The glossary defines most of the basic bridge terms but it does not yet define all of the terms that you might encounter in your bridge career.

The following course will be offered this spring. It will meet for eight Wednesdays starting on March 14 and ending on May 2 from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon in the Lakes Multipurpose Room.

• BEGINNING BRIDGE - SPRING 2018
  Starting with a deck that contains 52 cards arranged into four suits, this course covers bridge fundamentals with emphasis on basic bidding conversations. It is designed for those that are new to bridge or are returning to the game after a long absence. Topics include rules of the game, bidding systems, hand evaluation, opening bid guidelines, response bid guidelines, bidding conversations, basic declarer play, and basic defender play.

The following are links to documents for bridge courses that were taught at the Willow Valley Retirement Communities in Lancaster, PA:

• MINI BRIDGE - WINTER 2016
  MiniBridge is a simplified version of the game of Contract Bridge. It is designed to expose newcomers to the play of the hand without the burden of learning a detailed bridge bidding system. This course is an ideal introduction for those who would like to learn how to play Contract Bridge. Everything learned in MiniBridge is relevant to Contract Bridge.

• BEGINNING BRIDGE - SPRING 2016
  Starting with a deck that contains 52 cards arranged into four suits, this course covers bridge fundamentals with emphasis on basic bidding conversations. It is designed for those that are new to bridge or are returning to the game after a long absence. Topics include rules of the game, bidding systems, hand evaluation, opening bid guidelines, response bid guidelines, bidding conversations, basic declarer play, and basic defender play.

• BIDDING CONVERSATIONS - FALL 2016
  How do you describe a hand with only a few points and a long suit? What do you do with a hand that has lots of points? How do you respond to partner's weak or strong opening bid? This course will cover bidding conversations that allow a partnership to answer these questions.

• DEFENDER PLAY - SPRING 2017
  Your partnership will be the defenders for about half of all of the bridge hands that you play. This course covers defensive bidding, opening leads, defensive signals and various strategies and techniques to help you improve your defender play.

• DECLARER PLAY - FALL 2017
  Your partnership has won the contract and you are the declarer. Now what do you do? This course will use many examples and table play to illustrate strategies that you can use to make the contract. Topics include defensive strategies, planning the offense, counting winners, promoting high cards, developing long suits, finessing opponents high cards, counting losers, ruffing losers, discarding losers and managing trump.

• 2 OVER 1 GAME FORCE - WINTER 2014
  Two-Over-One Game Force is a variation of the American Standard Bidding System which can simplify the bidding auction in many situations. The course covers 2-over-1 basics and illustrates the differences between 2-over-1 and standard bidding. It also illustrates 2-over-1 bidding conversations using numerous examples and table play.

The following documents abstract the bidding system that is taught in the Beginning Bridge and Bidding Conversation Courses. This system is used for all of the examples and board plan descriptions in all of the core courses.

• BIDDING SYSTEM SUMMARY (LAST REVISED ON SEPTEMBER 9, 2017)
  This document contains the collection of bidding tables that describe natural responses to opening bids and the various conventions that are taught in the core courses. It also contains a copy of the duplicate convention card for the bidding system.

• CONVENTION CARD (Can be Edited) (LAST REVISED ON SEPTEMBER 9, 2017)
  This document is an ACBL convention card for the bidding system that can be downloaded and then modified in the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

The cheat sheets are patterned after Audrey Grant's  Bridge at a Glance 

• BEGINNING BRIDGE CHEAT SHEET (LAST REVISED ON MARCH 16, 2018)
  A foldover pocket "cheat sheet" that summarizes the subset of the bidding system that we teach in the BEGINNING BRIDGE COURSE. The bids are a subset of the bids in the BASIC BIDDING CHEAT SHEET. This cheat sheet also contains a summary of opening leads and the play of the hand.

• BASIC BIDDING CHEAT SHEET (LAST REVISED ON NOVEMBER 4, 2016)
  A foldover pocket "cheat sheet" that summarizes the basic bidding system that we teach in the core courses.

• DECLARER PLAY CHEAT SHEET (LAST REVISED ON AUGUST 27, 2015)
  A foldover pocket "cheat sheet" that summarizes how to play a hand, how to finesse, defender's opening leads, and defensive signals.

• HIGH CARD POINT STATISTICS
  This document presents tables that show the distribution of high card points in bridge hands. These tables were generated by a computer program that simulates shuffling and dealing a deck of cards into four hands.

• OPENING BID STATISTICS
  This document presents tables that show the distribution of opening bids based on the point counts and bidding parameters that are taught by Walter Moreau in his bridge classes.