A Beginners Guide to Contract Bridge

A Beginners Guide to Contract Bridge

January 16, 2009

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Contents

1 Introduction

6

1.1 Beginning a New Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

1.2 Bidding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.2.1 Legal Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.2.2 Meaning of Bids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1.2.3 An Example Auction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1.3 Play of the Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

1.4 Scoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2 Hand Valuation

14

2.1 High Card Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

2.2 Distribution Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

2.2.1 Long Suits and Short Suits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3 Opening the Bidding

20

3.1 Opening Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

3.2 Order of Preference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

3.2.1 Opening 1 NT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3.2.2 Suited Openings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3.2.3 Opening 1 / . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3.2.4 Opening 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

3.2.5 Opening 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

3.2.6 Opening 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3.3 Final Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4 Responding to the Opening Bid

25

5 Overcalls and Doubles

25

6 Conventions I: The Bare Essentials

25

6.1 Stayman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

7 Conventions II: Clever Additions

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8 Conventions III: Heavy Artillery

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9 Defense

25

9.1 Leads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

9.2 Signaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

9.3 False Carding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

10 Card Combinations

25

10.1 The Finesse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

10.2 The Drop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

10.3 Endplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

11 Ethics

25

12 Variations I: ACOL

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13 Variations II: Two Over 1 (2/1)

25

14 Variations III: Strong 1 Systems and Precision

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List of Tables

1 Scoring Bonuses for Duplicate Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2 Undertrick Penalties in Duplicate Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

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List of Figures

1 An Example Deal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2 An Example of an Auction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3 Contracts and their Bonuses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 4 Counting High Card Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 5 Counting Distribution Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 6 Counting Distribution Points with a Fit . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 7 Holdings that Should not be Double-Counted . . . . . . . . . 18 8 Long Suits Produce Tricks in No Trumps . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 9 A Balanced Hand with a Strong Club Suit . . . . . . . . . . . 21 10 Opening Bids: Order of Preference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 11 Responding to Partners Suited Opening . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 12 Responding to Partners 1 NT Opening . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 13 Responding to Stayman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

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