Where can I Learn Bridge?

When Lori Cordeiro said "I don't play bridge. My parents tried to teach me when I was younger, I just did not get it. I'm glad you enjoy it!", it suddenly occurred to me that some of you might be interested to learn the game. What will you do when you get older?

Well, teaching the game here is beyond the scope of this blog but I can surely give a few links along the way, that will help you start. What I can do, however, is answering your questions either in the Q and A section or as a separate article. Most of the bridge tutoring sites are static, some are really dated and you may not find someone to ask for a clarification most of the time. If that is the case, think of this place as a last refuge and I will do my best. Now, without further ado...

For the novice I can really recommend Richard Pavlicek's site for bridge players. In addition quizzes, articles, bidding practice, polls and contests, puzzles and humor, Richard also teaches bridge on-line. Starting from the basics, he very nicely wraps up the essentials of the game in a clear and efficient manner;

Bridge is by far the greatest card game of all, and it can provide immense challenge and enjoyment for the rest of your life. This lesson is intended for the complete beginner, one who knows nothing, or almost nothing, about bridge. If that is you, read on.

Where to begin? Bridge is more complicated than other card games, and beginners are sometimes discouraged by this. Relax! After this lesson you will understand the card play involved and be well on your way to becoming a bridge player. Take your time! There is no hurry. And have a deck of cards handy.

I concur his last advice, have a deck of cards ready.

Flat Hands, Flat Choices

♠ AQJ3 ♥ KQ2 ♦ KT9 ♣ 953

Bidding:

West	North	East	South
	p	1NT	p
2♦	p	2♥	p
3NT	p	?

You start with a strong (15-17) notrump, your partner bids 2♦ as a transfer. You complete the transfer with 2&hearts, having nothing extra. Partner raises to game with 3NT. Your turn...

First the full deal:

	♠ T94 ♥ 86 ♦ QJ843 ♣ T84
♠ 652 ♥ T9753 ♦ A75 ♣ AQ		♠ AQJ3 ♥ KQ2 ♦ KT9 ♣ 953
	♠ K87 ♥ AJ4 ♦ 62 ♣ KJ762

Much have been said about sticking to notrumps with flat distributions like this one, a meagre 4-3-3-3. So, your initial reaction could be passing the 3NT bid.

The hand is taken from Cap Volmac 1995 and all pairs choosing the notrump game regretted their actions, down one, losing 12 imps, after the obvious club lead. Others correcting to the heart game had an easy ride.

The only clue, if any, is the three small clubs which should a be deterrant for choosing the notrump game. True, you can come up with a West hand with which 3NT will be the right choice but statistics is not always "damn lies".

An interesting exercise could be how the weak (12-14) notrumpers would fare. The auction would probably start 1♣ - 1♥ -1NT (presumably showing 15-16 points) and deviate considerably depending on each pair's style. Some would resort to check-back Stayman and discover the 8-card heart fit. In those auctions, West will decide on the final contract and almost all Wests are going to choose the superior 4♥ game.

Bridge has always had its subset of shooters and a few would no doubt bid 3NT after 1♣ - 1♥ - 1NT, to lose eventually.

Nuisance One Spade

It is usually accepted by most that artificial systems, especially strong club openers are superior to natural systems. Leaving this discussion aside, there is one thing you should not do when defending against such systems: giving them a comfortable, uncontested auction. You must have some sort of convention as a good measure.

Perhaps, the simplest of them all that requires no change to your over-call style is the Nuisance 1♠. The convention is simple: you switch the meanings of pass and 1♠. After a strong 1♣ you over-call 1♠ with all hands that you will normally pass and pass with all hands you will bid 1♠.

Nuisance 1♠ is no burden on memory and effective against most of big club systems. Residents of ACBL land should first check if it is legal in ACBL sponsored events.

Handling Competition

♠ 43 ♥ K98 ♦ T9 ♣ AT8765

Bidding:

West	North	East	South
			1NT
p	2NT	p	3♣
X	3♦	X	p
?

After South's strong notrump and North's conventional 2NT showing diamonds (weak or strong), South shows a diamond raise with 3♣ and you, East make a cheap double, taking the opportunity. North reverts to 3♦ confirming a weak hand with diamonds and your partner, silent so far, bids a responsive double as diamonds were bid and raised by the opponents. Now what?

It is interesting to observe so many partnership spending countless hours to hone their bidding but neglect competitive auctions. It is really difficult to find silent opponents these days and most of the sequences these partnership work on will unfortunately remain as theory. Many would go astray here. The full deal first:

	♠ 986 ♥ 62 ♦ A86542 ♣ 93
♠ 43 ♥ K98 ♦ T9 ♣ AT8765		♠ Q752 ♥ AQJ75 ♦ 3 ♣ KJ2
	♠ AKJT ♥ T43 ♦ KQJ7 ♣ Q4

The hand was taken from Cap Gemini 2000, a prestigious event. Sitting West was Zia and in the East was Andrew Robson. In response to Robson's responsive double, Zia bid his three-card heart suit and Robson raised to game, bidding 4♥. They were the only couple reaching the ironclad heart game.

OK, you may not have the guts to bid game as Robson did but even getting to 3♥ was good enough to get a good score at IMPs.

Valentines Bidding in Bridge

Few bidding systems surprised me like Valentines (No, I do not play it). Being the brainchild of Colin Ward, it excels in novelty while still being a playable system. I know that there are a lot of bidding systems enthusiasts out there, and I am sure some approaches if not all of Valentines will provide many hours of musing and tinkering. This, from the introduction:

Unlike strong club systems, Valentines is a forcing club system which prides itself not so much on its slam-bidding as on its part score and competitive bidding. As such, it is an excellent duplicate system while retaining a capability to generate huge swings in teams play.

In learning Valentines it is important to unlearn everything known about standard, approach-forcing systems. For example, reverses do not show extra strength. Opener never bids 3-card suits as "natural". There are no jump rebids on 3-card suits. In this regard Valentines is more natural than standard approaches.

Valentines derives its name from its concentration on the Heart suit. After the forcing (but not necessarily strong) 1♣ opening and negative 1♦ response it is a 1♥ rebid which shows a strong hand. In many slam-bidding sequences 4♦ invites a slam in Hearts while 4♣ invites a slam in any of the other three suits. The reader will see many other instances where the heart suit affects the auction more than any other suit.

Valentines is a distributional bidding system. Players open their four card suit, not their 5-carder. This is true regardless of the relative strengths of the suits.

The Opening Bids:

1♣ : either

• Canapé from a 4+card club suit into a 5+card suit, 12-16 HCP, or
• Club 1-suiter with 6+ clubs, 12-16 HCPs, or
• Flat hand with 4-2-3-4 or 4+ Clubs only, 12-16 HCP, or
• Strong hand with 17+ HCP and any distribution.

1♦ : either

• Diamond one-suiter, 15-17 HCP, or
• Balanced with 4 diamonds and not 4 hearts OR 4-3-4-2, 12-16 HCP, or
• Canapé diamond 2-suiter (diamonds are shorter), or
• 3-suiter with short clubs.

1♥ : either

• 4+ hearts in a flat hand (less than 4 Spades) 12-16 hcp, or
• Canapé 2-suiter with hearts, or
• suiter with 6+ hearts, 15-17.

1♠ : either

• 1-suiter (6+ Spades or 5-2-3-3 distribution) 15-17, or
• Canapé 2-suiter with spades and a longer second suit, 12-16.

1NT: Balanced with 5-3, 4-3 or 4-4 in spades and hearts (in that order) and 12-16.
2♣ : 3 suited with clubs (Roman) and 12-18.
2♦ : 1-suiter with 6+ diamonds, 11-14.
2♥ : 1-suiter with 6+ hearts, 11-14.
2♠ : 1-suiter with 6+ spades or exactly 5-2-3-3, 11-14.
2NT: Your choice.

As a teaser, let me give you the responses to 1♣ opening:

• 1♦ : 0-7, negative but don't be fooled before seeing other responses.
• 1♥ : Artificial positive; 8+ HCP unbalanced or 9+ balanced.
• 1♠ : 4+ spades, natural and non-forcing, 0-10 HCP.
• 1NT: balanced (includes all 5332 shapes), 6-8 HCP.
• 2♣ : 4+ clubs and 5+ diamonds, 0-6 HCP.
• 2♦ : 1-4-5-3-ish shape or 1-3-6-3 with weak diamonds, 8-11 HCP.
• 2♥ : 1-5-4-3-ish, denies a second spade or a fourth club, 8-11.
• 2♠ : 6+ spades, 0-5 HCP.

Read the rest at Colin Ward's.

Revision Club (Revised Precision)

Revision (short for "revised Precision") by John Montgomery is a big club system that is similar to, and based on, Precision. Of existing published methods, it most closely resembles the Precision style presented by Barry Rigal in his book Precision for the 90s.

I have closely followed -and used for some time)- the evolution of Precision since C.C. Wei published his book after designing the system to be first used by Chinese Teams in international events. As an aid to memory, this was the original design of Wei:

• 1♣ : 16+ hcp, strong, forcing for one round
• 1♦ : 11-15, three or more diamonds
• 1♥ : 11-15, 5+ hearts
• 1♠ : 11-15, 5+ spades
• 1NT: 13-15, balanced
• 2♣ : 11-15, 5+ clubs
• 2♦ : 12-15, 4-4-1-4 or 4-4-0-5 shape, short diamonds
• 2♥ : weak-two
• 2♠ : weak-two

Precision had several design flaws (my subjective view):

• 1♣ threshold is too low. In all competitive auctions, this leaves the strong club opener with no suit bid.
• 1♣ - 1♦ sequence. Despite being the most common sequence, the least attention has been given.
• 1♣ - positive responses. It is really difficult to limit the hands after a positive.
• 2♣ opening. This is the Achilles heel of most big club systems and little can be done about it within this framework.
• 2♦ opening. An opening bid has been assigned to a rare distribution.

Montgomery addressed a few of the above in a most exhaustive (I mean it) way. First, he switched the negative 1♦ response to a simple waiting bid where most of the positive responses now reside and moved all semi-positive hands in the range of 5-7 points to the positives; i.e. 1♣ - 1♥ now shows five or more hearts with 5-7 points. This, compared to the original design and most of the later Precision derivatives is a clever approach. By allowing responder to introduce a suit early in the auction, the partnership is now better positioned against an interference by fourth hand; plus, it facilitates finding a part score, not to mention that semi-positive hands, the most common ones against a big club, are now considerably better described.

Secondly, 5-4 clubs and a major hands are now in 1♦ opening and 2♣ shows 6 or more clubs. Although it crowds the 1♦ opener, it is a way better approach than bidding 2♣ with 5 clubs and a 4-card major. Losing a major fit after a 2♣ opener was almost a certainty in Wei's original scheme (and in most of Precision derivatives) if responder was not good enough to relay.

Third, 4-3-1-5 and 3-4-1-5 shapes have been stuffed into the 2♦ to make a rare event less rare. I still do not like it but there really is no way to solve it without making the 1♦ opening a mess.

Fourth is the explanation of why I used the word exhaustive to define Montgomery's work. He analyzed every possible meaning by giving an account of fifth or sometimes sixth round of bidding. And this is what sets Revision Club apart from others floating in the net. Revision Club (zipped pdf, 1.72 MB) is not an amalgamation of ideas taken from other systems, it is an in-depth and complete work. It is a system.