Improve your contract bridge play: a variety of bridge hands involving Acol bidding, declarer play and defence. www.bridgeclass.co.uk
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First hand: Im assuming this is pairs. I'm thinking the play would be different in imps in case trumps and clubs are 4-1. trump to K then a diamond pitching a heart or similar. Or is there better? on second hand 4c should really promise 4 trumps and a minimum hand to start with. maybe 3 clubs then 4 hearts over 3s/3h?
On the last board, can't the declarer resist the diamond finesse and throw in you in order to guarantee the contract? (Win with Diamond AK and lose with J deliberately)
thanks for this video, it was very helpful. My question is what is the second negative when 2NT is not available, for example: 2C-2D-3D-?? I can picture responder with a 3-4-1-5 hand and 0-1 HCP out of good option to keep bidding
A couple of comments: I don't think your links apply to the hands shown in the video. On the fourth hand where you lead a diamond to 3NT. Wouldn't the principle of restricted choice suggest that your partner rather than declarer had the QD since declarer could have played the Q rather than K to win the trick?
Thank you for your interesting question. I have updated the links so they are in the same order as in the video. Restricted choice! An interesting question. If declarer has KQ, he should really always play the K. If he plays Q, then West should work he also has K (if partner had KJ, he should play K). I don't think Restricted Choice applies here, but I would be interested in other thoughts!
Thanks for your question. I don't think that helps here, as they opps can still take 1 more club to defeat you. By the way, it helps me if you have questions to indicate the time of the video (28 mins here).
On board 1, in the 3 card ending, you cannot be 100% sure that W has enough spade tricks. He might have made an inspired lead from QJx in spades thinking it was you who held the long spade suit. If so he shouldn’t have kept the J perhaps …. But, since you know that W only has spades and hearts left it is just as safe just exiting with the low spade instead of cashing the ace of hearts. If W has only spades left declarer will have none and W will win the rest. Otherwise W will have one or two hearts and you’ll be able to win two hearts instead.
On hand 2, X after 1N, many advise against doing that for penalty especially if it is RHO who has bid 1N as you are sitting over him, is that more relevant if one is playing strong NT rather than weak?
This is a thing that I don't see mentioned much if at all - Your partner makes a lead and you guess their plan, see that it will never work when dummy goes down, and so switch to a new line of attack instead. Rarely mentioned but comes up a lot when I play. Often where a return of the same suit would be finessing against your partner or where they lead from a (presumed) doubleton and you see that trumps will be drawn before they can get to make the ruff.
Wrong. Ace is for unblock or count, King is for attitude, playing standard signals. I actually prefer Rusinow, so that King shows Ace-King, and Ace denies the King.
1NT would be a reasonable alternative. The advantage of bidding 2S, is that most of the time, even playing 4 card majors, your partner will have 5 spades, and it is good to find this fit early: for example it is harder for the opponents to overcall over 2S, rather than over 1NT
IMHO it could be right to support partners overcall to the 2 level even with almost nothing but the 8+ card fit since 1) most bidding systems cannot easily reach a penalty double at the 2 level 2) Your opponents will almost certainly score better by carrying on bidding as they can almost certainly make game if you are really weak and your partner was not strong enough for a strength double. 3) If your suit is spades then you definitely want to do it as it forces the opponents to the 3 level. If your suit is diamonds then it is probably better passing.
Thank you Tony I enjoyed this video. At 3min 40 approx you mention, as responder, never bypassing a 4 card major. At 9.35 you mention 'as dealer you'd have opened 1NT' . So, is it ok to bypass the 4 card majors as declarer, (bidding a 1NT) but not as responder. Very helpful lesson, much appreciate it.
What happens if West declines the spade trick after the elimination? If declarer has a trump entry to dummy, they might be tempted to go over with a trump and try a spade finesse of the queen. I explored this as a baby player after seeing this combination in Watson's Play of the Hand.
At 15:06 ... you say " ...the computer is saying that the best lead for the defense is actually a trump... " but Hearts is trump and GIB says West can hold Declarer to +2 by leading a Spade. It is not easy to see why this is so, but I think this lead allows East to eventually trump a Spade when Declarer tries to use Spades as transportation before drawing trump.
In the 2nd hand I'd have exited a diamond hoping to get an extra with the Q (wouldn't have worked here) as I can't see how I could lose an extra trick by doing so.
Hi Tony, love your lessons. Was wondering with the first hand shown if the lead was the 10H instead of the KD, would you still try the long clubs? If distribution of the clubs was 4-1 and you pulled 2 rounds of trump before playing the clubs you possibly would be down 2H, Club Ruff and a diamond? Thanks for all you do.
Thanks Tony for sharing your tutorial videos. You have a really nice manner when sharing your knowledge. Personally I enjoy playing hands far more having studied many of your videos. I am dreadfully slow though as I attempt to remember what could be done. I hope with time I'll get quicker with practice. For me now, my weakness is bidding and would love to see more about how best to improve that aspect. Thanks again for the videos.
When you lead a King at trick 1 in a suit contract this implies the queen. Shouldn't your partner overtake with the Ace if they have it? If that is correct then if the king wins, it shows the Ace to be with RHO.
Sometimes it would be right to overtake with the ace, but not always. If you have a doubleton Ax - then you would normally overtake, but otherwise you might want to give an attitude signal or even a suit preference signal - take a look at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HWYDu7AI5WQ.html
The last hand I would open 1NT because the S are nowhere near good enough for the 2S you would have to bid over a 2C,2D or 1NT response (I suppose you could let 1NT pass). On this hand you'd end up in 4H via 1NT-(2D)-2H-(4H) Imagine the hole you'd be digging if North's hearts and diamonds were swapped!
The takeaway from this seems to be that, perversely, you are more likely to want to be in a NT slam with an unbalanced hand because, with a, more balanced hand and a 4-4 fit (as in the 6S contract) you only make 4 tricks in that suit in NT but can make more if you use one or more for ruffing in a trump contract. i.e. with an unbalanced hand you use length to discard losers and with a balanced hand you use "spare" trumps to ruff losers
Surely, not leading your partner's suit is only a mistake in in a NT contract. IN a suit contract you might be finessing against your partner with no possibility of later gain.
At 20:10 you should definitely raise to the level of the fit even with 0 points. The logic is that if you have a fit, the opponents probably do to, and if you have 0 points they will make at least game so try to make it hard for them. In this case you prevent north from rebidding 2cl and 2di.
We play this bid as general strength (game possible) without stoppers in opponents suit (otherwise could have bid NT). It's also the only non-forcing bid available.
Also, the initial overcaller can use a cue bid. For instance on the hand at 16:58 east would respond 3cl showing more than minimum but lacking a stopper and having only a five card heart suit. West has 8 losers but the diamond suit is pretty good so perhaps try 4 hearts. Otherwise 3 hearts.
Sir I was out of town. Hence delay in sending my reply regretted. Sir, today i participated in a bridge tournament. It was conduct in Mitchell movement which is player up and board down format. But ranking of result was done in combining both EW and NS points. But so far in know in this format scores are compared separately between all EW and NS pairs and NS and EW will get prizes separately. My question is combination of players from both direction allowed as per bridge law.
A very common form of scoring is a Mitchell movement in which you normally get a separate result for North South pairs and for East West pairs. It is possible to do a Mitchell with an arrow switched movement where the last round is played by rotating the board 90°, this results in a single result for all pairs. It may not seem fair to do this but mathematicians tell us that it is reasonably fair. if there is no arrow switch however then you should have separate East west and north south results.
I wouldn't put it that way. The main signal in NT or a suit is ATTITUDE. If a signal could be attitude then it is attitude. If an attitude signal would be useless (for example a singleton in dummy), then the signal could be Suit Preference or a Count signal
