The Rule of 14 is not a mathematical certainty, but a useful guide when your partner has opened and you are stuck with a poor and uninspiring hand.  Click the title above (AR2) to read the article and practice a hand.
OBC gratefully acknowledges permission to repost articles by Andrew Robson Bridge Club Ltd. Permission to use the interactive bridge hand was kindly granted by Bridge-Training.com

Duplicate bridge is the best exercise for the brain because unlike other forms of the game it has a competitive element, and like all games there are rules. Click here on what to do when things go wrong.

You are defending and at some point you can’t follow suit or trump or don’t want to, or it's a NT contract anyway.  How do you decide what to throw out?
Page 87(Signals) in Beginning Bridge Book 1 suggests a common approach to the problem but one which can be ambiguous.  Here is an alternative system which tells your partner precisely what you want led to you: click here.

Remember weak two openings [WTO],  i.e.six ♥ or ♠^† and 6-10 points*?  How they make life difficult for the opposition by using up their bidding space? Here is another very useful bid, the weak jump overcall [WJO].  It's exactly the same sort of hand as a WTO with exactly the same intention: designed to make life difficult for the opposition. Use a WJO when the opposition has just opened 1♣ or 1♦ or 1♥ and it's your turn to bid next .

^† Most bridge players no longer use 2♦ for a WTO, only the  majors, i.e. opening bids of 2♥or 2♠ and have reserved an opening bid of 2♦  for an exceptionally strong, game-forcing bid.  The reason for the change is that a weak 2♦ opening turned out to be rather ineffectual and using it for a very strong bid (stronger than  2♣) was more useful to partner.
* N.B. Remember you can’t ever use 2♣ for a WTO . 2♣ specifically indicates a strong hand.

Click here for a worked example.

Thanks to Flo for spotting this hand (board 4, 28th July) and her excellent analysis. Any errors in the edit are mine. (Ed).

There are not many "rules" in bridge that are mathematical certainties.  This one is, and is  especially useful as an opening lead when defending NT contracts for two reasons:

1.  It asks your partner to lead the suit back when they have an opportunity, because it indicates you have one or more high cards that suit.
2. On a balanced distribution of 4:3:3:3 between the four players, you and your partner will both know that you are certain to make trick four, even of its only the "2". 

Click here for details

At first glance it may well seem ridiculous.
After a second look it probably still seems counter intuitive.
Take another look.  It is actually a tried and tested strategy that has saved many NT contracts. 
Click here to read more.

Making an opening lead of an Ace (or a low card from a suit headed by an Ace) is a favourite lead with many players early in their bridge journey. Of course, it pretty well guarantees them the first trick of the game.
Unfortunately, it is also is the road to ruin.  Click here to see why.

Now you can now replay every hand  that's entered on the results page provided it's got the little 4 aces symbol next to it:  , whichshows that the necessary file is available.  The software works on all devices but screen may look slightly different depending on what you use.  Click here for full details.

It's up to you to make the opening lead in a trump contract and you've got a terrible hand.
Hardly any points. No singleton. No honour sequence. You've been told never to lead with an unsupported ace, or from any suit headed by an ace (an easy rule to stick to when you don't actually have any aces anyway, though you might well be tempted* if you did).  Need some suggestions? Click here
                      * Government Health Warning: don't even think about it 

Click here to see a really simple but effective partnership strategy.

Four quick starters....please click here.