Bridge Vid

Bridge is about thinking, don’t blindly follow rules.

Australian Swiss Pairs 

Over the weekend Pete and Justin had a chance to get some practice in at the Australian Swiss Pairs which was held in beautiful Hobart.  We thought that we would test out the idea of producing a video blog of the event!

Click here to open the video blog

Next week’s featured lesson: What do they have from their line of play?

There are many elements of bridge that rely on making deductions from what didn’t happen rather than using the more obvious information contained from the actions at the table.

Have you ever wondered why declarer isn’t taking a finesse in a suit or why they have put off drawing trumps?  As a declarer have you ever wondered about why a defender made the lead that they did or why they didn’t lead a suit after their partner bid it?

What doesn’t happen at the table can often give away vital clues about a hand which can lead to the key piece of the puzzle to defeat a contract in defence or make a contract as declarer.  Tune in on Thursday at 11.00 to find out how you can make the most of these inferences.

We all learnt bridge to make us think….right?

Learning bridge can be frustrating for players of all skill levels.  At the start you sit there thinking I am the only person that doesn’t get it.  Then once you start to get a grasp on it all you are left wondering how on earth to improve.  If bridge wasn’t challenging it would be boring and if every bridge problem had a clear black and white answer it wouldn’t be a challenge.  

We stumbled across this video by YouTuber Veritasium which looks at the science behind learning.  Not only does it provide a nice insight into how you can improve your game through memory work and why it is so difficult in the first place but it also provides a great idea for how the game should be approached.  In the upcoming weeks we will be putting a Bridge Vid twist on the ideas and show how you can apply the science to your bridge game.  In the meantime take a look and form some ideas yourself (not only about bridge but everyday life as well).

Click here to be redirected to The Science of Learning by Veritasium

Vanderbilt 

The Vanderbilt has just wrapped up in Kansas City.  The Nickell Team (Frank Nickell, Ralph Katz, Jeff Meckstroth, Eric Rodwell, Steve Weinstein and Robert Levin) defeated the Schwartz team (Richard Schwartz, Daniel Korbel, Boye Brogeland, Espen Lindqvist, David Gold and David Bakhshi) 142 – 56.  The Lavazza Team which has won the South West Pacific Teams for the last two years in Australia lost in the round of 8.

Bridge in Aus (a comparison)

A rough count of Australian Bridge Federation membership is  37 734 compared to the 167,000+ members in the American Contract Bridge League!  It’s fair to say that the game is played on a completely different scale on the other side of the Pacific. 

To many Aussie players surprise we are actually quite a tech savvy country when it comes to bridge with most club games having electronic scoring and hand records and our National games providing quickly updated web results, draws and information.  

If you don’t believe it take a look at the BridgeWinners post by Jo Ann Sprung who was over here for the Gold Coast Congress 

Post from the Gold Coast

http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/the-wonder-of-bridge-down-under/

Post from the inital reaction of playing in Adelaide

http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/bridge-down-under-what-a-difference/

Thanks for your support Happy Bridge Vid-ing, Laura and Pete