Linda Lee — My personal bridge blog

So you like blogs … Day 8 and not tired yet

Today I decided to look at some blogs.  We have some wonderful blogs and feeds on bridgeblogging but I thought I would look around a bit and see if I could find some interesting new ones.

Tommy’s Bridge Blog by Tommy Solberg has some interesting material. Blogs seem to be running at about two a month and they are mostly about bidding. He recently posted a table of content of his blogs with dates so you can find them all. A sample of the tops include reopening doubles, sandwich notrump, scrambling 2 no trump, stroming norman and four suit transfers. But there are also some quizzes and some war stories of his games or games he watched. This blog is aimed at intermediate to advanced players (more advanced than intermediate). He brags that he is turning his students into duplicate terrorist. I believe it. Recommended for students and teachers particularly. B-.

Andre Ashbury has a secret blog life. He writes on bridgeblogging but he also has two other blogs, one a bridge blog. Andre’s bridge blog, he explains: is my attempt to keep a blog about my exploits at the bridge table – defensive problems, bidding conventions, tournament results, and notes about canape and polish club systems. All the blogs are reasonably frequent so he must sleep with a computer keyboard.

Here is a blog with an interesting title: Is Being a Bridge Bum Equivalent to Being a Prostitute? This is a fascinating blog to me. It talks about whether bridge pros are wasting their life and whether they should do more with their intelligence and skills. He admits to a touch of jealousy too. Have a look and make a comment and Andre, think about putting that type of blog on bridgeblogging.com it will usually get a wider audience.  Have a look and make a comment and Andre, think about putting that type of blog on bridgeblogging.com I would love to see the comments from some of our readers.

A lot of the blogs are about hands. There is a bit of a discussion in the blog about “doubling without a trump stack” which I find interesting. I did have a bit of troubling figuring out from the dialog who held which hand but the point of the story is when you get doubled missing five trump to the queen is the doubler more or less likely to have the missing honor (and length in the trump suit).   Obviously the entire auction matters in determining this but without any other hints I am not surprised (and I consider this in the play) when the doubler is short in trump or at least doesn’t have the missing honors. This is true only among experienced players, of course.

One other blog talks about monogamy in bridge. Is it a good idea to have more than one regular partner. Mr. Asubury has a lot of interesting things to say and I hope he says a lot of them on bridgeblogging. His off-site blog is worth a visit and some comments. B+ (you would get an A on bridge blogging <smile>.

Ramesh Abhiraman hasn’t been blogging a lot this year. Last year with 66 blogs was much more productive.  There are a couple of interesting things about his blog.  First he has a list of bridge books he likes.  One blog (and book) that intrigued me was about 300 Contract Bridge Hands THE FIRST WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Reviewd and Explained by Ely Culbertson, Captain of the Victorious American Team.  There are some other blogs with lots of BBO hands and some explanation including such things as a repeating squeeze to make 6NT.  C.

Okay I ready to admit this I don’t know who is the author of the bridge post all I know is he is the mysterious elliiki.  There are blogs about bidding, everyone’s favorite topic with some more emphasis on theory.  The most recent blog is entitled Precision or Natural which is better.  He starts out by making the interesting point that natural bidding has come a long way.   Infrequent blogs. D (not for the quality but for the timing and brevity).

I am not having much luck finding new bloggers today.  I need to end with something good, a big bang  so what will it be.    Well I have reviewed the Bridge World site before.  I can’t see any changes since last time.  It still has lots of fun stuff.  The sample article are very good (but then I love Bridge World.  The Bridge Glossary is great and extensive.  Lots more stuff for everybody.  Another good thing is you can converse online now.  There is a spot for editorial correspondence and a place to submit a problems and some information for budding bridge world authors. There are filled out WBF and ACBL convention cards in Bridge World Standard and the complete 2001 system.   Enjoy the Esoterica and then if you are like me you will buy a subscription (online purchase of course).


2 Comments

Dave Memphis MOJONovember 9th, 2010 at 2:35 pm

A long time ago, I figured out that I was going to keep subscribing to the Bridge World (and the price was going to increase each year), so I got the lifetime subscription. I guess it was a good deal for them, but I’m sure it’s a good deal for me.

Linda LeeNovember 9th, 2010 at 4:08 pm

If I would get a lifetime subscription to anything it would be Bridge World. Good for you

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