Save your money

I saw an advertisement on BBO by a company called New England Bridge which sells downloadable bridge documents (presumably PDFs). While nothing is wrong with this itself, I feel annoyed and decided to save your money by listing some reasons you should NOT buy from them.

First, they are full of sales buzzwords, like buy two, get one free, 10% off everything with Gold membership and so on, enough to make me puke.

Then the price. 1 to 9 pages documents - from $8-$20. Guys, are you for real? A good, printed bridge book ( ~ 200 pages) is 10-15$.

It's unclear who is the author of those documents. I may eventually give it a try provided they are written by Mike Lawrence, Eddie Kantar, Larry Cohen or other famous bridge champion, but not if they are by JoeDoe.

The excuse on why you need give a credit card number to receive a free document is completely hilarious and they have no less than ONE item in free documents page.

So, do yourself a favor and spend your money on quality bridge books from: amazon.com, baronbarclay.com, bridgeshop.com, postfree.cc or your local dealer.

Two psyche positions

There are two well-known psyche positions in modern bridge bidding:

• after a take-out double, for example: 1♣ - DBL - 1♠!
• after a preempt, for example: 3♣ - pass - 3♠!
  

Both spade calls in previous examples may be made with the sole purpose of making hard for opponents to play this suit. In order to cope with this situations, the following agreements are common:

• after a take-out double by partner, if the player in 3rd position announces a new suit, double is for penalty and even more, bidding that suit it's natural:
  
  • (1♣) - DBL - (1♠) - DBL = penalty proposal, with four plus spades. A common confusion here is to think it's a responsive double. A double is responsive only when RHO (right hand opponent) raises the opening.
    
  • (1♣) - DBL - (1♠) - 2♠ = natural, non-forcing, with 5 spades (7-10 HCP)
• after a preempt, double in 4th position is takeout to preemptor suit:
  (3♣) - pass - (3♠) - DBL = take-out to clubs (i.e. promises 3-4 spades)
  

Oookay, so why I'm boring you with this common stuff? Because I have found two interesting extensions in some recent BBO forum threads:

• from [1]:
  (1♦) - DBL - (1♠) - P
  (1N/2♣/2♦) - 2♠
  In other words, partner doubles, then bid the responder suit. This is natural, a hand stronger than the direct overcall with 1♠ (GOSH in Robson terminology, good one suited hand). With other strong hands, partner may double again or cue-bid the first opener suit.
  
• from [2]:
  (3♣) - pass - (3♠) - double here is take-out to clubs and 4♠ is? Natural again, a good hand with spades.

It seems to be simple and obvious, but I remember a hand from a Bermuda Bowl (1991?) where the Polish champions Balicki - Zmudzinsky did not interfere in the bidding when the opponents bid 3minor - 3♠ - 4♠. In 4th position, one of them had a strong hand with AKQxxxx in spades (the opponents had spades 1-1 ;). Eight down non-vulnerable not doubled wasn't an adequate score...