The BBO ACBL Club Bulletin #12

By Dan Israeli (ACBL_17)

Welcome to this week's ACBL Club Bulletin.
Every week I will bring a few interesting hands played in our very own ACBL games, and try to show you how the hand should be bid and played. Of course, Bridge is not an exact science, so I will try to bring more than one angle. I hope you will find this interesting and useful.

If you come across an interesting hand you'd like to share and have analyzed, or if you have an interesting story to tell or a question to ask, feel free to email me.
My email address is ehhehh@gmail.com.

A few preliminary notes:

1. I try to keep the bidding simple. The Basic Sayc system is used, but mostly it is common sense bridge, added with a few simple gadgets.

2. Some boards will require a more scientific approach, but nothing really major. I believe good bridge can be played without 200 pages of agreements.

Hand 1:
This hand was played on Friday, August 28th, at the 7pm Speedball game. The traveler can be seen here.

(Click the NEXT button to view the presentation)

The 4th suit forcing convention is a very useful one. You can look it up online, or ask me about it.

Hand 2:
This hand was sent to me by Ken Eichenbaum. It was actually played in the summer nationals in 1982!
Ken was sitting in the west seat, and found himself in a tough spot.

(Click the NEXT button)


Hand 3:
Sometimes the dealer deals crazy cards, and here is an example. This hand was played on Sunday, August 30th, at the 8pm Speedball game.
The traveler can be seen here.
Results were, as expected, on a very wide range.

Crazy goulash deals can be very exciting, but sometimes they can also be frustrating.
I am not going to write a detailed analysis, because there is never an intelligent way to bid goulash hands. Somebody always has to guess at the end.
Suffice to say that in this deal, both sides can make grand slam: EW can make 7C, but not 7H due to the 5-0 trump break, and NS can make 7D (and they only hold 15 HCP between them!)

That's it for today.
I hope you had a good time.
See you next week!

Dan Israeli