Відео

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David, that's fantastic! Thinking about the distribution of the points on every hand is a HUGE mile stone. Well done! If you struggle with counting shape, be sure to start by working on hands where a lot is known about the shape of the hidden hands (when one of them has preempted).

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This is both a great question and observation! By covering the first spade with the king, east promotes their partner's ten, but simultaneously makes it possible for us to finesse. If east waits, not covering the first honor, now declarer has to decide what to do. If declarer decides to play a low spade to the ace, the king falls to the ace without promoting the ten. But if declarer goes wrong and leads the second high honor from north, now declarer cannot finesse the ten and partner gets a trick. Generally, when the opposing side has two honors, we want to cover the second honor for just this reason (so the other side cannot finesse our partner). Because the king is doubleton, declarer can actually succeed regardless of which choice east makes, so the question is... which one makes it harder for declarer to succeed?

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If the partnership is playing level of the fit, then 3d would be the correct bid with west's hand. They have a 9-card fit in diamonds and should therefore bid to take 9 tricks. 3d is actually a good contract for them. Assuming they get the diamonds right, they are making 3d which is far better than letting 2h make.

Yes! Mirror hands remove a lot of our options.

Great question! This is absolutely possible. It can be useful to examine multiple possibilities. There are two for the clubs: If partner's 6c was singleton, then west is 5-3-2-3. If partner's 6c was not a singleton, then declarer is 5-3-1-4. Ideally, we consider both possibilities and then as the play occurs, determine which is correct. On trick 5, partner leads another club, confirming which it is. Now we know declarer's shape is 5-3-1-4. You are correct, I made an assumption about the clubs early on, ignoring the other possibility. It would have been better to think about both and then on trick 5, when we have confirmation of what is going on in clubs, determine the true shape of the west hand.

@@thebridgeteachers Thank you

@@AlixaDaoc You're welcome!

That's a good policy. If you are not sure, it's usually better to err on the side of covering. If you cover all the time, you will be right far more than you will be wrong.

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Thank you!

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That's a great idea and can be the best solution. In this situation, discarding a loser is a reasonable choice, but probably not the best one. There are two things to consider when making this decision: Can the defense continue to lead the suit with negative results for you? In other words, if we discard a heart here, can east continue and lead another spade? If they do, is the situation, better, the same, or worse? The second thing to consider is how certain you are to lose the card you are discarding. In this case, if we discard, west will be on lead and we will be playing fourth, so a spade continuation would not harm us. When we consider the certainty of losing a heart, however, we have multiple ways to get rid of the heart loser, potentially not losing that trick. So, while west leading a spade after we discard a heart isn't a concern, discarding a heart on this trick and losing it, when we have other ways to avoid that loser may cost us a trick in the long run.

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If you go to thebridgeteachers.com/ and scroll down to the bottom of any of the pages, on the bottom right hand side is a place for you to put your email to sign up for our Newsletter, which has a hand of the month. Once you sign up, every month you will be sent the newsletter. We are working on putting the past newsletters on the website and hopefully that will be available soon!

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Thank you, David!

I love your analysis. Everyone plays a bit differently. I like to bid a major here with four (denying the other major as I would double if I had both). But playing 1h as 5 is also perfectly reasonable.

@@thebridgeteachers If you had 5 spades and 4 hearts, would you bid '1 spade' or 'negative double'? And what would you bid if you had 5 hearts and 4 spades? Ty.

I tend to favour 1N response too waiting to see what happens next, 1 H post 1D should show 5 carder H

@@Reteph58 With 4 or more cards in both majors, I would double. So in both of your scenarios here I would double. When a major has not been bid, I prefer the negative double to tell my partner whether I have only one of the unbid majors (by bidding that major) or both (by doubling).

@@checkvideo12 That's a great agreement. Everyone has to find the system that works best for their style.

Glad you enjoyed it!

That's great though! You were half the way there.

Thank you!

You were all the way there! There are two important parts: 1. knowing how many and 2. knowing whether the remaining heart(s) are higher are lower. Whether it's the 5 or the 3 is irrelevant. What's important is knowing it's below the 6.

I nearly spit out my tea laughing at this comment. :)

Brian and I joke that before two people get married, they should play bridge together! You are exactly right, a good partnership requires being on the same page and understanding how to talk about mistakes and work towards improvement in ways that are comfortable for both people.

@@thebridgeteachers Yes, i agree. But people who are married, or else, and start to play bridge together, should watch it, as many of their shortcomings in their relationship might surface ;-)

@@Reteph58 So very true!

This is really common. I always tell students that I spent several months getting them to try finesses and then the rest of the time telling them not to finesse. :)

@@thebridgeteachers Amen!

Thank you!

Yes. Standard American with 5-card majors.

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Thank you for watching!

Yes! South was supposed to be SamanthaTBT (the bridge teachers), but I ran out of space. So I created SamanthaBT (bridge teacher) It worked out, because I need two accounts to film, so I kept both. You have a keen eye.

@@thebridgeteachers Ah, i thought so there might be a special reason for that. In a way i have a keen eye, yes, but i only found out just lately. To get a keen 'bridge-eye' i follow your UA-cam-lessons (and of some others too).

@@Reteph58 Thank you. :)

Yes! But there's so much to pay attention to, it's easy to miss stuff. I like looking at each before we play and deciding what I think is important to pay attention to. Thank you for watching!

Great spot! That is 100% correct. Essentially, they would be trading a diamond loser for a heart loser. By losing the heart, they have the ability to trump both diamonds. If instead, they draw the heart, they now don't lose the heart, but they do lose one of the diamonds because they can now trump only one of them.

You're welcome! I'm so glad it helped.

Thank you so much, Phyllis!

Thank you for watching!

Oh yes, that can be so frustrating. And, of course, that's what makes defense the hardest part of the game: We have to coordinate our actions and plan with our partner and sometimes that's very challenging!

Great question! Generally, no, the 1d bid would not be alerted. This is the sort of information we can find by looking at the opponents' convention card or by asking. Since it's a natural bid and relatively common bid, it's not alertable. Just be aware different partnerships play it differently and so it might be worth asking about.

Transportation can be very tricky and our little cards can play a key role. Once you start thinking of things that way, it's easier to look for them.

@@thebridgeteachers This would still be a lot easier to see if you filmed concept lessons in a classroom environment with a physical whiteboard. As somebody who had to leave because I knew I wouldn't retain anything from your videos because I couldn't parse out what was important, it breaks my heart that bridge instructors have too much tunnel vision to see that some of us who don't have access to a club but need physical whiteboard lectures for easier note taking are being left out in the cold.

@@journeymanproject1756 I really appreciate you leaving a comment and I totally understand how you feel. Everyone learns differently and finding a teacher who teaches the way that you learn is essential, or the experience is frustrating. The trouble with teaching large groups is that everyone will be at a different level and everyone will learn differently. It's much easier to get teaching that is tailored to you in a small group or one on one. I would recommend finding a teacher who teaches the way you prefer. ACBL.org has a huge directory of teachers and with the ability to learn online now, your options are even greater. I do offer private lessons to individuals and small groups, but it sounds like we are not a great fit, so I suggest looking for someone teaching the style you know works best for you. I do have a bridge book available on Amazon that might be easier for you to understand than the video lessons. Best of luck to you.

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I didn't notice that! That's great.

🙂

You're welcome! That's a perfectly reasonable treatment, especially if you are considering adding Gambling 3NT to your system at some point.