I will be running six 'Supper and Bridge' sessions at The Grosvenor, Stockbridge during January and February 2025.  These will not be for beginners but will be beneficial to all improvers.  
 

These sessions take place on Tuesday evenings starting promptly at 7.0 with interactive and hands-on Bridge with one course supper from approximately 8.0-8.40 then Bridge continues until 9.30/9.45.

The topics covered will be as follows:

Tuesday 7 January - The importance of opening leads against no trump contracts. When to lead fourth highest, second highest, top of sequences, etc.

Tuesday 14 January - All about One No Trump, the most common opening bid. We will look at Stayman, Transfers and intervention.

Tuesday 21 January - Double trouble. Double is the most useful but also the most underused bid. The main two doubles are takeout and penalty but there is also the negative double, balancing double, competitive double, lead directing double and Lightner double.

Tuesday 28 January - Defending against suit contracts. Deciding what to lead, where lead style differs from no trumps, when to lead shortage, playing a 'forcing game'.

Tuesday 4 February - No session.

Tuesday 11 February - Bidding.  When bids are limited and unlimited, distinguishing between bids that are forcing, non forcing, invitational and competitive.

Tuesday 18 February - The Slam zone. A difficult area of the bidding which both excites and scares! Why do we bid slams? How strong do you need to be? Blackwood, Roman Keycard Blackwood, Cue Bidding.

You can book as few or as many weeks as you like.  The cost is £35 per session which includes Bridge, one course supper and wine.  If you sign up for all the sessions, there is a 10% discount.  For further information or booking, please contact Miranda Chetwode at The Grosvenor on 01264 810606.

Fred Hotchen

What's the biggest score you've ever achieved on a single hand?  I think a grand slam redoubled and vulnerable losing all 13 tricks must be the max and that would 'achieve' minus 7600 though in practice, quite an improbable score!

The above hand looks fairly innocuous.  Nobody can make a game and you would expect one side or the other to end up in a part-score, certainly not 7NT redoubled!  Let me explain.

Having got bored with Candy Crush, out of curiosity I thought I'd try playing a few hands on BBO (Bridge Base Online) where you can just join a casual game with three other unknown players.  Not sure how the scoring works but it is 'imps' so some kind of teams scoring and when I joined I found myself partnering Isabella from Italy whose current score was minus 52 imps.  I don't know if this is why her previous partner had left the table but anyway we played a couple of hands and I quickly realised nobody had much beyond a basic understanding that it was Strong No Trump, Stayman, Transfers and weak Twos.

On the first hand I watched Isabella play herself off in a cold 3NT and on the second hand the opposition could have bid a lucky slam but only got as far as 3 Clubs.

The above hand then came up and I hoped I might be able to reach a decent contract, maybe in spades or No Trumps.  However, I was fourth caller and Lois from the USA opened a strong No Trump to my left which was passed round to me so I doubled.  It was then passed round to Leo from Poland who bid 2 Clubs.  Much as I would like to have bid something, I was on best behaviour so I refrained and Lois bid 2 Hearts.  Partner passed and Leo bid 3 Clubs but Lois was having none of that and bid 3NT.  I didn't really know what was going on but I was just contemplating a friendly double but before I had the chance, the already bizarre bidding went completely crackers when Leo raised to 7NT.  Well I couldn't resist that so I doubled but that wasn't quite the end of the auction as the redouble card then landed on the table!  Partner led a small diamond but by the time dummy appeared, a robot appeared in the East seat and Leo had vanished, probably with a few Polish swear words!

It wasn't too difficult to defeat the contract.  Declarer won the first trick, switched to the King of hearts.  I didn't bother to duck, played the King of spades then returned partner's suit and, after running it, bless her she returned a spade, not the Queen unfortunately but Declarer had discarded the Jack of spades from dummy and the 7 and 10 from her own hand so I was able to 'risk' the 9 then play the Ace to crash partner's Queen and collect several more spade winners.  7NT redoubled went 10 down for minus 5800.  I don't remember ever scoring anything even half that and I'm always quite happy with an occasional plus 800.

Nothing so spectacular has happened since but the random deals online are often quite entertaining and from someone who never wanted to play online, I actually quite enjoy it.  These casual games are free by the way and you can also play with your own partner so a good opportunity to have a practice and make sure you don't have any similar misunderstandings.  Despite the above fiasco the standard of Bridge is variable though not unreasonable but obviously the bidding is pretty unsophisticated.  I haven't yet tried playing with a regular partner but if you are playing against another regular partnership I expect you would get a better game.