Day 7 of 15 days to better bridge

I decide to go back to Jeff Goldblum’s site and warm up with a bridge movie

http://www.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff/

 

I find that the first two deals are all about bidding judgment.  I do fine but I think that this is an area where we can all learn.  I do have to get my copy of Neil Kimelman’s Improve Your Bidding Judgment and put it by my bed to dip into from time to time.

 http://www.masterpointpress.com/bidding/judgment.html

I ponder a while with CHO is before realizing it is partner (center hand opponent), silly me.

I am intrigued by the idea of an overcall structure that allows you to make preemptive style overcalls or sound ones at the two level.  I am going to read that next.  I hate being kept out of the auction and some partners hate it if I make weakish 2-level overcalls.  Maybe there is a way to get into more auctions.

Actually problem 3 turns out to be a defensive problem and I am happy that I get it right.  Have a go:

 

	S 8
	H QJ985
	D AKJ7
You	C 843
S AJ6
H A6
D 109832
C A95

 

Both vulnerable: 2C/3C is preemptive here

LHO	CHO	RHO	You
1H	2C*	2S	2NT
pass	3C	3S	all pass

You lead the CA and partner follows with the CQ and declarer the CK.

What do you do at trick 2? 

Actually on the hand the two logical plays will beat it.  My choice partly depends on whether I think partner will dump the CQ on my ace to telling me his holding (which really has no value since he knows that I will know as soon as declarer plays his card) or it is suit preference.  I think it should be suit preference and so with a good partner (like Colin) I play ace of hearts and another.  Otherwise I play a diamond.  If declarer has a singleton club it does seem unlikely he also has a singleton diamond and partner almost certainly has 2 spades so playing diamonds gives me a chance to give partner a diamond ruff or at least cut declarer off dummy.  Either play works on this hand.

I think this has been a good exercise but I move on to Colin Wards’s http://www.firesides.net/cchumour.htm

Bridge at the corners which turns out to be a humorous bridge book.  It seems like a good idea for a Saturday morning.  There are some humours moments in the chapters I read but in the end this is not to my taste.  I head for Colin’s home page and see a lot of interesting convention ideas.  There are some interesting convention ideas and you can try your luck at the session from hell.

My next stop is the bridgeguys.

http://homepage.mac.com/bridgeguys/index.html

I start off just for interest looking at a brief history of bridge which doesn’t seem at all enlightening.  But contains some links to whist pages which might be useful some time.

The bridge glossary is fascinating.  For example I find out that there is a caddy hall of fame and in the attached picture I notice a former Canadian junior Ian Boyd. There is a page where they have separated out some of the conventions and systems and for some reason behaviour guidelines.

     

Do you know what the golden rule is?

It states that a suit should not be bid twice unless the suit has at least six cards. This applies not only to the opener and responder, but also to the opponents of the opening bidder.

I also notice that the muiderberg two bids are featured.  I play this with all my current partners and I am interested in all the articles in this section.  One article is presented in the original Dutch but since it is bridge Dutch I am amused to find that I can read it e.g

Antowoorden na 2H

pas = om te spelen

2s = nonforcing

2SA-mancheforcing

It helps that I know some bridge French and a bit of German!

I take a brief detour to Ray’s bridge game.

http://www.raysbridgegame.com/

Release 7.6 (25 Nov 2007) is available.  You define bidding rules and then test them on generated hands.  (you can use the default set too).  This is very interesting and I decide to try it out at length.  I may report back to you on how this all works out at another time.  Fortunately there is a lot of help and examples on the site.

From here I head to http://www.bridgesights.com/hondobridge/ a page belonging to Howard Schutzman a bridge teacher and expert player.

There are a lot of lesson hands, mentoring session notes (down as bridge movies).  Since I play weak notrump I am curious to see what methods he is teaching so I head over to weak notrump lesson series part 1, opening 1NT.  I don’t expect to agree with everything he says and right off I notice that he doesn’t want you to open 1NT with a five card major, even a weak one.  He also suggests playing four way transfers with weak notrump and doesn’t even mention 2-way Stayman.  Well, perhaps he method is a reasonable way to get people moved from strong to weak notrump (at least to start with).

There are some interesting play “puzzles”, one per month.  The problem is presented and you email your answer.  There are no answers on the site.  I find the August 08 puzzle intriguing.

Dummy

S AJ98

H 965

D QJ10986

C void

You

S Q10654

H KJ2

D 4

C KQ42

You end of in 4S with no opposition bidding. You get the lead of the CJ. What is your plan?

I am still thinking about it but it does seem right to win the opening lead and play a diamond.