Bridge: Acol

Bridge: The UK Acol bidding style

This guide to the Acol style of bidding is meant to reflect what one might expect sitting down with a pickup partner and agreeing to play 'Acol' or 'Benjaminised Acol'.

Carding agreements are not part of the system, but tend to default to 4th highest, K from KQ, HELD and McKenney/Lavinthal signals.

Acol summary

Responding to
one of a Suit

Rebids

Weak No Trump

Opening 2 level:
- Standard Acol
- Benjamin style

Preempting

Slam Bidding

Competitive
auctions

Play conventions

Important
agreements

Play conventions

Carding styles are not really part of Acol. They vary quite a lot, but "undiscussed" with a UK or "Acol" partner the following assumptions should be reasonably safe.

4th highest leads
Having supported partner - low from Hxx, top from xxx
King from KQxx etcetera
Jack from KJ10x etcetera
Ace against NT asks for unblock or count
High to encourage (or even), low discourage (or odd)
Low card retrun from 4, middle from 3
Low card through in a new suit suggests a return of that suit
Lavinthal (also known as McKenny) suit preference signals

All of these are subject to variation, fancy, partnership discussion, experience etcetera.

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