The Boring Club (or in Dutch: Saaie klaver) is a

bidding system A bidding system in contract bridge is the set of agreements and understandings assigned to calls and sequences of calls used by a partnership, and includes a full description of the meaning of each treatment and convention. The purpose of bi ...

in the card game

contract bridge Contract bridge, or simply bridge, is a trick-taking game, trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck. In its basic format, it is played by four players in two Team game, competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each othe ...

, designed by Lucas Smid of the

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. In this system all

balanced In telecommunications and professional audio, a balanced line or balanced signal pair is an electrical circuit consisting of two conductors of the same type, both of which have equal impedances along their lengths, to ground, and to other c ...

('boring') hands, that in most natural systems would be opened 1NT or would be opened in a suit at one level with the plan to rebid 1NT or 2NT, must be opened with 1. The general idea behind this system is to get the information about the shape of the hand (balanced or unbalanced) across to partner in the first bid. The opening bids in boring club can be summarised as follows: *1: Balanced (12-18 hcp), no five card major *1: 4+, unbalanced (10-21 hcp) *1: 5+ (10-21 hcp) *1: 5+ (10-21 hcp) *1NT: 5+ (10+ hcp) *2: Balanced (19-22 hcp), may contain five card major *2: Multi (including 23+ NT and game forcing hands) *2:

Muiderberg convention Muiderberg is a bidding convention in the card game bridge. It is a two-level preemptive opening based on a two-suiter with precisely a five-card major and a minor suit (four-card or longer). In Muiderberg the 2 opening denotes five hearts and an un ...

*2:

*2NT: Two suiter in both minors with longer clubs (10-15 hcp)

The 1 opening

A boring club 1 opening shows 12-18 high card points in a balanced hand not containing a five card

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. This opening bid is non- forcing with transfer responses: 1 - ?? ::Pass: 4+, 0-6 hcp ::1: 4+, 7+ hcp ::1: 4+, 7+ hcp ::1: puppet, forces opener to rebid 1NT ::1NT: balanced, no four card major, 8-10 hcp ::2: 4+, no four card major, 10+ hcp ( Inverted minors) ::2: 5+, no four card major, 10+ hcp

The 1NT opening

In boring club, the unbalanced hands that in a natural system would have been opened 1, get opened with a forcing 1NT opening. The following responses apply: 1NT - ?? ::2: 0-10 hcp, not necessarily -support ::2: no five card major, 10+ hcp ::2: 5+, 10+ hcp ::2: 5+, 10+ hcp ::2NT: -fit, 10+ hcp ::3: -fit, weak (5-9 hcp)

The 1 opening

The 1NT opening

Further reading