Advanced Lesson 26, Opening Leads Part 3

Here we go again with more hands for us to discover the best opening lead playing against Notrump contracts. Of course, going beyond viewing our cards to listening carefully to the auction is a start. Then comes the “CIA” – Counting, Inferences and Analysis of what was said, what wasn’t said, considering everyone’s assets (length, strength and honors). Whew, while all this may sound daunting, it’s also fun to play Sherlock Homes so off we go!

Part 1 – Hands 1-2, 30 minutes
Part 2, Hand 3-4, 34 minutes
Part 3, Hands 5-8, 41 minutes

As always, we here at BridgeHands have Bridge hands complete with narration and animated card play for everyone (regardless of who is the declarer and defender). Our emphasis is to get inside the minds of the “Big Why,” the rationale behind everyone’s bid or play, including an analysis on hand evaluation, bidding and animated card play.  

As a Premium and ULTRA member, you are welcome to enjoy the entire three-part lesson segments with lots of hands, plus an opportunity to view future shows during your membership subscription period.   And as always, be sure to check out the hundreds of hours of videos in our archive that is growing by leaps and bounds, by clicking “Index to Videos” on the navigation above or simply click this link.

Bridge Teachers – you may download your personal copy of our copyrighted video lesson here:

Advanced Lesson 25 – Part 1

Advanced Lesson 25 – Part 2

Advanced Lesson 25 – Part 3

As always and until our next show, Happy Trails until we meet again!

Social Lesson 20, Part 2 – Counting

Counting. Sounds simple enough, right? 
 
But as any emerging Bridge player will attest, it’s not quite so easy in the swirl of bidding and related inferences, leads, play strategies, signals and yes, surprises that frequently arise before the dust settles. 
 
We begin with a quick review of helpful analysis of the odds of suit splits, common percentages associated with common Bridge holdings and even offer some tips on how to be a good partner.  Then it’s off to the Bridge tournament and it’s time to start tossing cards… after careful thought, of course!
 
BridgeHands Premium and ULTRA Members, here are the  links to watch over two hours and 14 hands helpful to improve your counting skills…

Bridge Teachers, you may download a copy of our videos here for lessons with your local students:

Part 2.1
Part 2.2
Part 2.3
Part 2.4
Powerpoint and Slides

Many thanks for supporting BridgeHands with lots more online recorded and now Livestreaming real-time webinars coming to you – wherever you are, we will be there!

Happy Trails,

BridgeHands

Social Lesson 16 – Bridge Partscore Contracts – Gaining Entries, Finesses, Unblocking, Endplays

Greetings Bridge Friends!

At long last, we conclude our series on Bridge promotion plays looking at partscore contracts and focusing our attention on gaining entries.  And while it might seem easy to make a contract when not playing for a game bonus, our opponents have other ideas – particularly when THEY have their fair share of honors.  In this lesson we begin with 10 hands, yet before the play is through, we expand the hand permutations and associated play to a whopping 35 hand variations.  So while sometimes a less than perfect line of play might turn out okay, be careful – on the next hand the opponents line of play may improve, our their card distribution might change and all is lost!

Part 1 – Entries and Promotion Play for all audiences – click here to view 23 minutes of video 
Free, Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part 2 – 18 minutes of video

Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part 3 – 19 minutes of video
Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part 4 – 27 minutes of video
Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part 5 – 28 minutes of video
Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part 6 – 17 minutes of video

[Read more…]

Twitter comes to BridgeHands

As of October 9, 2010, BridgeHands has joined the Twitter generation. In addition to viewing our “tweets” (posts) at Twitter here:

http://twitter.com/bridgehands

…you’ll see our most recent tweet posts at on our Bridgeblog home page here:

http://www.bridgehands.com/bridgeblog

So what are tweets anyway? These are very short messages of up to two lines of text (far less than blog posts like this). Tweets offer a very short, quick snippet of information, often with a hyperlink enabling the viewer to click on the link for additional information. Since tweets are very short messages, they are easy to create and read. And NO, we promise not to blast you with trivial tweets.

Happy Trails, BridgeHands