[mikl_plkcc]

What treatments (and/or conventions) which remain commonplace in nowadays duplicate contract bridge have the root from the era of auction bridge?

[gnasher]

Apart from the concept of bidding suits where you have length, I'd be surprised if there were any bidding treatments or conventions in auction whist. The rules didn't lend themselves to a conventional auction, because your sole objective was to choose a trump suit at the lowest possible level.

Some cardplay conventions date from the whist era - standard attitude signals and fourth-best leads, I think.

[Zelandakh]

The one I know about for sure is Weak Twos since Chris Ryall mentions on his website that these have their origins in Auction Bridge.

[Siegmund]

There was a big flap about whether to allow conventions in the 1906-1912 timeframe, which ended with the takeout double (over a 1-level opening bid) becoming widely used.

"Weak" twos in Auction look more like 21st century 4M openings.The penalty for a set was, in relative terms, three times as expensive in Auction scoring as Contract. Basically all bids in Auction were to play, since there was no need to bid game or slam in order to get the scoring bonus - so there WILL be lots of equivalents of preempts and sacrificies -- much sounded that you are used to now -- and there WONT be many examples of fancy agreements about strength of bids.

There was a time in the early days of auction when dealer was REQUIRED to open, and usually did so artificially with the cheapest call available (1 non-royal spade, in those days).

Those who are curious about Auction are encouraged to flip through Milton Work's Auction of Today (1913), available as a free online book now since it is out of copyright, and keep your eyes peeled in used bookstores for David Daniels's The Golden Age of Contract Bridge which spends more than half its pages on the pre-Culbertson era and how contract developed from its predecessors.

Not a bidding or play treatment -- but Mitchell and Howell invented their duplicate movements in pre-contract days, too.

[mikl_plkcc]

I found that the gambling 2nt convention was mentioned in the book Auction of Today (1913) in page 27. And there was many conventions about the original cheap spade suit which scored only 2 per odd trick.

[rsteele]

mikl_plkcc, on 2012-July-08, 23:39, said:

What treatments (and/or conventions) which remain commonplace in nowadays duplicate contract bridge have the root from the era of auction bridge?

[rsteele]

Five Card Majors, Foster echos, most std leads, weak two bids, idea of preemptive bidding takeout(Mc Campbell) doubles. Rule of 11, though not a convention was common.

[Scarabin]

rsteele, on 2012-July-17, 12:05, said:

Five Card Majors, Foster echos, most std leads, weak two bids, idea of preemptive bidding takeout(Mc Campbell) doubles. Rule of 11, though not a convention was common.

I think the rule of 11 may date back to whist. I read this somewhere, a long time ago.

[barmar]

The Rule of 11 is just a mathematical observation. If there's a "treatment" involved, it's the agreement to lead 4th best.

[Scarabin]

Sorry. I should have said that I read somewhere that good whist players used the rule of eleven long before contract bridge was invented. The reference may have been fiction and I have a vague feeling it may be in one of the Hornblower books.

My 1964 Official Encyclopedia of Bridge says (of the rule of eleven): "The discovery of the rule is generally credited to R.F.Foster, and was published by him in his Whist Manual. First put in writing in a letter from Foster to a friend in 1890,......"