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About This Site
This site is for the education and entertainment of
bridge players throughout the ACBL. We attempt to cater for all levels
of experience. But the primary goal of the site is to act as a valuable
teaching tool, and as such it is aimed mostly at meeting the needs of
the improving player, typically someone at the “intermediate” level.
However, some of the hands are quite difficult, and we hope that there
will be something for everybody. |
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Hand Analyses Once a week, we make available a set of deals and hand records, which can be emailed to your Club. On this Web Site, every Wednesday, we publish a set of Hand Analyses for the boards you have just played at your Club. In the Analyses for each board is a sample auction, a critique of the auction, and an analysis of how the play of the hand might go. Within the analyses you will find links to our System Library, for articles on convention relevant to the hands … and to a Bidding Quiz … and to the Play Quiz. |
Bidding Quiz The weekly Bidding Quiz presents you with 15-20 bidding problems from the Wednesday game. You see the hand in question, the auction to date, and are asked what would be your bid … or, if you were confronted with that problem in the actual game, what was your bid. We try not to be overly dogmatic in the answers … often there is no “correct” solution, merely a choice of reasonable alternatives, or choices which depend on your partnership’s style or methods. |
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Convention Library Here we have dozens of helpful
articles on systems and gadgets. As we said. they are cross-referenced
in the Hand Analyses and the Quizzes, or, you can access them directly
through the Convention Library page. |
Play Problems Every week, we select a few Boards from the Wednesday game where the play of the hand is of particular interest. These we present in Quiz format, showing you the bidding, your hand, and Dummy, and challenging you to find the winning line (sometimes you will be Declarer, other times you will be on defense). Each problem is rated with some number of stars, one through five. It’s a difficulty rating, with 5 being quite difficult indeed. Most are assessed at the 2-star or 3-star level, which we hope will be found instructive and challenging by a large population of newer and improving players. |
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Basic System Most of the Analyses and Quizzes use a fairly straightforward system: - 5-card majors, by which we mean that an opening bid of 1♥ or 1♠ shows at least five in the bid suit - “Two Over One” approach, where sequences such as 1♥ 2♦ or 1♦ 2♣ are game-forcing - 1NT is 15-17, after which we play Stayman and Jacoby Transfers - 2♣ is the strong bid, and is artificial and game-forcing - 2♦, 2♥ and 2♠ are “Weak Twos”, in the 5-10 range - Negative Doubles - In the play of the hand, we assume standard leads and carding, unless otherwise specified. On top of that basic structure, you will encounter all sorts of additional gadgets such as Drury, Michaels, Responsive Doubles, Support Doubles, Roman Key Card, etc, etc, but you don’t need to be playing these to enjoy the Hand Analyses and Quizzes. And, if these are conventions that you have yet to add to your arsenal, then please follow the links to pages where you can study them, if you so desire. |