The BMB Bridge Gazette

The Bridge Gazette is a free resource from Bernard Magee Bridge designed to give players of all levels a quick and informative weekly read.

ARTICLE OF THE WEEK

Robin Hood’s Bridge Adventures: Gisborne’s Excellent Dummy

By David Bird The Sheriff of Nottingham’s high-stake game against Edwynne de Rayne and Roland…

TIP OF THE WEEK

Be nice to your partner

Be nice to your partner and polite and courteous to your opponents.

Bidding Quiz of the Week

Test your bidding powers with Bernard's latest Bidding Quiz. It's free to play so give it a go. Click the image to play.

For more quizzes explore the world of Bernard Magee Bridge where you can play new quizzes every week. We have Lead Quizzes, Play Quizzes as well as Easier and Harder Hands to explore and so much more!

HANDS QUESTIONS

How Would You Bid this Hand?

How should you bid this hand? Find out what Bernard thinks.

Here's the question that was asked about the hand below:

Minor Suit Slams

Submit Your Own Hand!

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You can submit your own hand question for Bernard here.

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QUESTIONS FROM THE BMB FORUM

Forum Question to Julian Pottage

Forum Question 24 - Gerber or quantitative 4NT?

One of my partners does not do splinters and so we retain Gerber for NT bids. However, after my 12 points NT opening recently, she bid 4C with 19 hcp and a balanced hand. After my 4H response showing one ace, she bid 6NT and we went down one. It is possible that we would have made with a different play, but my question is about the use of Gerber in these circumstances. (We are both improvers.) As we have the quantitive 4NT for such a hand, I would have thought it better to bid 4NT. I would then have passed knowing we did not have 33 hcp. Then I can see us adopting Gerber for when we are thinking of a suit slam after a NT bid. But I really do not know what we should be doing here. Do we stick to only Gerber for NT slam bidding?

Click here for the Answer

Questions are taken from the Bernard Magee Bridge forum which is available with BMB paid memberships.

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THE BRIDGE GLOSSARY

Unusual No Trump

A convention whereby an overall in no-trumps which, given the previous bidding, could not logically be natural, is used instead to show length in the two lowest-ranking unbid suits.

The most popular application is as an immediate overcall of a suit opening, although this is an extension of the convention, for such a bid could logically be natural.

Look at the two sequences below:

In the first sequence, West cannot possibly hold a very strong balanced hand.

In the second sequence, it is also usual to play that the 2NT bid shows the minors, because, while West could hold a very strong balanced hand, a two-suited hand is much more likely. West might hold: