All News

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

It’s OK to return partner’s suit…except…. When it’s wrong! Helpful advice? Not really. Defence can be hard (another unhelpful comment!), One factor which can make it easier is when our partner makes a bid.... read more here

32 young bridge players came to Christchurch from all over the country: from Auckland, Tauranga, Cambridge, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Wellington, Westport, Rangiora, Christchurch and Dunedin. Here they all are: They played an Individual... read more here

Play Well: Be Lucky. Good play is not always rewarded but we would like to believe it is. If we play the cards in the best possible manner and fail in our contract, then we will have a level of satisfaction, if not all the deserved match-points!... read more here

"Quantitative Bid" …. Can you say it and use it? I struggle to say it but it is a useful bid to use. The idea is that you ask partner to pass if they are minimum for their holding or bid on if they are maximum…a bit like the... read more here

Bridge and.... July saw a rather nasty cold circulating among local bridge players. While recovering, I was flicking through TV channels and came across a novel sport. One fan had combined his love of chess and boxing. The two activities... read more here

A Change of Plan. You make your plan when you first see dummy. Sometimes, something goes wrong and you have to make an abrupt change if you are to have any chance of making your contract. Take this week’s hand: North DealsNone... read more here

Staying in Part-Score. Part-score contracts are important too. You cannot make game on every hand. When we do not think we can make a game, we would like to stop as low as we can…but it is not always possible.    ... read more here

             Playing With “The Master”. Have you ever had a game of Bridge with a “DealMaster”? You know who I mean, don’t you? His (oops, sorry, that may... read more here

There was an excellent atmosphere on the last Sunday of morning of July as 34 students took part in a Schools’ Pairs event at the Auckland Bridge Club. We had players from Macleans College, Auckland Grammar, Bucklands Beach Intermediate,... read more here

 Playing a Tough Part-Score Contract.                 We left you as declarer in the  following deal in your part-score spade contract after West had led the jack... read more here

Ron and Sandra Cooper - Orewa. This month we have a joint nomination, a husband and wife partnership who have served their club in different ways for many years. For 12 years Ron has been a committee member and served for 7 of those years as... read more here

Being Competitive. One of the skills of bidding is, when the opponents open the bidding, of knowing to compete when an auction is about to end. This is called "balancing" or "being competitive".  If you do not, you will find you will get... read more here

Waikato Bays News and Rubber "Cat" ch up Teams events seemed to be back on the radar over the past few months.   Starting with Spa Town Teams in Te Aroha … this is the only stand-alone tournament Te Aroha host and it is comprised... read more here

Trump Signals Can Save The Day… ….. or even help beat a contract. What are they? Normally, we follow quite meaninglessly with our two or three small trumps. We can give the order we play them a meaning. We focus on the other two... read more here

SIX GOOD TRUMPS ARE NO GOOD……. This all happened in one 10 board match among 8 supposedly strong Open bridge players. Firstly, we must give you a bidding problem….or maybe it is no problem: With both sides vulnerable, you... read more here

Squashing Honours. We left you on Friday in a rather precarious contract after a very difficult bidding sequence. Let's hope we did not use up all our energies in the bidding! We needed to get 10 tricks with spades as trumps: South... read more here

Bidding What We Have Not: Not Bidding What We Have! The rules or guidelines around bidding can be strange or at times make us do seemingly strange things. For example, if we have 7 high card points and 4 spades and a 6-card club suit, we bid 1... read more here

TWO BIDS TO SUCCESS. Some bidding sequences can be very drawn out and can take many minutes to conduct. Others are very succinct….and I do not just mean ones like 1NT – 3NT. This particular sequence following involves a bid which... read more here

-850 or + 200? One of those will be the result of our action to double 5H in the following auction. Do you remember the problem? West DealsBoth Vul     ♠ J 6 5 ♥ J 8 7 4... read more here