This blog is dedicated to the Kampala team, participating to the Intercity League tournament on BridgeBaseOnline.
First and foremost, thank you all for your availability to play as part of the Kampala Team in this edition of BBO InterCity League (ICL).
ICL is the BBO international online Team Championship established in 2004 by the late Tonči Radelja, a Croatian professor of mathematics who loved playing bridge and used it as a mean to make new friends.
The format is by round robin and knock-out stages. The teams are divided in groups; the best ones of each group (16 to 24 overall, depending on the number of participants), will forward to the knock-out stage.
The mandatory playing time is on Wednesday at 20:45-21:00 pm CET (GMT +1). In the round robin the matches will be by sixteen boards. In the final stage the matches will be by twenty-four boards. The default is barometer off, undo on (only for true misclick), and silent kibitzers; the barometer can be switched on occasionally.
In general, whatever system we’re playing, it must not be forgotten that the first requisite of a bidding system isn’t to get better contracts, but to make itself clear to opponents by concise and accurate alerts and plain Convention Card. If a system does fail to do this, it’s sure a wrong one, and no tourney in the World can allow it. In particular, systems which require the opponents to study them earlier, as High Unusual Methods (HUM) and Brown sticker, aren’t allowed. Also, systems with conventional one level openings by less than 11 HCPs or natural level one openings by less than 8HCPs are forbidden.
However, we should bear in mind that the following opening bids are permitted :
– Natural suit opening, that is 1C, 1D, 1H, 1S, in the range 8-10 HCPs by at least four cards in the named suit;
– Conventional Strong Club and its conventional responses and rebidding;
– 8-10 1NT opening (so called mini 1NT), with balanced hand;
– Psyche bids;
– Multi and other conventional two level openings.
The Kampala Team's School of Bridge 