Hey, twicky! Who knew?
I play, but very badly. Card games are one of the few things I am terrible at and still enjoy enormously. Usually if I’m bad at something I don’t enjoy it.
I found OKBridge on line to be quite enjoyable, as long as you stay in with the novices. My biggest problem was that the players who didn’t find me a burden to play with tended to be more interested in chatting than in playing.
Heh. We can discuss this if we ever manage to work out a time to get together…
I know that a lot of bridge players argue.
However it is better for your partnership and the game if you can keep things civil.
Don’t leap on your partner’s mistakes. Make a mental note of it and decide later if it’s worth discussing.
Zia Mahmood writes that criticising partner destroys their confidence. You can’t do well at bridge on your own, so keep your partner interested.
Well, bridge is a little bit like sex – if you have a good hand, you don’t need a partner.
Interested players can always try Bridgebase Online.
I always wanted to learn, but my father told me it took a long time to get it down and I was probably better off not trying.
What a fun guy he was.
Well, that was when I was about 12, and now, after I realize that his pessimistic outlook wasn’t the best to follow, I still am interested in learning, if only so I can show up that guy who writes the daily bridge game in our local paper.
This is amusing. 
But not true.
Consider this hand:
Spades AKQxxx
Hearts AKQxxx
Diamonds void
Clubs A
Try bidding that with a partner who doesn’t respond (even though he has Jxxx in one of your suits and void in the other).
If you enjoy playing partnership Spades seriously or competitively, you would likely find Bridge to be a very compelling “upgrade”. Once we started playing Bridge we never played Spades again (though we did often play Hearts).
For one, the bidding involves naming the trump suit (or No Trumps), which adds a whole new dimension to the game (so much so that entire books are written about bidding – even specific scenarios of bidding). For another, there is a “dummy” hand when the auction ends, so that the “offensive” side (who wins the auction) has a “declarer” who directs the cards from half the deck (his own and his partner’s, laid face-up on the table), which the two “defenders” (who are trying to defeat the contract) likewise get to see.
If you think it’s grand to pull off the seemingly impossible against your opponents at Spades, doing it as declarer one-on-two (as it were) is a real thrill. Especially when you intentially execute strategies with esoteric sounding names such as "trump coups, “strip squeezes” and “endplays”. (Awww, yeah.)
Anybody who wants to talk about learning or improving at bridge should feel free to contact me. I can recommend many good books for beginners and intermediate players, and hopefully good advice/guidance if you want that as well.
As for me and how I came to the game: I’m 35 and I started in High School, where at least 8 of us became avid players after reading about it out of a book (one of those “rules to 500 card games” type of books). We were already avid card players wasting our lunchtimes and afterschool hours on games like Gin, Casino, Rummy 500, Hearts and Spades (but not Poker for some reason) for 2 or 3 years before “graduating” to bridge.
In college I started going to the bridge club, mostly populated by technical folks in the sciences and especially foreign grad students. That’s also when I found out that there was a lot to learn about the game that isn’t covered in a 10-page guide to the rules and simple concepts.
I played competitive duplicate bridge quite avidly for the next 10 years, and got pretty good at it though not quite to the expert level. Then I got married and had children, and so did all my regular bridge partners, some of who also moved far away, and now it’s down to one or two sessions a year.
As for the “recriminations phase”: Bridge is a partnership game (the title of a book in fact), and as such you can be the best player in the world and still finish “under par” for the hand (versus expected or possible results) if your partner screws up. People who play this game often put their ego on the line and will sometimes react to this badly. The best players already know their level and will not ever berate partner at the table; the time for lessons for a junior partner or working out detailed agreements is after the opponents have left.
It is worth noting that most abusive partners are usually wrong in some or most of their analysis and are usually drawing attention away from their own mistakes by going on the attack (e.g. “if you had played the THREE and then the TWO to give correct count I wouldn’t have thought your hand was 5-4-2-2 in shape and wouldn’t have tried to give you a ruff, which resulted in giving away the crucial trick…” when in fact the hand was clearly not that way by any number of other clues). If you hook up with one of these types, it is simple: don’t play with them again, even (or especially) if it is someone who is otherwise a friend or even spouse.
Well, that’s why forcing opening bids exist – ones that partner just can’t pass. Unless he’s actually barred from the auction due to some impropriety, of course.
What’s the problem here? This is why we have forcing bids.
E.g.
2C - 2D
2S - 2NT
4H - Pass, raise or 4S.
Would you really only bid 4H? I’d think 6H would be the normal bid, with a fair number of semi-psychos shooting out 7H.
It’s conventional. Given that partner has a minimal hand someone else could have Jxxx(x). It’s more likely that partner will be long in the minor suits.
Conventional, meaning a specific convention that shows a solid two-suiter by opener in that sequence? It’s been a while, but I don’t remember that treatment being standard, or in fact remember it at all.
Under standard bidding agreements, wouldn’t you bid the same way (2C followed by 2S then jumping to 4H) with less quality suits, e.g.
AQJxxx
KQJxxx
(void)
A
Holding a yarborough with 3-2-4-4 shape (in spades/hearts/diamonds/clubs), how is he to distinguish this from the actual
AKQxxx
AKQxxx
(void)
A
which can make 6 of a major opposite most hands with 3-2 or 2-2 majors (especially if he holds either Jack)?
It’s relatively basic Acol, Cohen / Lederer era, save the first 2C bid shows the point count. You could also start off with a bid of 2S (16-24) but 2C describes the hand better. Your alternative hand would be an example of starting with 2S then bidding 4H but this is not forcing. See All About Acol, chapter 11.
Bolder bidders would start with 4NT, hoping to hear 5H or 5NT, and converting 5C or 5D to 5S, otherwise bidding 6S or 7NT.
On the main hand, yes, you could bid the small slam but you’d be looking foolish if your partner were 6-6 in the minors. And just because you have 6 of a suit doesn’t mean that an opponent doesn’t also have 6 - or even 7 as happenned to me once.
Yes, it’s possible to find partner with 6-6 minors and be in a bad slam, but you’re far more likely (IMHO) to miss a reasonably good slam by rebidding 4H than to land in a bad one by committing to the six-level.
If partner has a 3-card major it’s a pretty solid slam; pretty much the only thing that can sink you is if he doesn’t hold the Jack and you have Jxxx outstanding, and the side suit also develops a loser. Considering that a 4-0 split is only an 8% chance and even then it’s only a 4-out-of-7 chance that the opponents hold Jxxx as opposed to Txxx or worse, AND that you still can make it if the second suit sets up, and this becomes a neglible scenario to worry about.
If he’s 2-2 majors the hand is still cold whenever either major split 3-2 (i.e. you can’t stand having both split 4-1 or 5-0), this will be true roughly 68% + (0.32*68%) = about 90% of the time.
Even with 2-1 majors it’s pretty good since you can ruff one of the majors he’s short in as long as that suit splits 4-2. Then you need either 3-2 in the trump suit or 4-2 in the side long suit, that’s 68% + (0.32*47%) = a 68% slam.
Basically the only thing to worry about is partner being 1-1 or worse in the majors; in which case you shrug off the freak hand.
The rule of thumb is to bid any small slam that is 65% or better, or you will lose a lot of points over time to the field. It may be different for players who are used to playing for money, where a premium is placed on going for a certain plus score; however even then, routinely failing to bid high percentage slams over time will cost you money rightfully dealt to you out of the deck.
A cut-and-paste error: this works out to an 83% probability of success.
I thought a 4NT opening bid asked for Aces (5C=none, 5D/H/S/6C=that Ace, 5NT=two)? I was wondering what to open on this and decided 2C was the least untrue, as it’s definitely a “game opposite a worthless hand” proposition. All he can possibly tell you after 4NT is that he has the D:A (not much use to you) or nothing (more likely) and then you’re at the five level with no agreed trump suit.
In the sequence below, isn’t 3H a better bid than 4H? Partner’s forced to bid again. And after 2C-2D-2S he’s meant to support Spades if he can or bid a five-card suit if he has one, and 2NT only if he can do neither of the above - so you can rule out his being 6-6 in the minors. As the dominant hand, you’re not that interested in describing your hand accurately, but in getting him to tell you what he’s got; only you know what a monster you hold.
(Not that I’ve ever held two six-timers to AKQ and an Ace on the side.)
Correct
I did say it was for the bold.
No - it would show a weaker hand. The modified hand in Robardin’s post would be perfect for 2S-3H.
Respectfully disagreeing on a couple of points, Quartz. A 4NT opener isn’t “for the bold” when the only information it can give you is useless; it’s for the judgementally challenged :).
Secondly, 4H in the sequence above isn’t a strong bid. It’s a weak one (as weak as bids get with a 2C opener, that is). Why? 2C promised to keep the bidding open to game. Therefore 3H can’t be passed. 4H can be. If partner is reading your bid as natural, he’ll assume that the bidding so far has convinced you that advancing beyond game isn’t feasible.
IMO the hand should be bid thus:
2C (Don’t stop until we get to game)
2D (Hearing and obedience, partner, but I’m looking at tram-tickets here)
2H (Can you support this suit?)
2NT (No, nor do I have a five-card suit of my own. If I had, I’d have bid it no matter how weak. You already know I’m promising you 0+ points.)
3S (I hear what you’re saying. Here’s an alternative suit. You know my Hearts are at least as long as my Spades, or I’d have bid the longer suit first.)
Then partner holding the hand mentioned above (a yarborough with 3-2-4-4 shape (in spades/hearts/diamonds/clubs)) bids:
4S (Simple suit-preference, partner. I’m not wild about either suit, but you know best)
As opener, you now know that you have nine trumps at minimum - partner must have at least three cards in his preferred major, or he would have had a five-card suit to bid earlier - and you can jump to the small slam at minimum. Even the grand is plausible, reasoning that if you also have nine Hearts between you then the suit is presumably running, and if not then you can probably establish the suit by ruffing. There are ways that 7S could go down, of course. You might find Jxxx offside. You might find a 3-1 trump split, the Hearts breaking badly, and the long trump with the short Hearts, so you can’t get your ruff. But if you routinely bit 4S when 6S is on, or 6S when 7S is on, you’ll make dreadful scores at pairs.