In response to members asking me questions, I thought that I would try and summarise a few points about "simpler" bidding systems. What I write is only touching on the subject, because you must bear in mind that there are 22 pages on permitted conventions & bidding in the official EBU booklet!! For any member who is not aware, let me say that you cannot make up your own bids - all bids & conventions have to be licensed by the EBU.

There are 5 levels created by the EBU. The only ones of specific interest at normal club level are :

Level 1 which is the simplest of all and

Level 2 which has many additional conventions & bidding agreements.

The 5 Levels are explained in detail in a booklet from the EBU, called the Orange book.

I would make a guess & say that over 95% of our own Club members use only Level 1.

Clubs may make their own arrangements & at our Club, we allow Level 1 and Level 2. In addition, we allow the Multi-2 Diamond opener, which is featured in Level 3.

When I write a memo or short article which involves bidding conventions, I have to be careful because the average player at our Club will not be aware of many of the permitted conventions etc at Level 2 and the information I give could be confusing. Therefore, I always keep to Level 1.

The opening 1NT is a point in question. At Level 1, this is limited to a 3 point range between 12 & 18 Honour points (HPs). IT has to be a natural no-trump bid, which means the hand is balanced or semi-balanced (no void or singleton or two doubletons). Virtually everyone in our Club plays this and uses a range from 12 to 14, or from 15 to 17. Having said this, let me make it clear that you may open 1NT on 8 HPs and a void ! This is, of course, a psyche & is perfectly legal (see my memo on psyches). You may also open 1NT with 11 HPs and now it is a Deviation, and quite legal. Confusing? Well, it probably is, but this is how the English governing body (the EBU) and the World governing body lay it out.

The opening 1NT at Level 2 is a quite different animal to that at Level 1. It must still be a natural no-trump but it may have any defined range you wish (eg. you could choose to have from 10 to 17 HPs), with a minimum of 10 HPs, & it cannot be a forcing bid. You are even permitted to open 1NT on a minimum of 8 HPs, but with 8 or 9 HPs you are not allowed to play any conventional calls thereafter.

Needless to say, when you play this opening 1NT at Level 2 it must be on your convention card &, at our Club, you would need to alert the bid. Confusing? Again it probably is; especially if you only play simple systems.

There are no fewer than 10 pages in the Orange book dealing with permitted conventions and bidding at Level 2 !! All I can say in conclusion is that if you only play at local clubs (like ours) & not in County events etc, you will hardly ever come across anything that is not in Level 1.

To put this in context, I would venture to state that virtually none of the content of the above memo is of interest to our Tuesday and Wednesday players and that only a little of it is of interest to most of our Monday and Thursday players. Nevertheless, it is all part of the framework of Bridge.

Peter Dawson (May 2001)