Play the video

Hi, ,

Antara was keen to play 3 hands in a vulgraph of the 2024 Vanderbilt putting LBO head to head against one of her bridge heros Eric Rodwell.

On the very first hand she was in a difficult contract.

Antarta upgraded her lovely balanced 19 count with a 5 card suit to 20 and opened 2nt. Bridget raised to 3nt.

The dummy came down and the contract didn't look great. A long club suit in dummy and what looked like little or no entries.

At trick one Antara was faced with a tricky card combination. Q6 in dummy opposite K97 in her hand. When it's Qx opposite Kxx it's right to play the queen. If the queen loses it's normally right to duck the second trick to break communications. When you have Q6 in dummy and KTx in hand you should let it run round to the T. Playing low guarantees you two tricks. But Antara had the K9x. What to do! If East puts the ace up she gets an entry. They will only put the ace up if they don't' have the jack or ten. Could East have lead from JTxxx?

Antara held her breath and played low. Boom 0- up went East's ace. Antara now has tricks of the top. She decided not to take a finesse in the diamonds at the end correctly identifying that it wasn't worth the risk. Contract made and 10 imps to LBO.

On the second hand, Bridget opened 1h. Antara bid 2nt Jacboy. Bridget had a choice with her second bid. Should she bid 3d showing a shortage when there was an ace in that shortage, or should she pretend her hand was a balanced/semi balanced hand. She went for the later and bid 3nt. Antara thought carefully about what her chances were in slam. She realised that a balanced hand opposite a balanced hand isn't great for slam unless you have masses of points. Too many quick losers she thought. Team LBO managed to stop low in 4h while the world class experts went too high and bid 6h. Another 11 imps for LBO.

Feeling confident Bridget and Antara decided to do one more hand. They ended up defending a part score contract and realised they hadn't discussed signals and discards. Making sure you and partner are on the same page with signals and discards is fundamental. Laughing they conceded an imp happy with their 20.5 imp score!

So much fun. Try out the vulgraphs on BBO with your mates!

Leave a comment here: https://youtu.be/jI6GP5jxz-o

Your partner in learning,

Bajir from Learn Bridge Online

learnbridgeonline.com