How to respond with this killer club suit? - with Graeme Tuffnell

Online bridge lessons with Graeme: learnbridgeonl...
After partner opens 1NT showing 15-17 hcp and we have a wonderful hand with 9 hcp and an 8-card club suit. What are our options for responding? How high will we want to bid and how quickly do we want to get there?
Graeme Tuffnell joins us to guide us through this fun hand.
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#bridge #contractbridge #learnbridgeonline
Learn how to play bridge online at learnbridgeonl...

[@v8mama1430]

MattyB is a legend ❤ well done both of you and a very enjoyable video.

[@HarryLevinson]

I always love Graeme's way of reminding us that sometimes you win, but sometimes you don't even when you do the right thing, or maybe you make a mistake. No big deal. Speaking of Graeme, I recall a video where he describes his method for improving bridge memory. The irony of course is that I have forgotten which one it was. HAHA. Can you provide a link to that video if you recall the one I am referring to? Some day I want to sign up for one of his classes but the time zones are a problem on the east coast of the US. Until then, my wife and I always look forward to these videos.

[@endthisnonsense7202]

The trick to improve bridge memory is to prevent having to use it, Memorize the most frequent hand patterns (ie 4432, 5332 et cetera). If you know them, when needing to know opponents hand pattern most of the times you need to be able to count to 4/5 instead of 13. For example, having seen 1 opp has 4 heart, 4 diamonds and 3 clubs, you KNOW he has two spades and you can work out the other opps distribution. The same goes for counting out a trump or side suit. Say you miss 5 cards and have a 53 fit yourself. Having memorized hand patterns you know their distribution will be 5-0, 4-1 or 3-2. Once you have seen one opp holding 0,1 or 2 in that suit you know what's left. No need to count to 13... Study "Countdown to winning Bridge" by Tim Bourke and Marc Smith for this, it's a great book to advance your skills.

[@barbandry5366]

The king of spades covered South’s Queen and we covered with the Ace of spades .. but in the final layout of the cards , the KING of spades is in the East hand not the west hand as you played out ???

[@billcourtney3880]

6 CLUBS IS PROBABLY BEST FINAL CONTRACT, ALTHOUGH IF FIRST ROUND STOPS ARE AVAILABLE IN ALL SUITS, 6 NT MIGHT MAKE.

[@puffinbasher]

I have a really funny option for this aution dont know if id risk it, but. 2h transfer to spades (?) 4h exclusion (in spades) which asks for my exact four loosers. In that line, with two of four, partner bids 5c. They then have a heart attack when I leave them in it. Over 5d I can bid 6c, and over 5h I bid 7c. Now, if partner has 1 or less kc, I'm in big trouble, let's see how likely that is. Outside of the key cards there is akqj h, kqj d for 16, If my partner had akqj in a major, I would expect them to mention it, claiming unbalanced, unless they are 4333, and I strongly suspect a doubleton club. With respect to the potential for a spade slam, the times that is good is when partner makes a direct super accept (i.e. not showing top two of three in a second suit, which suggests points that allign with my honours in c and s). All in all, this blows up on hands that don't make 5c and dont super accept, looks for spades with a fit and well placed points, and gets to the right level of clubs - rough guess it's a 0% disaster 5 to 10% and a (shared) top otherwise. I thinkbi would take this mad line if I thought swings were needed.

[@puffinbasher]

On this board, 1nt 2h(s) 3c(d&s) 4h(exclusion) 5c(2 kc) pass. While 6c looks tempting, I see it failing with spade onside more often than making with it offside, so (while I'm sure many people made 6c this time) I'd be OK booking in 5c with the avaliable over.

[@hordtipton342]

I play Exclusion RKC so I bid 4 H asking for Keycards outside of the Heart suit. When i find i am missing the A D and K of spades I have the option of picking spades or Clubs.

[@SmileyEmoji42]

Any Acol experts out there? I don't see how to get past 4S (1S-P-4S-P-P) in this case as N might be only 12 points. Some you win. Some you lose I guess.

[@richhamiton]

exclusion blackwood?

[@kvom01]

Writing this halfway through the video. Assume partner had 3H and 4S, he's likely to be 4-2 in D and C. So EW have a double fit and likely a good save against slam. 6S has some danger of an opening club ruff. 6C is my choice for a final contract, and I'd bit that before EW find their diamond fit.

[@kvom01]

No clue why E led 2H unless he had a club void, or why KH wasn't played at trick 1. In retrospect, N has relatively bad hand for us, as 8 HCP in his hand are worthless.

[@puffinbasher]

The h lead (while objectively poor) is with expectation that s is very distributional and could have a singleton heart that vanishes later. Its the kind of play that players make when they first get to the level of starting to build candidate hands for everyone, but don't really know what to do with that information.

[@jeanisabelodonnell5882]

throw 4 d?

[@rgnotdead]

That was my first thought.🤔

[@saumitrabasu6693]

5 H, exclusion

[@jeanisabelodonnell5882]

splinter bid 4D?

[@puffinbasher]

Dissent help here. It would make partner think ace of hearts better than ace of diamonds!

[@jeanisabelodonnell5882]

6 spades

[@michaeltaylor2964]

lucky that didnt loose Diamond Ace - instead of messing around a direct 6C was the safest bid

[@kvom01]

Heart lead is only one that lets 6C make, but in real life it would make almost every time. When D is led towards dummy and W takes the A, knowing that he musn't try AH is really difficult. 6H save loses 1 trick in every suit, so -700 loses unless NS make 6C.

[@jeanisabelodonnell5882]

Count losers and go for it!

[@endthisnonsense7202]

There are NOT two options for contracts. If you have an 8+ card that will be played. Look at this hand. IF partner has the worst possible club fit (xx) than you will ONLY lose two trumps in case they are 3-0 and they are able to promote club T in which case you are down anyway as they must have an extra A (Spades or Diamond). If partner has the same club holding playing a 4-4 fit in spade they will often have a club ruff on top of the ace of clubs and they may also negotiate a club ruff for an extra undertrick. If partner has xxx of clubs or has the A, there is NO possible way to lose two clubs while it is still possible you are down on a club ruff playing spades. On top of that if you DO play a 4-4 fit in spades you may have 2 unavoidable trump losers if they are 4-1 or even 3-2, like on the actual hand a lot of the times, where playing clubs you may be able to discard spade losers on diamonds or hearts. And yes, sometimes you lose out a couple of imps or a small % if the spades slam indeed makes luckily. But that does not mean you serioulsy have two options...

[@puffinbasher]

It's not about which is more likely to make. If 6s is 90% and 6c is a claim on the lead, I want to be in 6s every time at match points and 6c every time at imps. Fro. Conversation they are clearly at match points, so you must consider spades The % for spades vs clubs will not be small. I expect the room to split fairly evenly between clubs and spades, could easily be 30+%

[@endthisnonsense7202]

@@puffinbasher I know you don't say this hand is 90% in spades. But to even mention it seems fully irrelevant. A9XX opposing QJXX is nowhere near 90% for zero losers, it ONLY is no loser if they are 3-2 AND with the K onside AND you correctly choose between dropping the K or pinning the T second round, 16% chance of success. Apart from this your choice to be in 6S in Match points is a clear misunderstanding of Match point percentage decisions. The point of match points is you need to assess what the field is doing. If for example in a field no-one will bid a small slam you need 100% to bid a grand and break even against bidding a small slam yourself. If you bid a small in this field you only need 50% to break even as half of the time you score 0% and the other half 100%. This situation is fully comparable. Given the target audience for this channel, you can safely assume not a lot of pairs will bid 6 holding 11HCP against a 1NT opener. So you need a bit more then 50% on the long run (50+ 2x the percentage of pairs you will win against anyways as you'll outscore them in game "they miss game, they screw up the play, have an accident after bidding controls, are in the wrong game, let the opponents steal the hand..." Read Kit Woolsey's Matchpoints it is a very good book on this topic). And for picking the highest scoring slam over the best odds slam you need close to 100%, which holding a 4-4 fit almost never is the case, and it won't be anywhere near missing an Ace AND trump King. And then finally without sound information your partner is very long in your 4card (on this hand he can't be, he opened 1NT), when you hold an 8-4 you play your 8 card, that is simply very sound advice.

[@jeanisabelodonnell5882]

4D telling p you hv singleton so passing choice

[@tashasgran]

i thought 4 losers in this hand.

[@walky240251]

Sorry Graeme, you speak of 3 options- you look at spades because you say you can draw the spade trumps. Aha, because you have a long (very long) suit in clubs, so the chances of a singleton spade(or maybe a void) in east or west would mean they could catch the lead and all those clubs won´t be worth anything- a risk I personally would not take! As I said before, I play with a German lady here and she prefers the "3 NT rule" here, just like you, agreeing with what you recommend in more than a few lectures....... She doesn´t speak English and she´s also over 70, but what a pleasure as well as a challenge to play with her!!!