Wave 2000

About a month ago Rod Coote and Greg Morse each came up to me within a day of each other and asked me if I was going to update my bridge site any time in the near future. Curious, I asked how long they had been viewing my pages and what they thought of them. They told me they had each discovered my site in the last year and found its content very interesting and entertaining- compliments which I always enjoy. They asked me if I planned to update the site any time soon and I thought to myself, "Wow.. I have fans.." The short answer to their question is that I will start writing again regularly in July.

Where have I been all this time?

I've been taking a bridge vacation, so to speak. Last year I went to Toronto for the finals of the Canadian National Team Championships (CNTC) and eventually the Canadian Open Pairs Championships (COPC) when our team didn't qualify after the four day round robin. Let's just say that it was an emotional 6 days of bridge, which was enough to burn me out for awhile. Mike Dimich and I came 6th in the COPC, which was a heartbreaker considering we were leading the event at half time by a substantial margin. Perhaps someday I will write some pages about my first CNTC experience, but perhaps not for awhile.

Anyways, after coming back from Toronto, I felt really burnt out- so much so that I stopped writing and going to school for about 4 months. In January, I starting teaching again at SFU and I felt that fire in my belly again and I knew it was bridge. I remained on vacation in an effort to complete my Masters thesis, which will, in all likelihood, be completed in July. Once that is done, my mind will be more focused on bridge and I can't wait.

Why?

I can't wait to get back in there and compete. I have spent a year handing out trophies and watching all of my friends go to tournaments without me, and I miss it. I miss them. I miss bridge.. and this time, I'm fired up and ready to go for broke.

In the next year, I want back some of what I had when I was so intertwined with my favorite partner, Drew Gillen. Drew and I had a great partnership and a lot of fun at the table. We had a lot of understandings and agreements nailed down and it was just understood that these were the fundamental constants. No fear in the auction. No fear the play. No fear in the post-mortem. That's right.. no fear in the post-mortem. If one of us forgot a bid, we knew we had and we forgot about it, and there was no retribution, no embarrassment, no criticism and no anguish. We always expected the best from each other even after a disaster, and we would always buy each other beer after the game, even if we lost.

Drew lives far away from Vancouver, so we are no longer a partnership, but I will never forget his partnership and the great days of bridge we had together. But now I must find a new partner- someone with whom I can share the same fun synergy at the table.

I don't know who that is yet, but I am looking.

Whoever it is had better be prepared, because I want to build a system with them. I don't necessarily mean the fancy strong club systems or multi-purpose bidding systems which are highly unnatural and practicaly auto-alertable. What I do mean is a system where we have discussed all relevant continuations. I also want to emplace some good tools to find distributional slams and punish our opponents.

Put simply: I want no fear in the auction.

Such a partnership cannot be developed overnight- appropriate steps must be followed. In the coming article series, I plan to write out my plan on how to form a good partnership.

Subjects will include:

• Selecting your partner
  An absolute must of a first step! If your partner doesn't have the same goals, aspirations and attitude, then they are just playing bridge across the table from you- they are not your partner.
  
• Making a start
  How to get to know your new partner at the bridge table without getting too heavy into discussions.
  
• Building the NT frame
  The right side of the convention card is the most important because it describes your basic system when you open the bidding. This is where you need the strongest agreements, because you don't want to lose any points in constructive auctions- these will be freebies for your opponents. In this article we will examine the 1NT structure.
  The next 5 articles will discuss the relevant constructive auctions.
  
• Major suit raises
  Is Bergen best or is there something more effective?
  
• Minor suit raises
  A highly neglected area.
  
• Weak 2's
  It seems like this ought to be in the area of competitive bidding, but there is a lot of room for constructive tools.
  
• Slam auctions and opening 2
  Responses to 2 and their continuations, including our cue-bidding style. Blackwood and other ace-asking combinations will not be discussed here.
  
• Keycard Blackwood, Gerber, Kickback and never-wood, never-gerber, never-back
  All of the tools to keep us out of bad slams and to help us accurately bid our grand slams will be discussed. Also, when is 4NT not for aces?
  
• The left side of the card
  The left side of the card deals with how we interfere with the opponents' bids. The main boxes are: Special Doubles, Simple Overcalls, Jump Overcalls, Opening Preempts, Direct Cue-bids, NT Overcalls, Overcalling their opening NT, Defense to Takeout Doubles, and Defense to Preempts. The most important areas to discuss are: Simple Overcalls, Special Doubles and Defense to 1NT. We will discuss the first two here and the last in detail in another article.
  
• Dealing with competitive bids
  How will we defend against their overcalls, doubles and conventions?
  
• Communication and Anti-communication.
  What is our philosophy for bidding? Do we try as hard as possible to accurately portray a picture of our hand, or are there situations which are purely obstructive?
  
• Carding
  Standard or upside down, partner? Defense- this is where the points are won.
  What should we play, partner? Reverse Smith? Lavinthal? Roman? What's our remainder count? 4th best or attitude? Ace from ace-king? ...
  
• Toys over 1NT
  Last (but not least) we will talk about interfering over their 1NT. A combination of aggresion and guile will earn you some tops, but can you stomach going for -800 once in awhile?
  Construct the system that works best for you.