[imaquila]

I first tried to post this in the Materials Review forum but I'm unable to post a new thread there.
Anyway... I'm wondering if anyone here could recommend an easy way to learn how to handle card combinations in the play.
Thanks for any suggestions.

[fbuijsen]

Download Suitplay and work with that. (Google "Suitplay" will get you there)

[dave251164]

There are many good books on the subject.
An intermediate one would be one like Suit Combinations in Bridge by Sally Brock (Batsford).

[imaquila]

 fbuijsen, on 2014-August-04, 03:01, said:

Download Suitplay and work with that. (Google "Suitplay" will get you there)

Maybe there is more than one "Suitplay". I downloaded it and opened it but it seems to be blank. Apparently I have to enter the cards held in North and South and then I play them. Does this sound like what you had in mind? Since I don't know anything about it yet, I was kind of hoping that it would show ME combinations and teach me the best way to play them so I could start to memorize the most common combinations and how to handle them.

[gwnn]

Bridge Master will help you a lot (it is available for 25 cents/half hour on BBO).

[barmar]

Lawrence's book on Card Combinations is also good. What he emphasizes is that card combinations do not exist in a vacuum -- you have to play the same cards differently based on the auction and defense. So each chapter features the same NS hands, but in a different context, and he goes through the thinking about how to play the hand.

[JonnyQuest]

 imaquila, on 2014-August-04, 09:32, said:

Maybe there is more than one "Suitplay". I downloaded it and opened it but it seems to be blank. Apparently I have to enter the cards held in North and South and then I play them. Does this sound like what you had in mind? Since I don't know anything about it yet, I was kind of hoping that it would show ME combinations and teach me the best way to play them so I could start to memorize the most common combinations and how to handle them.

Prior to "Suitplay" (which I highly recommend) I used the free tables on the Bridgehands website: Suit Combinations

This may get you started.

Remember though, as Barmar stated, card combinations and how to play them do not exist in a vacuum.

[fred]

I write an monthly column in The Bridge World magazine that presents a suit combination problem and explain how to figure out the right answer.

Knowing how to figure out the right answer is a useful skill to have since, for most people at least, it is not practical to memorize the correct play for every suit combination they might some day encounter (especially when you factor in things like entry constraints).

The Bridge World is a great magazine. Anyone who is really serious about bridge should subscribe. I have no financial interest in increasing the number of subscribers.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[imaquila]

Thanks so much for your reply. I don't have great memorization skills but I was hoping to find some resource that would give me a general understanding of what to look for in order to make an informed decision on order of play. I've downloaded Suitplay and it does calculate percentages of the distribution I enter but it does not explain. It may well be that this is a topic still too far over my head if I can't even find a way to learn the basics. Your column sounds very informational but I guess I'm looking for a collection of those columns to get an understanding of what is involved.

Thanks again,
Judy

[Stephen Tu]

Try a basic book on play like Root's "How to Play a Bridge Hand" and/or Mollo & Gardner's "Card Play Technique" for basic ideas on the most common combinations. You need to learn basic things like:
- deciding where you want enemy card(s) to be to get the most tricks
- leading toward honors, finessing
- when to play for the drop instead
- when information about the hand (opp preempted, or otherwise showed up with great length in a different suit) should tilt you towards finessing a certain way in another suit, or playing for the finesse instead of the drop when without the additional info the drop is better.
- when you can afford to lead an honor for a finesse, when you should try to avoid it by leading a low card instead and why.
- principle of restricted choice
- safety plays, how to cater to bad breaks, automatic ways to play a suit that can't really cost but are crucial on some layouts.
- "onerous" safety plays, where you deliberately give up a trick against certain common layouts but guarantee yourself a minimum number of tricks in order to make a contract even against the worst layouts you can handle, these are commonly taken at IMPS and not so much at matchpoints.

Then for novel combinations you don't have memorized, it's basically a matter of writing out the potential combinations, deciding what the possible lines are, and just totalling up which is best.

You can use a calculator like
http://www.rpbridge....cgi-bin/xcc1.pl
to help you tally up the percentages.

Use Suitplay if unsure about some special combinations, pay close attention to which combos it's picking up, and which it is not, and think about WHY, it is important to consider falsecarding possibilities by the defense.

[blackshoe]

Lots of books on suit play out there. :-)

I agree with Fred, The Bridge World is outstanding. Years ago, an expert friend of mine suggested I subscribe. "Ignore the first half of the magazine," he said. "Read the 'Test Your Play' and 'Test Your Defense' columns in the back." I don't know if that's still a valid idea - things seemed to have moved around a bit over the years - but the magazine is worth it for those columns alone when you're starting out - and later you might want to go back and read some of the harder stuff.

[Siegmund]

The opening chapter of Roudinesco's Encyclopedia of Suit Combinations was a concise description of the principles and the rules of thumb for remembering 99% of the combinations, the like of which I've never seen elsewhere.

The rest of the book, as a reference, has largely been supplanted by tools like Suitplay, but I wish that one chapter explaining where "Roudi's Rules" came from would be reprinted.

[biggerclub]

See Blackwood's Play of the Hand
Watson's Play of the Hand
Bridge Encyclopedia section on card combinations.

[PhilG007]

I would recommend two of the best books that deal with this subject,"The Complete Book of Bridge" and "The Play of the Cards"
both authored by Terence Reese and Albert Dormer. Both books are considered classics.

[winkle]

I googled "bridge card combination" and looking through the top links here are some I would recommend:

1. http://www.rpbridge.net/rppl.htm

Everything by Richard Pavlicek is awesome. He has some lessons on card combinations.

2. http://bridgewinners...it-combination/

An example on how to solve card combinations from an expert professional bridge player.

3. http://www.paloaltob.../suitcombos.pdf

A short card combination quiz supposedly from the bridge encyclopedia.

4. http://www.bridgehan...ombinations.htm

This appears to be a library of suit combinations, organized by HCP, if you want to look up a specific one.

[imaquila]

Thank you so much for the links. I'll be checking those out!!

[fbuijsen]

 imaquila, on 2014-August-04, 09:32, said:

Maybe there is more than one "Suitplay". I downloaded it and opened it but it seems to be blank. Apparently I have to enter the cards held in North and South and then I play them. Does this sound like what you had in mind? Since I don't know anything about it yet, I was kind of hoping that it would show ME combinations and teach me the best way to play them so I could start to memorize the most common combinations and how to handle them.

I generally use Suitplay as a reference tool. Whenever there is a card combination where I am unsure of what the best line is, I put it in Suitplay and it will tell you what is the best line to play for x number of tricks.

[ahydra]

Can anyone successfully run suitplay on Windows 7 64-bit? Anything you had to do to get it to work? Since I upgraded from XP, it won't run any more

ahydra

[blackshoe]

Maybe you need a new version. I just downloaded the latest (2.1.2) and it works fine on my Windows 7 64 bit, which is sitting in Parallels on my iMac.

[phil_20686]

 ahydra, on 2014-August-06, 05:17, said:

Can anyone successfully run suitplay on Windows 7 64-bit? Anything you had to do to get it to work? Since I upgraded from XP, it won't run any more

ahydra

The new version runs just fine on my windows 7 64 bit. And has a nice new gui aswell.

Go to here and email the address provided.