Convention Cards

Overview

According to the rules of bridge, your opponents are entitled to know about any bidding and defensive carding agreements that you and your partner make. Convention Cards are used, both on BridgeBase and in "real life" duplicate bridge clubs and tournaments, as the primary mechanism for disclosing your partnership's agreement to the opponents.

The Convention Card dialog box (accessible under the heading My BBO and from the My BBO button on the top BridgeBase task bar), presents two lists of Convention Cards. The list on the left, My Convention Cards, will contain a list of Convention Cards that you create. Of course this list will be empty until you actually create a Convention Card!

The list on the right, Stock Convention Cards, contains list of sample Convention Cards provided by BridgeBase that represent various popular bidding systems. When you create a Convention Card on BridgeBase, you have the option of associating that Convention Card with a particular partner. In the future, when you play with that partner, BridgeBase will automatically load the appropriate Convention Card for your partnership.

If you and your partner subsequently make changes to your bidding system, either one of you will be able to use the Convention Card dialog to edit your partnership's Convention Card according. For those of your Convention Cards that are associated with a partner, your partner's BridgeBase User ID will appear in the Partner column of the My Convention Cards list.

You can also create Convention Cards for your own private use that are not associated with any particular partner. You can designate exactly one of these Convention Cards as your Favorite Convention Card. Your Favorite Convention Card will always appear as the first item in the My Convention Cards List.

You can look at the Favorite Convention Card of any BridgeBase member by displaying a User Profile popup for that user and then clicking the Favorite CC button at the bottom of that popup. Of course it will also be the case that, if you establish your own Favorite Convention Card, that other BridgeBase members will be able to see it. This is a good thing as it will help your new or potential partners become more familiar with your bidding preferences!

Editing or Modifying Your Card

Each Convention Card in each list has a Show button associated with it. Click the appropriate Show button in order to display and/or modify one of the Convention Cards that is listed. The New CC button at the top of the Convention Card dialog box can be used to create a new Convention Card from scratch. Once a Convention Card has been displayed the following buttons at the top of the Convention Card dialog box become active:

- List CCs
Returns to the screen that displays the two lists of Convention Cards

- Delete CC
Deletes the Convention Card that is being displayed. You will be asked to confirm that you really want to delete the Convention Card in question. If you answer "yes", that Convention Card will be deleted and you will be returned to the screen that displays the two lists of Convention Cards.
You can also delete any of the Convention Cards in the My Convention Cards list via the associated Delete button in that list.
Note that you cannot delete a Stock Convention Card - Stock Convention Cards belong to all BridgeBase members!

- Save changes
This button will become enabled only if you make changes to the Convention Card that is being displayed. Saving the Convention Cards that you create or modify is important! If you don't save your Convention Cards then your work will be lost and you will have to create another new Convention Card the next time that you play!

When you save a Convention Card the three important controls above the Convention Card itself come into play:

1) My Favorite: If an X appears in the gray square then the Convention Card that you save will become established as Your Favorite Convention Card. You can add or remove an the X from this square by clicking on it before you save your Convention Card.

2) Partner: If you want to associate the Convention Card that is being displayed with a given partner, enter that BridgeBase member's user ID in the empty space.

3) Title: You can enter a name in this space that will help you to remember what the Convention Card you are displaying is all about. The My Convention Cards list will display the title of your Convention Cards in one of its columns.

In addition to this information, when you save a Convention Card on BridgeBase, the information that you type into the fifteen editable areas is also saved. You can use !S, !H, !D, or !C in these areas to create spade, heart, diamond, or club symbols (which will only appear to another BridgeBase member who is looking at the Convention Card in question).

Who needs one? When to use One?

BridgeBase has members from over 100 different countries. What constitutes "standard bidding", the format of Convention Cards, and the accepted method of filling out a Convention Card, varies widely from place to place. As a result BridgeBase has intentionally avoided making any official "rules" as to the specifics of how a Convention Card should be filled out.In fact, in most parts of BridgeBase it is not necessary to use a Convention Card at all! We recognize that one of the nice things about online bridge is that it presents the opportunity to get a game together quickly and play only a few hands. For some members the time involved to properly fill out a Convention Card with a pickup partner is not worth the effort.

Established partnerships really should fill out a Convention Card, not only as a courtesy to the opponents but because doing so will also help them to remember their agreements! However, in most areas of BridgeBase even regular partnerships are under no obligation to fill out a Convention Card.

Regardless of whether or not they fill out a Convention Card, each partnership still has an obligation to inform their opponents of their agreements. If a given partnership doesn't want to use a Convention Card for this purpose, it is appropriate to keep the opponents informed via alternative mechanisms like alert and explaining their bids (or by using chat).

Here are some general guidelines for filling out Convention Cards:

- Keep it brief. The Convention Card is meant to be a general summary of your most important partnership agreements. You should not attempt to list ALL of the agreements or conventions that your partnership has!

- Remember that the purpose of the Convention Cards is to help your opponents to understand how you and your partner play bridge. Tell them what you think they would want to know. Definitely don't hide things that you don't want them to know - that would be against the rules of bridge!

- Even if all of the bridge players you know use weak 2D, 2H, and 2S openings (for example), it may well be the case that your opponents come from various parts of the world where weak 2s are far from "standard". Don't omit important information from your Convention Card even if this information is "obvious" to you - it may not be obvious to your opponents!

- Put some effort into describing your partnership's defensive signaling agreements. If you discard a high card is it encouraging or discouraging? Does high-low show an even or an odd number of cards? What do you lead from Ace-King against suit contracts. You may find it surprising, but the "normal" answers to these sorts of important questions vary widely from country to country.

Other notes on Convention Cards on BridgeBase:

- When you sit down to play with a partner in a Bridge Club on BridgeBase or when you register to play in a tournament with a partner, BridgeBase will see if your partnership has already established a Convention Card. If it has then you will be notified and BridgeBase will use the appropriate Convention Card for your partnership once play starts.

- Either you or your partner in question can clear your partnership's Convention Card by deleting it (through various mechanisms in the Convention Card dialog).

- When you are playing or watching a table, the NS CC and EW CC buttons at the bottom of the table can be used to display the respective convention cards for North-South and East-West. If you are a player at a table, you can use the appropriate one of these buttons to select, view, modify, or delete your partnership's Convention Card.

- After you register to play in a pairs tournament but before that tournament starts, a button will appear at the top of the registration screen for that tournament that is labled either "Show Convention Card" or "Set Convention Card" depending on whether or not you and your partner for the tournament have already established a Convention Card

- Older versions of the BridgeBase software used a program named Full Disclosure (or FD) to present certain Convention Cards. The version of BridgeBase you are using allows FD Convention Cards to be displayed, but not in the Convention Card dialog box as you would expect. Instead, the Convention Card dialog will contain a notice that it is unable to display FD Convention Cards. The FD Convention Card in question will be displayed in a separate window. FD is considered an advanced application. We suggest you stay away from it unless you have strong computer skills, serious interest in bidding systems, and a lot of time on your hands!