Preparing for a big tournament & our recent free videos: Fourth Suit Forcing, A Magic Trick, Building Confidence, & Finding That Extra Trick...
Dec 17, 2021 12:01 pm
Hi, all!
Our very own Oliver Powell is preparing to play for England u26 over the weekend. It's a junior event called "The Channel Trophy" - Let's root him on - Go, Ollie!!
If you want to watch the event live, you can on 17th Nov at 19:45 CET/ and 18th Nov 10:30 CET at https://kibitz.realbridge.online/
Click here to leave a message for Oliver: https://www.facebook.com/learnbridgeonline/posts/632158918209024
I asked Oliver to share with us what it's like to prepare for such an event and he was kind enough to write this for us:
I have been selected to represent the England under-26s in The Channel Trophy, a junior teams competition with 4 age-categories contested between Belgium, England, France and the Netherlands. A very competitive event considering there are only 4 teams, normally 3 of the countries are in the top 6 in Europe which qualifies for the world championship every other year.
With no easy teams and every team having the potential to beat you, preparation is key. In the run up to an event, there are many hours spent at a bidding table, practicing any new agreements we have decided on in the past few months and making sure we have played enough good quality bridge to play ourselves into form. Most importantly, discussion about our bridge logic in certain situations with our partner in an attempt to come to an almost identical understanding of the game for when the undiscussed situations arise, a similar thought process is happening on both sides of the table and partner and I come to similar conclusions independently. After that all we have to do is take one board at a time and aim to have no regrets when we leave the table at the end!
Like all bridge, if you can avoid too many bad boards and try your best on the tricky boards, you will come out ahead. If you have no bad boards, the world championship will be yours in no time!
- Oliver Powell
Oliver, we hope you have a fun time - do your best! We'll all be cheering you on.
To everyone else, please stay safe and have a restful weekend. I'll send out another newsletter next week, but no harm in sending early/extra wishes for a Merry Christmas! :)
Your partner in learning,
Bajir
Our Recent Free Bridge Videos
🎥 Giving ourselves extra chances - with Oliver Powell
If we think our contract relies on a finesse, if the finesse fails and we go off, surprisingly often we can make our contract by looking for extra chances in other suits!
In this video, Oliver talks through some of his thoughts he had while he played the hand.
🎥 What is Fourth Suit Forcing in bridge? - with Graeme Tuffnell
With this hand, Graeme illustrates how helpful fourth suit forcing can be when we know we want the auction to continue but we're not yet able to decide our best contract.
🎥 A Magic (Bridge) Trick - with Jack Stocken
After an incredible auction, we find ourselves in slam with what looks like two unavoidable club losers.Luckily we have our resident magician, er...
🎥 I don't want to embarrass myself or ruin the game for others - with Pam Livingston
We received a touching email from one of Pam's students. I imagine it expresses a feeling we all can relate to at time - and especially us learners.
🎥 Where did everyone else find that 11th trick? - with Graeme Tuffnell
I played this hand recently and was happy to make my contract until I saw that many others found an extra trick.Graeme helps us decide how we might find (or make) an extra trick and what to do when our first line of attack doesn't work out.
