Editorial by Marti Ronemus
Get Me Out of Here!
Late February is the lowest time of the year. Winter has worn us down, emotionally and physically. The optimists amongst us however see the light at the end of the tunnel! Remember the old show “Hogan’s Heroes” where they were slowly and secretly digging their way out? Well, that’s us in the closing days of February. We’re chipping away, slowly!
AND!! We need to drag our bridge game out of the doldrums too. We need to dig past those old pre-conceptions, dynamite a hole in our rote responses and emerge, like daffodils, through the dirt of Winter. We’re here for you, and wait till you see the tools we’re bringing for your Great Escapes.
Bringing shovels and a small bulldozer to the tunnel is MATTHIAS HUBERSCHWILLER, who brings six hands on one of our favorite techniques, crossruffs. He attacks the subject organically, beginning with first things first, moving on to precautions, alerts to mind all the suits, not just the ruffers, how to set the hand up before the ruff, and avoiding the dangers of being overruffed.
And then MATTHIAS brings a few sticks of dynamite. His next six hands feature bidding with very strong hands, not as easy as one might think. The hands themselves blast through problems, like protecting against bad trump splits, how to play hands with no entries to dummy, when to use a dummy reverse, and being aware of the dangers of intermediates.
Finally, I have six hands for you, all technique-oriented. Once you work yourself through these hands, we’ll have almost effected our escape!!
The last breakthrough is two quizzes from Matthias, one continuing his theme of bidding strong hands, and the second a bid-‘em-up.
And we emerge on the other side of the February tunnel, having escaped to the land of daffodils, crocuses and successful slams. You’re welcome!
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