About a month ago, my brothers and I, along with several of our friends, decided to take up bridge. For now we are just playing rubber bridge over beer/lemonade and 80's music (my brother is obsessed with the 80s... I now associate One Night in Bangkok with bridge), but I would like to play at a more competitive level. We know the basics of bidding, but our defense and declarer play come from card sense rather than study or experience. The only books we own are Bridge for Dummies, etc.

Could anyone recommend books they found useful at 20k? The players are all bright people who have played cards for years. Any tips would be welcome as well.

Also,

The other night I held:
S: KJxxx
H: AKQJxxx
D:
C: x

Dealer passed.

How would you bid this? My partner held xx of hearts but also AQ in spades. My RHO was competing for a diamonds bid. As it turned out, we had a small slam cold, but we failed to communicate (passed out at 5H).

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I am Tartuffe from GoDiscussions.com

I played bridge years ago with my parents and brother... There was some book we had that was basically the Strunk & White of bridge, but now I can't remember what it was. It's a famous book, I'm sure somebody will know it.

I would have opened with 3H with that hand, but it's been so long since I've played I have no idea what I'm talking about. But I'd be thinking slam immediately if I saw that. I guess your partner would come back with 4S...

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Ah, bridge. I used to play actively about 20 years ago (my late father was a many times Finnish champion and international representative for Finland in the 50's and 60's, who retired from bridge around 1970, but started again and taught me when I showed interest in around 1980), and I was active at rec.games.bridge and okbridge when internet was young.

Unfortunately I haven't followed the latest developments in bridge books, so I cannot give any recommendations there. Books on bidding systems and conventions can be useful, as well as opening leads and signals, but I feel declarer play and defensive play is mostly learned by playing and having someone point out your mistakes. Of course books can teach you the basics, if you don't know them yet. I believe Bridge for Dummies is such a book, although I haven't read it myself.

You should definitely start visiting a local bridge club if you really want to improve (if one exists). I firmly believe that playing rubber bridge among friends that are all at the same level will not improve your skills, regardless of how many books you read. You will keep making the same mistakes over and over again without nobody noticing anything odd, while when you make the same mistake playing in the local club, someone is likely to point it out immediately (and at least you will see from the score that you are doing something wrong, given that the club plays duplicate in any form)

WRT your bidding problem: of course it depends on the bidding system used, but since you don't mention any specific, I assume it's natural/standard. The hand has enormous playing strength but not much high card strength. With that kind of distribution it will not be passed out even if you start with a non-forcing opening bid, so I'd open 1H to allow as much bidding space as possible to describe your hand. Depending on further bidding I plan to follow with a bid (jumping if necessary) and followup in spades. That should indicate at least 5-6 distribution in majors and good playing strength. When there is very little high card strength but the hands fit together very well, the slams are difficult to bid, esp. if there is a lot of opposition bidding. In this case you are interested in the black aces and not the diamond ace, so you should have well tuned slam bidding conventions to either get that information from your partner or to describe your diamond void and solid hearts to your partner.

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In modern bidding 3H is strictly pre-emptive with something like:

x
AQJxxxx
xxx
xx

(depending a bit on vulnerability)

Even if 3H would be constructive, it would be really hard to find a spade contract in case partner has 3+ spades and 0-1 hearts since you take up so much of bidding space.

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Take a look at http://home.comcast.net/~kwbridge/books.htm#classics

I'm a low-dan bridge player (stretching the analogy a bit far, perhaps), so this sort of stuff is a bit hazy, but here goes:

The classic defense/declarer play book is: Louis Watson, "Classic Book on the Play of the Hand." It's old, but quite good. Presumably this is what Fwiffo is referring to.

Other books around that level: I seem to recall thinking William Root's three books were good and a bit more modern (commonsense bidding, how to play a bridge hand, how to defend a bridge hand), but I encountered them too late to really have an informed opinion.

I don't know anything about more recent 20k-ish books, but I have heard that Bridge for Dummies is actually not that bad a book (completely secondhand).

Caveat: I learned with Sheinwold's book, which is quite outdated at least in the bidding section, and then no others on play of the hand until I was well past 20k, so I may be off.

Edit: Acutally, Fwiffo was more likely referring to Goren's book (the big bridge celebrity/promoter back in the day). One other omission I have: is Mollo's book "Card Play Technique: The Art of Being Lucky," which apparently people like but I haven't ever read. Slightly more advanced material: anything by Mike Lawrence is great, in particular "How to read your opponent's cards." (His book "Card Combinations" is also good and seems the sort of thing a go player would find enjoyable; it's not as dry as it sounds.)

Getting to slam confidently in that situation sounds difficult, so I wouldn't worry too much. At least they didn't take a cheap sacrifice (if it existed).

This hand lacks the defense necessary for a strong 2C opening (or for a strong 2H if you play strong twos). Thus you open 1H. The hand is somewhat extreme so opinions may differ, but I'll give you options. If there's no competition and you don't get a raise, you rebid spades, which is a reverse and thus forcing, showing extra values (say 16+) and 4S-5H. After that, you can rebid spades again to show 5S-6H (longer hearts because you bid them first and they're a lower suit). If you rebid hearts, it sounds like 4S-6H, but maybe a jump rebid is possible at this turn (your hearts are much better than your spades, so treating it as 4S-6 good H may be the best). There's no real way to convince your partner you're 5-7. Note: this third-round bid (whatever it is) might be passed depending on the auction, so possibly it should be a jump to express that your hand has extras, but take care in getting too high. If partner doesn't have spade help, you may be in trouble, so I wouldn't go past game unless partner made an encouraging noise at some point.

I'd recommend against jump reversing to spades at your second turn for two reasons: one, it eats up too much space; two, jump reverses are not treated as natural by competitive players nowadays, so perhaps best not to get in the habit of using them.

That is certainly true in this case, but is it true in all cases (like 1D-1S;2H vs 3H - is 2H universally considered forcing nowadays)?

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Most competitive players use 1D-1S;3H as a "splinter": an artificial raise of spades with a singleton or void in hearts. In all cases simple reverses such as 1D-1S;2H are forcing (for one round). (Edit: Even if you keep jump reverses as natural, you should still play the simple reverses as one round forces. You can't jump reverse with a big 19 point hand that's 4-5 in your two suits as there are too many possible places to play still. It would at least have to show 5-6 or some such directly.)

The case I'm not sure about now is 1H-1N;3S. Perhaps that does/can show 5-6 directly (it comes up so rarely . . .). Still, you lose space, and who knows if your partner will misinterpret it because it's an exception.

Ok, when I played actively reverse after one-over-one was not forcing, if partner preferred latter suit and had minimum values he could pass.

I beg to disagree with you regarding the chance to misinterpret 1H-1N;3S - if a partnership plays jump reverses as splinter, then that sequence certainly also has a well defined meaning (whatever it may be; 5-6 majors and huge playing strength is a valid option), and there is no chance of misinterpretation.

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Perhaps it was silly to bring that last bit up, but unfortunately one's discussions on bidding agreements are often not this complete if you don't play together all the time (maybe you had a quick discussion and decided to play "splinters in the standard situations" or some such, which of course is not the best way to go about things) and what's assumed as standard can vary regionally. A good 5-6 is the most likely choice I suspect, but you may not have an agreement on whether 1H-1N;2S-x;3S is stronger or weaker than this (hopefully you have a general principle; probably "standard" is that the latter is weaker).

Anyways, all this is irrelevant for someone starting out. The jump reverse is natural because all bids are without further discussion. I was simply suggesting that one not become accustomed to using it (but this may be silly too --- take advantage of the tools at your disposal).

Yes, when you are playing rubber with your beginner friends, jump reverse should be natural IMHO. But, you raise a valid point in pointing out, that is it not what experts play.

As for whether 1H-Y;2S-Z;3S or 1H-Y;3S should be stronger if both are natural I prefer to think that the more direct route shows more playing strength and less high card strength, whereas the longer route shows more high card strength and possibly less playing strength. With that agreement I would prefer the direct jump with the hand in question, and use simple reverse and spade rebid with something like

KJxxx
KJxxxx
A
A

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I recall that DrStraw was once very much into Bridge and considered himself a mid-dan player. Maybe you can try PMing him for suggestions on good books, since I also recall that he has quite the collection and was contemplating selling it alongside his Go books.

Mollo and Sheinwold are both entertaining and instructive. Also, if you can find it, Why You Lose at Bridge by S. J. Simon is a classic.



As others have said, 1H is the normal opening. As for missing the slam, not to worry at the kyu level. After all, if your partner held AQ in Clubs instead of Spades, even 4H could be dicey.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

OT: How would you define kyu/dan -levels in Bridge?

I have no idea how I would characterize my bridge skills in those terms (probably high kyu/low dan, my best achievement back then was finishing around 20th in the Finnish national championships for pairs; OTOH I have very few masterpoints because I didn't play much in the big tournaments. I used to be very competent in bidding, decent in declarer play and not so remarkable at defensive play)

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It is over 30 years since I played serious bridge but I always considered myself a better bridge player than go player until I reached 4 or 5 dan. There is really nothing to add to this thread about the hand in question, but perhaps the book fwiffo refers to is Goren's Bridge Complete.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

In the U. S,, ratings accumulate, so people can advance without improving. But I would say that Life Master is roughly equivalent to dan level at go, unless it took a long time to get there.

Victor Mollo quipped that the LM rank lets third rate players pretend that they are second rate.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Agree strongly. Some of the bidding discussions are outdated, but still an excellent book.

Also, the Bill Root books are excellent: How to Play a Bridge Hand, and How to Defend a Bridge Hand. Pretty dry reading, but tons and tons of examples of good fundamental techniques.


Not anymore in my experience. The LM title means very little about actual skill. It has become, essentially, an attendance award. I have less than 50 MPs, but there are plenty of LMs around that I know I am better than.

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Main Entry: zing·er Pronunciation: \ˈziŋ-ər\
1 : something causing or meant to cause interest, surprise, or shock
2 : a pointed witty remark or retort

Random other tips:
-The site bridgebase.com is the standard place to play online. They also have a discussion board similar to this one.
-Conventions (i.e. artificial bids) are fun but learning them is probably akin to learning joseki (i.e. don't do it too early, and make sure you understand details/implications when you do)



Yes, bridge ranks aren't so meaningful because they just accumulate. You do have to be at least okay to become a life master, but many young or good-at-games players will be much better than many life masters well before they reach that rank (I'd suggest this would be true of most go players.)



A good way to play. (Still, I wouldn't use it on the current hand anyways as it understates the hearts. Perhaps by this I just mean I'm a 1H-Y;2S-Z;4H bidder, absent anything unusual from partner.)

I played in the UK and have never played tournament bridge in the US, but I assume the rating system is similar. I did not have the money to play in a lot of big tournaments so I never accumulated a large number of point, but when I did always did well. There were people in my local club who where 40 years older than I and thought they were something special because they had amassed a huge number of points. But when I played them I could run rings around them every time. During my last year in the UK I won the individual, pairs and team championships at the county level, roughly equivalent to the state level in the US.

So, I guess there is no way to directly rank the strength of bridge plays in a manner as consistent as go players.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

To keep this discussion way off topic: just in case it interests anyone here, here are the poll results for 1H-1N;3S for Bridge World Standard (Bridge World is the main periodical aimed at experienced players). Of course this is a panel of experts deciding what they most want to play, and 922a would be the standard choice without discussion (unless you hastily agreed to play splinters in all the standard situations and your partner interpreted this as one of those situations!).



(From http://www.bridgeworld.com/default.asp? ... npage.html)