![]() Bridge resources for duplicate contract bridge lovers and
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![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() STOP PRESS: Thursday 27 July 2006. (Archives) After partner opens 1NT (15-18), an immediate overcall of 2♣ is doubled. Is this for penalty, or is it a stolen bid for Stayman? Ans: it depends. If the 2♣ was artificial (e.g. Cappelletti, Landy) then the double shows clubs and about 7+ hcp. If the 2♣ overcall was natural (or semi natural, as in DONT, Brozel or Lionel) then the double IS Stayman. Who forgot this? The Bottom Line
The meat and potatos of club bridge comes not from the brilliant coups, squeezes, throw-ins and reverse-dummy plays illustrated in bridge columns and books. The daily fodder which provides the swings and make the difference between an average game and a consistently good one comes in the mundane partials that tend to get overlooked by bridge analysts.
The Expert's Corner
After you play a few hands, you may find that you can't stop playing bridge. If this happens, call a doctor—you may be a bridgeaholic. The only cure for your addiction is play, play, play in order to satisfy your craving for bridge—Eddie Kantar
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![]() ![]() Scoring: Our contemporary scoring was developed by Harold Vanderbilt on a transatlantic cruise in 1925. He suggested that only tricks bid and made count toward game, with extra tricks counted as bonuses. These revised rules turned auction bridge into contract bridge. What then really raised the level of the game was the icons duplicate principle, whereby every NS pair and every EW pair played the same hands, thereby removing the chance element and making every hand, however anaemic, of interest.
Counting: Learning and remembering to count—distribution, outstanding points and declarer's winners/losers—is the sina qua non of bridge improvement.
The Bidding Box
"And what do you need to make a reverse", I asked my pickup partner at the club, as we were going over our convention card prior to playing together for the first time."Oh, I don't play them," she replied. Reader, reverses are not a convention. They aren't something you can choose to play or not to play. The question is not "whether" you play them, but "how" you play them. Holding
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suppose you decide to open 1
Problem Solving
Improve your bidding, play and defense by solving problems in the three basic skill areas of bridge. Test your problem solving ability now. Select level desired, then click for a random problem.
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Get on the Wagon Now!
![]() Feed Your Addiction Here
Infinite Variety A few dozen chromosomes, each containing a few thousand genes produce a nearly infinite number of unique human beings. In bridge, four suits containing 13 cards, produce more than 650 billion possible hands. Just as we never see the same person repeated, so we'll never see this exact hand again. Is it this never ending source of uniqueness combined with repeating patterns that makes for the fascination of this game? Or is it the subtle mix of chance, skill and psychology?
Shuffle, Deal and Play...
South remembered the "Rule of 5", namely: "The 5-level belongs to the opps", but with his two suiter, and no clear defense to 5 There appears to be a club and a diamond to lose; therefore the trumps would have to be brought home without a loser, even if West held all four to the Jack. Plan the play and see if you can do better than our declarer did. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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