The madness began in 1957 when Sonny Moyse, then editor of The Bridge World, in his own fit of madness, published a three-part article called "American Acol" by a young upstart whose main claim to bridge fame was that he rarely revoked. The madness subsided for a quarter-century, but reappeared in 1981 with the publication in 3-D and the MAFIA Club of a few novel uses of transfer bids in competitive auctions. Now, nearly another quarter-century later, a few of those 3-D ideas have been adopted by occasional experts trying to compete with the exotic systems employed by foreign teams unhampered by the ACBL's restrictive system regulations.

The latest manifestation of the madness began with a simple question. Would there be any advantage in using conditional transfer bids (one of the better 3-D ideas) in response to an opening suit bid at the one-level? Like most bidding theorists, my reaction to such a question was to try out the idea on the hands from the latest Challenge the Champs (CTC) series in The Bridge World. It is not hard, of course, to obtain a good score in CTC when the same person is bidding both hands, so the good score (94 out of 100) is remarkable mainly because, aside from a keycard-asking convention and splinter bids, no other supporting conventions were used -- no limit raises, negative doubles, new minor forcing, support doubles, or other impedimenta associated with modern American bidding.

The Bridge World has always been a useful source for bidding theorists, and I am grateful for the gracious permission of the current editor, Jeff Rubens, to reproduce the results of that initial test here. Any serious bridge player who has not yet experienced The Bridge World should subscribe immediately.

The encouraging results of the initial test discussed above have prompted further research along these lines with the ultimate goal of producing the elusive "perfect" bidding system that, by my definition, would combine simplicity, flexibility, and accuracy regardless of the systems employed by the opponents. That research led to the development of a new system, UTRopia, that corrects the major theoretical deficiencies of modern American bidding while eliminating much of its complexity (such as negative doubles, support doubles, Drury, New Minor Forcing, etc.).

UTRopia combines the same Universal Transfer Responses structure (UTR) used in The Initial Test with three new structures resulting from my current research. The following table gives a brief description of each of these structures.

UTRopia. The Search for the Perfect Bidding System
Universal Transfer Responses (UTR)	Using 5-Suit Conditonal Transfer Responses to opening bids as a means of eliminating such gadgets as Drury, New Minor Forcing, 4th Suit Forcing, Negative Doubles, Responsive Doubles, and Support Doubles that clutter up modern American bidding.
The Initial Test	The first test of UTR, using the Foundation System to score 94 on Challenge the Champs with an uncluttered system..
The Balanced Heart	A system for showing all 4432, 4333, and 4441 hands with 11-19 HCP.
2-Under Transfer Opening Bids	Using The Balanced Heart to enable all 1-Level Opening Bids to show 5+card suits, thus bringing minor suits on a parity with the majors.
Karate	A system for bidding in competition that places primary emphasis on showing two suits at the same time.
UTRopia	A full system description, including the above chapters, except for the initial test

UTRopia is not a large file. The complete system description requires less than 30 pages. Any further descriptive material that becomes necessary as a result of further testing will appear on this page and be announced on the home page. To view and print UTRopia you will need Adobe Acrobat, which is available for free downloading at the Adobe website.