Greetings Bridge Friends!
Here we go again with more on promotion plays and another 24 challenging yet glorious hands to quench your declarer thirst to bring home that game, slam or even a grandslam contract. As always, we start off by considering our objective. In a suit contract we begin by counting our losers, while in a Notrump contract we count our winners – desperate to first win our tricks before the opponents promote THEIR suit. Depending on factors like our quick tricks, running suits, shortage, leads, bids and the like, after long (or even short honor-bound) suit promotion, we begin by considering ruffing and finesse plays. As in our prior lesson, we will start off seeing the consequence when the declarer makes a quick play without evaluating the best line of play to make their objective. Then we will carefully cover the best line of play declarer to proudly bring home our contract.
Part 1 – Promotion play for all audiences – click here to view 29 minutes of video
Free, Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part 2 – 34 minutes of video
Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part 3 – 35 minutes of video
Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part 4 – 41 minutes of video
Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part 5 – 40 minutes of video
As before, on occasion you will have the opportunity to use the Rule of 7 to disrupt the opponents from gaining an entry to promote their suit. We will also see losing tricks disappear using the magical “Loser On Loser” tactic and avoid risking a losing finesse when a “throw-in” play causes the opponents to end play themselves.
When playing in a lofty 6 or 7 Notrump contract, it pays the declarer handsome dividends by counting the opponents suit distribution during play and we will show you easy methods to simply counting without taxing your memory. In fact, we might even want to willingly lose the first trick to the opponents (rectify the count) to help us reveal their suit distribution.
And how about a lofty 7 level suit contract when partner seems to have stretched a bit much? Even when our suits do not seem to promote easily, we might be able to “ruff out” a 5 card suit to eventually promote the coveted extra trick. And as we will see, deciding which hand to promote is all about having precious entries into either the declarer or dummy hand (irrespective of which has the most High Card Points).
As always, we will spend plenty of time discussing hand evaluation including Losing Trick Count, bidding scenarios such as when the opponents overcall or preempt as well as associated inferences we might make based on this or their line of play.
As always, here at BridgeHands on all of our Bridge hands are full of discussions and analysis on hand evaluation, bidding and play with 3 hours of animated card play with commentary (#1 – 29 minutes, #2 – 34 minutes, #3 – 35 minutes, #4 – 41 minutes, #5 – 40 minutes).
Visitors are welcome to view the Part 1 series of our video lesson with several hands including critical decisions that will influence our card play. Those with the Free BridgeHands membership may also watch Part 2 where we review the first four hands with provocative play tips and strategies to ensure you bring home the contract. As a Premium and ULTRA member, you are welcome to enjoy the entire five-part lesson segments and future shows during your membership subscription period. Of course, as always be sure to check out the hundreds of hours of videos in our archive that is growing by leaps and bounds, by clicking “Index to Videos” on the navigation above or simply click this link.
Happy Trails,
BridgeHands
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