I realise that I have a rather daunting task in front of me. Suffolk is a small county and, recently, we have lost many of our experienced players and recent results have been poor, particularly for the A team. It is fairly obvious to everyone that replacing that experience is not going to happen overnight. There are various schemes in place for teaching new players, but it could be many years before we can expect to see new, home grown, talent appearing in the A team although, hopefully, they may help to swell the numbers of players wishing to represent their county at the level that they feel comfortable with.

Also, the squad of players currently playing for the three county teams are playing in the National Teams League (NTL) in an attempt to give them experience of playing against better opposition than they might normally encounter. Both of these schemes will, undoubtedly, have an effect and, I for one, am really enjoying playing in the NTL.

This scheme is an attempt to improve the experience of each pair and is, therefore, a very useful scheme, in theory at least. But the point is that, if we are to compete against some of the stronger counties, each pair has to raise its own game to help the county to perform better than it currently does. I personally consider it an honour and a privilege to play for the county and it has given me many happy hours of good, competitive but friendly, play. There is rarely a cross word spoken at a county match. But it is always more fun when we do well and so my main aim while I am the county captain will be to help to raise the level of performance within the county.

However, a number of the more experienced players in the county feel that the best way to do this is for each partnership to do whatever it can to improve its own performance. But I feel that it is not always easy for a partnership to know how it can do that, particularly those of us who have been playing the game in the same way for more years than we would like to remember. So, in an attempt to help in this area, I have decided to write a series of articles that show how you might take a different view in what might seem to be standard situations and it might just prompt you to try something different. It may help, it may not, but it is worth a try. Some of the ideas will be new to many of you, others will not, but they all have their advantages, so bear with me and, at least, read some of it and decide for yourself if any of it might just be worth a try.

As many of you know, I am a confirmed Strong Club player, but this is not about system and everything that I write about in the following series of articles will be possible no matter what system you use, well mostly.

Ideas?

Other ideas have been discussed as well. Some years ago, David Price did a seminar followed by the play of a few hands. However, it was not particularly well received and I am not sure that the hands were sufficiently analysed so that we could learn from it. It seemed to me that people were more interested in just playing than discussing anything, but the idea was sound. Perhaps someone can come up with a way of improving it. Any suggestions will be considered Also, I have heard some people say that it might be a good idea if one or two of our better players would visit individual clubs to discuss bridge or, possibly to give a lecture on any subject requested by the club. Again, I am not sure about this one, although I would be prepared to do it if requested, but it is a possibility. In fact, anything might be worth a try. Does anyone have any other ideas? I am more than happy to listen.

First of all, I intend to write about the advantages of 5-card majors compared to 4-card majors. At first glance, this might not seem very earth shattering and just a matter of preference but, if I generate some discussion, that may prove to be worthwhile and will, at least, start us thinking about the subject. There will be three articles in this first series describing how we can improve on standard methods without too much hard work. It is the contested auction that I am most interested in because, at county level, you are rarely allowed to conduct an undisturbed auction. Someone will always rudely butt in. But, if you adopt even one or two of the ideas described in these articles, you might find that contested auctions become a little easier.

New

If I am in the job long enough, I will consider other subjects as well. The first series considers the situation where we have opened the bidding and the auction becomes competitive. Later I intend to look at the situation where the opponents open the bidding before we can and later, perhaps, I will look at declarer play, if I have not lost you all by then.

Please do not think that I am trying to show ‘grandma how to suck eggs’. I am not a top player, but I have been playing for over 50 years and I have picked up some things along the way. Also, I have started with an area that is not difficult and, certainly, I would hope that most of the A team will have seen most of it before. But I might surprise some of you, and I am sure that some of the things I introduce in these articles will be new to some.

If anyone would like any more information about anything I write about, or anything else for that matter, please contact me either on e-mail by clicking PAUL or by phone on 01473 231019.

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