Acol is a bridge bidding system. It is the name of a road in Hampstead, London, where there was a bridge club in which the system started to evolve in the 1930s. It was popularised in Britain by Iain Macleod in his book "Bridge is an Easy Game", published in 1952. The Acol system is continually evolving but the underlying principle is to keep the bidding as natural as possible. It is common in the British Commonwealth but rarely played in America.
In bridge, a Golden Fit occurs when one partnership has at least eight cards in one suit. Often, a partnership having a golden fit in one suit will bid their contract in that suit; however, partnerships with golden fits in minor suits may prefer to play in no-trump, as they will earn more points for each trick and in some cases, can bid a more reliable game contract in no-trump than in the minor suit.
The Principle of restricted choice is used in bridge to guide a player (usually the declarer) into finding the best line of play in certain situations. It is closely tied to the Monty Hall problem.
The principle can be expressed in several different ways; one of them is:
When a defender freely plays an important card (over declarer's lead), assume that it had to be played rather than it was result of a particular choice; adjust the subsequent play accordingly.
In the game of contract bridge, a convention is an agreed-upon meaning for a call (a bid, double or redouble, or a pass) during the auction phase of the hand. Often, the inventor of the convention gives it a name; some widespread conventions got a name after their (perceived) authors.
Conventional opening leads and discards may also be used. The term, however, usually denotes just a bidding convention.
The card game auction bridge was developed from straight bridge and was a predecessor to contract bridge. Around the same time five hundred was created by the United States Playing Card Company in 1904.
