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 take 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.

"Your computer doesn't love you..."

Since I'm exceptionally mediocre, I try to spend as much time playing hands as I can. I bought BridgeBaron for my pc and have found that, if you set the thinking correctly, it plays plenty strong/accurate for me.

Today, however, it decided to be uncharacteristically aggressive:

♠ A85 ♥ KJ84 ♦ AKQ3 ♣ AQ

♠ KJ72 ♥ T63 ♦ T94 ♣ 743

West	North	East	South
	2♣	p	2♦
p	2NT	p	3♣
p	6NT	p	p
p

The lead is the ♣9... The computer was north, but once the auction is done it rotates the hands to I have to play it.

So, how do you plan to make 6NT? How I did it, below....



Not that there's anything exceptional to the play, mind you. Just a lucky lay of the cards:

Dealer N Vul N/S Scoring - Lead ♣6	♠ A85 ♥ KJ84 ♦ AKQ3 ♣ AQ
♠ T63 ♥ AQ72 ♦ J75 ♣ JT2		♠ Q94 ♥ 95 ♦ 862 ♣ K9865
	♠ KJ72 ♥ T63 ♦ T94 ♣ 743

Well, I get my club finesse right out of the gate, west inserting the ♣T... From there, a spade finesse to the ♠J in south and a return of the ♥T to pull west's ace. I win the ♣ continuation from west and run ♠s ending with dummy's 7 as a high card.

If the ♥ honors split I'm down 1 so I run a heart to the jack in my hand which holds. From there, it's home free.

Why the focus on bidding?

Here's a topic for debate:

You are tasked with teaching a rank beginner the game of bridge. They are highly analytical and motivated to learn. Assuming they've played other trick-taking games (spades, for example), what do you teach them first and why?

I'm curious as to how many people would start with the bidding aspect of the game of bridge versus the cardplay... It strikes me that most 'lessons' and 'teachers' are working on teaching people to bid well. However, if cardplay is never covered to an equal depth you wind up bidding to great (though perhaps thin) contracts that you can't make because you give away tricks.

Thoughts?

Thanks, Amazon!

I'm almost positive that I'm the only one reading here with any regularity... If I'm wrong, however, let me apologize for the sporadic posting. Life has just gotten a little carried away.

I made a post on the BBO forums looking for addition feedback on the 'pre-flight checklists' I'm trying to put together. If I slow down and think, I play much better bridge. If I slow down and think about the right things, I might actually get decent at this game.

So, the next post will probably be a 'final list' placeholder.

In the meantime, I picked up three books from Amazon.

• Watson's classic The Play of the Hand
• Kantar's Modern Bridge Defence
• Lawrence's How to Read Your Opponent's Cards

The first two arrived today, and I expect the Lawrence book to be in my mailbox tomorrow. I plan to start with Kantar since I think signalling and defense are the worst areas of my game.

As far as this blog goes, I'm going to try hard to post three things a week (M, W, F). Hope you'll stick around and read along.

Bridge, etc

Well, the Bermuda Bowl is over and my predictions, posted here, were almost entirely wrong.

I had the eventual finalists (USA1 and Norway) losing in the semis. My winner pick, the Italians, were blitzed by an upstart South African team. USA2 didn't even make the final 8 - thanks in large part, I imagine, to Paul Soloway's withdrawing due to illness. And all my dark horses? Well, they didn't even get in the race for the most part.

That said, I'm absolutely thrilled for the Norwegians... If you asked me what team I wanted to see win, the answer would've been Norway. I love watching Helgemo/Helness play and I think having another nation claim the prize is great for the game.

So, congrats Norway!

In other news, I've been playing a fair bit... But haven't come across anything really 'interesting' to post. That said, I wouldn't know a truly 'beautiful hand' if I fell across it. I just can't appreciate that depth of the game yet... Maybe someday.

On that note, there's a "Why do you play bridge?" thread over on the BBO forums that I'm going to throw some thoughts in. If you're here (and not there), I'd love to see your response in the comments below.

Classic Advice

From this article:

As a teenage chess prodigy, Garry Kasparov quickly learned to deal with failure.

Twice he clashed with reigning champion Tigran Petrosian, and each time the upstart's aggressive tactics were twisted against him, repelled by "Iron Tigran's" notoriously impenetrable defence.

So on the eve of the their third meeting, the young Mr. Kasparov sought out some advice from the legendary Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky.

"Squeeze his balls," Mr. Spassky counselled, sidestepping the more delicate intricacies of strategy. "But don't rush into it," he cautioned. "Squeeze one, not both."

The message? Pressure is a good thing, but it must be applied steadily and with purpose.

Yes, I'm sure that interpretation was crystal clear.

Correct to be proud?

Played this hand today... I was pretty proud of the my declarer play, but everyone else at the table declared my idiocy. Did defenders muff this, or did I do something right for a change?

Sitting south, I look down at:

♠ AJ52 ♥ AK72 ♦ K ♣ AJ52

West	North	East	South
			1♣
p	3♣	p	3NT
p	p	X	A

I admit that 3NT was an overbid... However, this was in a team game in which we were way behind. I was trying to swing (for the first time in my life).

Dealer S Vul E/W Scoring - Lead ♥Q	♠ Q3 ♥ 986 ♦ Q73 ♣ T8764
♠ 964 ♥ QJT53 ♦ J6542 ♣		♠ KT87 ♥ 4 ♦ AT98 ♣ KQ93
	♠ AJ52 ♥ AK72 ♦ K ♣ AJ52

I won the ♥K in hand, and returned the ♦K trying to set up at least one diamond trick in dummy. I suppose the defense should duck here. Instead, east rises with the ♦A and returns a low ♠. At this point, it seems my only chance to to setup ♣s and hope that the ♠ honors are on my right.

So, I let the spade ride around to dummy - winning there with the ♠Q. A low club to the ♣J holds, so I push out the ♣A followed by a low club towards dummy won in east with the Q.

East tries spades again, but I win the ♠J in hand and push another club through to east's ♣K. East fires out the spade ♠K, which I win with the ♠A and exit with the ♠5 to endplay east. 3NTX making.

Where could I have done better, and where could the defense have beat me up?

"Hope you have some of those..."

Funny hand the other day... You hold, sitting South.

♠ ♥ A92 ♦ AJT732 ♣ Q732

The auction goes a little something like this:

West	North	East	South
		p	1♦
2♦	4♦	p	5♦
p	p	p

Here's the kicker... Just before dummy hits the table, partner fires this off: "Oops... Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Hope you actually have some diamonds." Always a promising start to a hand.

Dealer E Vul All Lead ♥J	♠ AQ62 ♥ Q ♦ Q86 ♣ AT985
♠ K8743 ♥ JT8754 ♦ K ♣ K		♠ JT95 ♥ K63 ♦ 954 ♣ J64
	♠ ♥ A92 ♦ AJT732 ♣ Q732

Luckily, we both 'had our bid', in a manner of speaking.

To improve is my goal

While my game has more holes than swiss cheese, I need to start somewhere if I'm ever going to get better. I work best if I have a plan... So, here are the aspects of my game I think I need the most work on to improve:

1. Competitive bidding judgment - While my overall bidding isn't particularly stellar, the few tools and gut guesses I have in complicated auctions are almost always wrong. I bid on when I should defend, I defend when I should bid on, and too often my bids don't mean what I think they mean.
2. Defensive cardplay - Counting, signaling, and overall defensive strategy are huge areas of need for me. I know, beyond a doubt, that I'm giving away tricks to most decent declarers.
   
3. Counting the hand - I mentioned this in defensive cardplay above because, for some reason, I have an easier time keeping track of cards when I'm declaring. However, I still have miles to go to get 'good'.
4. Controlling the tempo - If I slow down and think, I obviously play better than when I fly by the seat of my pants. I need to work on thinking slowly and carefully before making the play.

There are a ton of different ways I suppose I could go about working on all this. This, however, is the method I'm choosing for now. If anyone has an alternative (assuming, of course, than anyone besides me is reading this), I'd love to hear it.

• To help with my competitive bidding, I think the first thing is just to bid more and more hands. While there are certainly tools and principles I can sharpen, there's a ton of 'feeling' that I simply don't have. I also probably need a book on competitive bidding, but I'm going to focus my reading elsewhere for now...
• Defensively, I'm going to try to pick up Root's How to Defend a Bridge Hand and Kelsey's Killing Defense. I've heard really good things about both.
• Counting the hand is a matter of practice. I'm going to start forcing myself to count 2 suits in all hands. Probably, this will be trump and some other significant suit in my hand against suit contracts, and two solid suits in my hand against NT. This would be the next book front as well, prolly with Countdown to Winning Bridge and How to Read Your Opp's Cards.

As an overarching thing and to address tempo, I'm going to try to establish a 'pre-play routine'. If golfers need their waggle or basketball players need a routine for free-throws, I probably need one before bidding or playing a card.

Bidding

1. Evaluate hand using my occasional teacher's hand evaluator.
2. Do I have a forcing, invitational, minimal, or 'passer' kind of hand?
3. What do I know from the auction so far?
4. What is the right bid to make?
5. Really? Are you sure?

Play of the hand

1. What is the likely distribution (count and points) on the hand?
2. What did I learn from the last trick (signals, etc)?
3. What is my/declarer's plan? What are the threats to that plan?
4. If defending, what does partner need to know about the hand?
5. What is the right play to make?
6. Really? Are you sure?

Time to start a new wishlist at Amazon, I guess.