Bridge players thread

[TCO]

Originally posted by War4ever
no one answered my question as to an online/sp version of bridge?

this sounds interesting, i remember spades, i have played that before..

You can play online/sp at pogo. But the game is nowhere near as fun. Puters don't play like humans.

They have spades at pogo also.

[rah]

I don't hate 4-4 splits but I'm not a big fan. In duplicate, the extra 10 points for NT won us quite a few top boards, so we tailored our bidding system to slant towards it.
But for the record, I DO prefer a 5-3 over 4-4 despite what Goren says. Sheinwold and Omar agree with me on that one.

[Urban Ranger]

I don't hate 4-4 splits either, it's just 5-3 ones are better for trump control.

[War4ever]

Originally posted by GP


You can play online/sp at pogo. But the game is nowhere near as fun. Puters don't play like humans.

They have spades at pogo also.

thanks

[TCO]

1. 5-3 is better for wusses.

2. Rah, 4sp or 4h is 20 points more than 3nt.

[rah]

not if you make 10 tricks,

[TCO]

Originally posted by rah
not if you make 10 tricks,

Being in a trump contract with 8 trumps is usually good for an extra trick or two. You need more hcp to make a nt contract than a suit one.

I was teasing about the wuss comment. But regardless of wether you think a 4-4 is better or a 5-3, if you AVOID 4-4s and go to nt instead, you will miss a lot of major suit contracts that would help you.

[rah]

In contract bridge and swiss team, I would agree with you (in swiss team the 10 extra points doesn't count)
BUT in duplicate, we got more top boards by that extra 10 points than we lost by not being in a major. But yes you can be burned by it, but I consider it a good risk, and for me, experience has validated my opinion.

Have you played any duplicate?

I usually play duplicate because it's more of a true judge of playing skill since the luck of the deal is removed. The last time I played rubber bridge, I had all the cards all night and kicked their butts. Skill had nothing to do with it.

[TCO]

No. I like the more free-form element. And like the building of the scoresheet. two partials adding to a game, etc.

[Urban Ranger]

I also like duplicates more. You can't play duplicates online though, at least not very easily. You should try it some time at a local bridge centre. It is definitely very different.

Swiss teams are also nice, but you do need more dedicated players.

[star mouse]

Bridge is an old passion of mine, haven't played in a while ...

My favourite hand online was something like this:

Question: How do YOU play Qxxx in dummy opposite Jx to take 1 trick? Answer probably not like this....

My hand was x Jx x AKQxxxxxx (forget what the 9 clubs were exactly but they were solid including AK)

Bidding: RHO 1S, Me 5C, LHO double all pass.

Spade was led, and dummy was something like Axx Qxxx xxxx xx. Opponents had the points, but WE had the distribution. Muhahaha.

It's obvious I'm cold for 10 tricks, and I could have played meekly for 1 down, but with nothing to lose I decided to cook up a bit of fiction in the heart suit. If I could make the defenders believe that the Queen on the table was my only heart honor, I could score an extra trick if I could make the Ace and King fall on the same trick.

I won the lead in dummy, crossed to hand with a trump and ran all the trumps except one. During the running of the trumps, I had to make a lot of discards, so I discarded from the hearts first, leaving the Queen bare in dummy.

On the 10th trick, I led the small heart to the Queen. The trick went small, King, Queen, Ace. Mission accomplished, my Jack was now high, I still had a trump left, and I made 5CX for 96%.

[Urban Ranger]

I don't understand why the ace would come down unless it is a singleton. You didn't have any more trump cards on board, so it didn't matter if you are out of that suit or not there.

What was the first lead? It sounded like spade. Spade was the wrong suit to lead. Either one of the red suits would have set you.

[Urban Ranger]

I haven't been able to play bridge at Pogo. I tried IE, and the Java virtual machine bombed out. I tired Mozilla, and it got to "loading room" before it stopped doing anything.

Bah.

[TCO]

It loads fine for me and everybody. You have to wait a little bit especially if on a dialup.

I have IE.

[rah]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I don't understand why the ace would come down unless it is a singleton. You didn't have any more trump cards on board, so it didn't matter if you are out of that suit or not there.

During his trump run, his opponents sluffed all their hearts down to one each, One had the king, and the other the ace, so when he leads the low heart from his hand, both honors fell. Making his remaining jack good since any return, he could trump with his last trump. Seems quite simple.

Sometimes you have no choice but to give your opponents a chance to shoot themselves. It doesn't work that often, but when it does.........

RAH