Count Dracula may have been a scary fellow, but Count Signals can be the defenders’ best friend, as illustrated in this week’s deal. You are West, so try looking at just the N-W hands and see if [...]
This week you are playing E-W, and as the problem is a tough one you get four attempts to beat the contract. North’s bid was a Negative Double, showing the unbid suits. She usually has 4 cards in [...]
Perhaps East should have tried 5♦ over 4♠, that would be a cheap sacrifice if 4♠ is making. Instead, she guesses to defend and must find a nice defensive play if she is to justify her shyness in [...]
This week’s hand features an astonishing defense by West – we’ll get to the winning play by degrees. E-W did well not to compete to 3♠ (that contract is down one if N-S get their Diamond [...]
This week we feature a terrific opening lead, found in real life by John Brady of Jacksonville, FL (known to some as Dr Goodlead). Imagine yourself as East, if you will, looking at the N-E hands. [...]
As the play-of-the-hand develops Declarer is constantly on the look-out for the clues which will point to the right line of play. But these clues don’t always come gift-wrapped, sometimes [...]
After N-S reached 3NT, East, figuring that his side had a profitable sacrifice, offered his partner a choice between 4♥ or 4♠. This pushed N-S to the perilous contract of 5♦, which, as you will [...]
East’s 3♠ bid was preemptive, showing a long suit (usually 7 cards) and a weak hand, its purpose being to make life difficult for the opponents. And so it does, pushing N-S into an ugly 4♥ [...]
This week we start a series of hands where the key to success is counting the opponents’ distribution, in each case turning a guess into a sure thing. West’s 2♦ was a Weak Two, showing less than [...]
Forgive the grandiloquent title, we are not talking here about Lewis and Clark, nor the HMS Beagle, nor even Christopher Columbus. We merely refer to Declarer’s intelligent (but hardly epic) play [...]