{"id":3785,"date":"2014-09-06T08:51:30","date_gmt":"2014-09-06T16:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/?p=3785"},"modified":"2020-06-05T08:17:42","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T16:17:42","slug":"social-lesson-16-bridge-partscore-contracts-gaining-entries-finesses-unblocking-endplays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/?p=3785","title":{"rendered":"Social Lesson 16 \u2013 Bridge Partscore Contracts &#8211; Gaining Entries, Finesses, Unblocking, Endplays"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_6_1410018570272_11\">Greetings Bridge Friends!<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_356673\">At long last, we conclude our series on Bridge promotion plays looking at partscore contracts and focusing our attention on gaining entries.&nbsp; And while it might seem easy to make a contract when not playing for a game bonus, our opponents have other ideas &#8211; particularly when THEY have their fair share of honors.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; So while sometimes a less than perfect line of play might turn out okay, be careful &#8211; on the next hand the opponents line of play may improve, our their card distribution might change and all is lost!<\/p>\n<p><b id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_357822\"><a id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_356951\" href=\"http:\/\/bridgehands-videos.s3.amazonaws.com\/Social_16_Part_1\/Social_16_Part_1.html\">Part 1 &#8211; Entries and Promotion Play for all audiences &#8211; click here to view 23 minutes of video&nbsp;<\/a><\/b><b id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_358038\"><br \/>\n<a id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_356954\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/freecontent\/Social_16_Part_2\/Social_16_Part_2.html\">Free, Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part 2 &#8211; 18 minutes of video<\/a><\/b><br id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1410018570272_8558\"><b id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_358411\"><a id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_357383\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/premiumcontent\/Social_16_Part_3\/Social_16_Part_3.html\">Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part&nbsp;3 &#8211; 19 minutes of video<\/a><\/b><br id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1410018570272_8557\"><b id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_358412\"><a id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_356957\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/premiumcontent\/Social_16_Part_4\/Social_16_Part_4.html\">Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part 4 \u2013 27 minutes of video<\/a><\/b><br \/>\n<b id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_358532\"><a id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_356960\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/premiumcontent\/Social_16_Part_5\/Social_16_Part_5.html\">Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part 5 \u2013 28 minutes of video<\/a><\/b><br \/>\n<b id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_358532\"><a id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_356960\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/premiumcontent\/Social_16_Part_6\/Social_16_Part_6.html\">Premium and ULTRA Members click here to view Part 6 \u2013 17 minutes of video<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_6_1410018570272_22\">While finesses and ruffs often come into play for the declarer, promoting a long suit can be even more effective to gain extra tricks.&nbsp; Yet when we are playing in a 1 or 2 Notrump contract, suit promotion plays are also the favorite play tactic for the defenders.&nbsp; As always, we begin play in a suit contract by counting our losers, while in a Notrump contract we count our winners &#8211; desperate to first win our tricks before the opponents promote THEIR suit.&nbsp; Today in our lesson on entries, we start off making obvious unblocking plays before delving into other options including ruffs, unintuitive finesses, endplays, and astutely using our power of observation.&nbsp; Yes, it helps when we carefully use the power of observation, put on our thinking cap to make crucial inferences and &#8220;count out the hand.&#8221;&nbsp; As we progress through each hand, as always we will explore what&#8217;s going on in the minds of each player, observing leads, attitude and count signals.&nbsp; And while we will be making inferences as the play progresses, no, it won&#8217;t require you to head for Scotland Yard to follow the footsteps of Sherlock Holmes.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_356964\"><img title=\"More...\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/wp-includes\/js\/tinymce\/plugins\/wordpress\/img\/trans.gif\">But wait, there&#8217;s more!&nbsp; Yes, in partscore contracts it is imperative that the defenders also put on their thinking caps and avoid &#8220;getting sleepy&#8221; during play!&nbsp; Do you know when to cover an honor that has been led from the dummy?&nbsp; Or when you should make a ducking play to gain extra tricks?&nbsp; On a fair share of our hands, finding the best defense will also require YOU as the defender to count out the distribution on a suit&#8230; assuming your partner is cooperative.&nbsp; And even your poor hand with no more than a lowly 10 on a punky side suit, you might want to hang onto it and to score the setting trick!&nbsp; Of course, as declarer it is our duty to dazzle the opponents using tactics like falsecards, pseudo squeezes and the like.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_356672\">Here at&nbsp;<i id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_356969\">BridgeHands<\/i> on all of our Bridge hands are full of discussions and analysis on hand evaluation, bidding and play with over 2 hours of animated card play with commentary.&nbsp; Visitors are welcome to view the Part 1 series of our video lesson with several hands including critical decisions that will influence our card play.&nbsp;&nbsp;Those with the Free <i id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_359074\">BridgeHands<\/i> membership may also watch Part 2 where we review another three hands with provocative play tips and strategies to ensure you bring home the contract. As a Premium and ULTRA member, you are welcome to enjoy the entire six-part lesson segments and future shows during your membership subscription period. &nbsp; 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 \u201c<a id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1410018570272_10274\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/?page_id=540\">Index to Videos\u201d on the navigation above or simply click this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_356966\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_8_1403293054874_17\">Happy Trails,<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_356612\"><b id=\"yui_3_16_0_8_1403293054874_117\"><i id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1403293054874_356608\">BridgeHands<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.&nbsp; And while it might seem easy to make a contract when not playing for a game bonus, our opponents have other ideas &#8211; particularly when THEY have their fair share [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[33,47,46,42,45,43,41,44],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3785"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4254,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785\/revisions\/4254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}