The Mafia Club was invented and published by Mr. Kenneth L. Lindsay in the year 1981. Mafia stands for Majors First Always. The system was developed and devised by Mr. Kenneth L. Lindsay and published by Aiga Publications in 1981. The concept is also known as 3-D and the MAFIA Club.

Quote by Mr. Kenneth L. Lindsay: A bit of history. I joined the ACBL in 1950 while in graduate school, as soon as I had passed my prelims, and was immediately impressed by Mr. S. J. Simon (not so much by Why You Lose at Bridge) as by his other book, Design for Bidding, that talked about the trade-offs involved in building a system. That inspired me to send an article to The Bridge World on an Americanized version of Acol that, to my surprise, was published as a 3-part series in 1957 when I'm sure I had less than 100 MPs.

I quickly decided I needed to learn the game before writing anything else, and finally wrote 3-D and the MAFIA Club in 1981 that combined a Forcing Club / 4-card Major System with some new ideas on competitive bidding, and had favorable reviews in England and Australia, but only lukewarm reviews here (because every bid would be an alert).

Then I retired, moved here, and did not play for a few years while developing an automated publishing system for the Navy. Then my daughter decided to join me and wanted to learn bridge. That led to Foundations of Modern American Bidding that tries to make what people play today at least semi-intelligible.

The main idea of Mafia is to open 1/ as often as possible. In principle, Mafia is a strong 1 Club system, but since the openings 1/ may be based on three cards only, it was placed among the artificial systems. If the openings 1 and 1 are made on 3 cards, the suit is at least as strong as K10x.

Opening Bids Only

Bid		Strength		Meaning
1 :		16 plus high card points		Shows any shape, 16-19 high card points if balanced distribution.
1 :		11-15 high card points		Shows different shapes.
1 :		10-15 high card points		Promises 3 plus Hearts, unbalanced distribution.
1 :		10-15 high card points		Promises 3 plus Spades, and unbalanced distribution.
1 NT:		13-15 high card points		Promises balanced distribution.
2 :		16 plus high card points		Promises any 4-4-4-1 distribution, or
		20 plus high card points		promises balanced distribution.
2 :		11-14 high card points		Shows a solid 7-card Minor suit, or
		13-15 high card points		shows either 6M-4m-2-1, or 6M-4m-3-0 distribution.
2 :		6-9 high card points		Promises a 6 plus Heart suit, or
		11-15 high card points		shows a 6-card Heart suit-and 3-2-2, or
		13-15 high card points		shows a 5-card Heart suit-and 3-3-2.
2 :		6-9 high card points		Promises a 6 plus Spade suit, or
		11-15 high card points		promises a 6-card Spade suit-and 3-2-2, or
		13-15 high card points		promises a 5-card Spade suit- and 3-3-2.
2 NT:		6-9 high card points		Promises a 6 plus Minor suit.
3 :		13-15 high card points		Promises a 6-7 Club suit, no Major suit.
3 :		13-15 high card points		Promises a 6-7 Diamond suit, no Major suit.
3 NT:		11-14 high card points		Promises a solid 7-card Major suit.

If you wish to include this feature, or any other feature, of the game of bridge in your partnership agreement, then please make certain that the concept is understood by both partners. Be aware whether or not the feature is alertable or not and whether an announcement should or must be made. Check with the governing body and/or the bridge district and/or the bridge unit prior to the game to establish the guidelines applied. Please include the particular feature on your convention card in order that your opponents are also aware of this feature during the bidding process, since this information must be made known to them according to the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge. We do not always include the procedure regardi