Editorial by Paul Bowyer
Welcome to V-Blue, the e-magazine for those fresh to the wonderful game of bridge.
In this sixteenth issue there are – as ever – three excellent series for you. Two series (of six hands each) are on the subject of the marked finesse.
This topic is by way of an introduction to the important topic of the finesse (which we will deal with in a later edition). Marked in this context means “clear” or “obvious”. Have we marked the cards? Not exactly, but we might as well have done. A finesse is hideously difficult to pin down and describe in the abstract (for fun we have given you the dictionary definition at the start of the second series) but is easy to understand in practice. So we suggest that you get straight into the series and see what we mean. There are six straightforward deals in the first series and six slightly trickier deals in the second.
Our third series, of eight deals, is our “General Series” where we mix up some hands and ideas from previous editions of VuBridge. Some of these deals are easy... and some of them less so. You can further test yourself with our quiz - this time on the topic of giving preference, a topic that we have touched on before. Much of this centres around trying to kill the auction with a weak hand - to shut partner up, in other words. However, we also give examples where you want to encourage your wonderful partner to bid on and show you cases where you can make bids that reassure partner that you haven’t got trash. There are lots of important ideas in this edition. Enjoy yourselves.
Series #2425 - The "Marked" Finesse - Part I (ACOL)
The secret of good comedy is – timing! And this holds true for bridge, also.
A finesse is a technique where we turn a Wish Card (we Wish it were a winner) into a winner by leading towards it and (crucially) through a victimized opponent.
One opponent has an important high card that can beat our second best card. By leading through that opponent we can force him to commit himself. If he plays high we can deal with it – if he plays low we can cope with that as well.
Giving Preference Quiz
This quiz looks at the idea of giving preference. We are looking at situations when responder, having made a reply, has to make a second bid. On many occasions responder has a weak hand and wants to kill the auction by putting opener back to his first bid suit. Of course, we have to distinguish these cases from those where responder has a decent hand and wants opener to continue bidding. One key principle of bidding is that you don't bid the same way on two very different types of hand.
Click here to run the Quiz.
Series #2426 - The Marked Finesse - Part II (ACOL)
The dictionary definition of a finesse is: "Gaining power for lower ranking cards by taking advantage of the favorable position of higher ranking cards held by the opposition."
There, that's clear enough, isn't it?
As clear as mud, maybe. Remember that in this series, and the previous series, the cards will have been "exposed" for you by the early play. You will know how they lie and need to know how to neutralize the opponents' threats. The crucial point is that you must make the opponent with a critical card play second.
Having played through the first series in this edition the (abstruse) definition above might just make some sort of sense. This series carries on with this theme. Believe us when we say that this is one of the most important techniques of card-play in bridge.
Here are eight general practice hands on the themes that we have been looking at in Vu-Bridge. They are in no particular order, just enjoy them as they come.
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