[thepossum]

Deleted due to constant rudeness and arrogance of responders

[mikeh]

I can't help it.

I am increasingly of the view that possum is playing with us, but just on the chance that he isn't, and that he truly is trying to learn the game:

1. count your tricks. Do this BEFORE you call for a card from dummy. This hand is pretty straightforward, but taking time before playing to trick one, and using that time to 'think' is a very good habit. There are hands, admittedly in long team matches where time is more elastic than in 'normal' games where I have taken 10 minutes or more before calling a card from dummy.

Btw, if you quickly see a way to make a contract, stop and think about what assumptions you have made. Are you counting A10xx opposite KQ9xx as 5 tricks? Well, it is, but only if you play it properly. Cash the Ace and if the player sitting behind the KQ9xx has the Jxxx, you've just lost a trick. When you realize that possibility, you will cash the K first....now if LHO has Jxxx, you play low to the 10 and if RHO has Jxxx, you play to the Ace and then finesse towards the Q9. In other words, once you've seen a path to your contract, ask what could go wrong and see if you can find a way that guards against it. None of that is relevant here...the only threat is a bad club break, and there is no 4-1 or 5-0 break that you can win against. So you assume that clubs are 3-2.

Here, we have 3 spades, potentially 4 hearts, tho the lead of the diamond means we should count only 3 for sure, 1 diamond and 6 clubs. We therefore have 13 or 14 winners if clubs behave (and we are going down if they don't). Since we don't ever need that 4th heart, we can forget about it. This does enter into the play, since if we needed 4 heart tricks, we would have to time the communication differently.

2. Plan the play, bearing in mind that we have 13 tricks. Anticipate what might go wrong.

3. Here, obviously one wins the diamond in dummy, but to then play club to hand, unblock the spades and then a club to dummy is idiotic. What happens if someone has 2 spades and 3 clubs? They ruff the spade Queen is what happens. We might survive RHO ruffing because we overruff and we might still make if hearts break 3-3, as they do. But why take any chance when there is absolutely no reason to do so. Sure, we'd be 'unlucky' if we went down on this line....but I put 'unlucky' in quotes because the reality is that you played the hand very, very badly. What on earth was the rush to cash that spade Queen before trump were drawn?

We win the diamond and play A of clubs, then club to hand, draw trump, unblock the spades and claim. If playing against players who get confused by claims, one overtakes the heart K or Q or J and pitches the diamond on the spade queen, and then claims...and if playing against players who get confused even when we say 'I have 6 clubs, 3 spades, 3 hearts and the diamond Ace, for 13 tricks', we play out the hand.

This has nothing at all to 'discarding the Ace'.

Possum: if you are genuine, do yourself and the rest of us a favour and find/beg/borrow or steal a copy of Watson's The Play of the Hand.

You read that just one time and your game will improve more in that time than it will by playing 1,000 hours against robots. The original book was written many years ago. I think it was updated by someone within the last 20 years or so, but even an original from, I think, 1934, is a tremendous book. After all, basic declarer play technique was well-developed by the time contract bridge was invented. You're not going to learn the most advanced techniques, but you don't need them at this stage in your game, and may never need them. Obviously I may have failed to recognize opportunities, but I am still waiting, after more than 40 years, for my first smother play, and have pulled off no more than a handful of criss-cross squeezes, etc.

Btw, one read of that book will also be worth more than posting 100 hands on BBF, especially if you are going to continue to take criticism personally.

[sfi]

It's also valuable to learn the general maxim about playing honours from the hand with fewer cards first. That would have saved you in both clubs and hearts.

[Cyberyeti]

Just don't discard more than one heart, sorry this is beyond beginners stuff

[neilkaz]

As mikeh said, you can just claim earlier. I am not sure why you are playing out your last trumps when all you have is winners and can claim. Just discard the J♦ on trick 10 and you have nothing but top ♥ in both hands so no chance to create the blocking disaster you did.

There are so many good books on declarer play. Some have been rec'd to you in these threads along with a program or two. You seem to love GIB. You can use it to help your declarer play as it gives you DD analysis after every card. Of course it knows hows to pick up Jacks and Queen and even drop that stiff King offside, but you can realize when that is just a guess, and use it for checking for and hopefully curing some of the declarer play blunders you've shown in most of the threads you've started.


Improve your declarer play and you'll find your enjoyment of this game increasing as well as your results. You'll also find more people wanting to play with you and you'll take less abuse as well.

[Stephen Tu]

Agree with mikeh generally but not on the Watson book. I'd lean more towards Root "How to play a bridge hand" and/or Mollo+Gardner "Card Play Technique".

Although Watson is considered a classic, and covers a lot of ground, I find the writing style quite a slog to get through. IMO the other books are easier reading and still cover all the essentials.

[The_Badger]

Any player can make a mistake. I was only recently reading a (David Bird?) article in a back issue of English Bridge magazine where a world-class international player forgot to count up to 12 in a small slam and took an unnecessary finesse. One down.

And yes, on this hand my cat could have played the cards better...

[mikeh]

neilkaz, on 2018-November-05, 16:03, said:

. You seem to love GIB. You can use it to help your declarer play as it gives you DD analysis after every card. Of course it knows hows to pick up Jacks and Queen and even drop that stiff King offside, but you can realize when that is just a guess,

GIB is an unmitigated disaster as a teaching tool. I speak from experience, as someone who lectured/answered questions from relative beginners up to advanced players. Far too many such players look at the GIB list of who can make what and think that this is relevant to how they should bid or play. N-S can make 10 tricks in spades? Then, they argue (often vehemently) they should be in 4S!!.

They make 4S by dropping the stiff King offside, missing 3 cards in the suit, with no bridge reason to infer the stiff King? they argue that of course that's the right way to play that combination, and so on.

As for suggesting that someone such as possum work out when GIB is being too double-dummy....take a look at his level of card play here. He can't even count winners, and argues that a hand was a 'slam hand' because most declarers made 12 or 13 tricks, even though the natural heart lead, from KQ, would allow 2 heart tricks to be cashed (opening leader's partner had the Ace).

He can't count tricks when he knows all the hands: how is he going to understand that GIB doesn't actually 'play bridge': it proceeds from knowing all 52 cards and then working out the double-dummy results.

GIB has its role. It is sometimes useful to help work out unusual positions: sometimes it will allow one to work out that the hand made on a backwash squeeze, as one example, but usually that sort of hand just leaves the average player giving up trying to work it out. No, it's more common effect is to mislead non-expert players both in bidding and in card play.

Indeed, assuming that possum is legitimate and not a troll, he is a classic illustration of the negative effects of GIB and robots. He isn't merely not learning anything: he seems to be actively learning how to be a worse player, not a stronger one.

[neilkaz]

Thx mikeh, good points! I am able to go over hands I play with GIB and apply common sense as to how to follow its DD analysis and to try to determine if and how I should've taken more tricks and I am usually capable of working out unusual positions once it leaves me wondering why I didn't take an extra trick.


Once again, to possum. TBH I have serious doubts that you are legit, but if so, work on your declarer play!

[thepossum]

Dear all

Some people haven't learned that I'm not posting this for my benefit. I find this forum a bit short on good advice and discussion for beginners and novices so post interesting situations as they come up. Personally I am an intermediate with rusty play and errors due to lack of practice and new bidding systems. So I'm not here for basic tuition but raising occasional things that come up in my hands.

Have a go at me if you like. I'm just trying to raise issues. Planning and unblocking is an important issue and easy to fall into the trap of forgetting.

Also most of the advice and discussion on this forum is way beyond beginner level.

I'm trying to liven it up and raise issues. Please don't regard it as tuition for me although I obviously am learning a few things, but mainly from my errors

Regards Possum

[phntmshark]

This is the easiest hand in the world to play. If you get a 4-1 or 5-0 trump split, you go down. Otherwise, yo win the Ad, draw trump,cash the AKs, cross to dummy with the Ah, and cash the Qs pitching your last D, and your hand is good. No reason at all to be worrying about unblocking aces.

[mikeh]

thepossum, on 2018-November-05, 23:19, said:

Dear all

Some people haven't learned that I'm not posting this for my benefit. I find this forum a bit short on good advice and discussion for beginners and novices so post interesting situations as they come up. Personally I am an intermediate with rusty play and errors due to lack of practice and new bidding systems. So I'm not here for basic tuition but raising occasional things that come up in my hands.

Have a go at me if you like. I'm just trying to raise issues. Planning and unblocking is an important issue and easy to fall into the trap of forgetting.

Also most of the advice and discussion on this forum is way beyond beginner level.

I'm trying to liven it up and raise issues. Please don't regard it as tuition for me

Regards Possum

Possum. If you think you are an intermediate, you are deluding yourself. Now, I suspect that you play primarily on BBO where many, many players claim a status to which they have no right. Having said that, no intermediate would ever go down in that 7C hand you posted or miss 3N on the hand you claimed 3N would fail on good defence. Hint, it was cold against any defence, yet you apparently couldn’t see that, even knowing all 52 cards. Your other posts all demonstrate a similar lack of understanding. The only issue you raise is whether you are as you claim or are merely the kind of sick person who enjoys wasting other peoples’ time.

This is not a personal ‘attack’. This is an attempt to get you to wake up. You do in fact need basic tuition, unless, of course, you are simply trolling in which case go ahead and enjoy your very clever deception.

We all began as rank beginners. Those who post here, on the whole, have played a long time, and several have done reasonably well. While the world champions who used to post here are now, sadly, long-gone, there are still some true experts here. You should maybe try a little humility and accept well-meaning advice from those far better at this game than you. You are still playing and, more importantly, looking at hands as if you were a very basic novice. You won’t get better until you realize how little you know. The game is beautiful in part because the more you know, the more there is to discover, but you have to open your eyes if you want to see.

[diana_eva]

thepossum, on 2018-November-05, 14:43, said:

Deleted due to constant rudeness and arrogance of responders

Stop deleting your own threads please.

Some of the arrogant posters who take the time to reply to your posts are experts and world class players. I suggest get over the patronizing stuff and read the actual bridge content carefully, this is valuable advice from people most of us only see at vugraph.