It isn't every day you get to score thousands of points on a single hand. Conversely, you're bound to come up against tons of mediocre players if you do so much as think about playing bridge.
Here are the grand slams (yes, that is plural!) I encountered yesterday. https://tinyurl.com/yfz6kgxn - 2210 (I didn't bid this one, but I tried to switch seats afterwards) https://tinyurl.com/yhozqo3z + 2210 https://tinyurl.com/yff7fncb + 1510 And here is some of the ludicrous we witnessed (and occasionally created) https://tinyurl.com/yg2w76t6 https://tinyurl.com/yz628pcr https://tinyurl.com/yho8orbj Two hands from the past 24 hours that were particularly frustrating.
Board 1 South leads a heart after overcalling spades (suspicious). I can count eight top tricks, and would like to have West lead clubs to my king eventually. Another possibility comes from the spade suit. I suspect West is missing a spade card in sequence - otherwise, a spade lead would be nearly automatic This means I can place North with a singleton spade honor. The spade layout may be something like T 763 AK82 QJ954 I might convince West to lead a high spade later and create a potential endplay situation. The layout I would be angling for resembles _ _ A8 Q4 So I start running my diamonds. When South shows out, I am suspicious he is 5413. He is also hesitant to part with his clubs, so he probably has an honor or two there. What I missed at the table was the second spade pitch. Now I can promote my long spade by force. All I need is for N/S to screw up leading clubs. So, rather than cashing the SK and exiting a spade (which forces North to discard carefully), I tried to endplay West when there was no endplay to be had. But then something amazing happened. North let South win the heart! And then something even more amazing happened: I ducked the spade return :0 It should have occurred to me that I was going to end up being endplayed if I ducked this trick. Oh well. Board 2 See if you can plan the play better than I did. I hope one day in the foreseeable future BBO upgrades the group challenge feature to include as many participants as the creator desires (think mini-tournament volume) and longer time limits. This would be a great tool to utilize with casual players who do not have the time to play together very often but enjoy the discussion of playing the same hands.
Currently, the UGA Duplicate Bridge Club hosts a few such group challenges every week to practice away from the table and pinpoint themes in weaknesses that need to be addressed. The best part is that users can compare their results to other players to have some comparison for how the play could have gone. This was necessary to grasp the right line on the following hand: (link) One line that presents itself immediately is to play for hearts to split 2-2. Declarer can later ruff a club in dummy for the 10th trick. This also works when East has KJx. Another line that improves on this is to adopt a cross ruff. The plan is to cash the HA and DAK prior to ruffing the black suits back and forth. It is important to preserve the CK as a winner later, as there will be two boss trumps outstanding that need to be removed. Another hand illustrated the advantages of direct comparison in the challenge matches: (link) When West leads a heart, declarer should recognize the need to pitch hearts on the DAK. After doing so, what is the best way to proceed? |
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