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Squeezing The Dummy: March 2007

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Tuesday, March 27, 2007. In recent years there has been a movement towards defining a lot of 2N bids as forcing in uncontested auctions. Bidding lots of suits with a strong, balanced hand leads either to convoluted auctions where you never reveal the true nature of your hand or requires you to jump to 3N killing an enormous amount of bidding space. In general with balanced hands you always want to describe that feature as early and cheaply as possible. In an auction like 1. Links to this post.

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Squeezing The Dummy: January 2006

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Wednesday, January 18, 2006. Bridge is a partnership game. Nothing should illustrate this more than cuebidding sequences to try for a slam. Unfortunately, many times after one player has bid their hand they then bid make the decision to drive to slam themselves instead of trusting partner to do the right thing. This mistake probably costs most players thousands of imps in the long run. Take the uncontested auction auction 1. In a 2/1 system that does not use serious 3N. Many people would describe 4.

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Squeezing The Dummy: Recap

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007. I flew home two days ago after an exhausting 2 weeks of bridge. First was the San Diego regional, and from there I went to Gatlinburg. Overall I would say both of these tournaments were successes. The auction went 1. On my left, X by Grant, 1. On my right, and I bid 2. Would be the cuebid and 2. Was natural, while I thought I was cuebidding. This resulted in an embarrassing down 5 in 2. In retrospect I think I shouldn't have risked bidding 2. From San Diego I flew in to Knoxvil...

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Squeezing The Dummy: September 2006

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Tuesday, September 12, 2006. After trouncing us 55-0. In 8 boards, Italy was down just 41 imps with 8 to go. If they could complete their comeback, it would likely be the greatest in the history of international bridge. On board 9 our opponents bid to a 19 point 5. Joe felt from the tempo that clubs were 3-0. He was wrong this time, but what makes him so great is his courage to back his judgment and buck the percentages. Nine times out of ten he is right. This time we lost 11 imps. Italy 66 USA 0. To be ...

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Squeezing The Dummy: December 2005

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Saturday, December 31, 2005. Humans are creatures of habit. This shows up in bridge all the time, most notably when discarding from many small "useless" cards. For instance, if your shape is 2335 and you have to discard on the third round of spades and no pitch will cost, what would you choose to discard? Unless you are an exception to a very strong rule, you are going to discard a club. How can you take advantage of this at the table? And you overcall 2N. LHO bids 3. Posted by Justin Lall at 9:16 PM.

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Squeezing The Dummy: May 2006

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Monday, May 01, 2006. A Comedy of Errors. Bridge is often like a ping-pong match. Sometimes the declarer will make a play that will allow the contract to make. unless the defender finds the perfect counter. to which declarer counters. and back and fourth they go. More often, it's the opposite. A hand I played online against a couple of friends recently was exactly like this. Vulnerable against not, I picked up. 962 My partner opened 1. And I bid 1. LHO raised to 2. And partner raised to 2. Overall just a...

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Squeezing The Dummy: June 2005

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Thursday, June 30, 2005. San Antonio: Part 2. After winning our first match of the knockouts. We arrive the next day just before the 9:00 game time. We are going to play a round robin with one inexperienced but dangerous team and another very experienced team captained by Colby Vernay. 8 She opened 1. In third seat (anything goes.) and heard it go X, 2. Drury)-p to her. She retreated to 2. 3 I opened 1. And partner responded 2. GF I bid 2. And partner bid 2. I showed my 5-5 with a 3. So I just bid 6.

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Squeezing The Dummy: April 2007

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Tuesday, April 24, 2007. Tonight I'll be playing an exhibition match against the OzOne. Team on BBO. I'll be playing with David Grainger, Bart Bramley, and Jay Stiefel. Our opponents tonight will be Richman and Nagy with Hans and Nunn at the other table. I met both pairs for the first time last year in the Cavendish and have since seen them at NABCs (North American nationals). I even got to play a session with Hans on BBO. We won 53-13 in a 20 board match. I'll try to post a match report at some point.

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Squeezing The Dummy: April 2006

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Saturday, April 29, 2006. It's no secret that in North America the game of bridge is effectively dying. The average age of ACBL members keeps rising and you see less and less young faces at tournaments. As well as promoting the game to retired people with lots of free time, efforts need to be made to get younger people interested in bridge. In order to understand how to go about this, two key questions need to be asked. First, what will attract teenagers to the game? It makes absolutely no sense. The oth...