René's Bridge Diary

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 "Basic". There are some classes you can purchase on his page. The system is very expert oriented. But he is explaining it very 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....

This is the bidding of the expert. I like the idea to keep it slow and supporting partners diamonds after the game force. Lia's 3♠ should show a bit of support, but it is alerted as 20-23 points. The expert never checked that meaning. At that point, 4NT should be ace asking in diamonds, but it is alerted as 11-13 points and non-forcing which makes no sense now. I would not dare to say it seeing the confusing explanation. The expert again did not check it, and was surprised by 6NT. 7NT is then educated guesswork. Clearly, there needs some work to be done in the explanations of bids and the bidding of slams of the robot. You really need to carefully watch the replies and must not assume that you know the meaning. If 20-23 points are the explanation you see, there is no option but to trust it and bid 7NT right away. I finished in 6NT because I gave up finding an exact slam sequence with the robot. If North opens 1 ♦  with 23 honor points and two solid minors, it is hard to find a gra...

Do you like that bidding? Would you agree? If yes, you are lucky. Your contract goes down four times for -800, but all other tables might play in 6♣. I'd say you successfully bluffed E/W out of their slam with unreasonable bidding. This happened to me in Into Bridge. There was, of course, only one table with that result, and it was the one I was compared against. This kind of misfortune happened to me three times, almost in a row. How Into Bridge selects your opponents is their secret. To be fair, I sometimes got lucky too. It just feels more rare.

I have been contemplating about the problems of the weak 1NT opening lately. The experts seem to vote for a strong 1NT with their feet. It is played almost everywhere. The Acol people defend it for its preemptive values. Moreover, it is said to be more difficult to defend against too. I don't know. On Into Bridge, what actually happens more often than I like is the problem above. Some way or another the opponents get into playing 2 in some major suit and go down once if the hand is opened in the minors. 1NT makes, but that's not good enough to compete against one down in vulnerable. Unfortunately, this is no exceptional incident, but a product from the current aggressive style of interventions. One table made 2♠, which is good for N/S, but most failed. You need to make an overtrick in 1NT to compete. I didn't. Opening the minor is simply better in this type of flat distribution. If partner can support the suit, opponents have to go to the 2-level and fail. If partner can...

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 u...

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!