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…

Do you need instant gratification without study and training? Okay, go click here to go right to our animated video animation with bidding and play commentary – and now with background music!

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…]