ArcLight

I bid 5♣. Immediately the table host (either Advanced or Expert), who was my pickup pard typed "IDIOT" and booted me. I was just wondering if 5♣ was a terrible bid. I get the impression here at least that I wasn't an idiot and that 5♣ was not unreasonable. (If you want to know his hand, I didn't have a chance to see it because I was booted so fast)

Pard makes a takeout double, then bids a new suit . What do you expect he has? 1♥ - X - 2♥ - P p - 3♣ - P - ? What do you expect form the Doubler? How good a hand? How many Clubs. How would you bid now holding: ♠ x ♥ x ♦ Q 9 8 x x x ♣ T 9 x x x Pass? 4 Clubs? 5 Clubs? Other?

Why respond 1NT instead of 1♠?

What does ReDouble mean? If you open the bidding, and pard can't bid, then ReDouble shows what? A very good hand, thats below 2♣? Maybe 18-19 points without extra length? Semi balanced? Is it worth making this bid? Might not pard raise if you pass and LHO bids? And if he passes for penalty its better not to be redoubled. If you redouble, you end up in a 4-3 fit at the 2 level?

Play Safe and Win - Eric Jannersten I reread this after first reading it ~2 years ago. The focus is on card play technique and asking yourself "What can go wrong". Very few squeezes, most hands are just solid intermediate level hands that are frequently butchered. Elimination plays, timing, communications. Maybe a trump coup. 1. what is my objective? I need 10 tricks and have 11, should I give up an over trick to cater for a bad split somewhere? 2. what can go wrong. The contract is cold if trumps are 3-2 and unmakable if 5-0, how can I handle a 4-1 split? 3. there are 2 lines of play, which is better. Good solid coverage. I think its very worthwhile for all Intermediates and lower. I think (low) advanced players will benefit from these hands. Eric Jannersten has a number of good books. Car reading, find teh mistake, the only chance, Winning pairs technique. With Open cards is more on squeezes.

Masterpieces of Defense by Julian Pottage Good book for advanced Intermediates and above. Goes beyond teh single count the winners/losers,HCP, and shape. Visualization is emphasized. How will the play go if I duck? What does pard need to set this? The last chapter is on defense against squuezes and endplays and was quite good. Many of the problems I missed I thought I should have found the solution for. Definitely worth reading. I think I liked it better than Pottages other books (Defefend these hands with me, and Masterpieces of Declarer play) though they are also good.

>it will be unusual for partner to have 4 spades and X 4H, Why? What if pard has a weak hand, say 4 spades and 8 points. Maybe LHO has a good hand. What would pard do with 4 spades and 3/4 hearts?

If you save the hands to your hard disk, or watch the tournaments so you have them locally on your hard disk, I would think itr snot so hard to write a Python or PERL program to add a few key elements, such as pauses, or hiding hands. To make it easy, you can have the parser generate 4 output files, one for each player, and have the correct hands exposed. When "playing" dummy, you would only see 1 hand (or all 4) depending on how you want it to work

>Virtual European Championship, Part I / II by Krzysztof Martens I found this link to buy it: http://www.martensuniversity.com/pl/111/5/...hip_part_2.html (part 1 is on the next page) 20 Euros for the book, 13 for a PDF ------------------------------------------------------- Recently Read Books Things Your Bridge Teacher Won't Tell You - Romm, Dan The first third of the book was good. Focusing more on table presence. Teh other 2/3 was not of any interest as it covered his opinion of conventions and/or modifications to them. Overall C+ Bridge Master vs Bridge Amateur - Horton, Mark Some good hands that are misplayed. The author shows the "common" way of playing a hand, and then the safe and correct way an expert would play it. I found it hard to use the book because all 4 hands are exposed so you have to cover 2 hands so as not to ruin the problem in acs eyou try and solve it before just reading the solution. I felt the bidding section was too simple. This book is more geared towards low intermediates, though they wont solve some of the hands. The hands are a raqndom assortment, not focused on any family of problems. Overall its fair, C+. Hand Reading in Bridge: How to Improve Your Card Play- Roth, Danny A book for advanced players as this involves technique, counting, and visualization. Some good hands, and also some hands where the carding doesn't follow the methods used on other hands (i.e. not signaling, or some implied suit preference). On a couple of hands I felt the bididng was not what I'd expect fopr the actual hand and it made it impossible to solve the problem. I give it a B for advanced players. False cards - Mike Lawrence Solid coverage. I like that he gives a frequency of how often certain families of false cards come up, rather than justs lists lots of false card situations. Good intermediate level book. A- Step by Step Deceptive Defender Play Rigal, Barry Step by Step Deceptive Declarer Play Rigal, Barry 2 decent books, for intermedaite level players. Covers lots of examples. Takes a while to go through all thje defense examples and think about them. Both are good. Solid B. Off-Road Declarer Play - unusual Ways to Play a Bridge Hand Bird, David Excellent. Good selection of various techniques. Nothging crazy. I rate it an A for Intermediates and Advanced Great Hands I wish I had played Brock, Sally Raymond Brock Like Reese - Over the shoulder - quite good - good thought and visualization thought. Some hands might not have been analyszed perfectly. Challenging. I rate it a B. Two-Minute Bridge Tips Stewart, Frank Solid collection of declarer play problems, with some bididng problems on the side Solid B. My Bridge And Yours Stewart, Frank Like "Play these hands with me" involving advanced card reading. Some of the bidding is very conservative A-

IMPS Pard opens 1♥ You hold ♠A K T 9 x x x ♥T x x ♦K ♣x x What do you respond? 1♠ intending to support hearts later? 1NT followed by 3♥ (3 card limit raise) Other? ----------------------- If you bid 1♠ or 1NT, pard bids 2♣

I use Deal Master Pro available from Ed Marzo. www.dealmaster.com It does the following A] You can enter one or more exact hands. You can specify up to 20 "screens" of constraints of rthe other hands such as North: 1. Not 15-17 balanced AND 2. not 20-21 Balanced AND 3. Less than 22 HCP + Distrubutional points* (you can define the distributional points by suit, using different valuations for each suit) AND 4. at least 13 HCP+Distributional points South 1. Balanced AND 2. 8-10 HCP AND 3. No 4 card major b] You enter the # of simulations You can inspect each one and reject any if you like 3] Double Dummy Analyzer - Deep Finesse (this is included for free) Enter the contrscat you are interested in, such as NT by S, or 2♠♥♦♣ by East (whatever) It will tell you the results for each contract Ex: 1NT S -2 5%, -1 10%, making 43%, +1 33% +2 9%, as well as the opponents suit contract You can inspect those deals that interest you. This lets you look at WHY did 6♠ go down? Aha, the long hearts were not very useful. c] It also tells you the best lead against each contract Plus a lot of other stuff. Its VERY easy to use Its not as powerful as a programming language like simulator like Deal 3.0 but its easier to use. Making Marty Bergens Rule of 20 is rather complex, and is probably easier in Deal 3.0. The owner (Ed Marzo) is a very pleasant person, and I'm quite pelased with the product.

>Now you win the next trick - whatever it is - an play a club towards dummy. If it is ruffed, you will need the remaining hearts 1-1. (If it is ruffed on your right, you'll be off). Frances, Wont you be down if the club is ruffed? You have a spade/dime loser for 1 trick, a cluff ruff for anotehr lost trick. You can't make your remaining clubs, you will lose one more. It looks like the only way to play this (double dummy) is Lay down the ace of hearts, then a heart to the 10, and then finesse a club against east.

And how are you making if thats the case? You can't get to dummy to take a trump finesse. So you must lay down the ace and hope the stiff King drops with LHO? Why is RHO making a penalty double with xx in trumps, and an outside AK in Dimes? If Clubs are 5-0 I think you are losing: 1 dime 1 club 1 trump - unless the K is stiff, and taht doenst follow from the bidding

My line:

1♥ P P 2♣ 2♥ X In modern bidding, is X Penalty or Negative? The X hand held ♥ K Q J 9 7 ======================== How do you bid this? [hv=d=n&v=n&s=shakqt5dtckqjt864]133|100|Scoring: IMP You deal and open what?[/hv] A] What do you Open? 1♣ - 1♠ 2♥ - 2NT ??? B] What do you bid now?

Lets say the bidding goes: 1♦ p 1♥ 1♠ 3♦ 3♠ ? Would you bid? I bid 4♦. Was that wrong? How bad was it? 1♦ p 1♥ 1♠ 3♦ 3♠ 4♦ 4♠ 5♦ 5♦ was down 1. Pard had his bid! Due to a lucky lie, 4♠ makes. But no one got there. Most opps sold out to part scores, so we lost a few IMPs. An expert told me I should not have bid 1♥, and that 4♦ was a slam try

IMPS Favorable Pard opens 1♦, RHO passes, whats your bid with: ♠ J 5 ♥ Q J 5 3 ♦ J T 7 ♣ 9 8 5 2 Do you pass? Bid 1♥? Other (what?)

all IMPS. 1. red/white ♠ A ♥A Q T ♦J T 9 x ♣A K Q x x I opened 1♣. You agree? 1♣ - p - 1♥ - 2♠ (naughty opp :angry: >>Whats your bid? I bid 3♦, should I have bid 3♠? 1♣ - p - 1♥ - 2♠ 3♦ - 3♠ - p - p 4♥ 4♥ making 6 Pard held: ♠x x ♥K J x x x x ♦A x x ♣ x x ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. Favorable you hold ♠ A K x ♥A Q J x ♦ x ♣ K 9 x x x dealer passes. You open 1♣ p - 1C - p - 1D p - 1H - p - 1S P - ? >>Whats your bid? Pard is a pick up player, and might not use Walsh. He held: ♠ Q x x x ♥ x x ♦ A T x x x x ♣ x >>Would you bypass D and respond 1S?

Han, You would rebid 1NT? Why not 2♣?

I dont like 4♠ vulnerable. Id have opened 3♠. You have the boss suit. Pard can bid as well. Maybe the opps bid when they shouldn't and pard can nail them.

>Ax xx AJx AJT98x. You open 1N Is this a typical 1NT opener? :P How bad is it to open 1♣, then rebid 3♣?

I vote for pass. I don't think its likely we will make game. We are not vulnerable so there is no reason to try for the 38% game, which I wouldn't do anyway. Openers LHO didn't double so maybe the opps dont have game. It might not be so likely that responder has a singleton heart.

Isn't 3♥ game forcing? Bidding on after an invitation is accepting it, and pard won't pass will he? Edit: OK - I understand, In the sequence given above Responder described his hand, and opener placed the contract. Opener's 3H is a signoff. this is forcing: 1H-1S 2C-3C (invitational) 3S ... Thanks for clarifying this for me.

Hand 1 No way I bid. They are likely down and if I DBL we are unlikely to end up in a making game. We are trading a small plus 75% of the time, for a minus 85% of the time, and a game 15% of the time. And some of those minus score will be doubled. Pard and LHO may have 4 spades each. For me to bid, I'd want at least another spade and move the heart honors to another suit. It wouldn't surprise me to see RHO lead the heart ace and another and LHO ruffing it. Those 4 Heart HCP are worse than useless as declarer, it means the other players have the useful HCP. I can live with feweerr HCP but the heart doubleton is worrysome. 4144 is a nicer shape. With a doubleton heart I'd want 4 spades and more HCP to compensate. With 4243 shape ID want 3 of the top 5 spades, and honors in teh other suit. With 3244 shape I'd want 3 aces and have each of them supported with the Q and J, or the K. This assumes your opponents are capable of defense and don't make silly bids.