The BBO ACBL Club Bulletin #14

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 Monday, September 14th, in the 7pm Speedball game. The traveler can be seen here.

(Click the NEXT button to view the presentation)

Hand 2:
This hand was played on Friday, September 18th, in the noon Speedball game. I was sitting in the west seat.
It was the first board of the tournament, and immediately I found myself in a tough spot.
Cover the north-south hands and see how you would play the contract. You can make them disappear by clicking with your mouse on where it says "dan_ehh" (that's me!).
The traveler can be seen here.

(Click the NEXT button)

In retrospect, a club lead would have immediately set up the 4th trick for the defense. Sometimes leading away from a king is the only way to set the contract.
However, leading away from a king can also very often be the only way to give away the contract, so I have sympathy for the spade lead.

Hand 3:
Last week I published a nice double dummy problem. Here is the solution:

(Click the NEXT button)

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

Dan Israeli