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Blackwood Convention
In the partnership card game contract bridge, the Blackwood convention is a bidding convention developed by Easley Blackwood in 1933 and still widely used in the modern game. Its purpose is to enable the partnership to explore its possession of aces, kings and in some variants, the queen of trumps to judge whether a slam would be a feasible contract. The essence of the convention is the use of an artificial 4NT bid made under certain conditions to ask partner how many aces he has; responses by partner are made in step-wise fashion to indicate the number held. Blackwood's original summary After developing the concept in 1933, Easley Blackwood submitted an article proposing his slam-seeking convention to '' The Bridge World'' magazine but it was rejected.Blackwood (1949), page 192. Nevertheless, it gained awareness and use amongst players and was written about by several authors. In his own first publication on the convention in 1949, Easley Blackwood comments on the entries in book ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerber Convention
Gerber is a contract bridge convention devised by William Konigsberger and Win Nye from Switzerland who published it in 1936; John Gerber of Texas introduced it to North America in 1938 where it was named after him. It is similar to Blackwood but uses 4 instead of 4NT as a relay (asking) bid to inquire about the number of aces held by partner. A further relay bid may follow to inquire about the number of kings held. Gerber is used primarily after notrump openings, responses, and rebids, making it a complement to Blackwood rather than a replacement. Some club players also use it after suit bidding, but most experts do not recommend this. Purpose Because bidding and making a slam or grand slam contract in bridge gains significant bonus scoring points, partnerships will strive to bid them whenever their combined card assets are deemed sufficient. Knowing the number of aces and kings jointly held is usually crucial to this decision and Gerber is one of several bridge conventions u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Card Game
A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card games played with traditional decks have formally standardized rules with international tournaments being held, but most are folk games whose rules vary by region, culture, and person. Traditional card games are played with a ''deck'' or ''pack'' of playing cards which are identical in size and shape. Each card has two sides, the ''face'' and the ''back''. Normally the backs of the cards are indistinguishable. The faces of the cards may all be unique, or there can be duplicates. The composition of a deck is known to each player. In some cases several decks are shuffled together to form a single ''pack'' or ''shoe''. Modern card games usually have bespoke decks, often with a vast amount of cards, and can include number or action cards. This ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeff Rubens
Jeff Rubens (born 1941) is an American bridge player, editor, and writer of books including ''Secrets of Winning Bridge'' and ''Expert Bridge Simplified''. He is best known for long association with ''The Bridge World'' monthly magazine, as co-editor under Edgar Kaplan from 1967 and as editor and publisher since Kaplan's death in 1997. Rubens is from Brooklyn, New York. Life Rubens attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City, where he was captain of the math team in 1957, the year he graduated. He has an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and a graduate degree from Brandeis University. He won seven North American championship events in the 1960s-70s, represented North America in the 1973 world championship, and "gave up competitive bridge for family reasons" soon after. Rubens is a retired professor of mathematics and computer science at Pace University in New York. Competition Rubens became an ACBL Life Master at 20 and won two North American championship eve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Cohen (bridge)
Ben Cohen (1907–1971) was an author, publisher, and distributor of contract bridge books and stationery supplies. He pioneered duplicate bridge in the UK in the early 1930s and helped develop the Acol bidding system in the mid-1930s. He and the young Terence Reese wrote the first, and for a long time the only, textbook of the Acol system, ''The Acol Two Club'' (1938). He also contributed to newspapers and journals in South Africa, India, and Japan as well as the UK. Cohen was from Hove. Cohen and Rhoda Barrow edited the European ''Bridge Players' Encyclopedia'', published 1967 and based on the American ''Official Encyclopedia of Bridge'' (1964). Publications *Cohen, Ben and Terence Reese. January, 1938. ''The Acol Two Club: with an introduction by S.J. Simon''. Leng, Sheffield. :• This was the first Acol textbook, its authors wisely disclaiming originality: "We do a job of reporting." It had a famous Preface, "Attitude of Mind" by Skid Simon. :• 2nd ed. revised and enlarged, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Mendelson
Paul A. Mendelson is an English television, film and radio scriptwriter. Early life and career He studied law at Cambridge University, where he gained a first class honours degree, after attending Newcastle Royal Grammar School, Glasgow High School and Harrow County Grammar. For a short time he ran the family law department of a small firm of city solicitors and then became an advertising copywriter for Ogilvy and Mather. Whilst working as creative director for a major London advertising agency, he began writing his first television series. Writing career Paul Mendelson's first hit television series was the BBC Comedy ''May to December'', which ran for 39 episodes, from 2 April 1989 to 27 May 1994 on BBC One and was nominated for BAFTA best comedy. It starred Anton Rodgers as a widower solicitor in love with a much younger woman. He then created and wrote the BBC series ''So Haunt Me'' about a family home haunted by the ghost of a Jewish mother, played by Miriam Karlin. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victor Gollancz Ltd
Victor Gollancz Ltd () was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century and continues to publish science fiction and fantasy titles as an imprint of Orion Publishing Group. Gollancz was founded in 1927 by Victor Gollancz, and specialised in the publication of high-quality literature, nonfiction, and popular fiction, including crime, detective, mystery, thriller, and science fiction. Upon Gollancz's death in 1967, ownership passed to his daughter, Livia, who in 1989 sold it to Houghton Mifflin. Three years later in October 1992, Houghton Mifflin sold Gollancz to the publishing house Cassell & Co. Cassell and its parent company Orion Publishing Group were acquired by Hachette in 1996, and in December 1998 the merged Orion/Cassell group turned Gollancz into its science fiction/fantasy imprint. Origins as a political house Gollancz was left-inclined in politics and a supporter of socialist movements. This is reflected in some of the call for the books he publis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ron Klinger
Ron Klinger (born 8 November 1941) is an Australian contract bridge player and a leading English-language bridge writer, the author of more than 70 books on the game. He is an Australian Grand Master and a World Bridge Federation International Master. Klinger was born in Shanghai, China, one month before the December 1941 completion of the Japanese occupation, and has lived in Sydney, Australia, since 1946. He was editor of ''Australian Bridge'' for thirteen years starting in 1972. He was also the bridge columnist for the Australian Women's Weekly and later, ''The Daily Telegraph'' and ''The Weekend Australian''. He currently writes a weekly bridge column for the Sydney Morning Herald and a weekly column for The Sun-Herald ''The Sun-Herald'' is an Australian newspaper published in tabloid or compact format on Sundays in Sydney by Nine Publishing. It is the Sunday counterpart of ''The Sydney Morning Herald''. In the 6 months to September 2005, ''The Sun-Herald'' .... He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slam-seeking Conventions
Slam-seeking conventions are codified artificial bids used in the card game contract bridge. Bidding and making a small slam (12 tricks) or grand slam (13 tricks) yields high bonuses ranging from 500 to 1500 points. However, the risk is also high as failure to fulfill the slam contract also means failure to score the bonus points for a game (300-500). Conventions have been devised to maximise the opportunity for success whilst minimising the risk of failure. Contract bridge bidding systems are mainly "natural" (most bids have an obvious meaning) or "artificial" (many bids have a meaning unrelated to the denomination mentioned). However, even natural systems such as Acol find occasional need to resort to artificial means called conventions. A very common type of conventional bid is of the slam-seeking variety to be used in situations when a small slam or a grand slam appears possible but more information is needed before the optimum contract can be determined. In order to make a sm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantitative No Trump Bids
In natural bidding systems most notrump (NT) bids are made with balanced hands and within a narrowly defined high card point (HCP) range. In these systems, such as Acol and Standard American, NT bids are limit bids and therefore are not forcing. Bearing in mind the need to bid only to the optimum contract and no higher, bids above game are made only in specific circumstances, one of which is to alert partner to the fact that a slam may be possible and inviting partner to take part in the decision making process. *Before looking at the detail, it is necessary to understand that bridge theory and practice suggest that the HCP method of hand evaluation, together with common sense concerning balance and cover in all suits, is the best for deciding the level of NT contracts, thus: **25+ HCP is sufficient for a game 3NT **33+ HCP should yield 12 tricks **37+ HCP will probably produce a grand slam *Assuming a weak NT bidding system, for example Acol Acol is the bridge bidding syste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Redwood
Sequoioideae, popularly known as redwoods, is a subfamily of coniferous trees within the family Cupressaceae. It includes the largest and tallest trees in the world. Description The three redwood subfamily genera are '' Sequoia'' from coastal California and Oregon, '' Sequoiadendron'' from California's Sierra Nevada, and ''Metasequoia'' in China. The redwood species contains the largest and tallest trees in the world. These trees can live for thousands of years. Threats include logging, fire suppression, climate change, illegal marijuana cultivation, and burl poaching. Only two of the genera, ''Sequoia'' and ''Sequoiadendron'', are known for massive trees. Trees of ''Metasequoia'', from the single living species '' Metasequoia glyptostroboides'', are much smaller. Taxonomy and evolution Multiple studies of both morphological and molecular characters have strongly supported the assertion that the Sequoioideae are monophyletic. Most modern phylogenies place ''Sequoia'' as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exclusion Blackwood
In the partnership card game contract bridge, the Blackwood convention is a bidding convention developed by Easley Blackwood in 1933 and still widely used in the modern game. Its purpose is to enable the partnership to explore its possession of aces, kings and in some variants, the queen of trumps to judge whether a slam would be a feasible contract. The essence of the convention is the use of an artificial 4NT bid made under certain conditions to ask partner how many aces he has; responses by partner are made in step-wise fashion to indicate the number held. Blackwood's original summary After developing the concept in 1933, Easley Blackwood submitted an article proposing his slam-seeking convention to '' The Bridge World'' magazine but it was rejected.Blackwood (1949), page 192. Nevertheless, it gained awareness and use amongst players and was written about by several authors. In his own first publication on the convention in 1949, Easley Blackwood comments on the entries in books ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cue Bid
In contract bridge, a cue bid (also, cuebid or cue-bid) is either a bid of the opponents' suit, or "slam seeking": a slam-investigating bid made during an auction's later rounds that shows control of a suit. Traditionally a cue bid is "slam seeking", but in the early 21st century the usage appears to be giving way to ''control bid''. Bid of the opponents' suit After the opponents have bid a suit, a cue bid of that suit is normally intended as a forcing bid. It shows interest in contesting the contract and asks partner to describe their hand. Immediate cue bid An immediate cue bid is made directly over opponent's opening bid. Traditionally, it denotes a hand unsuited for a takeout double. For example, after RHO opens 1, a hand such as would prefer not to double for takeout, because partner might make a penalty pass. A cue bid of 2, as traditionally used, would be appropriate: it tends to show great high card strength, probably with a hand pattern unsuited to defense. Partner i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
