Fundamentals of Constructive Bidding
During the auction, you and your partner determine how many tricks to play for, and which suit to play in, if any. Bidding is an expressive language for transmitting, receiving, and concealing information.
The process of finding the right contract resembles trying to find a pin on the floor of a large room. If you try to do it by brute force, starting in one corner and scanning every square millimeter despite any furniture, rugs, and dirt that might be in the way, your chances for success will be much lower than if you devise a systematic method, such as applying different forms of search to bare tile and carpet, trying different angles and wavelengths of light, or changing your own angle of view.
Just as with finding the pin, a systematic method of bidding brings a perplexing and difficult problem into the realm of manageability.
The bidding system is Basic 21, so called because it's easy to learn and apply, and because it works well in today's game.
Traditional bidding systems from the early 20th century are very difficult to learn and apply, because they require players to make a judgment at each bid. The later "modern" systems require you to play a huge number of bids which don't mean at all what they seem to, conventions, and deliver the partnership to its destination by an automated process. If the traditional systems require judgement at every bid, the modern systems completely remove it.
Basic 21 has fixed requirements for each player's first two bids, removing the guesswork of trying to decide how to begin. It then allows each player to excercise judgement in the later auction, if the need arises.
