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Bridge - What's new |
   
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December 24th - 2025
Today, many experienced players open 1NT with hands that, a few years ago, would have been opened 1 of a suit. The goal of these openings with a few minor deviations is to hinder the opponents' overcalls and make it easier to describe the hand's strength. With 15 to 16 H points, it's sometimes possible to open with a 6332 hand and a mediocre 6-card minor suit, and even with a 5332 hand and a 5-card major suit. However, the hand must always be well-suited to playing in No Trump. To allow this type of bidding, I've added two options (marked with the word Advanced) to the 1NT opening list.
The two Advanced options are inactive by default. You can activate one of them in the rule preferences on the Bidding / Openings page (1 No Trump list). There are likely errors or omissions in the description of the hands that allow these special 1NT openings. Please feel free to send me the deals where such openings are missing or unnecessary.
For those who aren't entirely confident in their ability to make a good game plan, whether in No Trump or suit contracts, I've added to the Internet menu a new submenu called How to make a good game plan. This submenu opens a new page on my website, which describes the methods recommended by most bridge books, and offers a few prepared games for you to practice. Don't worry, on this page for beginners and intermediate players, the game plans to develop are basic, without any traps or complex techniques. But all the deals share the same characteristic: if you don't make a game plan, or if you make a plan with significant flaws... you'll likely go down!
At the end of each deal, a long comment can now be displayed in the center of the table by clicking on the title bar at the bottom of the window. Read carefully all the lines describing the game plan. They are intentionally repeated on each deal (the count of sure tricks in no-trump, the count of losers when there is a trump suit, etc.). You can display both hands, declarer's and dummy's, to clearly follow the analyses you need to learn to perform immediately after the opening lead. Mentally rehearse all the important steps of the reasoning. By automating these analyses, you will make significant progress and avoid going down on contracts that have a 100% chance of success.
Thanks to all those who have proposed these enhancements.
Best wishes
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Two small new features