insta pass. Partner XXed and I have Jx.

I was looking for the triple double card. LHO might want to wait next time for 6S to hit the table before doubling.

Can't help but feel a little hard done by here...

Anyone else in Vegas apart from fmk (I assume)?

Playing flight B GNTs and the Wernher. Might enter the Spingold for some lols, we'll see.

Ya am here. Probably playing spingold, wernher, and Swiss.

Cool. Will try to find you to day hi.

I'll be there. Playing GNT B, LM Pairs (assuming no finals on GNT), Werhner, and maybe red ribbons with my dad.

I'll be there for most of it, so let's try to get a midnight game in or something.

Posting to sub, just started learning this weekend

Myrm come say what's up!! I'm in spingold and likely wernher lol

Okay so I’m taking a class to try to better absorb the game and I’ve hit a bit of a snag. This part is on trump raises (specifically, responding to trump raises). I am dealer in north and am dealt the following hand:

A, Q, 5, 4, 3
Q, J, 7, 2
6, 5
K, 8

I see that I have 12 pts, am longest on spades and two doubletons in diamonds and clubs. So I open the bidding with my longest suit, 1

E passes. Partner bids 2 and W passes. What is my response and why? Obv I have four hearts and he is strong there too but is NT better in this spot or no?

Speaking as someone who is somewhere between beginner and intermediate:

The earlier you can support your partner, especially one who has shown some strength, the better. Your partner will very happy with your heart holding. 3 looks perfect to me. Let partner steer the ship.

First, welcome to the game.

Second, I expect partner to have 5+ hearts for his call, so we have a 9+ card heart fit. This is valuable, since we will be able to draw trumps and then use our excess trumps to ruff losers, if shape permits.

Let's think about shape for a minute. If partner isn't supporting spades (he might still, but then we can re-evaluate), he is probably short in spades, long in hearts, and has middling length in C+D -- maybe 2533 is prototypical. In no trump we may have difficulties in either or both minors, but in hearts we can ruff spades in partner's hand and one of each minor in our hand. And while on that topic, ruffing in our hand with 4 hearts allows us to score partner's hearts plus utilize our hearts -- this adds a lot of offensive power to the hand.

It is good you're thinking about which strain is correct. But a 9-card trump fit usually plays better than no-trump. Additionally, your cards in your short suits (which opponents are likely to lead, since they are opponents' long suits) are fairly weak and will not help defend against opponents trying to establish their suits.

Y’all some smart mofos. 3h was right, turns out partner had six hearts and he took it to small slam town. Thanks, I learned something.

I think the biggest challenge for me, based on what I’ve seen thus far, is going to be figuring out the correct order in which to play the cards rather than the bidding aspect.

If it helps you will always feel like you are not very good at either. It is a great game.

You're in for a treat. I've played many, many games in my life. But bridge handsomely beats all of them. With its relative simplicity of rules, it has a depth that no other game can equal. You will never stop making new mistakes

Dr. Melfi what's your bbo handle?

I don’t have one yet. I just found out about it recently.

I’ve looked into some local bridge clubs but they all seem the exclusive domain of the elderly. They only meet during weekdays when I’m at work and judging from the Web site pics I’d be the youngest there by a good 30 years. Is this your experience as well?

Essentially yes. Locally here all the best games are weekday afternoons so unless I boondoggle from work (which I can, luckily) I settle for playing in the evening games. Our unit has a decently maintained website, so try looking up your unit and find the evening sessions.

I'm also 32 years old and aside from one regular youth player, I am the youngest in the room 100% of the time by 15+ years.

The player pool definitely skews towards retirees, but my area isn't quite as lopsided as it sounds like g-bebe's is. I'm 29, and there a few regulars at our local Tuesday night game who are also in their 20s and 30s. Also I think at the higher levels there are more younger players, so that's an incentive to improve I guess!

as declarer make sure to plan the entire play of the hand before you do anything. usually you will be short a trick or two (or more) and you have to figure out how to make that trick, be it through a finesse, or by promoting some small cards in a long suit, or having the dummy ruff a loser in your hand (assuming that dummy has the shorter trump suit).


a few basic rules are second hand low, don't lead high honours, lead into weakness and through strength (so if RHO is dummy and has 952 showing in a suit then that is good to lead into, or if LHO is dummy and is showing KJ3 then that is a good spot to lead into), and it is good to lead when you have a sequence like JT98 or QJT because that is unlikely to cost a trick. you seldom want to underlead a K or an A. always make sure to count trump (technically you are supposed to count all the suits).

I'd like to get in the habit of posting more hands here. These are both relatively straightforward, but I didn't know what to do in either spot. .

#1
matchpoints, w/r, second seat, opponents silent

4
AK
AK7643
AT64

1D-1H-?

#2
matchpoints, w/r, fourth seat

Q92
T9742
8
A982

(1D)-x-(1S)-?

1. 3C, showing 18+ and 5+ diamonds and 4+ clubs.

2. I would bid 2H. You are a little light on points, but you have either a 9-card fit, a double fit, or both. It will be important to compete on this hand.

Tried signing up for BBO but it won’t email me the confirmation. Awaiting response from support

Thanks!

On 1: Hmmm, when you lay it out like that it seems obvious. I bid what now seems like an indefensible 2NT since we could be getting crushed in spades. If partner bid 1S instead of 1H is there any merit in 2NT, or is it too big a lie to tell about distribution? At the time, I justified the lie by reasoning that our most likely best contracts were either 2 or 3NT, and telling partner exactly how strong our hand is would give the most useful information for deciding which of the two was best.

Other bids I considered were 2C, 2D, and 3D. 2C and 2D now seem too weak, but what about 3D? With 6-4 hands, I often don't know whether to rebid the 6-card suit or show the 4-card one at my second call.

On 2: Okay, good, I bid 2H after similar reasoning (although I didn't realize at the time that the double-fit was a possibility). Auction then went (P)-3H-(P). What should partner's 3H bid mean there?