All News

Nearly There…. Are you counting down the days now to the start of this year’s National Congress? If you are a Youth Player or are in the Quarter Finals of the National Rubber Bridge Competition, it’s only three days now. Four... read more here

They Won and They Lost. 9 out of 10 wins with 8 of those wins by 13 vps or more… and a single loss by two imps in their last 10 matches proved just not quite enough to secure a top 8 finishing round-robin position for the Bridge Blacks.... read more here

Down to the Wire for the Bridge Blacks Three Kiwi teams are now playing for respectability. Even the Seniors’ run of victories came to a dramatic end with a huge loss to USA 2. However, our Open Team are still alive with 8th place a... read more here

8th is Getting Closer. Two Kiwi teams continued excellent winning runs. While for the Bridge Blacks, the realistic aim is a top 8 finish, for our Seniors, all that can be achieved is respectability. Five wins in a row now for the Bridge Masters... read more here

“Shut Your Eyes and Bid”. We are going to introduce a slightly different concept this week as we are going to look at the bidding of the same hand at two different tables. Let’s call it a Teams match and see what can happen. It... read more here

Losing Streaks are Over. Spare a thought for the Bridge Masters who have had a tough time with little going right at the table. 13 successive losses. So, the small wins over Turkey and Bulgaria should bring just small smiles, perhaps of relief.... read more here

 Bridge Blacks Back on Track. An excellent day for both the Bridge Blacks and Bridge Ferns. The Bridge Blacks did what they had to do against weaker opposition and then had the bragging rights over Australia while the Bridge Ferns were... read more here

Although position-wise, the Bridge Blacks (and the Bridge Masters) stayed just where they started the day, our Open Team ended their run of five poor losses with two wins and a small loss. Meanwhile it was pretty much the same at the end of the... read more here

Three wins from 12 matches may not seem a particularly good return from the second day’s play. Indeed, both The Bridge Blacks and Bridge Masters are struggling to get momentum so far. However, the Bridge Ferns performed creditably against... read more here

Taking Advantage of the 5-3 Trump Fit. We found our way with a little exploration to 4H, a fair looking 5-3 trump fit. Let’s see how we can not just make our contract but even maybe an overtrick. South led a spade with North following to... read more here

Warm Up and Action. "Warming Up" is something all four of our teams did on arrival in Wuhan, a huge city in the centre of China. Our chef de mission, Kris Wooles, described the temperature as "hot and sticky, 37 degrees, feels like 43." At least... read more here

New Zealand has four teams taking part in the 44th World Bridge Championships which start on Sunday in Wuhan, China. We will have representative teams in the Open (Bermuda Bowl),Women (Venice Cup), Seniors (D'Orsi Senior Bowl) and Mixed (Mixed... read more here

Finding (not having!) a Fit. We know we need to have a minimum of 8 trumps between our two hands, dummy’s and our own, for that suit to be our trump suit. That is called a "fit". It is normally fairly easy to find such a fit when each hand... read more here

Text-Book or Practical? We referred last week to the use of bidding a suit we do not hold when our side has bid three suits, in other words “Fourth Suit Forcing”. An example of the use of this came up very recently. There are... read more here

The Defender You Do NOT Want on Lead. So much for all that talk about “4th Suit Forcing” on Friday. We have been left to make 3NT. If we had been able to call 2spades as our second bid in the sequence below, it would be our... read more here

The Suit You Do Not Need to Call. You open the bidding by calling your longest suit at the 1 level. Your partner calls a different suit and you call your second longest suit because you have no support for your partner’s suit and a hand not... read more here

Catch me if you can… Not a night of great deeds, a night generally if you could keep your nose out of trouble, you would score better. Trouble awaited round many corners, or bids too far: How high would you bid this interesting... read more here

Meet one of most recent arrivals to the Central Districts bridge scene. Read on further to discover who his keepers are. The Levin Open, held on 21st July, attracted a field of 30 pairs and was won easily by the Ker brothers, Anthony and... read more here

Our National Bridge Congress, the highlight of our bridge calendar is now just one month away. If you have not yet entered, especially Ryman New Zealand Open and Restricted Open Pairs, now would be a great time to do so. We do require prior entry... read more here

Making the Two Games….or Failing in a Good Cause? We left you on Friday with one pair of hands and two contracts to play. So, let’s look first of all at the one I hope you did not reach, 3NT. North DealsE-W Vul... read more here

Going to game: but which game? We, the bridge teachers, tell our new players to bid to game when we know we are strong enough to do so. Sometimes, we may be strong enough but we do not know which game we should bid. As a for instance, we open 1... read more here

Golden Week but not Great Diamond Celebrations Akarana will this Saturday be celebrating its 50th anniversary, just a few months late….but then Akarana players have not over the years been too wedded to time issues. This Wednesday evening... read more here

Different Leads: Different Problems On the following board, most West players did the normal thing of leading their partner’s suit. You cannot be wrong even if you are not right! What would be your plan assuming you play low from dummy,... read more here

Can’t Bid Slam but Can you Make One? We left you on Friday in a reasonable looking 4S contract. We got to game on a combined 24 high card points and avoided the trap of playing 3NT. We are playing Pairs which means not only do we want to... read more here

The Wise Bid. There are times when, in the bidding, you tell the opponents as little as possible about your hand and other times when you need to reveal all, or quite a lot! If you know which suit and which level you want to play, then... read more here