Great (Matchpoint?) Player

	J 4 2 A J 7 6 3 2 J 6 3 2
Helen
A 8 7 6 5 Q 10 K 9 A 10 8 7		Q 10 3 8 5 Q 8 6 K Q J 5 4
	K 9 K 9 4 A 10 7 5 4 3 2 9

Lead: K

West	North	East	South
1	2	2	4
4	5	pass	pass
Dbl	all pass

I have been thinking about how to play better matchpoints and I came across an article with tips by Helen Shanbrom of Tamarac Florida.  Helen plays in clubs so she is playing a lot of matchpoints and she wins the over 10,000 masterpoint category every year. (She would win any category she was eligible to play in.)  And then I saw this hand which was published by Richard Pavlichek    Richard’s description of this deal.  So I thought I would start by looking at this deal and then moving onto her tips.

Helen was sitting West playing with Julia Carswell and she opened the bidding with 1.  When her partner could only bid 2 I don’t think she expected to make 4.    But instead of defending she chose a pressure bid of 4 over South’s 4.  She was hoping that North would bid  5 and she was pretty sure that she was going to defeat that contract.  One argument for this bid is that her opponents were not all that likely to double her and even if she went down a trick or two (as she would have) that would be a decent score.  Do you like here pressure tactics?  I do.  But it is the defense where the partnership really shine.

Her partner made the natural lead of the K.  Since dummy had a singleton her partner was going to switch to something and the most likely something was a spade.  But what if her partner didn’t have the queen and jack.  Helen forsaw that if East played a spade it could give away a trick.  (Try it and you will see she is right, it doesn’t matter whether East leads the  Q or a small one, the defense will only take one trick).

Many players play that when dummy has a singleton that they give partner suit preference.  So here a high club would ask for a spade and a low club would ask for a diamond.  Why do that?  Because partner is probably going to switch so you want to tell partner what suit you like.

So Helen made a good play.  On the opening lead she played the 7.  And her partner, Julia made a great play, she played another club.  This was the terrible for declarer.  On a lead of a diamond or a trump declarer can set up diamonds for spade discards but on the lead of a club a critical entry has been removed and it is no longer possible.  The hand could no longer be made.

(For more great stuff like this visit Richard’s website www.rpbridge.net)

Helen with friends:

JennyLee Mealer, Helen Shanbrom,
Steve Preston and Jesse Laird.

How can I learn to play like this you might be thinking (I am thinking the same thing).  Here are some of Helen’s tips:

a.  No hand makes 2NT.  It either plays 1NT or 3NT.

b.  Do not open the bidding on a bad hand with a bad suit.

c. Do not abuse or misuse systems.  IF you forget or do not understand a system, strike it off your card.

d. Do not rescue the opponents.  Why do you have to bid when you have their suits.

e. If I want to be saved (from a doubled contract) I’ll go to church.

There are quite a few more and if you want to see them then go to

Helen’s tips

I like the first tip although I think of it a bit differently at imps.  At imps I am going to push to vulnerable games so most of the time if I bid 2NT I am in an auction like this:

1NT-2C-2D-2NT

If I had anything close to a good invitation I would have bid 3NT.  So 2NT requires a super hand for partner to bid on.  I know that sometimes I will get a minus this way but it was important to see if partner had a major and we might have game.  But at matchpoints I shouldn’t bother bidding on a marginal hand.  A plus is just too important.  Still I could see following this advice at all forms of the game but with a little more caution about bidding 3NT at imps.  You may or may not like the idea but one thing is for sure, you are going to have to become a great declarer if you follow this rule.

The second tip seems sensible.  When you have a good suit you can be a little frisky.  You know you have a place to play the hand and if nothing else it will help partner to find the lead.  There is a big advantage to opening the bidding so we all want to do it but perhaps it isn’t such a good idea some of the time.

All of the rest of the good ideas are true at any type of scoring.

Still it seems to me that most of Helen’s ideas aren’t really about matchpoints they are about playing good partnership bridge.  It seems to work at any form of scoring.