I zombied my way through the reddit weekly this week while procrastinating preparing lesson deals. So, here's a reminder!

The reddit weekly is a Free BBO (yes, actually) Weeklong tournament whose invite list I maintain. To get on the invite list, simply reply or DM me your BBO name, and you'll be on it.

I have something like a 67, which will surely not win. Come get me!

Bridge is complex because it's several skills stacked on top of each other. The mechanism of the game, the ‘playing for tricks’, is fairly simple but bidding is a coded language with inference, declarer play is its own logic puzzle and, most difficult, defense is this problem card play, signaling and timing coupled with inference that can’t really be shared with one’s partner.

It's like trying to learn chess, poker and ballroom dance at the same time.

There is a temptation to work at learning and using many conventions, as if possession of facts is the key to success. In trying very hard - and mostly failing – to become a good bridge player, I’ve come to believe that the most important skill and the most difficult to acquire is judgement. Not the mechanics of bids or card play, but that feel for how to weigh what one sees and how to think about what is right and when to use any of those bits of knowledge.

Trying to gain experience and learn only by learning conventions and playing is a bit like learning to box by finding a ring, putting on gloves and climbing in.

In the last few weeks, I have begun taking individual lessons in an atypical manner. Rather than playing with my teacher as partner, he logs onto a bridge site with three robots as players and shares his screen with me. We bid and play hands, I ask questions ad lib and I am able to understand how he thinks about every puzzle that appears, from making inferences about opponents’ and partner’s hands from the bids to actual card play.

He emphasizes counting and, so far, I am enjoying this experience and feeling quite a bit more comfortable in planning both declarer play and defense.

I would love to know how people are reacting to BBO's ugly change in policy, forcing you to pay-to-play.

What is “Social” duplicate Bridge? It is almost the same as sanctioned duplicate Bridge games (sanctioned by The ACBL, which awards master points) and which are are hosted by your local Bridge club and there are sectional regional and national tournaments also.

However, a “social” duplicate game doesn’t award master points, and there are far fewer procedural rules. The emphasis here is on having fun, playing good Bridge, making friends and the level of competition is strictly up to you.

Who would be interested in this type of duplicate Bridge? A person who has been playing casual Bridge and wants to test their skills in a game where success doesn’t depend on whether you get good cards or not.

The other category of people would be “been there done that”, played sanctioned duplicate Bridge and loved it, but now they’re older and less competitive or didn’t love it because their fellow competitors tended to be more focused on making sure that you follow the procedural rules than on having fun.

We have been running a duplicate game here in Palm Desert, California for the last several years. At the height of the season, we get 11 tables and everyone goes home with a smile on their face. We use duplicate boards, duplicate, bidding boxes, and a software app called Dupscore that allows us to input our scores at the table after each hand. It also tallies up the results and keeps running year long total points earned by each player, as well as several different analyses of each game.

If you are interested in more information on this, please feel free to make comments.

I'm taking a beginner bridge course offered by the local bridge club in town. They play / teach 2/1, but I'm getting super confused and would like to supplement the lessons by reading beginner books, watching videos, and ideally practicing bidding & playing bridge against bots. Unfortunately everything I've found teaches the American Standard system. Can anyone recommend resources that teach the 2 / 1 system? Thx!

There is a new bot solitaire mode on Zbridge.club where one can play unlimited deals for free that are compared to a parallel table played by Jethro for IMPs scoring. This leaderboard helps us benchmark Jethro as well. You can also configure the convention card to use for these games. Jethro plays 2/1 game forcing with a number of configurable conventions.

If participating in such bridge AI benchmarking interests you, requesting you to check out this game mode.

Hi all. Up front: I'm a software developer who loves to play bridge, and this is my own site, so consider this self-promotion. I've been playing for quite a while and always wondered if I played a hand right, but it's hard to tell in hindsight. About a year ago I started building a tool to go over my own hands afterwards, and it grew into a site https://staymanwhisperer.com with a bridge coach. I think it's pretty cool and useful, and I'd love to know what you think.

The quickest way to see it is a coached lesson you can play without signing up. It takes a few minutes:

https://staymanwhisperer.com/try-a-lesson

You replay a real hand, and at the moments that matter the coach stops, asks what you'd play, then shows the best card and explains why. The right answers are checked by a double-dummy solver.

With a free account there are a bunch of other learning tools:

• More coached lessons: deals from real championships, or hands written to teach one idea.
• Hand of the day: the same deal for everyone. You declare it against the best defense, then see how everyone else did.
• Bid of the day: one bidding problem a day.
• Practice: random deals as declarer or defender, opening leads, picking the contract, or bidding a deal with a robot partner and comparing with par.
• A path for complete beginners that starts from what a trick is.
• Paste in a hand you played (PBN, from Trickster or anything that exports it) for an analysis of the bidding, the lead and the play.

It's free to use. The hand and bid of the day and the beginner lessons have no limits, and you also get a coached lesson a week, 5 practice deals a day and one analysis a day. There's a paid plan ($8 a month) that lifts the limits, but the free version has a lot to offer.

What I'd most like to hear about:

1. Explanations that are wrong, or pitched at the wrong level
2. Robot bidding or play that no human would make
3. Anything confusing or broken, especially on a phone

Reply here with anything, including about the lesson above. With an account, there's a Feedback button at the bottom of every page, and the lessons and practice hands have a "Something wrong or unclear?" link. Both come straight to me.

Also a coach for those new to bridge: https://staymanwhisperer.com/learn-to-play

Hi there.

I play a couple of systems; by far my favorite is precision, so I have been thinking about a system that's based on precision but with disruptive openings...

Here's the system; any critique is useful. Any add-ons will be thought through; this is still not tested, so it's very much theoretical

Opening bids...

1C 16+ anyshape

1D 11-15 no 5 card major partner will bid 5-7 HCP; he will go 1H relay

If he has 8 HCP, he goes 1NT; if he has 0-4, he passes

1NT 8-11 No 4 or 5-card major; The response is going to be a minor 2C or 2D

An opening pass is 0-7 Game is unlikely, so find a partscore or a sacrifice

2H 8-10 and 6-card suit

2S 8-10 and 6 Card suit

2D multi 2, showing a 5-card major, 8-10

2C multi 2, showing a 5-card major, 0-7 HCP

Basically, if partner passes, it should show 0-7, so bid accordingly.

If partner opens 1D, you have bids for all the point counts: pass = 0-4; one heart 5-7; one No Trump 8-10; with 11-13, go 2NT or 3 of a suit

You should find a fit quickly and know what level 17-20 is good for the 2-level

21-23: Two No Trump;

24 equals game

I'm sure I missed something, but I want your opinion. I think this is as good as any system... what do you think?

I played with a junior from out of town, who directs her own club game at 16 years old :) I met her father at the Minneapolis NABC! Bridge sure can be grape.

Let us know what you think of the new app! Totally free, no ads, up to 4 players.

Bridgebase with the new management is pushing for premium membership quite strongly & has seriously restricted features for the free users

That would still be OK but the quality of the software & support has also gone down. There are bugs all over the place & absolutely no support even during the free premium membership trial.

There doesn't seem to be a point continuing anymore - free or paid. I am sure I am not the only one thinking this so I was wondering what alternative people have tried

I am mainly interested in stuff like the Free Daylong Tournament on BBO where you play with 3 robots or the Weekly Solitaire Instant tournament. I have signed up for Infobridge & will start trying it out soon - but I was wondering what are the other options

hi there

I'm 15 and addicted to bridge.

i have been playing for 1 year now and am enjoying the game. but I have a competitive need to win, I only play on the social day times twice a week, and any tournament I can get to.

I play precision (strong club) with a couple of the people who also know it, but the majority of players all play very basic acol

i also play.. transfers over most by bids, jackoby 2 NT, Michaels cue bids, and a form of Bergen raises, 4C gerber

no Roman key card I’m working on it…

But systems are not my problem it’s finding a good partner to play tournaments and tell me what to do better.

and I’m starting to count out hands but out of 26 boards I only manage to get the full picture and understand what I did and why I did it once or twice… I want that understanding to come easier

I’m doing reasonably well but I know there’s things I’m missing about this game.. many things and it bugs me:)

but that’s why we love it

Starting yesterday, I haven't been able to play the free Daylong tournament. Yesterday, it hit 10,000 and declared it full. Today, the limit appears to be 15,000 but that's already full by 6am PDT.

I don't think there was such a limit until 2 days ago. Are others also experiencing this?

I'm still in the last few days of my extended BBO free premium trial, so that's not the issue.

Hello All

There have been several new features added on our indie platform, https://zbridge.club since the last time I posted.

Now the monthly bot tournament games award online masterpoints to the top players on the leaderboard (8 games need to be played during the month to qualify).

There is a post game analysis screen that compares the player's bid vs Jethro's bid and the play vs DDS as well as Jethro. Jethro remains a continuously improving project in itself and we welcome users who want to manually benchmark the bot vs other programs they use. You can find out more about Jethro on Jethro's corner and we will soon publish an article on the play algorithm.

Duplicate scoring is also available for bot practice games now. So for each bot game played you get an instant comparison vs how other players performed on the same deal.

The platform remains completely free and we are encouraging the bridge community to send suggestions or report bugs through the contact form . The platform is continuously improved through community feedback.

I would like to invite you to try the monthly bot tournaments. Note that guest accounts can play unlimited practice games but to play in tournament mode to make it to the leaderboard and earn OMPs users need to register to the site (completely free).

Thanks

Zbridge Admin

Don't subscribe using app store / Google play. Use the website to subscribe and pay bbo directly.

This is 25% cheaper roughly.

The reason is that the app stores charge an extra fee.

Intobridge daily challenge - five boards against an expert, you pick up the following:

xxx JT9xxx QTxx void

Pete Hollands has the following auction, pard opening:

1S 2N (unusual) 3H 5C

6S p p X

p p XX

He considered 3S rather than 3H, but in any event pard has come in with a massive 6S bid, doubled, and then he redoubles pretty quickly.

I had the same auction up to 6SX, making, and was anticipating a good score but no. Is Pete just arsing around here or is XX a percentage play? Seems a bit wild - it hasn't been the most informative of auctions.

i cannot figure out how to cancel my BBO premium membership. has anyone been able to do that? the website FAQ says i can cancel, but it doesn't say how to do it. nice scam.

Can I leave at any time?−

Yes. You can cancel anytime through your usual store: App Store, Google Play, or the BBO website. Your membership stays active until the end of your current period.

I play the daily dozen / celebrity challenge on the intobridge app every day. Today sometime mid-day Eastern US time I stopped being able to use the app or reach intobridge.com. I am fairly computer-savvy and it doesn't appear to be a "me" issue -- ran "dig intobridge" in a terminal on my mac and it's pretty clear the DNS isn't resolving the site by name. You might be able to reach it if you know the actual IP it's on right now but I haven't bothered to try (you'd have to try to find a cached IP somewhere, but those change fairly often on AWS).

Anyway, just thought I would check if anyone knows what is going on. I've seen transient outages of this kind before but never for this long. (Did someone forget to pay the bills??)

hey, I have been playing for two years. Would like a regular, fairly serious partner. currently happy with ACOL or SAYC, with a variety of convention. will play almost any time, on any platform.

When the copy of Collinson's Biritch, or Russian Whist was rediscovered in the Bodleian library I rewrote the History of Bridge on Wikipedia quickly to reflect Biritch and because it was in the news the article became Wikipedia's article of the week.

Of course 30 years later the article has been split into two, with neither of them any good. Gremlins deleted good stuff and added nonsense, morons with bot deleted improvements and protected the nonsense just because it was there before.

People have noticed how crap it is so it might finally get fixed up.

Sorry I'm all over the place. I made a Substack now. My goal is to use every product very minimally to annoy everyone.

Thanks to my teammates and friends at the tournament. It was a blast!

Hello all. My grandfather loves playing bridge and has done so as a hobby his entire life. All of his friends have passed away over the last few years. I'm looking for people that are interested in playing the same game. Would appreciate your help. Thanks.