The 11 improvers' lessons scheduled in the Autumn term are as follows:

1. w/c Sept 8 - Basic bidding - balanced hands (FREE TASTER)
2. w/c Sept 15 - Basic bidding - unbalanced hands (FREE TASTER)
3. **w/c Sept 22 - Competitive bidding
4. w/c Sept 29 - Bidding very strong hands  
5. w/c Oct 6 - Pre-emptive bidding
6. w/c Oct 13 - Practice play hands  (w/c Oct 20 and w/c Oct 27 = break)
7. w/c Nov 3 - Bidding slams - Blackwood
8. **w/c Nov 10 - Cue bidding
9. w/c Nov 17 - Defensive play - 3rd hand
10. w/c Nov 24 - Defensive play - 2nd hand
11. w/c Dec 1 - Revision/friendly competition

**Please note that for lessons 3 and 8, the Friday lesson is moved to the day before (Thursday)

Cue bidding is quite an advanced slam-bidding technique which allows you to find out not just how many aces your partner holds but which ones. This may be useful if you hold a void or you have two quick losers in a suit.

Until you are confident you have mastered Blackwood, I would recommend that you put cue-bidding to one side for the time being. The number of hands where cue-bidding is much better than Blackwood is relatively few.

The material we covered is on page 36 of the manual and pages 4-6 of the supplementary chapters (SC). We played the 4 hands on page 11 of SC and there are 4 more examples of cue-bidding practice hands on page 12.

Next week we will look at defensive play focusing on playing in the 3rd hand. This is covered on pages 13-15 of SC.

We started by revising the scoring implications of bidding and making a small slam (12 tricks - additional bonus of 500/750) and a grand slam (13 tricks - bonus of 1000/1500).

When one player thinks a slam may be possible (eg because the pair have over 30 points) and he knows what suit the contract will be played in, he may wish to check how many aces his partner holds to ensure the pair are not missing two aces. The Blackwood convention (bidding 4NT) asks your partner how many aces he holds. The responses are 5C for 0 or 4 aces, 5D = 1, 5H = 2 and 5S = 3. If the pair have all 4 aces, he can then ask for kings by bidding 5NT. The responses are as for aces but at the 6 level.

The only time bidding 4NT is not Blackwood is when the bid is made as an immediate response to partner's opening bid of 1NT or 2NT. In this case the bid is a quantitative bid asking partner to pass if he is minimum and to bid 6NT if he is maximum.

The relevant pages of the manual are pages 34-35 and pages 1-3 of the supplementary booklet. In the class I pointed out the errors on page 1 of the booklet.

We went over the first 3 examples of the exercise on page 45 and the hands we played are on page 138 of book 1 (2007 edition). These hands are similar but not identical to the 4 hands on page 52 of book 2.

Next week we will look at cue bidding, a technique used when you need to know which controls your partner holds and not just how many.

We covered the following 8 basic declarer play techniques in the first year

1. Planning the play - SWOT analysis
2. Promoting opportunities before cashing winners
3. Hand communication - avoiding stranded winners
4. The finesse
5. The hold-up play
6. Ducking to establish a long suit
7. Delaying drawing trumps - to ruff in the short suit
8. Delaying drawing trumps - to discard losers first

We spent 20 minutes revising the most popular of these topics and then played 6-8 of the hands on pages 79 and 80 of the Book 1 manual (2007 edition)

After the half-term break, we will look at bidding slams and the Blackwood convention.   

A pre-emptive bid is one which misses out two or more level of bidding. It may be an opening bid at the 3 or 4 level or an overcall which jumps over 2 levels of bidding.

A pre-empt indicates a 7 card or longer suit, 6-9 HCP and generally no outside 4-card major. It is an attempt to intimidate the opposition and ensure that your long suit becomes the trump suit.

Since a pre-empt has a maximum of 9 HCP, responder needs a strong hand (14+HCP) in order to make a positive response (unless he is making a sacrificial pre-emptive raise). The most normal response is to raise your partner's major to game but with enough points and a good suit (at least 5 good cards), responder may change suit.

In order to compete against your opponents' pre-empt you need to be prepared to take risk. A suit overcall indicates a 5 card suit and 12+ HCP while an overcall of NT or a take-out double need the same requirements as these bids do over a 1 level opening. For a 3NT overcall it is particularly important that you have 2 stops in your opponents' suit.

The pages of the manual are 90-92, there are relevant exercises on pages 103 and 105 and the 4 hands we played are amongst those on pages 111 and 112.

Next week we will play some revision hands on declarer play.     

We revised the three strong opening 2 bids

1. 2NT showing 20-22 HCP and a balanced hand. Unlike the 1NT opening, this hand may contain a 5-card major. The responder is normally in the position to decide whether game is possible and whether they have a major fit. There is no weak take-out response; any response is game-forcing.
2. 2 Clubs showing 23+ points or game in own hand. Must not be passed, the negative response is 2D denying an Ace and a King or 9+ HCP. The only sequence after a 2C opening which is mot game-forcing is 2C-2D-2NT (23-24 balanced, responder passes with a very weak hand). Any response other than 2D is positive and will generally lead to investigation of a slam.
3. 2D/H OR S showing 8 playing tricks - a strong unbalanced hand where you do not want partner to pass if he has 4 or 5 HCP. Forcing for one round, the negative is 2NT (same meaning as 2D response to 2C).

The relevant pages of the manual are pages 29-33 and the summary is on page 37. The exercises on pages 38-43 are all relevant to this lesson. We played the following 4 hands:

• Page 49 Hand 2
• Page 50 Hand 6
• Page 51 Hand 10
• Page 51 Hand 12

The next lesson is on pre-emptive bids (pages 90-92).

We revised the possible overcalls which are well summarised on page 108 of last year's manual or page 10 of the new manual. We then did the bidding exercises which are on page 21 (answers on page 22).Those joining the classes will receive the manual next week.

We then played the following 4 hands from last year's manual:

• Page 115 Hand 2 - An excellent hand for practising finessing!!
• Page 118 Hand 4
• Page 116 Hand 6
• Page 117 Hand 11

 Next week we will revise the strong two opening bids which were covered in chapter 8 of last year's manual (chapter 9 of the current manual). 

We started by revising how to show an opening hand when you are balanced and between 12-19 HCP. With 12-14 HCP, you open 1NT (unless you have a 5-card major) and with 15-19 HCP you open 1 of a suit and rebid NT (unless you have already found a 4-4 fit in a major suit).

We looked at responding to 1 of a suit and revised the difference between a limit bid (raise of partner's suit or NT response) and a forcing bid (change of suit). We then did a bidding exercise which helped revise the rule of 14 which can be used to decide whether you can reply with a new suit at the 2 level or should respond 1NT.

We then looked at opener's rebid with an unbalanced hand and revised the important difference between a weak rebid (12-15 HCP) and a strong rebid (16-19 HCP). The barrier principle is critical when deciding whether and at what level to rebid a third suit.

The relevant pages of the manual (Book 1 - 2007 edition) are pages 34-45 and we played the following 4 hands:

• Page 55 Hand 4
• Page 56 Hand 1
• Page 79 Hand 1
• Page 80 Hand 4  

Next week we will look at how to bid once your opponents have already opened the bidding.

We started by revising the basic bidding principles relating to the following

• Counting High Card Points
• Counting Points for shortages (but only AFTER agreement of a trump suit)
• Number of HCP needed for game
• Order of Preference for game contracts (major, NT, minor)

We then reviewed the basic bidding matrix and focused on how opener shows a balanced hand

• 12 - 14 HCP - Open 1NT
• 15 - 16 HCP - Open 1 of longest suit and rebid NT at lowest available level
• 17 - 18 HCP - Open 1 of suit and rebid NT with a jump
• 19 HCP - Open 1 of suit and rebid 3NT.

Once opener has described his hand fairly precisely in this manner, the responder is then responsible for deciding whether game is possible and whether the contract should be in NT or with a trump suit.

We did a bidding exercise showing how responder replies with various hands after his partner has opened 1NT and then we played the following hands from the 2007 Book 1

• Page 33 Hands 2 and 3
• Page 79 Hands 2 and 3

The relevant pages are pages 25-29 and 46-47 of the 2007 Book 1. Next week we will look at bidding unbalanced hands