Captaincy for Advancing Bridge Players

By Denis Klein

Every Bridge player has heard the cliche that 'Bridge is a
partnership game'. What does that actually mean? What is
expected of you? Or put more strongly, what are your
responsibilities from the very simple to the more difficult,
across a myriad of common Bidding and Defensive positions?
Captaincy for Advancing Bridge Players seeks to put
the under-organized and under-discussed area of Captaincy
squarely under the 'X' that marks the spot on your favorite
pirate's map. There is plenty of bounty to be had for the
players that find the timely ways of how to provide or seek
information, and know just when it is time to make a critical
decision for the partnership. General Concepts are laid out
and related theory is discussed, that provide the foundation
for Advancing players to learn 'how to fish' across many
different looking but related Bridge circumstances.
Innumerable example hands then progressively allow
you to quiz yourself. These hands are then analyzed in detail
so that as you experience the repeated application of these
fundamental Captaincy Concepts, your Bridge skills are
gradually both broadened and deepened. Having quiz hands
is a challenging and fun way to help you learn this very
challenging and fun game from your favorite armchair! So, do you do your fair share?

Cover Illustration - Denis and Jillian Klein

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Sep 22, 2005
• ISBN: 9781466957473

Denis Klein

Dr. Klein has a doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology and played Bridge avidly for over 15 years following the completion of this degree. Having played very little Bridge over the past 4 years, this Bridge energy, this labor of love, has focused on writing this book_to help others learn more quickly and completely both the art and science that comprises this wonderful and challenging game. He is the winner of multiple Amercian Contract Bridge League (ACBL) Regional Tournament pair and team games. And over ten years ago, he and an intermediate level partner won a free trip to represent District 6 at the Philadelphia Flight B Pair Grand National Championships, by making use of the Concepts in this book. While persevering through the final year of this Bridge book's edits, he is near completion of his first novel involving the sci fi genre and psychological/ philosophical issues entitled Poetic Injustice. He has completed several psychological-oriented short stories which have not been offered for publication yet. Leaning with one foot in the future, Denis is interested in teaching college level psychology, or practicing again with adult clients, or writing or editing in some capacity. In the mean time, while I take the liberty to refer to myself in both the first and third persons, if I remember that right from HS English, (which drives my wonderful daughters crazy and does not nearly, I might lovingly add, get us close to 'even') :), I will continue to enjoy my Bridge; and continue to write...

Book preview

Copyright 2006 Denis Klein.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Note for Librarians: A cataloguing record for this book is available from Library and Archives Canada at www.collectionscanada.ca/amicus/index-e.html ISBN 1-4120-2986-4

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Contents

A. Author’s Preface

B. Acknowledgements

C. Introduction

Chapter I: Captaincy Concepts—General & Bidding

Chapter II: Bidding & Captaincy

Chapter III: Captaincy Concepts—Defense

Chapter IV: Defense & Captaincy

Chapter V: (Non) Final Thoughts

Captaincy for Advancing Bridge Players

or

The Art of Doing Your Fair Share

Denis Klein

A. Author’s Preface

*

People can be defined

by the choices they choose to make,

so too a Bridge partner.

*

You the reader have no doubt heard the classic statement, ‘Bridge is a partnership game’. What are the ramifications of that simple sounding phrase—of that cliché? What does it actually mean? And what are the inherent responsibilities facing the developing Advancing Bridge player, who desires to become a more complete and accomplished partner? Pragmatically, what partnership abilities increase your chances of winning?

An umbrella concept called Captaincy is proposed, that seeks to address the above fundamental questions by bringing into focus how both theory and practice must contribute to what is meant by ‘partnership’. Captaincy intersects so many central aspects of Bridge, that you will come to appreciate the crucial role it must play in improving your bidding and defensive skills. Initial lists of broad Concepts provide direction for how partners will want to view the context of their auctions and defenses, if they wish to maximize their actual results at the table.

From the bidding we have classic issues such as the need to communicate distribution and strength to partner—while wanting to disrupt the opponents’ ability to do likewise; and how and why these topics are guided by Captaincy Concepts. Also, how fundamental bidding choices such as the final contract’s level and strain, are directed by Captaincy considerations as well.

Captaincy then links what has transpired during the bidding, to the conscious choices defenders must consider—choices not only at the opening lead but beyond as well. A defender must determine whether to engage in either an active and/or passive style of defense; then as a pair translate this plan into action, or alter it as conditions change.

The reader will soon appreciate that the Captaincy ‘perspective’ leads us in numerous fascinating directions. For one, towards a shift away from the classic approach of how defensive signals are generally taught when we first learn the game. Rather than viewing individual holdings in one particular suit in isolation, there is an advantage to learning a perspective that combines both the current desires of an individual player, viewed from the context of the broader hand as a whole. Too often, even when Advancing players’ defensive skills develop, they may incorporate one of these halves but not both. This is most usually made painfully evident when the defenders find themselves in a ‘delicate’ (usually active) defensive situation, and cash their tricks in the wrong order thereby losing tricks.

Although defensive skills improve over time in direct relationship to each individual player’s technical ability level, Bridge theory should provide more of a continuous framework for its development. Building from the rudimentary single-suit perspective to a more hand-comprehensive one, is often presented in the Bridge literature as a discontinuous process where the defender must break from previously learned practices. (You see a question raised such as, ‘Should a defender always high/low with a doubleton?’, for instance.) This demonstrates a limitation in present Bridge theory, which makes it more difficult for less experienced players to advance their defensive skills. Captaincy helps provide a broader conceptual framework that underlies what the intent of signaling simply is. Whether we can accomplish this in a particular situation with the cards we are dealt, is the trick, so to speak.

Captaincy infiltrates other fundamental areas as well. For instance, it is fairly common in the Bridge literature to discuss Declarer play in terms of Safety Plays (How many tricks does Declarer need in a particular suit and what is the best way to safeguard getting at least that number?), combining chances (to maximize the probability of a favorable result by exploring chances in multiple suits), and playing tricks in a proper order (to maximize chances and reduce the defenders’ options). As players’ Declarer skills mature, they become much stronger in these areas.

Similarly, following logical threads, Captaincy leads us directly into the perspective that analogous defender

actions can and should be used to the advantage of the defenders. Thus we find ourselves in discussions that are normally reserved for Declarer play in the literature—of combining chances and the proper order of cashing tricks.

A new trick target and defensive card combination conceptual term called Tailoring Plays is proposed, that subsumes the more common defensive plays such as Unblocking and Surround Plays. Through one type of Tailoring Play, defenders seek to maximize their chances to achieve a particular trick target total, as Safety Plays seek to accomplish this for Declarers. In this way, the theory of Declarer play and defensive play become more like reflecting pools of one another—diametrically opposed but having the same options available to them. The former accomplished by one Declarer; the latter guided by Captaincy theory—accomplished by two defenders as they strive towards a particular trick target together.

The above areas are just a few of the profound, interesting, and pragmatic outgrowths resulting from Captaincy theory

as discussed within these pages.

*

Good Bridge players dislike having to guess when faced with decisions. How do they seek to minimize guessing and either gather or provide as much information on a given hand, whether they find themselves bidding or defending? To Flight B or C players, it is fairly obvious that experts are extremely proficient within such areas as their technical skills, analysis, and the development of partnership understandings. But it is within the broad areas of Captaincy where the above skill-sets are applied, that non-experts often have more significant blind spots. They seem to be much less aware of how experts seek to help each other, and the ways experts communicate timely information. Consequently, the development of Captaincy skills seems to lag significantly and disproportionately, between experts and Flight B players who have played the game for years. That said, all levels of players do naturally make Captaincy errors or can miss Captaincy opportunities. Be aware that 100% of the available Captaincy opportunities can never be created (or found) even by experts, as Bridge contains not only science but art as well—the aspects of both the science and the art of Bridge that your partnerships are able to utilize, are partially dependent upon the methods you agree (choose) to employ.

When is one partner or the other in a position to make decisions or take control in regard to a defensive or bidding situation? Conversely, and just as importantly, when should a player not take control or over-ride decisions made by partner. These 2 sides of the same coin address the Concept(s), and the art, of Captaincy.

In any round of Bridge the issues related to Captaincy are violated repeatedly, even by players who have played Bridge for years. When this occurs it can be observed: The amount of guessing increases, and the probability of obtaining a bad result similarly increases.

Some players might be surprised how many hands in 1 session are affected by Captaincy decisions—all of them!—usually multiple times to varying degrees—how many of these opportunities are you and your partner finding, creating, or making use of?

Greater understanding of this area will serve you well as a partner—from improving your Bridge scores, to making you a more thoughtful partner. And last but certainly not least, your enjoyment of this challenging game will increase as you develop and improve your ability for sound creative opportunistic analysis.

**

B. Acknowledgements

*

What does it take to make a village?

…a four-some plus!

*

Over a period of years many years ago, I could always be found at lunch reading a Bridge book—classic authors like Mollo, Lawrence, Reese, Hardy, and Kelsey….may have wondered silently why I ate so many tuna-fish sandwiches; rereading many of my favorite authors (yes, too many good books to list all of you—but thank you!) in order to grasp and absorb the material in the hope of finding something I could use in the next game. And as I progressed, to naturally use this knowledge during an actual hand and getting it correct, rather than only finding something in a post-mortem, when even then I was not guaranteed of seeing something correctly! Books are invaluable. But without playing with or inquiring of better players, one can and is likely to go on and on making the same mistakes at the table—some things are just plain difficult to ‘see’ at first, or for a long time.

I have (mis)played most of my Bridge in Richmond, Virginia. I wanted to take this opportunity and not have it go unstated how valuable it was that the ‘better’ players in this Bridge community took the time to share what they knew. They taught me so many disparate things that have infiltrated this book. You are always greeted warmly by our local ACBL (American Contract Bridge League) Unit l09, whether it is at our local games, Sectionals or Regional tournaments—even if you are just passing through we love to see new faces.

I started out to really learn and play Duplicate Bridge after the completion of my doctoral work, when I finally had some time available. This seems like a few lifetimes ago. I had played a little Duplicate before as a teenager and only a hand-full of times during college. I was taught by my mom using Goren, Goren’s big plastic table cloth with all the bids printed on it, and Sheinwold’s wonderful ‘ 5 Weeks to Winning Bridge’. So when I stumbled years later into the local Richmond Bridge Club, there were players like JHarvey

Creecy, Jim Mizzel, and Abe Linder that helped me develop my ‘sea-legs’ and then some; this phase seemed to take forever and was probably ‘longer’ for them than for me.

Different things you will learn from different players; I next learned from players like Mike Fine and Dickie Hamilton. I actually learned my first of what was to become these Captaincy Concepts from Mike a long time ago. He told me about not needing to get active defensively if tricks cannot go away. I still remember this statement from over 2 decades ago. Other strong players like Harry Gellis and Dwayne Jones taught me many things; Harry from our yearly game together, and their partnership more-so from an opponent’s standpoint, which was and is just as valuable. Another fine player in this category, who teaches by example as one of my opponents, is Dale Dermer. Dale has a knack for finding the right decision in complex situations because of her developed Captaincy skills. A slightly different expression of this skill-set is evidenced by another opponent, Marc Dahl, who characteristically asks very accurate questions about auctions, as he attempts to ‘reverse engineer’ potential opponent bidding Captaincy decisions. And last but not least, my regular partner for many irregular years, Bob Pustilnik. Our thoughtful discussions indirectly supported the crystallization of the concept of Captaincy into sub-concepts, that helped explain why we managed to get some circumstances correct, while in others we may have gone wrong.

These more experienced players above and many others as well, if you observe their decision making process, seem to get their fair share of complex or more subtle competitive bidding situations correct because they are armed with Captaincy-based knowledge that has been accumulated over the years.

Along the way, I played temporally with John Kloke, Jennifer Christman, Jamelle Barnes and Bob Pustilnik in my longer-term partnerships. In briefer partnerships I played with Bruce Roberts, Joe Quinn, Ransone Price and Richard Anderson to name a few. Because of the different experience levels of all of these players, they unknowingly provided a wonderful crucible for the delineation and illumination of the Concepts that follow—not only from our many successes, but because of our failures—the successes are more fun, but I think you stand to learn just as much or more from your

failures, if you can half-accurately track and analyze your results.

This is my opportunity to say thank you everyone!, and to anyone I have left out inadvertently.

The wide variety of skill levels that have contributed to the genesis of this book, also speaks to the audience that can benefit from its effort. There is no doubt that players from very little experience to experts, can and will benefit from Captaincy discussions. That said, I have spent over 20 years playing with players who love this game; who try as hard as they can to improve themselves and their partnerships; who do not particularly care about who is in the ‘top 500’ players, but play for personal enjoyment, wonderful camaraderie, ‘therapy’ and a valued source of challenge and recreation. For all of these players and the new ‘crop’ of players just learning this great game, I dedicate this book, with the hope this effort will help support you in enjoyably realizing your personal Bridge goals.

A special thanks for extensive editorial comment goes out to Bob Pustilnik, who provided a painstaking proofreading and edit in the beginning/middle of my editing process. He made it very clear I had to make my hand discussions much more understandable to players who might be initially unfamiliar with Captaincy issues. Without his input, the technical aspects of my examples would not have been nearly as instructive. More personally, thanks Bob for believing in this effort from the beginning.

And yet another thank you is deserved by Lori Neale. Having an English background and no Bridge experience, Lori performed a painstaking proofreading and edit near the middle/end of my editing process. Lori took one look at my interpretation of English, and I believe, wondered silently whether I really hoped to sell this in English speaking countries. As Bob above, Lori also improved the readability of this book markedly. Any ‘liberties’ with English are all mine however.

Additionally, I am thankful to the following folks for making helpful comments: Dickie Hamilton, Dwayne Jones and Stuart Kleiman.

And the following people aided either directly or indirectly by providing illustrative hand material: Mike Fine, Harry Gellis, Dickie Hamilton, Ed Kinlaw, George Lewis, Bob Pustilnik, and Stephen Wheeler.

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the nice working environment that Barnes and Noble and Starbucks provided me—via background music, cafe mochas, apple-berry crumbcake, and nice people. These things kept me ‘going’ everyday for over a year, while I was torturing myself with serpentine example hands on my laptop. And then for the last year and a half, just a gazillion edits (I have lost count so that should cover me) until I am embarrassed to say to anyone, ‘yes it is really done this time, really’.

And literally last and literally not least, thanks to Randy Peeler, PMP of Richmond, Virginia. Without his repeated technical support, this book would never have survived my ‘creative’ Windows 95-98 PC, nor gotten off of this very tired computer to traipse across two separate laptops, before finally reaching Trafford Publishing in one-electronic-piece!

The length of this section just reinforces how many people have ‘touched’ this book. Really, thank you all again…

There’s gold in them-there hills…so go West…or whichever direction you normally choose…

Richmond, Virginia February 14, 2005.

For my

mother and the memory of my father Elizabeth and Jerome Klein

And to Ali and Jilli—who you are and are becoming—it was very sweet of you to worry about me, and to want me to ‘get-a-life again’ after this effort.

C. Introduction

*

Let the Games Begin!

*

Sorry to start you off with such a bizarre hand, but this is where our journey begins…

Image506.PNG

…this is the hand I blame for starting me thinking about this topic some years ago.

Before proceeding any further, how would you bid these admittedly unusual hands at MatchPoints (MPs), North (N) dealer, N/S vulnerable, opponents Passing throughout?

At the table, N in first seat opened, and on this particular day the bidding meandered upwards as indicated below. For you skeptics or dissenters who believe this auction does not make much sense, this was a real honest-to-goodness auction, which is the point:

How unusual….Yes! But for our purposes, what is wrong with this bidding and why? What are your ideas looking at these hands? You will get a chance to compare your ideas with mine later on…

The ideas that actually form the backbone of this book, a number of them applicable to the above hand, coalesced over many years in several different ways.

First, they took shape by watching and abstracting patterns from the ‘types’ of mistakes that seemed to occur frequently at the table. These mistakes usually led to poor results.

Secondly, conversely, they took shape by honing Captaincy-based methods that produced a discernible pattern of favorable results, when the score sheets (I have just dated myself!) were later tallied.

Thirdly, let me also clarify that although my umbrella concept of Captaincy may be ‘new’, Captaincy ‘issues’ have clearly been discussed before all over the place. Much of what is contained in this book has been discussed in one form or another elsewhere; it is the distillation into a more concise inter-related ‘body of knowledge’ that is new. Like any worthwhile conceptual theory, it should lead us toward other related discoveries. In what follows lies demonstrative proof on several fronts, that the organizing value of this theory is productive and clarifying.

However, I will not claim to have read everything related to this subject, as I fully know I have not. I will give just one example, lest folks feel they are being slighted or worse. Somewhere in the middle of writing this book, I let my mom know about the topic of Captaincy, and how it seemed to be finally coming together. About once a year I bring my old Bridge Bulletins to her to read in New Jersey, even if they have not been read yet in Virginia. Just after the new year (‘03), when the book was in another one of its final really-this-time final edits, I received an envelope from her. Now you know how helpful moms like to be. Well, lo-and-behold, I am glad she is reading those Bulletins. Mom cut out an article (She’s good at cutting out things that seem relevant to me!) by Pat Harrington entitled ‘When a new suit by responder is not forcing’, in the Sept 12, 2001 Bulletin. Pat’s article addressed how Captaincy relates to some auctions involving 1NT bids. The issues raised in this article certainly involve the subject matter delineated by my Concept VI. When one player limits hand strength, this often makes the other partner Captain as to level of contract. This article is just one recent example that corroborates my belief of just how ubiquitous this material is in the Bridge literature.

To make another point that seems related to all of this—let me be very clear, there are quite a few opportunities to make great plays, Captaincy and otherwise; but, day in and day out, it is the pairs that make the fewest ‘mistakes’ that seem to consistently win. I believe this is because on average, there are many more opportunities to make mistakes than great plays in a given round. Therefore, one hope is that this book will add to players’ knowledge and enjoyment, as many of the great authors have done for me, so that players can find, create, or make use of those fascinating ‘Captaincy plays’ embedded in the hands; also, that certain ‘types’ of those ever-present errors that seem to be repeated endlessly, can be reduced when you are armed with Captaincy knowledge. Personally, I take just as much pride in ‘finding’ a neat ‘textbook’ play, as I do playing an entire round ‘error’ free. No one can ever ‘find’ (or create since there is art here too) everything that exists within the hands, but one can play an entire round without doing something ‘obviously wrong’, as it relates to Captaincy or otherwise.

The concept of Captaincy permeates all skill levels and is violated at all levels. Therefore some material in this book will turn out to be too easy for some players and too difficult for others. Hopefully this attribute will encourage Advancing players to return to this topic to absorb more material as they continue to improve—as I found it helpful and engaging to do myself with so many authors.

One of the most helpful aspects of this work may fall squarely in the following area: The topic of Captaincy will contribute to your hands all session long, in any given session. Because of this very fact, this book seeks to raise the consciousness level for this critical topic, so that Advancing players will now know to include Captaincy in their hand discussions as they strive to improve.

In general, you will find the Bidding section of this book addressing basic issues via basic bidding. The same concepts that infiltrate and underpin the most advanced Bidding systems in the world can just as effectively be illustrated by basic bidding agreements. There are parts of the Bidding section that do become more subtle and are truly more advanced, but for the most part more advanced issues are still presented within basic bidding examples. Just to pick one such topic: how your scoring concerns effect your bidding choices depending upon the type of game you are playing in (IMPs [Teams]/Contract [Rubber Pairs] versus MPs [Pairs]), can become quite subtle and advanced. For the purposes of strategy, IMPs will be mentioned throughout this book, with the understanding that Contract Rubber Bridge affectionately referred to as ‘home party Bridge’, involves the same broad scoring strategy as IMPs.

The Defensive section, on-the-other-hand, also starts with basics to get everyone on the ‘same page’, but then theory and practice lead us into material that is clearly more advanced. Some of the defensive Concepts are complex by their very nature and require more subtle, involved, or deeper analysis to illustrate.

Be patient, as you cannot incorporate all these Concepts into your game in a short time-frame and live to tell about it. Let your game evolve and build upon sound principles; working to not make the same mistakes over and over again is invaluable. Learn the Concepts that guide you across numerous hands, rather than trying to tediously learn the correct thing to do within each hand 1 hand at a time. This is where good books, more experienced partners/players, and partnership discussions all intersect with play.

Finally, the gauntlet is laid before you right out-of-the-box. There are many who say Bridge players, especially inexperienced ones, are turned-off by too much text as compared to example hands. That they will revolt when faced with 10-odd pages of theory. (Ha, if you have made it through the ‘brief Preface, Acknowledgement and Intro sections, I am not worried about you!) One of the problems with Bridge theory, and not the budding theorists, is that theory is generally not concisely stated in one place. This is why I went out of my way to bore you—no, that did not come out right! This is precisely why I kept the basic Captaincy Concepts grouped together, but split into two primary sections—’Bidding’ and ‘Defense’. Everything in the representative sections of this book is built upon these Concepts.

As far as presentation is concerned, if I could have provided numerous example hands for each Concept separately, the material in this book would have been organized by individual Concept. It became painfully clear to me at the outset of this journey, that hands often represent multiple Captaincy issues. Therefore, it was not practical to present the material to you in this way.

The numerous hand examples that represent 95% of the rest of the book, each chosen because it illuminates aspects of these original Concepts, have been organized and presented around different themes for instructive purposes. Let me make it clear, let me state for the record, that almost all of the hand-types and themes have been discussed in the Bridge literature before. But previously they have not been organized from a Captaincy perspective.

Consequently, although many example hand-types may be familiar to the reader, the difference is that my purpose is neither solely or mainly technical nor conventional. My purpose is to use these example hands to specifically express the Concept(s) of Captaincy within some crucial strategic themes that are found in Bridge. These themes can be found in the previous Table of Contents.

CHAPTER I: CAPTAINCY CONCEPTS—General & Bidding

*

Music to your ears…

*

The very complexities of Bridge and the lack of a concise way to learn this game, create many challenges for the Advancing player. Basic concepts that can be applied across various situations tend to be lacking or are located in diverse places. Helping the Advancing player to get better, and to do it more quickly, whether you have 3 masterpoints or 3,000., is aided by learning to identify and then apply basic concepts that can help guide you across complex and varied Bridge circumstances. There are exceptions—in fact these are ‘common’ in Bridge (an important oxymoron!). But, this should not deter us from attempting to bring into focus some basic tenets.

Good partners and great partnerships make use of the Concept(s) of Captaincy constantly during 1 session and even 1 hand. In this first of two conceptual sections, I will illuminate the Concepts that are related to Captaincy’s general constituent parts, and our bidding decisions. The defensive oriented Concepts will be addressed in a later section. It seems fitting to finally ‘start’ with a definition:

Concept I:

*

Captaincy is defined by and applies to the following Bridge circumstances—when should, or should not, a player during the bidding or defense, provide information, seek information, or make a ‘critical’ decision

on a hand for the partnership.

*

Context: On a given hand, sometimes there is no clear-cut Captain, sometimes Captaincy is passed back and forth, and sometimes one and not the other partner must take control of a situation. Most players have heard Bridge described as a partnership game. Captaincy can be viewed as the art and

science of knowing when or how to make individual decisions within the context of a partnership; or, when or how to translate these decisions into action as a coordinated pair; or, when or how to look for or communicate helpful information to partner. (Within the context of our metaphor, when should a player be the Captain and give orders, when to be the mate and take them, and when should both be congenial sailing partners.)

At the other extreme are 2 partners who find themselves making unilateral decisions, or make decisions that are based on less than optimal information, or players who watch partner make a decision and then over-ride it or not cooperate with it for no good reason, or just as damaging, not make decisions when the critical decision must be made. (All of these contribute to our definition of ‘mutiny’.)

Concept II:

*

Captaincy is dependent upon relevant

information being gathered by players

in respect to a particular hand.

*

Context: Many of the sources of this information are contained in the ‘ship’s log’, so-to-speak. They include your partnership’s and the opponents’ agreed upon bidding systems (listed on convention cards), and your lead and defensive carding conventions. This is complemented by what defenders learn on the ‘playing deck’, while observing the progression of the opponents’ bidding (alerts,etc.), Declarer’s play strategy, opponents’ mannerisms (your table presence), the Dummy that is tabled, and partner’s defensive signals.

Concept III:

*

It is the combined assets and liabilities of your partnership holdings, rather than individual hand holdings, that determine how many tricks you can manage in play or defense—

technical skill aside.

*

Context: The first 3 Concepts address the tendency that players first learn Bridge by focusing disproportionately on their own 13 cards. With more experience comes the realization the game cannot be mastered this way. When immersed in your own hand, both you and your partner will be forced to guess more when faced with decisions. Look for opportunities to gather more information from partners, or conversely, to provide more to them.

How many tricks will this S hand take in a contract?; or on defense?

Image544.PNG

Can you see the nonsensical nature of such questions? Yet players bid or defend, as if, they are playing ‘alone’ everyday. Okay, more information you say. What if S opens this hand 1NT, how many tricks will be won? Well on average, if the rest of the high card points (HCPs) in the deck are split evenly, partner will hold (24 divided by 3 =) 8. S’s 16 + partner’s 8 = 24 total for the partnership—just short of ‘enough’ to make 3NT. On average, you would expect to make 2NT. Is this true on this particular hand you are bidding? Naturally you do not know exactly how many tricks you will take in NT, until the hand is played and defended.

Give N an ‘average’ hand like…

Image552.PNG

…and S declaring in 1NT or 2NT will probably take one SP, two Hs, two Ds, and three Cls for 8 tricks.

However give N a ‘non-average’ hand such as….

Image559.PNG

…and now S is likely to take three SPs, three Hs, two Ds and four Cls for 12 tricks in NT. How does S know this when 1NT is opened to begin with? The answer of course is

that S has no clue what the final contract will be when opening.

With such Bridge considerations, why do players bid or defend at times as if no additional information could improve their decision making. Given the importance of maximizing the offensive or defensive capabilities of the partnership’s assets, it is critical that partnerships develop accurate means of communicating their offensive and defensive information. This defines in a simple statement the need for two very large bodies of knowledge that together account for two/thirds of the game of Bridge: Bidding and Defense!

Concept IV:

*

Bid weak/poor hands quickly; bid strong/good hands generally more slowly; have bidding

methods that differentiate between the two.

*

Context: This of course does not mean tempo! Bidding stronger hands slowly helps maintain the maximum amount of bidding space to continue to convey hand information back-and-forth until one partner can be the (final) Captain. However, the caveat is if there is one bid that nicely describes the salient features of a hand, even if it is a stronger hand, this bid should be preferred. Often, but not always, stronger hands contain the potential of a variety of contracts. Therefore they often require more room to explore for these multiple possibilities.

Conversely, bidding poor hands quickly takes this very bidding space away from the opponents, when they hold the balance of HCPs; so the opponents find themselves cramped for space as they try to convey information back-and-forth. This interferes with their Captaincy decisions and increases the likelihood they will have to guess. Creating the conditions where the opponents have to make the last bidding guess on a hand is to your advantage. Even experts are more likely to ‘guess’ wrong when their information exchange has been limited.

Only bid the same values or distribution once, unless the auction ‘forces’ you to do otherwise

—as bids are normally contextually sequential.

*

Context: When you take more bids and bid higher, you are generally showing more strength and/or distribution. Similarly, the order and number of times you bid your suits conveys to partner the strength and distributional aspects of your hand. Bids are made within the context of previous bids—a critical perspective since we desire partner to accurately