1. This is one of the traffic-light terms that the Laws and Ethics Committee of the English Bridge Union uses to categorise psychic bids (or deviations). An ‘amber’ psycheisone where the partnership’s subsequent action provides some evidence of an unauthorised partnership understanding but insufficient on its own to warrant an adjusted score.
2. Shorthand for describing the vulnerability of both partnerships on a board; it means that both partnerships are vulnerable.
At matchpoint pairs, the players need to exercise caution at amber on part-score deals, striving to avoid the kiss of death score of -200 (one down doubled or two down undoubled). At rubber bridge and teams, on competitive game and slam deals, the converse applies since it can be very expensive to let the opponents make a vulnerable game or slam when you could have made one yourself.