Bridge Tip # 7
by Mark Blumenthal on
January 11th, 2009
When playing in a matchpoint pairs tournament in which you regard your partnership weaker than most don’t be too afraid to take a chance in the bidding especially in disruptingyour opponents’ constructive bidding. If you regard your pair the class of the field, or close to it, take less chances and try to reach the same contract as the field. Your superior defense and dummy play alone should get you most of the matchpoints. For instance, getting to two spades and making four for +170 may give you ten out of twelve. 12 matchpoints If the opponents happen to defend very well or you don’t guess a queen, only making three you may get a seven or eight . If you bid and make the game you will get an eleven or twelve12, but if you go down you will get zero 0 or one. Some time in the late sixties I played with Philadelphia expert Reuben Alexander somewhere in the northeast. Pennsylvania It think it was in the Poconos or Scranton. Either area always had a very weak field. Reuben was good but his situation didn’t allow him to travel often. Instead of just playing straight Reuben did doing things such as opening his weaker minor preparing for a one no trump rebid. We killed ourselves so badly we wound up only about average even though we were by far the best pair in the event.
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