The Stayman Convention in Bridge — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Thomas Carr
Katherin Hilson
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Sarah Terrill

The Stayman Convention in Bridge

Name: Noah Weiss
Department: Natural Science
Type of research: SURE
Funding: SURE

Name: Juan Sanchez
Major: Mathematics
Hometown: New Lenox, IL
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors: N/A
Type of research: SURE
Funding: SURE

Abstract

Contract bridge is a popular partnership trick-taking card game. The game consists of a bidding phase and a play-of-the-hand phase, both of which invite mathematical and statistical investigations. In the bidding phase of the game, only 38 phrases are allowed to be spoken, and each bid can have a different meaning in context. Partnerships of bridge players will come to agreements on meanings of bids in order to create a coded conversation.

A common conventional bid used in the game is the Stayman convention, and in our research, we created a computer program to deal hands and analyze the beginning of auctions according to common rules. Our statistical analysis showed that Stayman is indeed a valuable convention to use.

Poster file

Submit date: March 26, 2018, 3:58 p.m.