Introduction of Bridge Analysis

[HighLow21]

Hi Everyone! I have started a new bridge blog called Bridge Analysis. It is targeted at new-to-solid intermediates who are working towards becoming strong Intermediates or Advanced players. The blog will rely heavily on Intermediate-to-Advanced analysis of individual hands, both in defense and declarer play, and will include some detailed mathematical analysis where applicable.

 

I will also have posts regarding my theories about practically every aspect of the game.

 

Here is the blog: http://bridgeanalysis.blogspot.com/. All feedback and suggestions welcome.

 

The reply to this post will include an excerpt from today's blog post on Defender's play.

 

Thanks!

-Tate Shafer

[HighLow21]

Here's an excerpt from today's blog post:

 

...

 

WHAT YOU SEE WHEN DEFENDING

Because you cannot see all the assets of your side, it is very easy to go astray, and it requires much more work just to get up to the level of "reasonable play" as a defender. (And even then, you will embarrass yourself or partner occasionally. There isn't much you can do about that. The goal on defense is not to be perfect, but to make fewer mistakes than the next guy.)

 

In order to combat the low-quality information you have as a defender, here is my short list of MUSTS if you want to be any good at it:

 

DEFENDER MUSTS

 

You must make every inference possible from the auction phase. Every bid gives you a range of HCP (high card points) and the declarer's distribution. Dummy's bids may help too, which will be important on opening lead. After that, you can SEE dummy, which can also help you with the rest of your task.

You must make every effort to count declarer's shape. Sometimes the auction will narrow this down significantly; other times you'll be in the dark until the very end. Still, it pays to gain as much partial information as possible. For example, if the declarer opened 1♥, rebid 2♠ over the dummy's 2♣ response, then later rebid ♥, he almost certainly has 6 or more hearts and 4 or more spades. This leaves at most 3 cards in the minor suits (♣ and ♦) and you must defend accordingly. Do not expect a lead from ♦J1098 to set up any tricks for your side unless partner has an honor or two there.

You must interpret partner's defensive signals appropriately. Partner will tend to give you count signals more than attitude signals, but you must understand your partnership signal agreements and stick to them and take information from them. If your partner does not signal consistently, get a new partner. You cannot be a successful player at this game without defensive signalling. Remember, you will defend about twice as often as you declare.

You must make an effort to place the missing high cards as precisely as possible and as quickly as possible. Between the bidding and the play, you should make an attempt to place the missing high cards (especially Aces and Kings) as accurately as possible. The opening lead should help with this. For example, if you were LHO in the above hand, leading the ♥Q before dummy comes down, and you saw dummy win this with the ♥K, you can place declarer with the ♥A. The bidding (not given) should also help you place the high honors in spades and clubs. You know most of the important cards and their location by the end of trick 1.

You must try to estimate the number of tricks the declarer has. In the above example, perhaps you can place declarer with exactly 5 spades (based on the bidding and other factors). If you are holding the ♠A and nothing of value in clubs, then you know declarer almost certainly has at least the following: 4 spade tricks, 2 hearts, 1 diamond, and whatever tricks he has in clubs. That is 7 plus whatever club tricks. If declarer has ♣AKx (x is "small card") then he has 3 tricks in clubs on top. If his clubs are as weak as ♣AJx then he has 2 top tricks in clubs and can ruff the x in dummy for his 10th trick. Thus declarer's contract is probably solid in most cases, and your job is to limit his overtricks.

 

Remember: the primary goals of defender's play are to ascertain, as quickly as possible, (1) the location of key high cards and (2) the shape of the closed hand (declarer's hand). From this you can arrive fairly quickly at his estimated trick count. Sometimes you will not know everything until the very end. Sometimes you can figure it out almost exactly at trick 1. It just depends.

 

...

[HighLow21]

Hi Everyone! I have started a new bridge blog called Bridge Analysis. It is targeted at new-to-solid intermediates and "early advanced" players, who are working towards becoming strong Intermediates or solid Advanced players. The blog will rely heavily on Intermediate-to-Advanced analysis of individual hands, both in defense and declarer play, and will include some detailed mathematical analysis where applicable.

 

I will also have posts regarding my theories about practically every aspect of the game.

 

Here is the blog: http://bridgeanalysis.blogspot.com/. All feedback and suggestions welcome.

 

The reply to this post will include an excerpt from today's blog post on Defender's play.

 

Thanks!

-Tate Shafer

[HighLow21]

Excerpt from today's post:

 

...

 

As West, you are on opening lead holding:

 

♠ 9 6 5 4

♥ K 8

♦ 8 5 4 3

♣ Q  3 2

 

What are your thoughts?

 

The first thing is that the auction tells you where most of the HCP are. Dummy has a 4-card heart suit (probably not 5) and a weak hand. Otherwise he would have jumped the bidding at some point. Declarer is also fairly minimum, and partner holds a balanced 15-17 points for his 1NT overcall. (Note that 1NT does NOT promise a stopper in both ♥ and ♦. It should provide stoppers in at least 1 of these suits, but a 1NT overcall generally means the same thing as an opening 1NT means. It does not promise a stopper in every suit, bid or unbid.)

 

You hold 5 HCP, so the defense as at least half of the outstanding points. Dummy will have around 5-8 and declarer around 12-14.

 

Since partner's bidding does not tell you anything about where his points lie, let's assume you choose a somewhat passive ♠ lead. Dummy appears:

 

...

[Statto]

You could just blog by posting on these forums B-)

 

Excerpt from today's post:

You missed out the bidding. No problem, I'll try out the hand editor. I can input the hand but not the bidding. Never mind, I can figure out the code from other posts:

 

[hv=pc=n&d=s&a=1dp1h1npp2dppp&w=s9654hk8d8543cq32&n=sqt87h9753dajtc65]280|220[/hv]

 

You also never stated the vulnerability, though it probably isn't important.

 

[Edited to add dummy's hand]

Edited February 1, 2012 by Statto

[jjbrr]

Could I instead choose to defend 1NT?

[aguahombre]

Could I instead choose to defend 1NT?

I could, and would. Hope that doesn't change your mind :rolleyes:

[Antrax]

Why don't I choose a trump lead?

[HighLow21]

Cool, how do you get the hand editor to work? I was worried about copyright infringement or something.

[Phil]

Cool, how do you get the hand editor to work? I was worried about copyright infringement or something.

 

I own the rights to the ♠6. My lawyer will contact you.

[mikeh]

I own the rights to the ♠6. My lawyer will contact you.

I checked.....your rights only extend to the USA. I have now obtained a licence for the 6♠ for the rest of the world.

 

My biggest coup will be the universal rights to 'x'. Still working on that.

[DrMunk]

I checked.....your rights only extend to the USA. I have now obtained a licence for the 6♠ for the rest of the world.

 

My biggest coup will be the universal rights to 'x'. Still working on that.

 

 

Ok, then i have to settle for the universal right to 'pass'. But still i think i will do pretty decent against you, if I also remember to include the 'xx'...

[mikeh]

Ok, then i have to settle for the universal right to 'pass'. But still i think i will do pretty decent against you, if I also remember to include the 'xx'...

Damn, now we're talking about the bidding!!! I was talking only about the spot cards used in bridge blogs, and bridge texts......someone remind Rexford that he owes me royalties from his new book.

 

I think bids are in the public domain....besides, someone can always say 'double'.

 

If we are copyrighting bids, I claim all notrumps.....whether natural or conventional.

[DrMunk]

Damn, now we're talking about the bidding!!! I was talking only about the spot cards used in bridge blogs, and bridge texts......someone remind Rexford that he owes me royalties from his new book.

 

I think bids are in the public domain....besides, someone can always say 'double'.

 

If we are copyrighting bids, I claim all notrumps.....whether natural or conventional.

 

:)

[han]

(This site will help, trust me.)

[han]

My stats for the past 6 months: I make 68% of my contracts; my partner makes 64% of his; and the opponents make 55%. (My defense is pretty good.)

[han]

I'm averaging 1.01 IMPs per hand this month.

[aguahombre]

My stats for the past 6 months: I make 68% of my contracts; my partner makes 64% of his; and the opponents make 55%. (My defense is pretty good.)

I will assume this includes contracts you didn't bid to necessarily make, and that the scores for the other 32% were reasonable.

[mikeh]

wtf is going on with these posts from 'han'? They sure don't sound like him....firstly, he's promoting someone else's blog with praise when he is usually more inclined to point out problems or weaknesses, and secondly he's bragging about his bridge play. Han and I have had our disagreements in the past, but I've never seen him as a braggart. Makes me wonder if this is really him, and whether, if it is, these posts are intended to be taken seriously or are a subtle, too-deep for me, attempt at humour.

[wyman]

Han is quoting directly from the blog, lol

[mikeh]

Han is quoting directly from the blog, lol

a relief to hear it....I couldn't be bothered to read the blog so didn't recognize the quotes.

 

HiLow, if you are reading this, please try to take the comments constructively. I can tell from the other threads that you are passionate about the game and enjoy a fair level of success in the games in which you play. I suspect that you are in a position similar to the one I was in some 25 years ago, when I lived in a fairly remote area, and before the internet....it was 500 miles to the nearest Regional, for example. I was the local 'gun'...routinely winnning most of the local Sectionals and dominating at the club (along with my regular partner). I got to thinking I was pretty damn good.

 

Then I moved to a larger centre and started playing with and against actual experts, and that was quite a rude awakening. You may not yet realize it, but when you entered this forum, that was more or less the equivalent for you. You may be a big fish in your usual pond, but here there are some players who are big fish....sharks, even, in the ocean and lots of players who are only a level or two behind. Coming across as god's gift to bridge, when you lack the appropriate credentials, is going to generate a lot of hostility.

 

I think we all welcome you to the forums and your blog can't help but be useful, but maybe a little more modesty would be appropriate.

[MrAce]

Han is quoting directly from the blog, lol

 

 

LOL now it makes sense..I was asking the same questions Mike asked, to myself. I was about to post " Han, are you ok bro ?" :D

[HighLow21]

Not sure how to relay the statistics from my play record without leaving open the possibility that someone might construe it as boasting; any constructive suggestions on this are welcome.

 

And Mike, thanks for being reasonable and measured in your public critique of my post and my situation. You are dead on. It's not that I live in a rural area so much as that I just haven't ventured out into non-online bridge yet. I am going to. I recognize that there are pools of players just as talented as me if not moreso, and far, far more experienced, especially at high-level competitive play.

 

My blog isn't targeted to them.

 

I'm simply trying to establish to the 100,000+ players out there who might benefit from what I have to say that I know what I'm talking about.

 

Someday I too will play in the circles you are describing and I look forward to getting served plenty of helpings of humble pie.

[Phil]

Not sure how to relay the statistics from my play record without leaving open the possibility that someone might construe it as boasting.

 

Um...you don't?

 

I've known a lot of people in bridge that think the best way to promote themselves is to literally walk around with a sandwich board advertising their accomplishments. I have a friend who has a website that details all of his regional wins, and flighted national high finishes. I have told him I think this is extremely bad taste and its a sure-fire way to get scorned by other top-level players, if they happen to come across his pages. There is a west coast pro that promotes in a similar manner, and most people avoid him like the plague.

 

If you are truly good, then your results should reflect that, and I do not mean your Lehman rating, or how many contracts you make (whatever this means). If you have never played against good competition, then your results really don't matter at all anyway.

[HighLow21]

Aguahombre --> That is correct, 68% is a blended average success rate, across everything from confidently bid sacrifices all the way down to hands where my partner hung me in a phantom sacrifice, doubled down 4 with nothing on for the opponents. :-) Among the 32% where I went down, the average loss was -3.4 IMPs, similar to the +3.5 IMPs average when I made. In terms of large swings (I'm using +/-10 IMPs as the cutoff), it's roughly 5% positive and 2% negative when I'm dummy, declarer, or defender.