Takeout Double: The perfect Bridge bid with an opening hand and shortness in opponents suit

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Sometimes one must use force to go against force, sometimes not.  When you stop to think about it, a more elegant way to compete is to turn the opponents’ weakness in your strength.  And that’s what the Takeout Double is all about – instructing partner to “take out” opponents’ auction in another suit.

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Jerry Helms – Worldclass Bridge Teacher: Bidding Slam/Grandslam, Promotion Play

We are delighted to offer you a special treat for today’s lesson.  Jerry Helms, World-class Bridge Teacher and playing professional with 18,000+ Masterpoints, teaches students a lesson on slam/grandslam bidding and play!   If you haven’t had the opportunity to attend one of Jerry’s class, right away we offer you this warning:

See our online video commentary of bidding with card animation.

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 After watching one of Jerry’s awesome lessons with rapid-paced and insightful out-of-the-box commentary, you will soon be scanning his website for a Bridge seminar or festival near you!   See JerryHelm.com for more information – and don’t miss reading 100 of his monthly “Ask Jerry” ACBL Bridge Bulletin columns.

In today’s poll, we echo a few of the many key points from Jerry’s lesson.  When you hold a 16 HCP monster hand with a great 7 card Heart suit and partner opens 1 Notrump, now what?  This isn’t your everyday situation, right?   Are you a traditionalist, stick to tried and true methods or does your creative side give rise to consider alternative bidding methods with such an unusual holding? [Read more…]

Learn cuebids in slam Bridge contracts, make lead directing doubles

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On today our poll, we offer everyone a diversion from our usual quantitative question to seek a more qualitative philosophical perspective.  And we all know Bridge players each have a perspective, right?

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Most opening lead situations are difficult; at least the professionals seem to think so.  So when the opponents have bid up, up and away to a 6 level slam contract, most likely your lead is “all or none.”  So carefully review the bidding, weigh all the inferences, evaluate the opponents bidding tempo.  Mix this all together with your knowledge and it’s time to face your opening lead. You are sitting West and it’s your lead with the following auction: 

Without looking at your hand, do you have a lead in mind?  Well, since:

1. We aren’t letting you go wayward by looking at your hand

2. Bridge is a partnership game

So leading a Diamond should keep you in good graces with your partner.  But we are jumping ahead of ourselves – let’s go back and kibitz the bidding by North/South.  Here are their hands.  [Read more…]

Playing in 6 Club slam Contract: consider finesse, second hand play, preemptive bidding

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In today’s poll, dummy holds Ace-8-4 in North opposite declarer’s Queen-Jack-9 in South. It turns out that West holds the King-3-2 so the finesse is onside. So what is the correct line of play for South? And assuming the best line of play by the declarer, how should West play the King? Or best said, WHEN should West play the King? Does it matter for South; does it matter for West, or does anything matter at all with this holding? Inquiring minds must know – we are looking for you to give us answers. Good luck with your poll response.

Part 1 – video commentary of bidding with card animation.

On today’s hands at the table, the bidding soon bolts skywards. While the opener and responder both showed full opening hands based on their initial bid, the opponents vigorously competed to 4 Spades on their first round of bidding. Unfazed, the responder pushed onward to a slam contract. But the bidding is only the icing on the cake – where will the declarer find 12 tricks? And like today’s poll, when should the defender cover an honor with an honor? [Read more…]

Playing Contract Bridge in 4 Hearts: “100 honors” missing Queen

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In today’s poll, the good news is we have all the winners in the minors. On the other hand, figuring out how to play the major suits seems to require a bit of guess work, or not. Hopefully we can come up with a sound strategy that will help us find that magical 10th trick. In fact, after enough Contract Bridge or Duplicate Bridge play, some hand patterns begin to look like old friends of ours. So put on your thinking cap, explore the alternatives in our poll and elect your candidate – good luck getting your winner on top of the heap!

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After 2NT by South, North bids 3 Clubs, Stayman asking opener to bid a 4 card major – up the line.  East doubles 3 Clubs – now what’s that all about? Not deterred, South rebids 3 Hearts and responder signfos off in a 4 Heart game.

On lead, West understands East’s double of North’s artificial 3 Club conventional bid as both showing a real suit and asking partner to lead the artificial suit.  With an otherwise difficult lead decision, West is more than happy to lead a Club.

After the dummy comes down, initially our declarer South is happy to count 20 + 8 High Card Points, more than enough for most game contracts.  But on later reflection, South detects a problem – do you see it, too?

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Finesse, Know the Bridge Odds/Probabilities (Contract Bridge)

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On today’s poll, we take a look at finesses and playing for opponents suit distribution from a different perspective.  Rather than simply look at a specific play, we introduce another possible wrinkle – does a line of play matter depending on the number of tricks required?   And while it is not really necessary to know the exact numeric percentage for a given play, over the long term it helps to know the best line of play.  In fact, knowing the mathematical odds by number may impress your friends – or maybe not…

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So whether you ruminate, cogitate, contemplate, deliberate, or simply pray for divine inspiration, we figure you have a good chance to deduce the best response.  Look at it this way, with 5 choices you have the same odds of choosing the right card to lead after you’ve already played 8 cards!  Nah, we’re sure your odds are better here and especially at the table.  Good luck and happy hunting.

After 2NT, North should bid 3C Stayman – there is no hurry to jump to 6 NT

After 2N – 3C; 3D, partner’s who play 4C Gerber should use the bid.

But if you learned the way I initially did, playing “momma-papa kitchen Bridge” with my parents and my fiancé, then we’d play 4 Notrump as Ace-ask although bidding 4 Clubs would probably get the same response.  Now days, advancing players use 4 Notrump as inviting partner to bid 6 Notrump with a good hand – the upper end of their initial Notrump bid, i.e., Quantitative Slam ask.

Playing in a slam contract, we give special acknowledgment Aces and Kings – quick tricks to keep opponents from gaining 2 tricks.  So it takes more than 33 HCP to make a small slam – you must not be missing and Ace and King on a side suit.  Notice North is missing  those 2 controls in the Heart suit – 4 cards is the suit is nice, but that suit is suspect if partner is missing an Ace.

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Thanks for dropping by BridgeHands “Polling You” website. Every week, we continue to load our Bridge Blog with commentary, downloadable files, and video card animation with background music. And coming this month, we will begin including real video with action-packed adventures at the table. Our goal is to enlighten, entertain and educate Bridge players as well as offer our materials to Bridge Teachers to share with their students.

Happy Trails,
Michael

Contract and Duplicate Bridge: Finesse, Promotion, Ducking

Happy New Year, Bridge friends!  And so we’ve made our personal affirmations and are ready to make the best of 2011.  To begin our Polling You blog for the new year, we offer an interesting set of hands.  Beside our normal array of bidding and play possibilities, not everyone is likely to agree with the hand evaluation and the initial bid.   But that’s part of the joy of Bridge, isn’t it?  Our exciting game offers players a wealth of options.  And that’s why we are here – to explore the tradeoffs and consequence of various scenarios.

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On today’s poll, we have a multi-part question: one querying opener’s rebid, the other asking our play strategy.   Actually, that pretty much sums up Contract Bridge and Duplicate Bridge doesn’t it?  For sure, making accurate bids is necessary to make the contract.   So our hand evaluation, or re-evaluation here is our first hurdle.  After that, you can ponder a range of play options where suit promotion, finesses and ducking plays might enter the picture.  Okay Bridge thrill seekers, look at your ballots an register your votes.

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North deals and opens 1 Spade, while some advanced players would prefer beginning with 1 Notrump to show a reasonable 16 HCP hand.  Sure enough, partner South bids 1 Notrump and North must make an uncomfortable rebid – Pass or invite with 2 Notrump.   Then there’s a handful of decisions after the lead of the Heart 9. with some challenging declarer’s and defender’s play strategy.  We discuss this and more in our Protected Content area – please login and we will see you over on the other side.   [Read more…]

Contract and Duplicate Bridge: Finessing King and Jack

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Okay Bridge friends, what do you say we finish the year with some real finesse? Here at our virtual table, we appreciate holding both the Ace and Queen even if they are not both in the same hand (so called “working honors”). Yet playing in Notrump and holding the Ace allows us to control the tempo, should we wish to duck a trick along the way.

And as in real life, we’ve also included a hand with some nice body cards that might come in handy if we can figure out how to play a secondary finesse. Ah the joys of Bridge, a lifetime of learning. We here at BridgeHands wish you all a joyous New Year!

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Similar to Poll #19 and 20, in today’s polling question we are faced with how to play a suit missing two honors: this time we are missing the King-Jack.  As you will recall from our earlier lessons, we typically finesse toward the lower connected honors (giving consideration to length and placement of honors). [Read more…]

Contract and Duplicate Bridge: Finessing King and Queen

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Finesse, finesse, let me count the ways.   Yes, the road to successful finesses has many twists and turns down the pathway to success.  So let’s scoot up to our virtual Bridge table and give it our best shot.

On today’s poll, we are blessed with some nice honors but missing the King and Queen.  As declarer you are the conductor and partner is your orchestra across the table.  So it’s time to locate the royal nobility – let the music begin. 

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Similar to Poll #19, in today’s polling question we are faced with how to play a suit missing the King-Queen.  When missing these “royal honors” most of  the time we again finesse toward the lower connected honors (giving consideration to length and placement of honors).

On the above hand, South opens 1 Notrump with a balanced 16 HCP.  North holds a flat 8 HCP with lots of secondary honors – 7 to be exact and bids 2C Stayman hoping for a Heart fit with South.  When South bids 2D denying major suit support, North bids an invitational 2 Notrump.  South has a hair pulling exercise deciding whether or not to accept a 3 Notrump game.   Assuming South is willing to take a bit of a gamble and bid 3 Notrump, it’s time to plan your play. [Read more…]

Duplicate and Contract Bridge: Finesse missing Ace-Queen

Everyone loves a good finesse, especially when we have lots of honors in the suit.  But all too often Bridge is like life and we don’t have as many resources as we wished.

In today’s polling question, we are faced with how to play a suit missing the Ace-Queen.  Enter the world of finesses or more properly stated, suit combinations.   While our BridgeHands has hundreds and hundreds of suit combinations, that’s way too many for most of us to memorize.   So on combinations like the one above, we need a general guideline we can use to follow is most situations.

And when missing the Ace-Queen and holding the Jack-10-x, the general guide when needing 2 tricks in the suit is to play low to the Jack-10-x suit.   In fact, you’ll find that in many instances your odds of making an extra trick are increased by first taking the *LOWER* tenace finesse, then later taking the higher finesse.  Wow, that guideline sure beats memorizing over 700 suit combinations!

On the above hand, South opens 1 Notrump with a balanced 16 HCP.  North bids 2C Stayman, hoping South will bid a 4 card major (up the line, Hearts first with both majors).  And with a nice 16 HCP held by North, slam looks very possible (33 points is a good benchmark for slam, with sufficient Aces).  When South bids 2D denying major suit support, North bids 4 Notrump – a Blackwood Ace-ask with strong interest in slam.  South rebids 5D, showing 1 Ace.  With a strong hand and lots of honors, North signs off in 6 Notrump.  West is on lead and begins with the Club Jack.  Plan your play. [Read more…]