How to Use These 25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know Without Getting Lost

Bridge is a game of whispers. You aren’t allowed to kick your partner under the table or wink when you have an Ace, so you use bids instead. But the standard bids? They're often not enough. If you’ve ever sat at a club game and watched a pair breeze into a slam while you’re stuck in a messy 3-partscore, you know exactly why 25 bridge conventions you should know can change your entire night.

Most people think learning conventions is about memorizing a textbook. It’s not. It’s about building a language. If you and your partner aren't speaking the same dialect, you’re basically just shouting in the dark.

The Foundation: Why Most Pairs Mess Up Stayman and Transfers

Let’s start with the basics, because honestly, even experts trip over these when they’re tired. Stayman is the granddaddy of them all. You bid 2C over a 1NT opening to find a 4-4 major suit fit. Simple, right? Well, sort of. The real trick is knowing when not to use it. If you’re 4-3-3-3 with a flat hand, sometimes playing in NT is actually better than playing in a suit.

Then you have Jacoby Transfers. You bid the suit below the one you actually have. Why? To make the strong hand (the 1NT opener) the declarer. This keeps the lead coming into the tenaces, protecting the Kings and Queens from getting chopped off on the opening lead.

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But what happens when the opponents interfere?
That’s where Lebensohl comes in. It’s a bit of a beast to learn—using a 2NT relay to distinguish between competitive bids and forcing ones—but without it, you're basically guessing every time the person to your right overcalls 2-something.

Beyond the Basics: Handling the Big Hands

When you’ve got a massive hand, you need more than just "hope" to find the right level. Blackwood is the famous one, but the vanilla version is pretty much dead in competitive circles. Most serious players use Roman Keycard Blackwood (RKCB). Instead of just asking for Aces, you’re asking for the four Aces plus the King of trump.

The responses (0314 or 1430) tell you exactly how many of those five "keycards" your partner holds. If you use 1430:

1. 5C shows 1 or 4 keycards.
2. 5D shows 0 or 3.
3. 5H shows 2 without the Queen of trump.
4. 5S shows 2 with the Queen.

It’s precise. It’s clinical. It stops you from bidding a slam when you're missing two keycards, which is a fast way to lose friends at the bridge table.

The 25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know for Competitive Bidding

Bridge isn't played in a vacuum. People will bid over you. They will be annoying. To fight back, you need tools like Negative Doubles. If your partner opens 1D and the opponent overcalls 1S, a double by you isn't for penalty. It says, "Hey, I’ve got the other suits, specifically the unbid hearts."

Michaels Cuebids and Unusual 2NT are your weapons for showing two-suited hands in one go. If the opponent opens 1H and you bid 2H, you’re showing spades and a minor. It puts the pressure back on them immediately.

Then there’s Drury. This one is a lifesaver for those who play with partners who like to open light in third seat. If your partner opens 1H in third seat and you bid 2C, you’re asking, "Did you actually have a real opening hand, or were you just messing around because you were in third seat?" If they jump back to 2H, they were light. If they bid anything else, they’ve got the goods.

The Nuance of Support and Shape

We often forget about the Support Double. This is a tiny, nuanced convention used by the opener to show exactly three-card support for the responder's suit. It’s vital because it distinguishes between a 3-card fit and a 4-card fit before the bidding gets too high.

1. Splinters: A jump shift that shows a singleton or void and a huge fit for partner. It’s like a flashing neon sign saying "Slam is possible!"
2. Jacoby 2NT: A game-forcing raise of a major suit. It’s powerful because it keeps the bidding low while you look for side-suit shortness.
3. Bergen Raises: Using 3C and 3D to show different strengths of 4-card support. Marty Bergen changed the game with this, emphasizing the "Law of Total Tricks."

Defense and Specialized Tools

You spend half the game defending, so you better have conventions for that too. Cappelletti (or Hamilton) is a popular way to overcall their 1NT.

• 2C shows a long single suit.
• 2D shows both majors.
• 2H shows hearts and a minor.

It’s about being disruptive.

If you’re looking for more obscure but helpful tools, consider New Minor Forcing. After a 1NT rebid by the opener, bidding the "new" minor (the one not yet bid) is a way to ask about major suit length. It's the only way to find a 5-3 fit in a major after the auction starts 1D - 1S - 1NT.

Then we have Fourth Suit Forcing. If three suits have been bid, bidding the fourth one is almost never natural. It’s a loud shout of "I don't know where we're going yet, but don't pass!" Usually, it’s looking for a stopper for No Trump.

The "Must-Haves" for Serious Play

Don't ignore Texas Transfers. While Jacoby works at the 2-level, Texas jumps straight to the 4-level. If your partner opens 1NT and you have a six-card heart suit and enough for game, you bid 4D. Partner bids 4H. Easy. It keeps the strong hand hidden, just like Jacoby, but it gets you to game fast so the opponents don't have room to find a sacrifice.

Weak Two Bids aren't technically a convention by some definitions, but the way you respond to them is. Most people use 2NT as an inquiry (Ogust or Feature). Ogust is probably more common—it asks partner to describe their hand as "weak/good suit" or "strong/bad suit."

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1. Smolen: For when you are 5-4 in the majors after a 1NT opening.
2. Puppet Stayman: Used over a 2NT opening to find 5-card or 4-card majors.
3. Inverted Minors: Where a raise of a minor is strong and a jump is weak. Counter-intuitive, but highly effective for staying low with bad hands.
4. Western Cue: Bidding the opponent's suit to ask for a stopper.
5. Help Suit Game Tries: Asking partner if they have "help" (an Honor or a singleton) in a specific suit to help make game.

The Reality of Convention Cards

You can’t just throw these into a game without talking to your partner. Believe me, I’ve tried. It ends in a 200-point penalty and a very quiet drive home.

The ACBL (American Contract Bridge League) has specific rules about what you can and can't play in certain flights. Beginners often fall into the trap of adding too many conventions too fast. They focus on the gadgets rather than the card play. You have to remember: no convention will save you if you can't count to thirteen or remember which trump are out.

Nuance matters. For example, some people play Jordan 2NT (also called Truscott) over a double, while others use it differently. Clarity is king.

Putting the 25 Bridge Conventions into Practice

If you're looking to actually improve, don't try to learn all 25 of these in a weekend. Pick one. Play it for a month. See how often it actually comes up. You'll find that Negative Doubles come up every three hands, while something like Grand Slam Force might come up once a year. Prioritize the high-frequency stuff.

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Actionable Steps for Your Next Session

• Audit your system: Sit down with your partner and a blank Convention Card. Actually read the back of it. Most people haven't.
• Focus on the 1NT structure: This is where most points are won or lost. Make sure your Stayman, Transfers, and Lebensohl are rock solid.
• Discuss "After the Double": Competitive bidding is where modern bridge is won. Decide now what a jump to 2NT means after an opponent doubles your partner's 1S opening.
• Keep a "Disaster Diary": When a convention goes wrong, write it down. Was it a memory failure, or did the situation not actually fit the rules of the convention?
• Limit your gadgets: If you have to think for more than five seconds about what a bid means, you probably haven't practiced it enough to use it in a tournament.

Bridge is a game of logic, but it’s also a game of partnership. The best conventions aren't the most complex ones; they're the ones that both you and your partner actually remember at 10 PM on a Tuesday night. Start with the "big" ones like RKCB and Negative Doubles, and only add the "fringe" stuff like Smolen or DONT once the foundation is bulletproof.