[HighLow21]

Hi Everyone! I have started a new bridge blog called Bridge Analysis. It is targeted at new-to-solid intermediates who are working towards becoming strong Intermediates or Advanced players. The blog will rely heavily on Intermediate-to-Advanced analysis of individual hands, both in defense and declarer play, and will include some detailed mathematical analysis where applicable.

I will also have posts regarding my theories about practically every aspect of the game.

Here is the blog: http://bridgeanalysis.blogspot.com/. All feedback and suggestions welcome.

The reply to this post will include an excerpt from today's blog post on Defender's play.

Thanks!
-Tate Shafer

[HighLow21]

Here's an excerpt from today's blog post:

...

WHAT YOU SEE WHEN DEFENDING
Because you cannot see all the assets of your side, it is very easy to go astray, and it requires much more work just to get up to the level of "reasonable play" as a defender. (And even then, you will embarrass yourself or partner occasionally. There isn't much you can do about that. The goal on defense is not to be perfect, but to make fewer mistakes than the next guy.)

In order to combat the low-quality information you have as a defender, here is my short list of MUSTS if you want to be any good at it:

DEFENDER MUSTS

You must make every inference possible from the auction phase. Every bid gives you a range of HCP (high card points) and the declarer's distribution. Dummy's bids may help too, which will be important on opening lead. After that, you can SEE dummy, which can also help you with the rest of your task.
You must make every effort to count declarer's shape. Sometimes the auction will narrow this down significantly; other times you'll be in the dark until the very end. Still, it pays to gain as much partial information as possible. For example, if the declarer opened 1♥, rebid 2♠ over the dummy's 2♣ response, then later rebid ♥, he almost certainly has 6 or more hearts and 4 or more spades. This leaves at most 3 cards in the minor suits (♣ and ♦) and you must defend accordingly. Do not expect a lead from ♦J1098 to set up any tricks for your side unless partner has an honor or two there.
You must interpret partner's defensive signals appropriately. Partner will tend to give you count signals more than attitude signals, but you must understand your partnership signal agreements and stick to them and take information from them. If your partner does not signal consistently, get a new partner. You cannot be a successful player at this game without defensive signalling. Remember, you will defend about twice as often as you declare.
You must make an effort to place the missing high cards as precisely as possible and as quickly as possible. Between the bidding and the play, you should make an attempt to place the missing high cards (especially Aces and Kings) as accurately as possible. The opening lead should help with this. For example, if you were LHO in the above hand, leading the ♥Q before dummy comes down, and you saw dummy win this with the ♥K, you can place declarer with the ♥A. The bidding (not given) should also help you place the high honors in spades and clubs. You know most of the important cards and their location by the end of trick 1.
You must try to estimate the number of tricks the declarer has. In the above example, perhaps you can place declarer with exactly 5 spades (based on the bidding and other factors). If you are holding the ♠A and nothing of value in clubs, then you know declarer almost certainly has at least the following: 4 spade tricks, 2 hearts, 1 diamond, and whatever tricks he has in clubs. That is 7 plus whatever club tricks. If declarer has ♣AKx (x is "small card") then he has 3 tricks in clubs on top. If his clubs are as weak as ♣AJx then he has 2 top tricks in clubs and can ruff the x in dummy for his 10th trick. Thus declarer's contract is probably solid in most cases, and your job is to limit his overtricks.

Remember: the primary goals of defender's play are to ascertain, as quickly as possible, (1) the location of key high cards and (2) the shape of the closed hand (declarer's hand). From this you can arrive fairly quickly at his estimated trick count. Sometimes you will not know everything until the very end. Sometimes you can figure it out almost exactly at trick 1. It just depends.

...

[HighLow21]

Hi Everyone! I have started a new bridge blog called Bridge Analysis. It is targeted at new-to-solid intermediates and "early advanced" players, who are working towards becoming strong Intermediates or solid Advanced players. The blog will rely heavily on Intermediate-to-Advanced analysis of individual hands, both in defense and declarer play, and will include some detailed mathematical analysis where applicable.

I will also have posts regarding my theories about practically every aspect of the game.

Here is the blog: http://bridgeanalysis.blogspot.com/. All feedback and suggestions welcome.

The reply to this post will include an excerpt from today's blog post on Defender's play.

Thanks!
-Tate Shafer

[HighLow21]

Excerpt from today's post:

...

As West, you are on opening lead holding:

♠ 9 6 5 4
♥ K 8
♦ 8 5 4 3
♣ Q  3 2

What are your thoughts?

The first thing is that the auction tells you where most of the HCP are. Dummy has a 4-card heart suit (probably not 5) and a weak hand. Otherwise he would have jumped the bidding at some point. Declarer is also fairly minimum, and partner holds a balanced 15-17 points for his 1NT overcall. (Note that 1NT does NOT promise a stopper in both ♥ and ♦. It should provide stoppers in at least 1 of these suits, but a 1NT overcall generally means the same thing as an opening 1NT means. It does not promise a stopper in every suit, bid or unbid.)

You hold 5 HCP, so the defense as at least half of the outstanding points. Dummy will have around 5-8 and declarer around 12-14.

Since partner's bidding does not tell you anything about where his points lie, let's assume you choose a somewhat passive ♠ lead. Dummy appears:

...

[Statto]

You could just blog by posting on these forums

HighLow21, on 2012-January-31, 18:26, said:

Excerpt from today's post:

You missed out the bidding. No problem, I'll try out the hand editor. I can input the hand but not the bidding. Never mind, I can figure out the code from other posts:

---

You also never stated the vulnerability, though it probably isn't important.

[Edited to add dummy's hand]

This post has been edited by Statto: 2012-February-01, 00:05

[jjbrr]

Could I instead choose to defend 1NT?

[aguahombre]

jjbrr, on 2012-February-01, 01:03, said:

Could I instead choose to defend 1NT?

I could, and would. Hope that doesn't change your mind

[Antrax]

Why don't I choose a trump lead?

[HighLow21]

Cool, how do you get the hand editor to work? I was worried about copyright infringement or something.

[Phil]

HighLow21, on 2012-February-01, 02:45, said:

Cool, how do you get the hand editor to work? I was worried about copyright infringement or something.

I own the rights to the ♠6. My lawyer will contact you.

[mikeh]

Phil, on 2012-February-01, 10:23, said:

I own the rights to the ♠6. My lawyer will contact you.

I checked.....your rights only extend to the USA. I have now obtained a licence for the 6♠ for the rest of the world.

My biggest coup will be the universal rights to 'x'. Still working on that.

[DrMunk]

mikeh, on 2012-February-01, 10:29, said:

I checked.....your rights only extend to the USA. I have now obtained a licence for the 6♠ for the rest of the world.

My biggest coup will be the universal rights to 'x'. Still working on that.

Ok, then i have to settle for the universal right to 'pass'. But still i think i will do pretty decent against you, if I also remember to include the 'xx'...

[mikeh]

DrMunk, on 2012-February-01, 11:53, said:

Ok, then i have to settle for the universal right to 'pass'. But still i think i will do pretty decent against you, if I also remember to include the 'xx'...

Damn, now we're talking about the bidding!!! I was talking only about the spot cards used in bridge blogs, and bridge texts......someone remind Rexford that he owes me royalties from his new book.

I think bids are in the public domain....besides, someone can always say 'double'.

If we are copyrighting bids, I claim all notrumps.....whether natural or conventional.

[DrMunk]

mikeh, on 2012-February-01, 12:39, said:

Damn, now we're talking about the bidding!!! I was talking only about the spot cards used in bridge blogs, and bridge texts......someone remind Rexford that he owes me royalties from his new book.

I think bids are in the public domain....besides, someone can always say 'double'.

If we are copyrighting bids, I claim all notrumps.....whether natural or conventional.

[han]

(This site will help, trust me.)

[han]

My stats for the past 6 months: I make 68% of my contracts; my partner makes 64% of his; and the opponents make 55%. (My defense is pretty good.)

[han]

I'm averaging 1.01 IMPs per hand this month.

[aguahombre]

han, on 2012-February-02, 10:24, said:

My stats for the past 6 months: I make 68% of my contracts; my partner makes 64% of his; and the opponents make 55%. (My defense is pretty good.)

I will assume this includes contracts you didn't bid to necessarily make, and that the scores for the other 32% were reasonable.

[mikeh]

wtf is going on with these posts from 'han'? They sure don't sound like him....firstly, he's promoting someone else's blog with praise when he is usually more inclined to point out problems or weaknesses, and secondly he's bragging about his bridge play. Han and I have had our disagreements in the past, but I've never seen him as a braggart. Makes me wonder if this is really him, and whether, if it is, these posts are intended to be taken seriously or are a subtle, too-deep for me, attempt at humour.

[wyman]

Han is quoting directly from the blog, lol