March - 2015

Welcome to Samantha's articles!

Each month on the 15th and the 1st, I will make a post with two articles. The first article will be the Spade discussion.

This discussion is designed for newer bridge players (though more experienced players may also benefit from reading them.)

The second article will be the Diamond article and it will feature content for more experienced bridge players. Newer players may benefit from reading these articles but may also be overwhelmed by them.

If you like, try to read them. If they confuse you, don't worry! All bridge concepts confuse everyone the first time they hear them. It's just a matter of hearing them over and over again.

We must plant the seeds in order for our skills to flourish.

If you find yourself too confused, don't read them. After some practice and experience, you will be ready to read them.

Spade Article - Counting Losers Part 2

Counting Losers – Part 2 The concept of setting up one hand When it comes to counting losers, the single most confusing aspect is the idea of “setting up” one of the hands and not the other. Since this is the concept that throws most students, this entire article will be devoted to it. Consider the following hand: If we counted losers like we counted winners (just looking at each suit and assessing), when we looked at this hand, we would count twenty-six losers: six in diamon

Diamond Article - Part one of Assessing Distributional Hands

Hands fit into categories: I’ve a minimum for what I’ve bid, I’ve an intermediate hand, I’ve enough for game, I’m interested in slam, or I’m slam forcing. These categories are how we decide how high to bid. Balanced hands (much as we hate them) are very easy to assess. They draw their strength entirely from their high cards, so we simply add up the HCP total and slot it into the appropriate point range, and we know how high to bid. Distributional hands derive their strength f