Deep Finesse is now free

Maybe I'm a long way behind the curve with this one. But I have just noticed that if you visit the front page of the Deep Finesse website that their excellent double-dummy analysis software is now totally free. It's probably been free for years now, but the last time I looked it wasn't so I've been using other bits of software around for a while like Bridgify.

Safety play?

Here's a Tollemache (teams) declarer play problem. East is dealer and Passes. You quickly reach 4 after a 1NT opener (12-14), Stayman, 2 and 4. What's the best way to secure the contract on a Jack of Diamonds lead?

East Dealer

Both Vuln.

North (Declarer)

A Q 10 9

A 8 5 2

4 2

Q J 7

West

K 6 5 2

Q 9

K J 10 6

10 8 4

East

8

10 6 3

Q 9 8 5 3

A 9 5 2

South

J 7 4 3

K J 7 4

A 7

K 6 3

What does 3 mean?

So, lots of hands last weekend at the Tollemache qualifier and I'm spoilt for choice for what to write about. My pair recovered to a level of respectability by the end but missed out on excellent scores on two very tricky bidding sequences. The non-Acol players will have to imagine you are Acol players for the time being, I'm just going to offer you two different bidding sequences and you have to tell me what you think 3 should mean in each sequence.

Sequence One:

(for this sequence direct bids after 2 would have been long-suit trial bids, and a 2 raise can be made on three-cards but 1NT is available with suitable 3-card support hands)

Vulnerability: None West North East South 1 Pass 2 Pass Pass Dbl Pass 2 3

What should 3 mean? Is it a game try, is it offering place to play? Is it something else?

Sequence Two:

(you aren't playing support doubles)

Vulnerability: Both West North East South 1 Pass 1 2 2 3 3

What should 3 mean? Is it a game try in some suit, is it natural, is it forcing? Is it something else? Would your answer change if opener hasn't rebid 2?

7Dx!

Here's a troublesome play problem for you from my county match yesterday. I'm sure I got it wrong now. See if you can do any better... The auction was as follows: 1 – (1) – 2 – (Pass)
Then uninterrupted (some sub-optimal bidding occurs near the end):
2 – 3
3NT – 4
4 – 4
4 – 4NT
5 – 6
7 – Pass – (Double from West!)
Thus you find yourself as North in 7 doubled, the non-doubler, on lead, leads the ace of hearts! How do you proceed?

North Dealer

EW Vuln.

North (Declarer)

A K Q 5

K 10 7 6

K 10 9 8 5

—

West

7

Q J 9 3 2

J 3

A 10 7 4 3

East

J 10 9 6 4 3 2

A 8 5 4

7 2

—

South

8

—

A Q 6 4

K Q J 9 8 6 5 2

(yes that two of clubs is in the South hand too)
I have hidden the full hand below this button if you'd like to see how you got on. Your plan of attacks is pretty much decided at tricks two and three, so think carefully. I'm tempted to do a poll offering you the chance to play:

1. Top diamond
2. Low diamond
3. Top club
4. Low club
5. Spade

But since this is all your options, I'll leave you to offer your answers in the comments.

3NTx

Now for a really tricky hand. You open the North cards below 1, South responds 1 and after a mildly aggressive 2–2NT–3NT continuation East finds the double card! West leads the heart three and since I'm in generous mood I'll give you the whole hand if you want it too. See if you can make 3NTx. Click the link below to immediately see the full hand. If you make it even seeing all the hands then I'm impressed.

North Dealer

Both Vuln.

North

A 10 4

K Q 10 7 6

A 6

10 6 5

West

J 7 6 5

3

K 9 7 3

Q 8 7 4

East

Q 3

J 9 8 5 2

Q 8 4 2

A J

South

K 9 8 2

A 4

J 10 5

K 9 3 2

Where do you end up playing?

It's been a hectic couple of weeks and my one attempt to go to the club resulted in my first ever experience of a "not enough players" scenario! I wrote a little match report about the county match the other week so thought I'd reproduce a couple of the more interesting hands here. Firstly a bidding problem: where does your system get you to on this pair of hands? North is opener as unfavourable vulnerability at teams.

North

K Q 9 7

A J 10 8 2

4

J 7 3

South

5 4

Q 6

A J 3

10 9 8 6 5 4

If you both pass West opens a weak no-trump (if North then overcalls an artificial 2 then assume East doubles showing values with some penalty interest). We lost this board in the County Match very comprehensively. A variety of -300,-130,-110 and -100 from all sides of the table.

Play in 4S

A final hand from the Teams event the other week for you to mull over. Rotated again so that you play South, vulnerable against not, you open the hand below a slightly under-strength intermediate 2 and quickly find yourself in 4. West leads the diamond two (playing standard ACOL leads).

South Dealer

NS Vulnerable

4 by S

North

Q 4 3

K Q J 9 4

A K 10

9 7

South

A 9 8 7 5 2

7 3

8 5

A J 4

You take the lead with a top diamond. What line do you take next?

A defensive signalling problem

Here's another hand from the Teams event last week. This time you're going to be defending against 4 after having overcalled 2 and doubled them in the following auction: 1 – 2 – 2 – Pass – 4 – Double – All Pass.
Vulnerability is Game-All and I've rotated you to be West for convenience.

South Dealer

All Vuln.

4 by S

North (Dummy)

K 5 4 3

J 9

10 7 4

Q 9 8 3

West (You)

9

K 10 8 7 4 3 2

A K 2

K J

East

South

You lead the Diamond Ace which you play for attitude. Partner offers the three and declarer the eight. You next play the Diamond King and partner offers the Diamond Queen, declarer the nine.
If your line doesn't work out, what has partner done wrong for you? :)

To duck or not to duck?

So here's another hand, this time from the Teams event last Sunday. Rotated for convenience, sitting South at favourable vulnerability, your partner opens an 11-14 NT. RHO overcalls 2 alerted as either natural spades or spades plus a minor. You upgrade your spade jack and bid 3 raised to 4 by partner. West leads the Spade King:

Dummy

10 9 7

Q J 6

K Q 9 3

A 8 2

West

K led

East

2

You (declarer)

A J 3

10 9 7 5 4 2

A

Q 7 6

How do you plan to play? Poll time!

What's your line?
	Duck the spade. Hope they continue spades. Then try and pitch a spade before playing trumps.
	Duck the spade. Hope they continue spades. Then attack trumps from hand.
	Take the spade, try and pitch spades on the diamonds.
	Take the spade, lead a small trump from hand.
	Take the spade, try and pitch clubs on diamonds.
pollcode.com free polls

Play problem

East Dealer

EW Vuln.

MPs

4 by S

North

10 7

A K 5 4 2

K J 9 4

6 2

Lead

Q

East

10 (encourage)

South

K Q 8 6

J 10 7 6

A 10 3

A 8

The auction was a straightforward (weak) 1NT – 2 – 2 – 2NT – 4.

Plan the play.

Do you duck a club immediately? Do you play on hearts immediately? Or do you play one heart, perhaps, and try a spade to the Queen?

Here's the hand as it was at the table...

Five clubs doubled

First a hand from the pairs event, at favourable vulnerability. Right-hand opponent opens 1 and you overcall 2 on:

South (You)

—

K 6

A J 8 2

A J 10 7 6 5 4

LHO bids a generous 2 giving partner chance to bid 3. The auction proceeds 3–4–4–Pass–Pass–5–Double–All Pass.

West leads the spade Ace which you ruff with table providing:

North (Dummy)

10 6

A 10 4 3 2

10 9 6

8 3 2

You lay down the club Ace, West dropping the King and East the nine.

How do you continue?

(East turns up with a second club)

More hands incoming

It's been a busy first week of term so I've not had much time to post, especially given I've played 121 boards since Wednesday too. On the play side that means there are soon to be lots of hands to post. Anyone reading this who wants to point me towards the more interesting of the 98 hands at the Pairs & Swiss event in Spondon this weekend feel free to do so in the comments below or by email.

I'll be using the hands to pose some interesting declarer play articles soon. I was dealt a lot of interesting cards and got to play a surprising number of interesting contracts this weekend so as long as I manage to get on top of my lecture-prep there might be a bumper number of hands this week.

Don't forget to go make comments on the slam hand a post or two back if you want a hand to comment on in the meantime.

Quick suit combinations: the answer

Here was the question again.

How do you play the following suit at matchpoints?

Dummy

A Q 10 8

Hand

4 3 2

Which very similar line actually achieves a higher expected number of tricks?

And now for what I think is the answer (with the help of the nifty program "suitplay"):

I'll call the best two lines A and B. Both Lines A and B play initially to the eight, and repeat any marked finesses on the second round if the eight loses to an honour. The hands where they differ are when the eight loses to the nine. Note that Line A plays to the Ten next, while Line B plays to the Queen next, Line A being the dominant line as far as beating all other lines.

The table below presents the number of tricks won by Lines A and B after the eight loses to the nine on the first round.

West	East	Percentage		Line A: To 8, then to Ten then Ace	Line B: To 8, then to Queen then Ace	A beats B	Trick Difference
KJxx	9x	4.8%	Tricks	3	2	✔	+1x4.8% = 4.8%
KJxxx	9	1.2%	Tricks	3	2	✔	+1x1.2% = 1.2%
Kxxx	J9	1.6%	Tricks	1	3		-2x1.6% = -3.2%
Kxx	J9x	5.3%	Tricks	2	3		-1x5.3% = -5.3%
Jxxx	K9	1.6%	Tricks	2	1	✔	+1*1.6% = 1.6%

Line B, however, wins more tricks on average, slightly, because of the two-trick gains when the Jack is offside and the King onside to at least three.

Slam play problem

You manage the bid the backs off the cards and reach 6 on the following pair of hands, West overcalled 2 and East raised to three over partner's 2 (GF), opposition were then silent. West then led the king of clubs and East followed with the nine:

South Dealer

Both Vuln.

MPs

6 by S

North

A 6

K Q 10 7 6

Q 7 2

7 6 5

South

K J 5 3 2

A 4

K J 8 5 4 3

—

Plan the play.

Quick suit combination

How do you play the following suit at matchpoints?

Dummy

A Q 10 8

Hand

4 3 2

Which very similar line actually achieves a higher expected number of tricks?

A question about defences to Asptro/Astro

A recent hand at the club has encouraged me to ask some questions about how people deal with Asptro/Astro-related interference over 1NT (usually weak).

As a quick reminder, Astro normally means that 2 shows at least 5-4 or 4-5 shape in hearts and a minor; and that 2 shows at least 5-4 or 4-5 shape in spades and any other suit. Whereas in Asptro both of the conventional overcalls can have both majors, with anchoring ("initial showing") to the weaker major.

This post isn't going to be about Lebensohl, or Rubensohl, or even Transfer Lebensohl (though a post about those will come at some point). Initially I just wonder what the following bids should mean.

Your side opens 1NT, LHO overcalls 2 showing spades and another suit. Are the following bid meanings standard in your partnership?

• Double = Value showing, 8+ with interest in penalizing something.
• 2Natural, non-forcing to play.
• 2Natural, 5+ invitational and forcing for one round.

I suspect most people play the double as value-showing, though whether it explicitly has interest in penalizing spades is probably not normal. I also suspect most people play 2 as natural non-forcing. But what does 2 mean? Have you got an agreement with partner that it shows a genuine spade suit with interest in game? Or does it show an invitational hand with hearts? Time for a poll to find the answer: hopefully I give enough possibilities:

What does 2 mean after Astro/Asptro showing at least four spades?

Do try and choose one of the options above if it roughly describes your agreement and give more precise details in comments. I imagine you might play it as a game force, which sometimes has four low spades and four hearts, and will bid 3NT next.

A couple more lead problems...

I promise to stop with lead problems very soon. But here are just a couple more which I've seen recently in issues of Bridge World.

The first comes from the February issue where you are dealt:

West (You)

A K J 3 2

5 4

8 6 3

10 7 2

NS are vulnerable in a teams match and the auction began with South and was uncontested: 1NT – 2C – 2S – 3NT – All Pass

What do you lead?

The second problem comes from the 2011 US Trial final match. You are West again on an uncontested auction: 2NT – 3NT – All Pass. Without much strength your odds of breaking this contract aren't that great. The opponents are non-vulnerable, select a lead from

West (You)

K Q 7 5 2

Q 9 6 5

4

10 8 2

I'll post up some simulation results later on, but I don't expect these answers to be too difficult to hit upon.

North

10 6

J 7

K J 9 7 3

9 7 6 3

West

K Q 7 5 2

Q 9 6 5

4

10 8 2

East

9 4 3

8 3 2

Q 10 6 2

A Q 5

South

A J 8

A K 10 4

A 8 5

K J 4

Good enough for game? (Simulations to come)

So you pick up the following fabulous hand, non-vulnerable, at pairs:

North (You)

T 8 7 6 4 2

—

Q 9 7 6 5

9 5

Your partner kindly opens the bidding with 2NT (20-22 balanced). Should you transfer and bid 4S? How good a proposition do you reckon 4S will be?

I'm preparing a post sometime soon on the Deal program made by Thomas Andrews. Where I'll go into more detail about this very nice piece of software. I've already run some simulations for double-dummy play in a spade contract above opposite various balanced NT range hands. I'll put the answers up in due course.

Leading against 1NT-3NT

Some of you may have already got your copies of the book published last year by David Bird and Taf Anthias. I only recently got mine but thought I'd share with you an example problem from it as a demonstration of what it contains (it contains lots of examples) and how surprising some of its suggestions are. Just before I start I need to set the scene. Imagine you are West, South opened the bidding with 1NT (15-17) and North raised directly to 3NT (without using Stayman, so probably without a four-card major). Finally assume you're playing a teams match and you have to select your lead from the following beauties:

West (You)

10 3

K 8 5 2

9 8

Q 10 7 6 2

How would you rank the leads, to give your side the best chance of defeating the contract?

I'll just ask you to guess the correct order (best first) between the 10, the 2 and the 6:

If you want to know where the answers are derived from, what the book does is to simulate a large number of hands and select just those where North and South have hands consistent with the 1NT-3NT auction. For each of these, perfect defence and play are assumed and it's worked out which leads succeed and which fail. After lots of simulations you can get a good idea of how good the different leads are.

For bonus points, have a go at the 'easier' problem of finding the best lead from:

A Q 8 2    A Q 9 6    9 7 3    J 10

(on the same 1NT-3NT auction)

High level auction

Another matchpoint problem today, this one's just a bidding poll. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with my system to start you off. First you get to see you hand.

South (You)

A 5 4

T 3

2

A K Q 10 9 7 4

The auction so far (NS Vulnerable):

West North East South 11 4 6 Pass ???

¹ = 4+ and 14+ HCP; or 15+HCP balanced.
You don't have any particular agreement about a double of 4, feel free to suggest what you think it should be in the comments. I suspect I would take it as suggesting penalties if opener has a strong NT hand. Now to the poll, what's your next bid?

(after you've voted you can find partner's hand below)

To drop or to finesse?

The scenario

Local club night, five tables. You stumble into 4 after a partnership misunderstanding (see below).

South Dealer

Vuln: None

Matchpoints

North

Q 10

A 9 8 6 4

K Q 5 3 2

Q

West

3 lead

A 4

2

East

K

10 6

A

South

A K 8 3 2

Q 2

7

K J 9 5 3

South West North East 21 Pass 2NT2 Pass 3NT3 Pass 44 All Pass

¹ = 10-13, 5+ <4 unbalanced
² = Invite or better with 5+
³ = Maximum, <3 ( not 62)
⁴ = Forgot precise meaning of ³

Defence led the heart three, taken by East's king. East then cashed the Club Ace, followed by the diamond six to West's Diamond Ace and back comes a diamond from West.

How do you proceed?

Squeeze time?

Here's another recent hand I played. This time on BBO, so the bidding needs to be omitted and the opponent quality is best described as beyond estimation (as opposed to inestimable?!). Somehow you've stumbled into 6NT by South on the lead of the Jack of Diamonds.

Vul none

IMPs

6NT by S

North

K J 9 8 7

A 9 8

K 7

A J 9

West

J lead

East

South

A 6 4 2

K 7 6

A Q 9

K 6 3

Plan the play. You can assume that whichever option you play for in spades fails, else you'll have 12 tricks off the top.

Bidding question

So here's a hand I played recently. I guess it's mainly a judgement issue, so there'll be a poll to follow:

South Dealer

None Vuln.

IMPs

South (You)

A K Q 7 2

Q 5

K 10 5 4 2

8

You are playing ACOL, with 2-over-1 forcing to 2NT. The bidding is uncontested:
You – Partner
1 – 1NT
2 – 3

Your next bid?

To alert, or not to alert?

Some observations and a possibly incoherent proposal.

So you sit down at the bridge table to start the evening and you look up find your normal partner opposite. You open 1, LHO overcalls 1NT and partner bids 2. RHO pauses for a while and then passes, you have happily pass with:

K Q J 3

Q

A 5 3

Q T 9 8 2

RHO now calls the director and objects that he thought 2 was forcing. We can all agree in this case that RHO has no argument, I hazard a guess that none of you play 2 as forcing so he has no case. (In the UK this sequence is explicitly described in the Orange Book as one which you should not alert 2)

But what if LHO has overcalled 1, and partner had bid 2, would RHO have a case now?

What about all these three...

1 x 2

1 1 2

1 x 2

What I'm trying to highlight is that there are many situations where it is just assumed bridge knowledge when bids are forcing or non-forcing. Unfortunately this bridge knowledge is quite often rather situation dependent. By situation I mean which country you're from, and which systems you are used to playing and facing. If you happen to be the one pair not playing ACOL at your club and play 1 (1) 2 as non-forcing then I suggest you should alert 2, and all bids like it, but that starts to put a rather large burden on you to learn where your standard agreements are different to those of your opponents.

There's not much we can do about this situation, other than to encourage people to alert more. If you think there's a chance there's some aspect of the meaning of partner's bid which the opponents aren't expecting then alert. The Laws should not be penalizing you if it then transpires that the opponents had that expectation all along.

As I go about life alerting things very conservatively I occasionally come across opponents who will look a bit surprised by my description of a bid because they felt it didn't need alerting if that was the description, but I don't think this is ever a problem. My partners quickly notice that I've alerted things they wouldn't have alerted had they been in my shoes, but they're not meant to be reacting to my alerts anyway so what's it to them?

I was particularly prompted to write this article in the hope of now explaining my position on the more tricky issue of misinformation, failure to alert, and system forgetting.

I'll try and illustrate it with a fairly simple and typical example: an example where no-one has done something crazy, like to fail to notice an opening bid, which only they at the table haven't noticed; but for simplicity I'm going to make the problems arise early in the bidding (this isn't realistic if the pair have what I would call a correctly completed convention card -- in which case all of opponents questions can be answered with a sentence beginning with "the meaning is clearly explained on my convention card...") so for this example you can assume the N/S convention card just says only "Ghestem" and nothing more (if you hate this, just imagine I've been more inventive and thought up a situation not covered on a standard convention card).

The example

West North East South 1 2 Pass 3

2 was alerted by South, East asked the meaning and South [mistakenly] said it shows Spades and a minor. South then bid 3... and here I pause the auction. Let's assume North is very confident about the system and knows the agreement is that 2 actually showed Spades and Diamonds, that the partnership play 2NT as strong, and 3 as natural, weak, and to play. What should North do in response to 3? South is expecting an alert as they think 3 was 'Pass or Correct'.

Option 1:

North doesn't alert 3, so partner who was expecting an alert is potentially woken to the misunderstanding. East/West think that South’s not done anything wrong. They might check the system card and see it’s natural. South now (along with North) has UI which he may not act on (he either might realise what 2 was in which case I think he should tell the opponents immediately via a TD, but in many cases he just thinks North's forgotten to alert 3 -- or maybe he just isn't sure). So East/West likely stay in the dark. North has to carry on ignoring the UI as usual.

Option 2a:

North does alert 3, and the opponents don’t ask. South carries on as normal, can’t be accused of using UI since he doesn’t have any. North has to avoid using it as usual. Opponents are no worse off than in Option 1, except in this scenario they might read the system card and discover that 3 is natural and thus are alerted to the fact that North or South has forgotten the system.

Option 2b:

North does alert 3, and the opponents do ask the meaning. (Perhaps North calls a TD, or tries to send partner away from the table at this point, we'll assume something bad like they don't) In this scenario South finds out about a misunderstanding (much like in Option 1: he doesn't necessarily know the answer as that requires trusting North!). The opponents find out the real system if you pointed them to the card, if it's not there then they at least get to find out what North believes 3 is in the system (he thinks it's natural). In particular the opponents are woken up to the misexplanation given by South if it's on the card, or without the card they at least discover they've had a misexplanation.

I feel like Option 2 seems preferable to Option 1, but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise. Option 1 ends with East/West likely in the dark, and both North and South proceeding with UI.

On a final point, I have a question for you: Is the partnership knowledge of 'who remembers the system better' information to which the opponents are entitled? Is North's faultless knowledge of the alerting procedures information which should be disclosed to East/West? If the answer is yes then this likely affects the above scenarios perhaps the answer is no because it otherwise tips the scales too far in the direction of East/West since they now have a good idea of who has forgotten the system whilst North and South may be fairly sure too but not allowed to use such information?

Apologies in advance that there are probably a few vital typos somewhere which make the whole post incomprehensible.

Play problem

Plan was for a bidding problem next, but Frank showed me a hand I like too much not to put it up immediately. It's a hand from your local (four table) matchpointed-pairs club night against average opponents.

West Dealer

NS Vuln.

4 by N

North

K 10 9 8 4

2

7 6 2

K 10 7 2

South(Dummy)

A 7 5 3

5 4 3

A Q 9

A 6 4

Various slightly sensible auctions exist, here's one you can assume happened.

West North East South 1 1 2 4 All Pass

East's lead is the 7 overtaken by West with the K, who then continues with A.

Plan the play.

Below the cut you can find out how the spades break, but I won't give the other hands.

Play this hand (better than me)

Now for an easy one... playing the hand better than me shouldn't be too taxing for you. First the bidding, hands and lead. I'll put the full hand below the cut.
You're playing ACOL and sitting South.

North East South West 1 Pass 2 Pass 2 Pass 3NT All Pass

North Dealer

NS Vuln.

Teams of 4

North (Dummy)

A 9 7 4 3

K 6

9 4

K J 6 4

Lead

7

South

10 5

A 10 5 4

A Q 10 2

A 3 2

You may assume that when you play the Jack of Clubs from dummy that it holds. East will likely return a heart when first in, and West will likely continue clubs when first in. (Corrected:seat names)

North Dealer

NS Vuln.

Teams of 4

North (Dummy)

A 9 7 4 3

K 6

9 4

K J 6 4

West

Q 8 6

Q 8 3

J 8 3

Q 10 9 7

East

K J 2

J 9 7 2

K 7 6 5

8 5

South

10 5

A 10 5 4

A Q 10 2

A 3 2

Did you manage to make against 4-2 spade breaks too? And any 5-1 breaks? Would your line have changed if table held A 9 8 4 3?

An ethics problem

I will at some point write a post on ethics and UI, and at some point draft a seminar on alerting. A get the feeling I should make that post sooner rather than later, but before I share my thoughts on how to try and deal with these scenarios... for now here's just an awkward problem for you.

You are playing with a fairly new partner who you're not sure is always up to speed on alerting procedure, or remembering your agreed system.

Sitting East at teams, at game all, you pick up the following hand in fourth seat. The bidding goes: Pass Pass 1D to you

East

K 5 2

A Q 9 4

A 3 2

K 10 2

You choose to start with a 1NT overcall. Your system card states the responses to 1NT overcalls are "As for a 1NT opener", over which you play stayman and four transfers.

West North East South Pass Pass 1 1NT Pass 21 Pass 22 Pass 3 Pass ??

You've probably been predicting the question for a while now. But first a little more context. After 2 North asks you the meaning of the alert and you explain the system (a transfer) as it appears on your system card. You succeed in avoiding looking at anything other than your cards as you wait for the next round of bidding, but you are obliged to note that partner doesn't alert your 2 response.

How do you respond to 3?

I sincerely hope no-one reading this considered 'Pass' for even a moment. You're in a game-forcing auction with partner having shown spades and hearts. I agonized for a while at the table but decided upon bidding 4. I felt my options were 4 and 4 but in the usual uncontested auction Pass - 1NT - 2 - 2 - 3 - ?? the correct bid is surely 4. The problem is that 4 is a genuine option, although clearly an inferior one with your 3=4=3=3 hand. Am I obliged to have bid 4?

I naturally suggested the opponents may with to call the director at the lead, though upon seeing my hand South was (generously?) happy with my action. That the contract drifted one off seems immaterial to my final very important question, "What do you do at the end of the auction if the opponents don't seem unhappy?" (Assume they are of unknown strength and experience, but you suspect them to be a less experienced pair to yourselves)

I'll probably put my answer to this in the comments below later on. But first you'll want to see the full hand:

South Dealer

All Vulnerable

Teams of 4

North

A 8

3

K Q 10 9 5 4

A J 7 3

West

J 7

K 10 8 7 6 5

J 7

9 6 4

East

K 5 2

A Q 9 4

A 3 2

K 10 2

South

Q 10 9 6 4 3

J 2

8 6

Q 8 5

Lead and defensive problem

(Having just had a not so successful evening of bridge you can expect a few hands to appear in quick succession on here! Also experimenting with poll feature still)
Game All, at IMPS, sitting East RHO opens a [systemically] good quality 3, you hold:

East

8 5

J 5 2

A Q 8 5 2

K 4 3

The bidding continues with 4 from South which ends the auction.

What do you lead?

A quick hand combination

Here's a quick first problem:

How do you play 10 9 7 6 opposite A 4 3 2 for only two losers? You may assume plenty of entries to either hand.

Welcome!

So, I've finally got around to starting up a bridge blog of sorts. No promises that I'll post frequently, but I'll try and keep it up, I've got a few ideas of what to write about.

There'll probably be a mixture of:

• Bidding problems I've come across (at the table and other places)
• Play problems (ordinarily from mistakes I've made I suspect)
• Mini-play problems, of the form of suit-play problems
• Discussion of other bridge related things that interest me like:
• Some probability discussions
• Some discussion of Fantunes, perhaps
• Some discussion of formatting bridge on the web (from what I learn as I go along)

There we go, can't think of much more for now, and this post's already longer than most I'll put together. I'll try and send links to my blog to a collection of people who might be interested, feel free to send other people here too if you think they'd like to read it. If you know they don't want to come near it with a barge-pole then you know what to do too. :)

David

First post.

So, here's the hand which appeared in BBO format in my Test Post below. It's a defensive problem, I'll put the full hand below the cut.

Dealer: North

Vul: None

Declarer

Partner

You

K 10 9 7 4

K 6

10 8

A J 10 3

Dummy

3 2

A 8 7 5 3 2

J

Q 8 5 4

Auction:

West North East South 1 1 x 2 2NT All Pass

Defence goes as follows:
Spade Ten, 2, 5, Jack
Diamond 4, Ten, Jack, 3
Club 4, 9, King, Ace
What next?

Testing.

Here's a quick demo of two nice options available for displaying hands. The first requires BBO to be accessible and its server to be up. The second is pretty and simple (and not IE friendly, so if I get someone using IE to stop it'll be a success -- maybe it works in IE9 though).

Test the spade 8 7 6 symbol.

So here's the BBO version of a hand.
Now for the fancy CSS version (acknowledgement at bottom)...