Having mastered the martial arts, a Langshan rooster turns to mastering the essence of Contract Bridge...

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

I love 1NT

I imagine that a poll of beginning/intermediate bridge players would usually show that they hate playing in NT. Have the ability to ruff makes us happy. Of all the non-slam NT contracts, 1NT would probably be a runaway winner in the least favorite category. The points are thin and evenly distributed, etc...

I absolutely love playing 1NT.
QJ
AQ652
K2
Q943
A76
93
T7643
KJ8

West leads the ♠3, won in dummy with the J. From dummy, I pull a low to the J to establish the KQ and, with luck, find a safe split. W again wins with the ♣A and returns a low ♣ which only helps me out.

I t
ake the finesse - the Q winning the trick. Next I probably should've led a low towards my hand hoping to get E to drop his/her A prematurely. I didn't do that, though. Instead, I saw my 7 tricks and decided to get out. I cashed the A, pulled the remaining ♣ winners, and then tabled the A for my 7th trick.

As it is, a low
exit from dummy actually did get E to drop the A impatiently and secured me an 8th trick.

2 comments:

warren said...

1NT IS the toughest contract there is. In SAYC especially, there's no guarantee that you have 20 points, or that either hand is terribly suitable for play in notrump.

That's not to say that the challenge isn't fun....

Kung Fu Chicken said...

Hi Warren... Thanks for stopping by.

I understand and agree. NT just seems to make more 'sense' to me and I enjoy the challenge (as you said).

Of course, I'm awful good at failing. :)