All News

Enough Stuff? Are you? Have you? Your partner has used a Michaels bid, quite an aggressive one as it took your partnership to the 3-level opposite what could be a misfitting yarborough in your hand…and you have much more than that. So,... read more here

      A “Cross” Ruffer! A look today at playing a hand where you seem to have very few losers but on the other hand, not that many winners. The answer in many such cases is to make good use of the asset you do... read more here

A Multi Problem. It is pretty certain when an opponent starts with 2and you have the hand below, that they will have a Weak 2 in one of the major suits. You are strong enough to rule out their strong option. Yet, which suit do they have and how... read more here

Where to from here? To bid? If so, what? Or maybe to pass? If we choose to bid, what do we bid? What does partner’s double mean, anyway? Too many questions! Suddenly, a fairly simple hand has become rather less simple to handle. It looks... read more here

Saved from the Brink of Disaster. So, sometimes you make the right lead and it turns out to be an unlucky lead. Sometimes, you make the wrong lead and pay the price. Maybe West on today’s deal deserved the latter fate as the lead made was... read more here

don't stay where you are! The “Strength” of Weak Jumps. We are not talking about Weak Jump Overcalls, though they can be quite useful, too. We are talking about Weak Jumps when your partner opens the bidding. You can play Weak Jumps... read more here

Strong and hard to handle. That’s a reasonable description of today’s hand. Hard to decide where to start and then if you decide on a simple overcall, even harder to know where to go next. Was that overcall right in the first place?... read more here

ONE GOOD PLAY NEGATES ANOTHER. When both the declarer and a defender find a good play on the same board, you might expect each to achieve an average result. That was not quite true in reality.        ... read more here

All over an overtrick..well almost all! Well, you are playing Pairs and as we all know so often to our cost, +140 can be a top and +110 a bottom. So, the battles over an overtrick in a part-score deal can be as meaningful as one’s attempts... read more here

No Time to Fail. We can all go down in our contract when finesses fail and suits break badly. Oh, you hear during the post-mortem how you could have end-played one opponent or squeezed them and be like the computer analysis making an overtrick!... read more here

The new venue for our National Congress is Baypark Arena, Mount Manganui, Tauranga and will be a long term booking. The Trustpower Baypark location is central to all services in Tauranga, effectively ten minutes from Tauranga... read more here

Moving Forward….and “Minties’ Moments”. A board for all tastes, whether you like the difficult problem an opposition bid can cause or some lighter moments that happen frequently at the table. Let’s look:... read more here

(well almost!) Too Low, Jo(e). The title is no attempt at personalising a poor score: hence, the bracketed letter! We are all capable of over and under bidding a particular board! Some hands are, like the problem we gave you yesterday, very hard... read more here

                        Choices? Some bids are easy, come from a beginners’ textbook on the game. At other times, we have a... read more here

Grand’s Over the Horizon. Well, it may be but you would like to get close. While at times we have to acknowledge that pre-empts do work, we would still like to make a decent effort at what is “our hand”. Take the following:... read more here

      DOWN! The feeling you get when you make less tricks than you needed for your contract. It’s also the term to describe your result. As usual, the finesse failed and there seemed no recovery. Did it have to be... read more here

The good and the bad. One of the advantages of a splinter bid (showing a side-suit singleton or void with trump support for your partner) is to identify when the two hands do not match so that you can sign off at the game level. A sign of such... read more here

Taking the Right Lead. Today’s story revolves not just around making the right opening lead but is also a story of bridge ethics, of doing the right thing at the right time. Ironically, the choice of opening lead did not matter greatly as... read more here

                    But you gain! Sacrificed in a Good Cause. You are defending a no-trump contract, a tell-nothing about my suits 1NT opening. There... read more here

                                         &... read more here

A Safe Haven? Many years ago, my partner opened their weak 1NT and my right-hand opponent doubled. I held, for once, a very reasonable 9 or 10 count…no singleton or void, no 5 card or longer suit. It seemed reasonable to stick around in... read more here

Useless! Aces can be as useless as Jacks! We know that jacks are often not worth one high card point. Yet, sometimes aces are just as useless! Today’s story centres around an event that never happened, though the deal itself certainly... read more here

No Time for a Peek. Yesterday’s introductory title did not have the word “no” included. A subtle change. Today’s article is for our newer players and also for those who want to beat the opposition’s contract. So, I... read more here

Which way? SPLIT DECISIONS. “Four trumps” for Bidding: “Four Trumps” for Defending. You may have only a very average weak no-trump hand though you have suddenly been thrust into the limelight, perhaps by partner’s... read more here

Remember the Dummy? As a declarer, it is there to help you. You are the boss in that you tell your partner which card to play from their hand. Whichever hand wins the trick is good as long as it is not the opposition. Do not forget your dummy.... read more here

The Least of All Evils. It’s lovely having a decent hand but it has brought you a few problems. Three great suits, over half the high-card points in the pack but you are struggling to find an opening bid.    ... read more here

Is that wise? Silence is….. You have just 5 high-card points (and included in that are two jacks which we are told are often worth less than one point each) and your only decent suit is the one indicated by the opponent’s take-out... read more here

Managing the “Multi”. The Multi 2 Diamond convention has both its fans and its haters. Advocates of Weak Two openings criticise it because it can lose the pre-emptive advantage when the partner is unsure which suit opener has 6 cards... read more here

Not To Your Advantage. You have made quite a good lead. Well, the look of dummy tells you that you could have made a worse one! You have a nice suit which would seem very safe to lead, QJT7, against 3NT. Yet, you remembered the saying that when... read more here

The Almost Forgotten Suit. In that vacuum which declarers find themselves in so often in a no-trump contract, we would like to run our long suit, make our opponents discard and then judge how to continue from what they have discarded, the shape... read more here

                                 Camouflage. Would you ever? Could they pick it? Is... read more here

Where are you? High Level Bidding: Low Level Finessing. All you will see below is not perfect, whether it be in the bidding or in the defence. It was all a little unusual and, of course, it really did happen this way. The truth can be much... read more here

looking for clues... Is it a Vacuum? I hate the phrase “Restricted Choice”. I hate having to guess whether the opponent has chosen to play the queen from QJ doubleton or have played it because that was the only card they have in that... read more here