Wednesday, March 25, 2020

I recommend

For those of you who are bored at home with no bridge to play but don't really want to go online and play with a bunch of strangers I'd recommend the following:
Bridge Base online has a nice set of Declarer Play problems that many players don't know about.

First log onto www.bridgebase.com. If you are not a member you will have to create a membership to do this. (You can play without becoming a member but this is different.) The membership is free and quick and easy to do.

Once you are on the Home Page you will see several options under "PLAY OR WATCH BRIDGE"

You want the last option -- "Practice"

When you click on Practice it gives you three options.

You want the last option -- "Bridge Master"

Yes, they could have worded that differently (like maybe "Declarer Play Problems"?) so you'd know what you were getting into but they didn't.

This is the section that you want.

This part contains a series of DECLARER PLAY ONLY problems. You are shown the bidding and presented with the final contract. Now you have to make it. I like that because you are not allowed to slack off and play in game only when there is a slam to be had!

You have five difficulty levels -- Level 1 (Beginner) through to Level 5 (World Class). Each Level is further subdivided into A, B and sometimes C and D. Each sublevel has about 30+ Declarer Play problems in them. That is quite a few to keep you entertained.

Don't be fooled by their names. These are TOUGH. Even the Beginner ones I would say start off easy and beginner like but quickly turn into what I would consider more Intermediate.

These are all about MAKING YOUR CONTACT. Don't worry about those overtricks -- play safe to make.

You are allowed to try them as many times as you'd like and if you get stumped there are solutions available that you can click through. You can even get a first little hint and then just try the problem again.

Anyhow a nice change from playing online and you will definitely learn something from these! Enjoy!

P.S. If you don't want to play with strangers on BBO but do want to play then you and your friends can set up a nice, fun table and just play amongst yourselves. Just make the table PRIVATE. Email your friends and ask them what their userid is. Then set up a time to play with people you know. That way when we all go back into the clubs you won't have forgotten what an Ace is!

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