The presentation for down load or read below
When to duck when to win.docx
We have three objectives: (in reverse order of presentation)
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Replay numerous hand examples from Terence Reese and & Roger Trezel’s book When to Duck, When to Win book
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Replay a Gavin Wolpert YouTube Master Class video on Matchpoint Scores. (Sorry, I am not a premium YouTube subscriber. You have to tolerate and skip any adds).
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Introduce you to some of online bridge resources
OK, here we go….
Yesteryear we would read the bridge column in the daily newspaper. Now we have bridge newsletters, blogs and hand-players.
Here is an example (first of 2).
This Andrew Robson's column on today's topic: ducking - Click on “CLICK” to play the hand.
It’s a simple example of the “Hold Up” or “Duck” to maintain Hand-to-Dummy communication while establishing a long suit.
Aside Question: Did anyone consider opening the hand 1NT instead?
Type-of-thinking thought 1: In the above hand, West led the ª6! His partner played the Jack. Why did declarer win with King and not the ACE?
Another type of resource (example 2of2) that is freely open to you, is the Gavin Wolpert Interactive Problem YouTube series. In this series, Gavin presents a play problem, allows to play the hand, and then presents how he would play the hand. He does a great job at outlining the thinking process required to determine how to play the hand.
So we start with the YouTube video, GAVIN1 , temporarily stop the YouTube session, logon to Wolpert bridge site (You must have an account, but accounts are freely available), play the hand as many times as we like and the return/restart the Gavin video.
Aside discussion: The problem is titled “Capitalizing on Honour Leads”. Could someone please explain the title?
………end of resource introduction, now the video
his video highlights the requirement that you absolutely must know how to score if you are going to play duplicate pairs bridge.
Secondly, it suggests that it might be your bidding strategy not your play that is limiting your ranking.
GAVIN ( master class; the link is only good to 2/15/2026)
Specifically, he states:
Respect the vulnerability
Don’t Over compete with balanced hands.
He likes to be first into the auction
Don’t be afraid to go down
Double more often
Prioritize plus scores – don’t lose the hand in the bidding, win in it the play. Grind the overtricks.
Mentality for pairs events.
WHILE WE ARE WATCHING THE VIDEO, IF ANYONE WOULD LIKE TO QUESTION OR DISCUSS A POINT, JUST RAISE YOUR HAND AND WE WILL PAISE THE VIDE0.
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