging bridge information in the language of bridge. Bridge is a language, too!

The Vocabulary

In all spoken languages, the vocabulary consists of a collection of words used to describe a physical object, a concept, or a feeling (nouns); an action (verbs); or to describe or modify something (adjectives and adverbs). Other words do not have any specific meaning but are used as language hinges (articles and pronouns).

It is important to realize that each descriptive word in a vocabulary is only a sound, even when it is written down on paper. For instance, the word horse, in itself, does not have a meaning. Whoever invented the English language decided that horse would be the word associated with the four-legged animal that makes a funny noise when it tries to talk. That meaning has stuck, and today, anybody who speaks English knows what a horse is.

"To horse around," having "horse sense," and other expressions built on the word horse derive from the concept of horse.

This was a simple example. Some of the words in the vocabulary may have several different meanings altogether, depending on the context in which they are used. For instance, the word fan represents an object used to cool oneself off when the temperature is too high. When a performer gets on stage and his/her fans are in the audience, it can get hot. That's something else altogether.

The English language has the biggest vocabulary, with around 250,000 words; French, around 150,000; Spanish, 120,000, etc. A standard English dictionary commonly defines 50,000 of them, but few people actually recognize half of that number, and most do not use more than 5,000.

In highly sophisticated languages with a vast array of words, like English, most words have one or a limited number of different meanings. Therefore, each word is less dependant on the context in which it is used. In more compact languages, most words depend entirely on their context, as we will see later on when exploring the language of bridge, which vocabulary contains only forty words.

One does not need to know every single word in the English dictionary in order to communicate in that language. That would be a lifetime commitment, but in bridge, novices learn the complete list of bridge words right away.

In any language, vocabulary, grammar, and syntax are the tools that permit a structured and intelligible conversation.

The Grammar

The grammar is the set of rules that governs the classification of the words into language constituents, expressions, propositions, sentences, paragraphs, etc. The meaning of each language constituent is a function of the relative position of each word used.

In English, "to go around a horse" and "to go horse around" have different meanings because, in accordance to the grammar rules, the order in which the words are placed determines the class of each one. In our example, the word horse can be a noun or a verb, depending on its position relative to the other words in the sentence.

The English language is particularly notorious for the simplicity of its grammar. The English vocabulary is so extensive that grammar does not need to be very complex in order to express just about anything one might want to say. The game of bridge is just the opposite, with its very limited vocabulary; therefore, it needs a very complex grammar.

In bridge, auctions are language constituents, and each bid in the auction varies according to its position. This whole book reviews this in detail. Good bidders learn to arrange the words with sound grammar they learned from bridge writers like Culbertson, Goren, and others. These bridge writers all were, or are, masters at teaching it.

Experts use the same words, of course, but with advanced grammar. Some, like Edwin Kantar, Mike Lawrence, Max Hardy, and others, are excellent teachers of advanced grammar.

The Syntax

The syntax is the set of rules organizing the language constituents into sentences.

In English, "to go around a horse" is an acceptable syntax, while "around a horse to go" is not....

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