My Small Bliss

Dear readers:     For some personal reasons, I am sorry that the blogger would not be updated for a long time, at least one month. Thank you for your understanding. Best Wishes!                                                                                                  X. Li                                                                                             2018.9.30                                    ...

Fu Bo shared this deal with me. This deal happened in the open pair qualify of the 15th Would Bridge Series. She asked me could you find out the defense even if you saw 4 hands. Interactive hand analysis was interesting and played an important role in improving bridge technique. Although double-dummy analysis always stood on a God view, it was essential in a post-mortem analysis. This was first time to show a interactive hand analysis here. I'd appreciate if you could share any interesting double-dummy with me. How to defend 4♠? In this case, defenders should prevent declarer from ruffing ♣ or from winning 3♢. How to cut the connection between table and hand became a serious problem. Timing and speed were the crucial point. 1. Leading ♣     A slow step, losing an upper hand. Declarer could win with the ♣A and sent out small ♣. Even if the defender shift to trump, the declarer was a step ahead. (a) Returning small trump, won by North, ruffing a small ♣ and finessing ...

This deal happened in termly Saturday training. Card distribution analysis was always a commonplace in my blog. Now, it was still worth to be mentioned again. Board 3 Vul :N-S Dealer: South South     North  1NT         3♡*  3NT         AP 3♡: 4 cards ♠, choosing contract Lead: ♣7 (2nd/4th) West thought for a while and lead ♣7. East followed ♣J. It's your show time. Please start. It was ridiculous. Totally 27 points, only 6 tricks. Even if you get 4♠ and you create a winner in ♡, still 8 tricks. There was an easy way that finessing ♡K directly or hope 3-3 in ♣. How to find the best way to try all the chance became a serious problem. What comes first? For West, 3 cases, ♣97x, ♣7x or ♣97xx. Due to the period of his thinking and table sense, he hardly hold 4 cards ♣. In first two cases, why didn't he lead his 4 cards suit. That was to say, his longest suit was ♠. If he was 4-3-3-3, why didn't he le...

This deal happened in our weekly online training last Monday. I couldn't concentrate my attention due to the lack of card sense online. Rookie mistake should be mentioned here. Board 13 Vul: Both Dealer: North East    West 1NT      2♣  2♡       4♡ Lead: ♠7 South led ♠7 while North followed ♠J. And I won with the ♠Q. Now what's your plan? ♠7 seemed to be doubleton. Firstly, you couldn't avoid to lose 1♠, 1♢ and 1♣ at least. In other word, you must make a right guess in who had ♡Q. For me, due to the leading, I had supposed South hold long ♡ and he hadn't led trump, so I just played casually, cashing ♡K, then ♡J->♡2->♡5->♡Q... Oops... Doing some detection first to find more clues might be a better choose. Sending out ♢ first and whatever who won, he had no choice but to return ♢ or ♠. I could win in hand. Crossing to table with ♣K. And now the distribution was clear. If one A for each, now it was your guess time, n...

Mr. Lin asked us a deal last Saturday. This deal happened in pk of Xinrui Bridge. Mr. Lin said the contract went down in a second. What's more, Fu, our coach, also let the contract down quickly. Board 2 Dealer: East Vul: N-S East    South    West    North  1♢        2♣       Pass       2♢ Pass     2NT      Pass      3NT  AP Lead: ♢4 How to play now? For many professional players, strip squeeze must emerged in their brain at the first glance. ♠K, ♡A and ♢A had been supposed in East. Cashing all the ♣ and throw in East at last. So they would play ♢Q in the first trick. For other players, they would played ♢Q by the night of nature, hoping ♢A was in West. However, in the first situation, strip squeeze didn't work here. You just had 1♠, 1♢, 5♣, totally 7 tricks. If you had 6 cards ♣, strip squeeze would exist. In last 5 cards, East ...

This deal happened in the last segment of Asian Game Pairs Finals. Who played this deal would never be mentioned in my blog. I was quite afraid of being accused of insulting players. Board 15 Dealer: South Vul: N-S South    West    North    East  2♡*        Pass     Pass        X  Pass       2♠       Pass      3NT   AP 2♡: Weak 6 cards ♡ Lead: ♣4 North followed ♣Q and you won with the ♣A. And now, how to play? Now you had 3♣, 1♡, so you need 4♠ and 1♢. You must assume that South hold ♢A and North hold ♠K. Otherwise it would down quickly. The leading was quite strange. If he was 1-6-3-3, he would lead ♢. If he was 2-6-2-3, ♡ was the normal leading. I felt South hold 4 cards ♣, because he led quickly. However, it was hard to say. Anyway, you need 2 entries to finesse ♠K. One was ♢K, appreciating the leading, ♣9 beca...