In this article, I’m going to cover some basic strategies and theories on Bidding and Promotion/Hand Development. The bidding portion can consist of many different things, such as Situational Bidding, Basic Bidding Conventions, or simply knowing how to bid what and when. When I say Bidding Conventions, this is a simple bidding agreement between you and your partner, in order to gain a possible advantage, or a “back-up procedure“. A basic Bidding Convention example that is often used is -1 +1, meaning first bidder underbids by one, and second bidder overbids/adjusts by 1, unless first bidder bids 1. The main, and pretty much only advantage to this is when your partner nils, thus giving you breathing room on your bid cover. A bidding convention that I made up a few years back, mainly revolves around a point that I try to make clear to everyone, that being that bidding 1 is a bad bad bid. Why, because it’s the lowest amount of points you can get, and you don’t have a nil? No, because this basically tells your partner you don’t have 1! My theory, or “bidding convention” (It’s not really a convention, but lets call it that for now), is when bidding second, and you get a hand delt that is a 1.5 (One trick and a possible other), bid 2, not 1. Once agreed upon, your partner will adjust to the bidding in last seat, and tells your partner more information on your hand. Biddings one, obviously, is terrible because its 1, but also because it gives your partner less info, while usually end up in the bids changing, and the hand being played differently. In addition, that basically brings up another Bidding Convention that a friend told me about, and so far is working well. There’s no name for it, but it is simply - Maximize bid in 1st/2nd seat, 3rd /4th seat Adjust to bids. This is pretty much the opposite as the first one, and of course you could get screwed if your partner has a 1 bid/potential nil, but it definitely has some advantages, and is a more “Aggressive” Convention than the others. The main advantage to this convention is bidding aggressive/more potential points and opening a little more information to your partner. A lot of these take time, and it’s just something for you to consider or try out, whichever might work for you the best. My suggestion is to play “robots” at a website you know of, or pay your kids to throw some cards for awhile and try them out. I promise you’ll see results, good or bad, but for the best in the end.