Discuss/share about your strategies (for min bid 4 games only)

[ChocolatePenguin]

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Originally Posted by Kiwi8

For a min 4 bid, I feel that it is not possible to bid for this hand, whether for a trump bid or a NT bid. It has sure-losers in 2/5 clubs, 8 diamonds, 5 hearts, 7/J spades.

why not? although the risk is there, bid 4 clubs, since clubs is the smallest in this game, anyone with good cards might bid diamonds, hearts, spades or NT, and you will be their partner for sure, u will definitely win, The chance of winning is 90%

If not K club should be ur partner, place out ur 3A, and 1K, followed by 5hearts, then Qhearts, 8 diamond, 2club, all other clubs and finally all other spades, ur chance of winning is 60% quite little but still worth to gamble, bare in mind you just have to choose the right partner, why play too safe when life is about gamble

[Kiwi8]

Originally Posted by ChocolatePenguin

why not? although the risk is there, bid 4 clubs, since clubs is the smallest in this game, anyone with good cards might bid diamonds, hearts, spades or NT, and you will be their partner for sure, u will definitely win, The chance of winning is 90%

If not K club should be ur partner, place out ur 3A, and 1K, followed by 5hearts, then Qhearts, 8 diamond, 2club, all other clubs and finally all other spades, ur chance of winning is 60% quite little but still worth to gamble, bare in mind you just have to choose the right partner, why play too safe when life is about gamble

The problem is, with only 4 trumps (if one does bid clubs), it is very easy for the defenders to defend. It has increased opportunity for the defenders to trump a suit that they are void in. And it is also very hard to drain trumps with only 4 trumps. What if the defender has 5 trumps or more? Control would get passed to the defenders.

[tlautrec]

=X I can't see the image; can someone describe the hand to me?

[csyuan]

4Nt > K club as partner~

1 - how well bidder control the game
2 - how power ur partner card
3 - which position ur partner locate
4 - how well ur partner can play

for me i will choose spade to start my game~
then u need to see how " pro " ur partner help u in the game
u need to find out ur partner after lose control 3 set, 1 more u will lose
as long the whole game still under ur control, dun play club, my partner also dun show urself oh~~ just let ppl guess who is who~~ FUN!!!

this hand u only can try when u **** lucky!!!
ps : (wash better , dun greedy ) haha

[tlautrec]

Okay firstly i would agree with the person above me on the NT bid.

First, count your points. You have 23. You're missing 17 points, distributed among 2 jacks, 3 queens and 3 kings. Given how the dealing software is programmed, you know that everyone has at least 4 points. So, the worst possible scenario is calling someone with 4 points. (2 queens, a king with a jack, or queen with 2 jacks) We want to avoid calling the dude with no kings, so we will go for calling the king. Worse come to worse; we just get 1 extra jack.

So now we count our tricks: A club, A/K dime, A heart and A spade. 5 sure winners; with a 6th possibly coming from a heart finesse. Maybe a 7th on club finesse, but dont have too much hopes for that jack of spades. so 5 sure tricks and 2 potential tricks. Now we look at partner's hand. We would expect partner to hold 1 sure trick, which is the king of whatever you have called. so now; we have 6 sure tricks, 2 potential tricks and we need to generate 2 more to make the contract. Which king to call? spades? clubs? or hearts?

King of hearts wouldn't be the best call: it makes one of your potential tricks into a sure trick instantly. but what if the dude had a jack in hearts and only 3 hearts? That would result in overlapping winners and waste 1 precious point.

King of spades wouldn't be the best call either, because there is no way to guarantee that your jack of spades will instantly become a winner instantly, so you still need to think your head off on which suit to exit.

King of clubs would be the best card to call, because it allows to exit on clubs several times without shortening the suit considerably. (e.g., play the 2 to the king of clubs, and if partner plays back another club, you can still 'duck' it with the 5 of clubs to lure out queen of clubs in the event that partner is on your right, the worst case scenario; after that, your ace and jack will hold out for 2 tricks.)

There is certainly no way to make this contract 100%. Bearing that in mind, let's move down to the wall of text that's about to appear.

So 4NT with king of clubs as partner; how shall we play this?

We lead with exiting a small club. exiting in hearts is fine too, just a little more dangerous. Never exit in spades because it will endager your holdings. If you really like diamonds, start with the 8 of diamonds is not really of harm too, though clubs would be a considerably better choice. So 2 of clubs is led.

If king appears right away (left hand side seat) good for you. expect a return finesse in hearts *hopefully*. If king appears on the 3rd player/4th player, too bad. (Especially 3rd player)

Now cross your fingers for a heart return. Or clubs (since you called King of clubs), as partner would imagine that you have a long club suit waiting to be unleashed (and he's gonna be sorely disappointed to see your switch) We look at partner's return. If he returns either spades/diamonds, this might mean that he has slightly longer of that suit (It's not very wise to play out your SHORTEST suit on NT unless it's the one that partner has asked for, right?) So your fingers are crossed but you do NOT get a heart return. Clubs is returned; rise with ace if partner is on 3rd/4th seat. play the jack/ace accordingly if partner is on your left (2nd seat).

Now what? Lead a small diamond. Even if partner may have the jack of diamonds (that's the worst case scenario) it's going to be a sure loser. A bare AKJ in 2 separate hands rarely makes 3 tricks. You don't want to jeopadize hearts and spades that early. So if partner DOES have the queen of diamonds, partner must rise. Note: (refer to my humji guide) Partner always go aggro in the event of NT, because all the points are most likely with your partner, so you're always fully covered/ have to sacrifice for the betterment of partner. If partner has no queen, partner will rise with the highest card he/she has. If you don't see the jack of diamond, you can safely mark jack hearts with partner and exit in hearts later.(J to AQ finesse will always sacrifice one of the honors unless the king stupidly appears before to Ace queen prior to a bunch of small hearts. Hence even if partner has J hearts, the result is same as having just AQ with King onside. Since now you kind of have AQJ secured in hearts, you have now made hearts become a safe suit to exit in. If partner does have the jack of diamonds and you dont know where J hearts is, then don't exit in hearts yet.)

So pretend that opponents took this diamond. The queen of clubs, if it's with them, will appear now if the ace has been out. If not, you will probably see a spade led back to you, because you have started in diamonds and clubs (so opponents would assume that you're strong in them)

From this point in time, there are way too many possibilities that the play can go in, so the essentials would be, always try to lead out to partner to 'find out' what partner has. If partner did have the jack of diamonds, and king of clubs with nothing else, when opponents start off with hearts, rise with queen instead of ace, and if opponents played spades, play 7. If they played clubs, play the jack. Why? Because other than your 6 sure tricks, you need 4 more, and 2 HAS to come from hearts and clubs. If the club finesse passes, (I.e. jack takes the trick and queen has failed to appear) keep playing clubs (Ace, followed by 5) If the break is good 4-3-3-3, then your 4th clubs take the 9th trick. and now you just need 1 more. (possibly spades if your partner has the 10 of spades or something) That 1 last trick will have to come from luck such that your partner has either another king or queen.

To sum this up, this hand is 80% skill (6 sure tricks + 2 potential tricks) 10% good break luck (that 4th club), and 10% luck on calling the right partner. As you play, do remember which opponent laid down which card. for an opponent to have laid down 2 kings already, it is impossbile for him/her to also have 2 queens. As the game progresses, mark each player with the number of points and mark each honor card accordingly. COUNT THE CARDS and you'll be okay.

Well of course we could go into further 'what-ifs' such as 'what if partner had a long suit?' This play strategy is for playing a strong balanced NT hand. Distributional NT hands will require much less analysis as compared to this hand.

Personally, I would pass. Then again, 23 points is pretty good a bait for me to go on a suicide bid. However, I would always have my fingers crossed when it's my partner's turn to play. This hand not only requires heavy reliance on partner's hand, but also relies on partner's skill as well. If you want a brainless/lazy NT hand, just pass on this.

[aku_sedang_maem]

Originally Posted by samuelchua2008

Thanks for the wonderful sharing of opinions from tlautrec and kiwi8 so far. Hope to see contribution from more regular min4 players.

Here's another situation (below). I really need help on this, as i had a few tries bidding either NT or non-NT suit, and most of the time end up in defeat. Appreciate your opinions.

In my mind, i wanna bid 4 clubs.. with K clubs for the P.. hmm, i think we got many advantage with that card, and try to play as smart as possible, usually my P got good card too.. hahaha.. Can't explain it anyhow..

[winson100]

erm, my zany's skill not pro enough to teach others la, i'll try to giv comment in chinese?

[shanzhi90]

I think that players in Zany Bridge often kick players without listening to explanations. Through this action, it shows that they are rude.

To me when playing bridge, i normally calculate the number of cards of each suits being played, so i agree with eating ur partner to gain control if you know that all 13 trumps are being used and u have the remaining biggest cards.

For a min 4 game, there is surely risks no matter how pro or how **** the bidder is. In bridge, not only good cards are important, there are also many important factors. One of them is u and ur partner's position. A first player and last player position is the most favourable. The last player can protect the first player's cards. Another is ur cards combination. Imgaine u have 5 heart cards(5, 7, 8, q,ace). If u dun play the ace out first, but instead wait for other players to play hearts first, and coincidence u r the last player, ur q and ace can bully the king.

To me, bridge is 90% skills and 10%luck. If everyone were to wait for super good hands to play a bid 4 game, den i am sure there will be a lot of wash. A skilled player shld be one who can play his bad hand to win the game and not wait till u get a good hand.

[penguinduck]

Originally Posted by samuelchua2008

Thanks for the wonderful sharing of opinions from tlautrec and kiwi8 so far. Hope to see contribution from more regular min4 players.

Here's another situation (below). I really need help on this, as i had a few tries bidding either NT or non-NT suit, and most of the time end up in defeat. Appreciate your opinions.

I will not bid with this hand. It is just too risky. I usually bid with at least 6trumps. Although there are exceptions when i bid with 5t as my other suits are good. Even then i usually just scrape through with a 10-3 win.

However I did a bid with 7t and my highest card was just a 9 and i won with my p easily as my p has great cards.

It all depends on the card and how well ur partner plays.

[CHEMOR]

sushido: Any one can assist me how to increase skills and magics, where do I obtain this skills. Your assistance is greatly appreciated

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uh CHEMOR please go to the sushido forum to request for assistance.

thanks samuelchua2008 for starting this thread and the other users for contributing their analysis. do continue!

I agree with shanzhi90 that some players in Zany Bridge kick players without listening to explanations. I have realised that people who play contract bridge in real life make bids in Zany which appear to be daring or risky to casual players who only or mostly play virtually. It's never nice to be kicked so it depends on the patience/understanding of individuals to listen.

[renekid]

why my game is alwaysa disconnected while in progress?

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it's due to unstable connection which is mysterious. may be due to your internet provider, viwawa server or just fengshui.

be patient, it may connect after several tries.
another option is to wait. sometimes it connects successfully after 45 seconds of "in progress".

good luck! happy playing~

[scscsc]

Originally Posted by Kiwi8

For a min 4 bid, I feel that it is not possible to bid for this hand, whether for a trump bid or a NT bid. It has sure-losers in 2/5 clubs, 8 diamonds, 5 hearts, 7/J spades.

precisely! you shouldn't bid 4 with that hand , its simply not enough for anything

[thomasganteng]

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