René's Bridge Diary

Learning from other peoples mistakes is the second best way to proceed. The best is to make the mistakes yourself. The very best, of course, is to not make the mistake by thinking a bit harder than you are used to. Here is an example. The bidding is Acol. A reverse bid of 2♠ would be game forcing. I did not consider myself strong enough for that. So, North finished the auction in 3NT. With 2/1, it looks easier if you follow the usual advice to bid shape. Opener simply rebids 2♠ after the game forcing, not promising extra values, and you can land in 4♠. The robot at North, however, will start a slam try with 3♠, and later an exclusive blackwood after your Splinter bid in diamonds. You are already too high at this point. That happened to most other players. The opponents cashed the two spades and I kept the ♠QJ, a point to be discussed later. They continued with a diamond, and I am faced with the problem of treating the clubs. Clearly I needed to duck one round and play low from the tab...

BBO is my alternate server to play on. That is a great service with a huge and impressive community. It offers a lot which IntoBridge does not provide. But it is lacking some main features that I love on IntoBridge, namely the daily challenge, the ranked games, and the ability to play different systems.  The board above is from one of the services of BBO that I like, the instant tournament. You have to pay 0.89$ for 8 boards, which I find a bit on the expensive side. It used to be much cheaper before, and at that time I climbed to rank 8 and learned a lot along the way. Now, I play this kind of paid tournament only rarely, just enough to keep the ads away. There are also free tournaments and cheap ones. A nice feature are the problems in Bridge Master. Then there are the vuegraphs of  international tournaments.  The casual tables are no fun for me. Players often stop playing or lose contact. Many players are downright unfriendly. I gave up playing there. Saving the board...

This is another confusing bidding by Lia, the IntoBridge robot. Actually, it is a bit annoying. I am playing Acol again to unburden my brain a bit from all that Gavin Wolpert stuff. So, 1NT is weak. After the 2♠ intervention and two passes, Lia doubles. In view of its shortness in spades and support for any other suit, it is a brave decision. I dutifully answered 3 ♥ , and that would have been a good contract. In fact, I made 9 tricks. But can anybody tell me what drove Lia to go to game now? In fact, we have 20 high card points together and flat hands. Lia also has defensive values. So there is no reason to assume that 3♠ would make. But even if, 4 ♥  cannot be pre-emptive here. So, the robot must have fancied that the contract has good chances. A look into the description of the bids reveals the reason. My 3 ♥  are described as forcing, 6-card and a slam try. The double, by the way, is described as take-out, but not forcing. That is to allow me to transfer it into a penalty...

This is a hand which makes me mad about Lia's bidding. Usually, West will open 1 ♦ . Most North players would intervene with 1 ♥ . That sounds reasonable. East will bid 2♣. Now, South cannot do more than bid 3 ♥ . Lia on West will now jump to 3NT, which make. Could you do better? There is the LAW which would allow N/S to bid 4 ♥  because of the the 10 cards in hearts. There are prerequisites, however. You need the minority of points, values in your suit, and not be in unfavorable vulnerability. The latter is not the case here. Going down doubled will yield a bad result. However, I would much rather prefer North to bid 2 ♥ . Dampening the LAW by one trick allows South to overcall the expected 3♣ with 3 ♥ . Now, West might have a hard time to decide what to do. The best choice is to double and defend for two down. But 4♣ might also be an option which is inferior to the easy 3NT contract. By the way, the correct lead by North is the  ♥ K, not a small heart as Lia did.

If you look at that hand, you first notice that N/S has 24 points in combined hands. Plus two points for your doubletons, you might be inclined to think that this is a game for N/S, and their bidding is way too careful. But in fact, you can only make 1 ♥  against best defense. Sitting South, I refused to open 2 ♥  with that holding. My old school thinking requires high cards in the suit for a preemptive opening, at least in first and second hand. Hearing 1♠, my hopes to achieve anything with this hand vanish. The robot on North, on the other side, does not hold a stopper in spades, and only two hearts. So, neither 1NT nor a double are attractive. After 1NT, a few players decided to jump in with their hearts. I am still not convinced that this is a good idea. But it modern style. Below is a typical development. South watches North to go havoc and doubling everything that comes along. After all, the robot expects some working values. The 2♠ bidding is asking for a stopper or sh...

How do you bid this hand in Acol correctly? My analysis (using my Bridge Creator tool) shows N/S can make 3NT against the majority of randomly mixed E/W hands. The point count also speaks for that. However, sitting South, I learned that 2NT would now show 18-19 points to Lia on IntoBridge. I don't know if this is a glitch by Lia or if Acol rebids 4-4 hands with the second suite, but would have thought that 2NT is just an invitation to 3NT, i.e. it should be raised by partner with 9 points. Before ending in a disaster, I decided to pass and hope for the best. And it happened. Nobody was able to make 3NT, because the play is unusual and depends on distribution in the club suit and its treatment. But most reached it simply by opening 1NT. Bridge is often a game of luck.

The last jump is the hardest. That should be no surprise. Only 1.4% of players are better than you, and there are some experts in that range. If not, there is always Lia playing almost optimal. I beat it only rarely. You play against those strong players all the time. The hand above is confusing for me. Clearly, you are sitting behind the spade suit and should make two or three trump tricks, plus the  ♦ A. The bidding does not suggest a good fit either. So, I do not understand why most "Other Players" did not double. It went two down on my table. I am now playing Gavin Wolpert's system. There are some classes you can purchase on his page. The system is very expert oriented. But he is explaining it well. Moreover, you will learn a lot about Bridge which can be used in other systems too. He is a great teacher. Unfortunately, a complete description of his system is not available other than buying and listening to dozens of hours of classes. There should be a book. Let me se...