René's Bridge Diary

I try it here, because there seems to be no other way to reach the developers. Please, set up a forum for user feedback and ideas!  The error above persists on my system. Clearly, Lia should raise a quantitative attempt (alerted as 18-19) points to a slam with 15 good points, and a double stopper in the critical suit.

Some may find this easy, maybe even trivial to bid. But this is the bidding from todays expert. He obviously downgraded the South hand. 1NT is alerted as 7-11 points. But even if he had bid 2NT, the problems persist. It is not easy to select between 3NT, 3 ♥  and 4 ♥  for North. The best contract is 3NT, by the way.  I reached 4 ♥  like some other players which make with good luck. I play 2/1 with Lia who opened his 5-card suit. My response was 2 ♦ , alerted as forcing by Lia's system. To the partner this looks like heart shortage and an own suit. The rebid was 2♠. This cuebid is alerted as "default bid, forcing". Then I went for 2NT, downgrading the hand. But that was not stopping North to repeat the cuebid, probably asking for a stopper and forcing to game. I reached the  optimal contract. But North understandably fixed to 4 ♥ .  This hand is a perfect example of the judgement problems you face in Bridge. I have no proper solution. Clearly, partnership understanding he

Working to advance in the new session, I met this hand. I was the only one ging for 6NT. Almost all played in 6 ♦ , some making some not. Usually, with a solid suit, 6NT make just as well. Sometimes, the suit contract is even impossible due to a ruff. In fact, the contract can always been made, if South plays. My lead was a small heart which yields 11 tricks with one more to develop in spades by guessing. My idea was that the ♣A was with East, because West would have attacked with it against the 6NT slam. This is, of course, not a sure bet. The  ♥ K is clearly with West. This leaves neither side to hold enough spades and the ♠Q should drop. So I reduced the hand to the following situation ending in South. As the discards developed, I fancied that West has the it. This is unfortunate if East now controls the spades. But he didn't. Diamonds is way better, because you can try both 50-50 chances in clubs and spades. The bidding was, by the way, in Acol. On the other table, the bidding

IntoBridge has restarted with season VII, me ending as  ♦ A. That's not too bad for an aging club player after 40 years of Bridge hiatus. The hand above happened against Lia. In contrast to the robot, I stopped in 4 ♥ . The hand has one unavoidable trump loser. So chances are 50-50 at best. After seeing the ♠A with North, I still need the ♠K and one of the minor kings. This is possible, so maybe the slam is a good try. But the hand is interesting because 6 ♥  can actually be made after any lead. Can you figure it out? I couldn't. My lead was a diamond. The trick is to cash the top trumps and playing for an overruff with the  ♥ 10. For this to work, you need reduce to this situation. Then play a club from the table. This reduction is possible in different ways which you can manage to find once you have the idea. Note that you can safely play the ♣Q at some point, because you get all tricks if West ruffs. Fascinating!

Currently, I have some fun trying Acol on Into Bridge. That was the system I started with 50 years ago. Actually, I also stopped with Acol after an intermezzo in Precision some 10 years later. Now, I resumed the game in older age and found the world playing strong NT and 5-card majors. I understand that the modern 2/1 style has benefits for slam bidding. For a club player, I still think hat Acol provides the more logical and relaxed approach. The game forcing 2/1 is simply too rare to make a difference, and the forcing 1NT just adds an additional problem. The implementation of Acol in Into Bridge seems to be very basic, and I found it buggy at times. You need to follow the differentiation between balanced and non-balanced hand carefully. And read the explanations of Lia's bids! More posts will follow. Here, I have some hands where the weak 1NT opening made a difference. Above, you land in 1NT, showing 15-17 points in Acol. The strong NT players opened 1NT and rejected the invitati

Bridge is a game of luck. Experts will disagree, because their quality will materialize in the long run. In Into Bridge you are comparing to one player only. And that can often look like gambling. So, how does your partnership bid the hand? After the diamond opening, I thought I'd have not much choice. A double would show spades, and 1NT would show a heart stopper. A good idea might be the overcall of 2 ♥ . That should show support in diamonds, some points, and no stopper in hearts. Anyway, we landed in a good contract, and I made 4. But that was not good enough, because 3NT were bid and made on the other side. That is not a good contract by any measure, and it should go down twice. We can blame Lia for missing the correct defense. But even more interesting is, how 3NT were reached, and that also explains the bad defense. South opened the hand 1 ♦ , and bid 1NT after North 1 response. North naturally raised that to 3NT. Now West and East both were confused about the heart stopper.

This happened yesterday on our table. E/W ended in a reasonable slam. But it is not easy to make as you will notice if you try. I led a small trump which makes it even a bit more difficult. So, how do you play? The declarer on my table failed. You know due to my fearless bid that South has 7 clubs, leaving one for North. You will need to ruff two clubs in the hand. The position of the  ♦ Q is not that sure, although North is more likely to hold it. If you guess correctly, you can discard one more club on the ♠A. But you do not have to guess, in fact. There is an often overlooked trick. You can discard a diamond on the A, ruff two clubs high on the table, return to the hand with a spade ruff and draw all trumps. At that time, you have only the three clubs, but South holds also three clubs. You can now play a low club and make your contract, because South has to play into the club finesse. Note that it is essential to strip all other cards from South as it happens in this board. If he w