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Acol
Acol is the bridge bidding system that, according to The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge, is "standard in British tournament play and widely used in other parts of the world". It is a natural system using four-card majors and, most commonly, a weak no trump.
Acol is named after the Acol Bridge Club in London NW6, where it originated in the early 1930s. The club was founded on Acol Road, named after Acol, Kent. According to Terence Reese, the system's main devisers were Maurice Harrison-Gray, Jack Marx and S. J. "Skid" Simon. Marx wrote in the Contract Bridge Journal of December 1952, that "...the Acol system was pieced together by Skid Simon and myself the best part of 20 years ago." In another account, Marx and Simon...
progressively, infected and re-infected each other with the virus of the game. In interminable slow walks... they would wander round and round the quiet streets, endlessly discussing the refinements of the enthralling game. Out of these conversations—surely a strange gestation—was born Acol as we know it and play it to-day.
— Guy Ramsay, Aces All (1955), Museum Press Limited, London, p. 170.
The first book on the system was written by Ben Cohen and Terence Reese. Skid Simon explained the principles that lay behind the system, and the system was further popularised in Britain by Iain Macleod. 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 North America.
Ely Culbertson and his partner Teddy Lightner had visited the Acol Bridge Club in 1934, after which members S.J. Simon and Jack Marx became interested in bridge bidding theory. Simon and Marx soon afterwards began a discussion that eventually led to the first version of the Acol system.
As a bidding system, Acol has the following characteristics:
Acol is an unregulated system. There is no Acol governing body and no single publication containing the "official" Acol (unlike, for example, Standard American Yellow Card). It can be compared to a living language since it is liable to change at the whim of users. The main versions of Acol in use today are:
Hub AI
Acol AI simulator
(@Acol_simulator)
Acol
Acol is the bridge bidding system that, according to The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge, is "standard in British tournament play and widely used in other parts of the world". It is a natural system using four-card majors and, most commonly, a weak no trump.
Acol is named after the Acol Bridge Club in London NW6, where it originated in the early 1930s. The club was founded on Acol Road, named after Acol, Kent. According to Terence Reese, the system's main devisers were Maurice Harrison-Gray, Jack Marx and S. J. "Skid" Simon. Marx wrote in the Contract Bridge Journal of December 1952, that "...the Acol system was pieced together by Skid Simon and myself the best part of 20 years ago." In another account, Marx and Simon...
progressively, infected and re-infected each other with the virus of the game. In interminable slow walks... they would wander round and round the quiet streets, endlessly discussing the refinements of the enthralling game. Out of these conversations—surely a strange gestation—was born Acol as we know it and play it to-day.
— Guy Ramsay, Aces All (1955), Museum Press Limited, London, p. 170.
The first book on the system was written by Ben Cohen and Terence Reese. Skid Simon explained the principles that lay behind the system, and the system was further popularised in Britain by Iain Macleod. 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 North America.
Ely Culbertson and his partner Teddy Lightner had visited the Acol Bridge Club in 1934, after which members S.J. Simon and Jack Marx became interested in bridge bidding theory. Simon and Marx soon afterwards began a discussion that eventually led to the first version of the Acol system.
As a bidding system, Acol has the following characteristics:
Acol is an unregulated system. There is no Acol governing body and no single publication containing the "official" Acol (unlike, for example, Standard American Yellow Card). It can be compared to a living language since it is liable to change at the whim of users. The main versions of Acol in use today are: