 Introduction |
TEA TIME TIPS INTRODUCTION
During 2025 it was great to see new players coming along to Stannington to enjoy bridge. Some have come from lessons, others like me have picked the game up informally over the years, learning from books, articles and playing.
During 2026 I’m going to suggest a weekly tea-time tip on the club website for you to consider introducing to your game. Tips will include refreshing your Acol based system; 13 conventions you should play; declarer play and defence. They will concentrate on the most common situations you will encounter every time you play. I hope that there will be at least a few suggestions for everyone that they might consider introducing to their game but you don’t have to adopt them all. Each tip will be less than one page long that you can either print off or read from a screen over a cup of tea, coffee or something stronger!
The most common worry people seem to have about playing bridge is making a mistake. One of my favourite bridge quotes is from the late Martin Hoffman - ‘When a good player makes a mistake it’s a wrong view, when a lesser player does the same it’s a blunder’!
Have a look at the Friday club results at Stannington on 2nd January 2026. Open the result on the website and select the tab near the top of the screen marked ‘Travellers’. There you will see a condensed print-out of all the hands, contracts and scores. Only on Board 1 did everyone reach the same contract, despite the fact we all play a similar Acol system and not everyone made the same number of tricks. This is very common.
People may choose to make a more aggressive lead, bid more optimistically or play against the odds if they feel it’s the right thing to do. Everyone ‘makes mistakes’ every time they play. There is no perfect bridge system that covers all hands. As we play two hands in fourteen minutes, you can’t avoid the odd lapse in concentration as you play a card every few seconds and try to follow what’s happening and try to think ahead. If you dwell on your mistake as you pick up your next hand, you’ll likely make another mistake!
LEARNING TIPS
I always allow myself a couple of mistakes when I play 24 boards, and my partner too. At pairs scoring, I think of every board as being worth 4% of the total score. Even if you think you have a zero, there’s another 4% available on the next board and the one after that. Try to forget what’s happened, though of course that is easier said than done. Try to start well and finish with good scores to boost your confidence.
You should never criticise your partner at the table, they’re not trying to get a bad score deliberately. Leave any discussion until afterwards and, of course, try to learn from your mistakes. With over 635 billion unique 13 card bridge hands there’s a universe of mistakes out there waiting to be discovered!
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 Opening System Overview |
OPENING SYSTEM STRUCTURE OVERVIEW
ACOL, WEAK NT, 3 WEAK TWOS’, 4 ¾ (4.99%) CARD MAJORS
I’ll never forget how disappointed I was to find out that Albert Benjamin didn’t play Benji Acol when I first played against him. And today none of our top bridge teachers play Acol, preferring an American or European strong no-trump, 5-card major and heavily transfer based system. It smacks of ‘Don’t do as I do, do as I say’.
During the 200 plus days of lockdowns I read about the only pair at the Wuhan World Bridge Championships playing what we ordinary mortals might recognise as Acol. The EBU magazine featured a series of articles from 2019 by Chris Jagger on the ‘Four and three quarters card majors’ system he played with his partner. I liked this framework (though not the optional complicated gizmos detailed later) and adjusted my Acol system to use this.
No system is perfect but I prefer a natural framework as it’s easier to remember, risks fewer mistakes and has more similarities to the responding structure which I’ll outline later. If like me you want to play a simple structure with partners, I recommend this to you.
- 1NT is 12-14 points, over twice as frequent as 15-17 balanced points.
- 2NT is 19-21 points as this range doubles the frequency of use from 20-22.
- Open the lower of two four card suits.
- With 4major333 distributions always open 1C.
- 4441 hands open 1D with a black suit singleton and 1C with a red suit singleton.
- This means opening 1S is always a 5 card suit and opening 1H is 99% a five card suit or 4/4 majors with a 15-18 balanced hand.
- When 5/5 play ‘high fives’, opening the higher suit first, otherwise always open your longest suit first.
SUMMARY
1♣ – either 4+ clubs; or 4333 with four-card major 15-18; or red suit singleton 4441 shape
1♦ – always 4+ diamonds; can be 4441 shape and black suit singleton
1♥ – 5+ hearts (99% frequency); or 4/4 in majors (open lower suit) and 15-18 balanced
1♠ – always a 5+ suit
1NT – Announce ‘12-14 points’, a balanced hand 4432, 4333 and any 5332 including a 5-card major; these 1NT hands comprise 10% of all hands.
2NT – balanced 19 to 21 points, no singleton, 1% all hands, not announced or alerted.
Opening one of a suit is always an unbalanced hand or 15-18 balanced.
Opening bid requirements for 2C and 2D/H/S will be discussed separately later.
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| Competing and Scoring at Bridge |
COMPETING AND SCORING AT BRIDGE
As I said in my introduction, I think of every board as being worth 4% of the total score when playing 24 boards in a duplicate competition. At Gentle Bridge where we might play 16 boards every board is worth about 6%. Every board is a fresh scoring opportunity, try to forget the previous board whether you’ve had a great score or not.
Everyone will be familiar with the concept of needing 25 points between the partners to make a game contract like 3NT or four of a major (4M). We bid games for the bonus points they bring – 300 points if non-vulnerable and 500 points if vulnerable. The competition on these hands is first to make the contract and second to try to make extra tricks if you can safely do so to beat the other scores on that board.
When you play, around half of the boards will have the points divided between the North/South and East/West partnerships somewhere in the range of 22 to 18. Depending on your distribution and that of your partner and opponents, usually these boards should be competitive where both partnerships can make some sort of contract.
As you know, making a part score contract gets you 50 points plus the value of the tricks made – majors each 30, minors each 20 points. In no-trumps the first trick is worth 40 points, all subsequent tricks 30 points.
When you go off in a contract, if non-vulnerable each undertrick scores 50 points, vulnerable undertricks score 100 points each. But if you are doubled and go down, non-vulnerable undertricks score minus 100, 300, 500 and 800 for four down. Vulnerable doubled undertricks score minus 200, 500, 800 and 1100 for four down.
If you think the opponents can make a 2M contract scoring 110 points, if you go off in three of a minor (3m) but lose only 100 points you will score well. Sacrificing against successful game contracts can also work well, even doubled. Minus 300 beats plus 420 and minus 500 beats plus 620 for example. But reversing the vulnerability may result in a very poor score for you.
LEARNING TIPS
Don’t be afraid of bidding vulnerable games but if you are competing over which partnership will play the board, take the vulnerability into account.
Learn to compete because pushing your opponents to play in 3♠ rather than 2♠ and holding them to 8 tricks is winning bridge.
Don’t be afraid to double if you think you can defeat your opponents! Especially when you think they are sacrificing against your making game.
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| Finessing As Declarer |
FINESSING AS DECLARER
Let’s think about playing for a change! Everyone will be familiar with a finesse – an attempt to win a trick with a card when the opponents have a higher card in the same suit. As declarer, typical examples would include leading to the AQ when missing the King or leading to the KJ10 and playing the Jack or ten hoping to force out the Ace and finesse the Queen again later.
There are three stages to taking a finesse
- Identify the card that needs to be promoted
- Lead from the opposite hand towards that card
- Play the card, the third to the trick, hoping that the opponent playing second holds the missing higher card.
So far so good but for a long time I failed to realise that there are other types of finesse you can take as declarer whilst adhering to the three stages. One cropped up on Board 1 at Gentle Bridge on January 8th 2026.
In 3NT you have 27 combined points but only six top tricks. After an unfortunate (for the defence) King of clubs lead which gives you two more tricks, you take a spade finesse which loses. Stuck on eight winners and with outside stops dwindling, you need to play the heart suit of AK32 facing J95 for three tricks.
Now you could play your Ace and King and hope the Queen falls but the odds are against this succeeding. The odds favour a 4-2 split of the six remaining cards and the Queen being in the longer holding.
Instead you take a finesse by leading a small heart from your hand towards the Jack! Now we are taught to cash our winners and giving up a trick goes against everything that ‘feels’ the right thing to do but it’s surprising how often this type of finesse play can happen. Initially you hope that the Queen of hearts (QH) is in the second hand but instead the 10H is played! With J95 you can cover the 10H with the JH and either it wins or if the defender wins the QH, then your 9H will win. This is a better percentage chance to win three heart tricks.
LEARNING TIP
Opportunities for promoting winners as declarer through taking finesses are quite common. Another example like the one above that is perhaps easier to spot is if you hold Axx and partner Qx or Qxx. You can lead towards the Queen and if the King is in the second hand you have made another successful finesse.
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