Julian Foster’s hand commentary provides a good read every week. He picks up an interesting hand for commentary (sometimes from an SBC duplicate, sometimes from elsewhere). His column starts with a basic analysis of the hand then lists some key points to note as a quick summary to take away. It then ends with some more advanced points if you progress well with this laddered reading.
Julian is a many times NSW representative, he has an impressive bridge career as an individual player and coach!
- The delicate matter of unauthorised information
The auction on today’s hand from an online pairs session might look quite strange but we’ll get to what happened and what the implications might be. The auction went 1NT (11-14) Pass Pass 2♦. After that North South bid uncontested 2♥ 2♠ 3♦ 4♠. Nothing … Continue reading - How a double changes the way you play a hand
Today’s hand is taken from the SBC Fixed Income Solutions Christmas in Winter teams congress held on Sunday 2 August 2026. Board 7 from the 1st match was a potentially unpleasant experience for North South with several incurring significant penalties when they got doubled in … Continue reading - A double on the 2nd round
Today’s hand is taken from the SBC Fixed Income Solutions Christmas in Winter pairs congress held yesterday on 1 August 2026. There was a wide variety of results on board 11 from the 2nd round: https://nsw.bridgeaustralia.org/showtraveller.asp?id=679189&board=11&pair=1 In many cases North South played in a red … Continue reading - Blackwood
Occasionally a board comes along that everyone should bid to a grand slam. Today’s hand is like that. But sometimes people over complicate matters! 4NT Blackwood is of course the most famous slam going convention. In its simplest original form it was just asking for … Continue reading - Pre-empts make bidding harder – but play easier!
A pre-empt forces you to start bidding at a much higher level which naturally makes it harder to reach the best contract. On the other hand, a pre-empt can often help declarer figure out the shape of the hand and how to play a contract … Continue reading
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