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In pair competitions, yes absolutely ; everything about each hand is identical every time it is played. The dealer and vulnerability is determined by the board number usually - a sixteen board rotation covering all combinations of dealer and vulnerability. The holder has a number and the dealer and vulnerability marked on it. See this picture from wikipedia: ...

All bridge players "know" that the hands are cooked. They all have their own ideas how. Each person's ideas are different. They're all wrong. Mostly this is because humans, and bridge players in particular, are "pattern-matching" machines, and in a 24-board session, they can always find some coincidence (for instance, yesterday I had ...

Playing 2-over-1 with a few conventions (including the serious 3nt), my auction would be something like 1d 1s 2c (this is a bit conservative but I think the right call) 2h (artificial game force) 2s (showing three cards in spades) 3s (setting trumps, showing a hand that is not bad for slam. A hand with poor controls would bid 4s, ending the auction) 3 nt (...

From Law 70.B: B. Concession Defined Any statement to the effect that a contestant will lose a specific number of tricks is a concession of those tricks; a claim of some number of tricks is a concession of the remainder, if any. A player concedes all the remaining tricks when he abandons his hand. Declarer's statement states that regardless of the play, ...

I have played extensively in clubs in the US and Switzerland, and occasionally in other countries. Bidding boxes are now in almost universal use. Alert rules vary by country, and are substantially different from what you are used to in the ACBL. Fortunately most are simpler than the ACBL's. The club directors I met in Switzerland spoke excellent English -- I ...

I am not a TD, but I am a qualified Club Director, and this situation is actually a fairly clear one. Under the Laws of Duplicate Bridge , laws 61-64 govern revokes. It is a common misunderstanding that there is no penalty if the dummy revokes. There is no automatic adjustment in such cases, but the Director should attempt to restore equity, and a proper ...

This is a lesson in a technique called "unblocking." And yes, the hand can be made in a "roundabout" way. The first thing you should notice is that North has five tricks in hearts, from K down to 9. The thing that prevents you from taking those tricks is the "blocking" A in South's hand. So on the lead of the king of spades, declarer takes the ace of spades ...

I would never pull a double on that auction, regardless of my hand. "The book of rebids by preempter is 1000 pages long, and they're all blank," as the saying goes. Responder is the captain on this auction, and the double is not cooperative. If I'm not willing to sit this double, I shouldn't have opened. West's double is a bit aggressive, but not ...

Until a few years ago most Victory Scales awarded negative VPs to a blitzed team. (This link makes reference to such.) However, by not being at the table on time, ready to play, your teammates are introducing a very disruptive effect on the entire tourney. Your opponents have paid to have an opponent and you have declined to show, for no good reason, and ...

There was formerly a product called Doop (which as far as I can tell is no longer printed) that used a similar idea. They would provide hand records from old regional tournaments along with the scores produced for those hands. It would operate like so: Each player is given a deck of cards and the list of hands for their seat (so e.g. North gets a list of ...

As I understand things these methods originated in Italy. Many Italian experts play that the double shows 4 or 5 spades and hands with 6+ spades start with 2H. I've tried this in a few partnerships but don't yet have enough experience with it to say how well it works. The partnership does need to agree on followups over 2H since it has a wide range - most ...

This Aces on Bridge shows a good example of this. Look in the "Bid with the Aces" section. What this describes is an auction where you're exploring NT, and trying to figure out if you're comfortable with coverage in all four suits. If you have an auction like: N E S W 1C - 1H - 1S - 1NT - 2D - ? - 2D there would be "asking" for ...

Here are two auctions that aggressive bidders could use to reach a small slam, using common methods in a 2/1 base system: W E 1NT | 15-17 2H 2S | transfer to spades; acceptance 4S 5C | mild slam try; club control 5D 6S | diamond control; everything's covered For pairs that play Texas transfers, a 2-level transfer followed by a jump to game ...

The answer is; you don’t. Not with normal 2/1 methods, anyway; and even pretty out there methods would have a hard time finding this. Why? Because it’s dependent on so many things. The seven card heart fit AND the short jack. The spades splitting 2-2, or guessing the finesse. The partnership has only eight top tricks, and the rest depend on distribution. ...

In addition to the other two great answers here, I'll expand a bit more on the "why". Basically, your goal is to describe your hand as low as possible and as accurately as possible, right? So you want to show partner whether you have 4 hearts or 5 hearts at the earliest moment possible, while showing other details about your hand too. If you play ...

Let's talk capabilities first. In general, Grand Slam should not be bid unless one can identify all 13 tricks expected to be made. If North is making the final 6/7 decision in Spades after a Blackwood auction then only 12 tricks can be counted unless the Diamond J is somehow located: 5 Spades; 3 high Diamonds; fifth diamond after one ruff; and A,A,K in ...

According to the Laws of Duplicate Bridge, 2008: Law 35 Inadmissible calls A. A double or redouble not permitted by Law 19. Law 36 applies. Law 36 A. Offender's LHO Calls before Rectification If offender's LHO calls before rectification of an inadmissible double or redouble the inadmissible call and all subsequent calls are cancelled. The ...

Playing with random partners on BBO is pretty frustrating. You will find a lot of "advanced" players playing "SAYC" who: make minimal offshape takeout doubles make minimal (off or on)-shape takeout doubles, then freebid interpret your jumps in competitive auctions as strong "weak 2 bid" = "I have a six card suit and a bad hand" "penalty double" = "I am sad ...

Simple answer- No system- its an open community. If high level players like JEC don't need to specify a system why would anyone else. Partial answer- Most English speaking bridge players are American so can assume they play some sort of Standard American- they assume you are psychic so you know what they play.

From the Laws of Duplicate Bridge, Law 46.B.5, If declarer indicates a play without designating either a suit or a rank (as by saying “play anything” or words of like meaning), either defender may designate the play from dummy.

There are plenty of systems that open on 4-cards, I myself play one, and that is not very uncommon here. 4-card systems are commonly used to teach Bridge. Most people prefer 5-card major though, and 4-card major feels outdated these days. A couple of the more well-known 4-card systems are ACOL Standard American, originnal

The Short Answer: The Director finds which card is missing and restores the player's hand. This card is considered to have belonged continuously to the owner's hand, and as a result may have caused an accidental revoke, which is penalized as if it was any normal revoke. The long answer: The first step of a Director in this circumstance is to review each of ...

I have never heard that phrase for the concept, but it's a very valid one. The version I hear is "two suits shows, one suit asks". That is, if there are two suits your side are concerned about (stoppers for NT), you bid the one you have (and NT with both, of course); with only one suit of concern, if you bid it, you're asking for one (because you'...

David Siegel has the laws almost perfect (and thank you for that!) He didn't mention that there is also no automatic trick penalty for the second revoke in the same suit (even if it wasn't from dummy), 64B2: "it is a subsequent revoke in the same suit by the same player, the first revoke having been established." But either 64B exception works ...

I agree with ruds - sort of. I play with my partners that double by preempter is "I want to sacrifice"; explicitly so that preempter's partner can say "I don't". Preempter doesn't get to pull (playing any standard system). If their contract makes, it's partner's misguess. So that's question 2 solved. Having said that, the answer to &...

Looking at just the East West hands without looking at the North South hands, 6D is a fairly poor contract. It has only about a 20% chance of making unless you have peeked at the North South hands. There are a number of choices that East/West can make during the bidding, but all of them should end up at 3N. Possible auctions (depending on various subtle ...

I propose the following sequence playing a standard approach, with EW passing throughout: 1C 1D 1S 4 Spades, denying a hand suitable to rebid 1NT 2H 4th Suit Forcing to game, suggesting dislike for NT 3C 5-card Club suit, dislikes NT also, often denies Heart control 4C agreeing clubs, still forcing, extras 4D 1st or 2nd round control in ...

Playing a system such as Standard American this shows a balanced or semi-balanced hand with 18-19 HCP. It would usually deny holding 4 Hearts unless with a 4333 distribution, though partnerships playing some form of Check-Back Stayman may relax this. One might look for an alternative sequence with a holding worse than Qxx in an unbid (Clubs and Spades here) ...

An adjusted score is awarded on a board (in MatchPoints) as follows: The pairs playing the board are divided into two groups for each direction - a normal score group and an adjusted score group. The pairs in the normal score group are scored normally against each other, and a tie (ie half matchpoint) for each pair their direction in the adjusted score ...

Rainbow movements have individuals remaining a single direction, but only work for a number of tables that is a prime number. If you had 'Pros' sitting North and East, and 'Ams' sitting South and West, then you can also switch partners once each round. My copy of Duplicate Bridge Direction by Alex Groner (1977) describes these in Chapter 7 and lists ...