Bridge
On Monday, I talked about my hobby of card making. On Wednesday, I explained my sport of choice, ultimate frisbee. Today, I'll talk about my obsession: bridge.
Bridge seems to get associated to grandmothers sitting around a kitchen playing cards. I find duplicate bridge to be actually a great mental game. Here's what most people don't realize about duplicate bridge: everyone plays the same hands and your score depends on how you did on that hand compared to how other people did. I suppose I've tried explaining this before, but to me, this is the most important aspect to the game that makes it interesting to me. Also, all information is open knowledge. As you may know, there's a auction portion with bridge where you bid for your contract. You and your partner can make up special meanings for different bids to convey information to each other. What sometimes non-bridge players don't realize is that if you assign special meanings to bids, you MUST alert opponents and explain what the bids mean. Assigning special meanings is something done because you might find the standard meaning not to come up enough and you want a more specific way to describe your hand. It is not for trying to talk in a code to advance knowledge of your partnership versus the opponents'. Each player gets the same information and it's up to you to figure out how to best use the information and to deduct different inferences.
There are many things you can do to improve you chances on a hand. A very basic technique is taking a finesse. Here's an example:
Let's say you're declaring the North-South hands. Look at the spade suit. If you bang down the Ace of spades, surely you Queen will lose to the King. However, if you start in the south hand and play up to the Queen of spades before your Ace goes away, you have a 50-50 shot of the Queen getting to win depending on where the King is. Let me demonstrate:
In this case, the King will play after your Queen, capturing it. But this is the same result as if you banged down the Ace so you lose nothing by trying.
But now let's assume the East and West hands started in the opposite positions.
Now that the holder of the King plays before you do, if s/he plays the King, you play the Ace over it and your Queen is free to win the next trick without worrying about a higher card being out. If s/he doesn't play the King as you lead from South, then your play of thw Queen will win triumphantly.
As you delve further in the world of bridge, you start learning squeezes, endplays, coups, and all sorts of interesting stuff that gets easier as you learn how to use information available in both play and bidding. I'm terribly obsessed with the game. If you're interesting in learning, the ACBL has clubs all over, and many of them sponsor beginning bridge lessons or can recommend you to teachers.
Bridge seems to get associated to grandmothers sitting around a kitchen playing cards. I find duplicate bridge to be actually a great mental game. Here's what most people don't realize about duplicate bridge: everyone plays the same hands and your score depends on how you did on that hand compared to how other people did. I suppose I've tried explaining this before, but to me, this is the most important aspect to the game that makes it interesting to me. Also, all information is open knowledge. As you may know, there's a auction portion with bridge where you bid for your contract. You and your partner can make up special meanings for different bids to convey information to each other. What sometimes non-bridge players don't realize is that if you assign special meanings to bids, you MUST alert opponents and explain what the bids mean. Assigning special meanings is something done because you might find the standard meaning not to come up enough and you want a more specific way to describe your hand. It is not for trying to talk in a code to advance knowledge of your partnership versus the opponents'. Each player gets the same information and it's up to you to figure out how to best use the information and to deduct different inferences.
There are many things you can do to improve you chances on a hand. A very basic technique is taking a finesse. Here's an example:
Let's say you're declaring the North-South hands. Look at the spade suit. If you bang down the Ace of spades, surely you Queen will lose to the King. However, if you start in the south hand and play up to the Queen of spades before your Ace goes away, you have a 50-50 shot of the Queen getting to win depending on where the King is. Let me demonstrate:
In this case, the King will play after your Queen, capturing it. But this is the same result as if you banged down the Ace so you lose nothing by trying.
But now let's assume the East and West hands started in the opposite positions.
Now that the holder of the King plays before you do, if s/he plays the King, you play the Ace over it and your Queen is free to win the next trick without worrying about a higher card being out. If s/he doesn't play the King as you lead from South, then your play of thw Queen will win triumphantly.
As you delve further in the world of bridge, you start learning squeezes, endplays, coups, and all sorts of interesting stuff that gets easier as you learn how to use information available in both play and bidding. I'm terribly obsessed with the game. If you're interesting in learning, the ACBL has clubs all over, and many of them sponsor beginning bridge lessons or can recommend you to teachers.
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