July 25th, 2008
The next time you play bridge with a regular partner, try this:
Beyond the bare minimum amount of speech required to bid and play each hand, remain completely silent at the table.
You may find your blood pressure rising the first couple of times partner fails to give you a ruff or passes a forcing bid. But if you stick with it, I guarantee you that eventually you will find yourself calming down and, hopefully, playing better bridge.
Be honest — during a typical session, how much brain power do you waste on:
- Dissecting some mistake your partner made.
- Convincing partner that some mistake you made wasn’t really a mistake, and was actually partner’s fault.
- Getting partner to understand how well you played the last hand.
- Plumbing the depths to find something nice to say to partner after she/he mangled the last hand.
- Arguing about how 4C couldn’t possibly be anything but Gerber on a particular auction.
- Trying to impress the opponents with your wealth of bridge knowledge (and partner’s lack thereof).
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that much brain power to spare!
An added bonus — opponents will automatically assume that you and your partner must be pretty good players. (Of course, once they see how you bid and play, they may reconsider.)
Tags: Trappist Monk Rule
Posted in Things to Try | No Comments »
July 23rd, 2008
In a highly competitive, high-level auction, where RHO has just made an apparent sacrifice bid, you can agree that a pass by you shows some kind of in-between hand where you’re not sure whether it’s better to bid one more or to double. Partner can then use that information at their turn to bid one more or to double.
If my own experience is any guide, 9 times out of 10 after you’ve made a forcing pass partner will tank for several agonizing seconds and then pass.
The other 1 time out of 10, partner will pass without tanking.
Tags: Forcing Pass
Posted in LOL Dictionary | No Comments »
July 22nd, 2008
Playing Swiss teams, you pick up the following hand in first seat, white on red.
Qxxx
–
Jxxxxxx
xx
Your team isn’t doing very well (not because of anything you’ve done, of course), so you decide to try 3D.
LHO, untroubled, bids 3H.
Partner now goes into the tank. You make a mental note not to draw any inferences from his apparent agony. He finally doubles.
RHO passes.
Your turn.
Answer to Stupid Stuff No. 3
Tags: Doubles, Preempts
Posted in Stupid Stuff | No Comments »
July 22nd, 2008
Abbreviation for “on the card.” Refers to an agreement that is on your convention card but not in your brain. Hilarity often ensues.
Tags: Conventions
Posted in LOL Dictionary | No Comments »
July 20th, 2008
“Bubble” is a contraction of “bad double” and refers to a double that when made looks crystal clear but subsequently blows up in your face because of some little prick.
Tags: Doubles
Posted in LOL Dictionary | No Comments »
July 19th, 2008
An adherent of the Law of Total Tricks who automatically raises your 1S opening bid to 4S with 5-card support, irrespective of high-card points, shape, vulnerability, losers, or the fact that you are shortly going to be minus 1100.
Tags: Law of Total Tricks
Posted in LOL Dictionary | No Comments »
July 19th, 2008
What you throw when your idiot partner keeps raising your 4-card major to game with only 3-card support.
Tags: Moysian Fit, Raise
Posted in LOL Dictionary | No Comments »
July 18th, 2008
In first seat, you hold:
AKxxx
KQx
xx
Qxx
You of course open 1S.
Lefty passes.
Partner now announces a skip bid and pulls out the 4N card.
Righty waits for the requisite ten seconds and then passes, with the faintest of smirks on his face.
Your call…
Wow — somehow you’ve never discussed this one with your partner. What should you bid now? (Assume you play 0314 RKCB.)
- A: Pass (balanced minimum)
- B: 5C (better minor)
- C: 5D (one ace)
- D: 5H (two keycards)
- E: 5S (no side ace to cuebid)
Answer to Stupid Stuff No. 2
Tags: 4N, RKCB, Slam
Posted in General Advice, Stupid Stuff | No Comments »
July 17th, 2008
When a male defender is so focused on an opponent’s decolletage that he hands the declarer the contract at trick 12 by throwing a diamond instead of a spade, completely forgetting that declarer showed out of spades on trick 9.
Tags: Battle of the Sexes, Coup
Posted in LOL Dictionary | No Comments »
July 17th, 2008
The inability of a declarer to see a ridiculously obvious way to make a contract because of an apparent squeeze that, even if it were really there, would be a wildly inferior line of play.
Example:
Comparing scores at Swiss Teams…
A: ”Board 17 — minus 1430.”
B: ”Minus 100.
A: ”Ouch. Let’s see … minus 1530 is 17 IMPs. I guess that’s the match.”
C: ”What happened? Were you guys in seven?”
B: ”No, we were in six.”
A: “How did you go down? The contract was ice cold!”
D: ”B had his squeeze goggles on.”
Tags: Squeeze
Posted in LOL Dictionary | No Comments »
