Editorial by Paul Bowyer
Welcome to the twenty-first edition of V-Blue, the interactive magazine for those “experienced learners” of the fascinating game of bridge.
In this issue there are four series. In two of them we are looking at Defence. Here we are looking at the age-old topic of counting. Counting tricks this time – counting our tricks and counting the opponents’ tricks. Rather like the animals onto the ark these deals come in two-by-two. That means that consecutive deals are connected in some way... we’ll leave it to you to find out precisely what we mean.
When you have worked your way through these two series you may care to head for the two “General Series” of six and four hands respectively. The first series has been written by our famous guest author from Britain, the prolific David Bird. There’s no theme to these half a dozen deals and the level of difficulty varies from hand to hand. That’s precisely as it should be of course – when playing the game in practice some hands are easy and some... aren’t.
The final set of four deals comes with another two pairs of hands. No, we are not telling you exactly what that means either. You’ll just have to find out...
As always we have a quiz for you to try. Ten questions on opening two-bids. There are two different versions depending on whether you play weak two-bids (as is the practice in the US of A) or whether you play strong two-bids (as is the custom in Britain). Whichever you choose – enjoy!
Series #2543 - Defence: Counting tricks - Part I (ACOL)
This set of six deals (and its sibling elsewhere in this issue of V-Blue) aims to make you think as a defender. What do you do and why?
Many of these deals require more than reflex plays ("Third player plays high"; "Return your partner's suit"). What you need to do is to stop, think and – most importantly – count. What are you counting? Well, tricks, mainly. How can you manage to wangle sufficient tricks to beat the contract? Also, you must count declarer's tricks. Where are his tricks coming from?
ACOL Strong Two opening bids Quiz
Strong two-bids form one of the cornerstones of the ACOL system. Except for an opening bid of 2♣ (or 2NT for that matter) an opening two-bid shows a hand of "power and quality" based on a very good suit (or on two very good suits).
One yardstick (not the only one) is that a two-bid should contain at least eight playing tricks. In other words, a two-bidder should expect to make eight tricks out of his own hand, even facing garbage.
Series #2551 - Defence: Counting tricks - Part II (ACOL)
There are plenty of clues available in the bidding and the early play for you to work out what to do.
This set of four deals comes with another two pairs of hands.
Can you read the cards accurately and defeat West's game contract on each deal?
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