r/bridge

Six of us on the security team, somewhere around 4,000 assets between cloud and the stuff still sitting on-prem. Feels like every week there's another "critical" CVE or zero-day and a bunch of feeds all yelling at once. Most of it doesn't even touch what we run, but I still end up spending half my morning going ok do we actually have this, is it exposed, does it matter for us.

By the time I've checked the threat report details against our inventory and figured out if it's even reachable, half the day's gone and there's a new one waiting.

So how do you handle it? I don't want to ignore something I shouldn't, but I also can't chase every headline. More interested in the triage side than "just patch everything." How do you decide what's actually worth your time.

I want to send out a weekly mass email to our local bridge club members, featuring a short, easy-to-follow bridge mini-lesson. I’m looking for ideas on where I could source this content.

I’m looking for short weekly lessons geared toward intermediate players—not beginners. Most of our members are not national ACBL members, so I’d prefer not to direct them to a website that heavily promotes “Subscribe!” or requires a membership.

Any suggestions for a good free website or source? Thank you in advance.

South is dealer, holds

x 9xx AKQ9x KQJx.

North holds

Kx KQJxx xx 9xxx

North and South are BBOers, complete strangers to each other, each claiming to play SAYC.

The hand is less interesting than most, but raises several bidding questions.

IMP scoring, nobody vulnerable. A competitive auction ensues:

One Diamond / One Spade / Two Hearts / Two Spades

Three Clubs / Pass / Pass / Three Spades

Pass / Pass / Double / Pass

Pass / Pass

Here are my comments on the bids by N-S. I'm more interested in expert commentary on my comments than on the bids themselves.

One Diamond -- The only N-S call that is clear-cut.

Two Hearts -- OK. I suppose the high-card requirement -- but not the suit quality requirement -- is reduced with the intervening overcall. Change the Hearts and Clubs to KJxxx / Qxxx and would negative double be better? (Planning to bid Hearts next if convenient?)

Three Clubs -- Alternatives would be Three Hearts (best?), Four Hearts(!) or Negative Double. Do experts treat such a Double as Take-out? Remember , these are random BBO'ers; North can't even be trusted to have a good (or even 5-card!)Heart suit.

Pass -- Clearly wrong, I think. North would raise to Four Clubs if that suit were a major and should raise now in a competitive auction. Partner might bid Four Hearts. Opponents are likely to bid Four Spades.

Pass -- Also wrong? If so, what should the call be?

Double -- Wrong, maybe the worst of the several bad bids in this auction. Even hoping for 2 tricks with Kings, and THREE(!) tricks from partner, that is not the TWO-trick set needed for a smart double. This is NOT a "cooperative" double ("Partner: Keep bidding or Pass for penalties; your call") since the Pass on the previous round denied interest in continued bidding.

Pass -- also wrong? Were there SIX doubtful N-S bids in this auction?

Hoping for useful discussion. Cheers, Swammi

I am working through Bridgemaster and have gotten to the Advanced hands. I try to understand the what hints the declarer might get to choose a specific line of play and, tbh, have benefited a great deal in my hand play.

However I've reached what seems like a block.
Hands 23 and 25 are virtually identical in distribution and contract (6S), there are no competing bids but the winning lines of play suggested in the solutions is slightly different.
The 'declarer' in hand 23 is cautious about playing the 3 winning tricks of the outside suit while the 'declarer' in hand 25 seems quite confident that the 3 tricks in the outside suit are safe to play before drawing trump.

https://preview.redd.it/gvlmvjn3f6jh1.jpg?width=3076&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2d9e47225486e3f6d1a1bf09b52adab410df6510

https://preview.redd.it/in7ymbd7f6jh1.jpg?width=2710&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=44a8c82f9d451b5d7772f3964e7dc6ed6d49018b

The only obvious difference is that the opening lead in 23 is a KH, while the lead in 25 is a trump.

There is nothing in the bidding to indicate that the Kh is a singleton and not from KQH.

What am I missing that the phantom declarer sees that affects the declarers decision on the distribution of the Ds?

TIA

I've been looking for someone to play bridge with (and explore various conventions with) for some time and now I realized I never tried here. I'm quite a beginner, but I read quite a lot on bridgebum after getting the basics on a website called bridgebears. I take this opportunity to ask also: now that BBO is becoming subscription-based where do you play for free?

I have used BBO for years, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated. My friend and I like to play in their speed ball games, but we no longer think it’s worth the money. Can anybody suggest a site where we can play together as partners against real people in a tournament?

While playing a game, is it possible to pull up a history on the sidebar like you can do on the pc app. I can't seem to figure it out . Can only pull up a chat sidebar.

On my PC I can look at the hand history while playing. But I can't figure out how to display it on my iPad.

Thanks in advance.

AI has made creating bridge tools of all sorts much easier. And some of those are quite good!

However, we are starting to see so many of those!

This thread is here to list all those tools in one place.

I'll try to copy the site description for each + link to the discussion thread.

Please add yours if it's not mentioned already

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on a project called Bridge Solver: https://bridgesolver.com

The idea actually came from arguing with my bridge partner about different decisions.

We’d spend a lot of time debating things like whether we should invite, bid game, go for slam, choose one contract over another, etc. Usually neither of us would really change our mind, and after 20 minutes of discussion we’d still have no clear conclusion. 😄

So I thought: instead of arguing about a few example hands, why not simulate thousands of deals that match exactly what we know and see what actually performs better?

That eventually became Bridge Solver.

You can define constraints for each player, such as HCP, suit lengths and other conditions, then simulate thousands of matching deals and compare decisions using things like:

• Make percentage
• Average score
• IMPs
• Contract comparison
• Full generated deals

You can also save and share simulation results, which makes it much easier to discuss the exact same situation with your partner or other players.

I’ve been using it myself for questions like:

• Is 3NT actually better than 4Majpr here?
• Is it worth trying for slam?
• Is two aces + ♦K enough to seriously consider 7♥?
• How much does knowing partner has 3–4 hearts change the decision?
• Which opening lead performs best?

The app is currently in beta, and right now I’m mostly looking for bridge players willing to test it and tell me what’s good, bad, confusing, or missing.

If you want to try it properly, ping me and I’ll give you free Premium access during the beta.

I’d especially love to hear what kinds of bridge decisions you’d want to simulate.

And if the tool can settle even one argument with your partner where neither side is willing to give up, I’ll consider that a success. 😄

I’m going to study in Abu Dhabi for the next four years and still hoping to attend bridge tournaments:)

Edited - with big apologies to all!

So:
P:P:1D:P
1H:X:XX:P
P:2C:2H:P
P:P

So I pass first time round and interfere second round with a ?takeout double?. I've got 5 clubs, 4 spades, 10HCP. Gets redoubled, Partner didn't see the bid for takeout, I rescue myself into 2C, they go 2H, and I shut up. As it happens they miss an easy 4H.

Is this acceptable as a Takeout Double after this auction or is it taken as a penalty double? Do I overcall 2C? Or just shut up?!

Thanks for your views/knowledge! 😊

For many years, I teach Contract Bridge at a large local community learning center called 'Master the Possibilities'. This year (2026), I developed a suite of free browser-based 'Bridge Teaching Tools' to assist my students' learning curve. It's available at www.radsoftware.org

Being a website, these 'Bridge Teaching Tools' are available 24/7, and I welcome anyone who wishes to use them. Enjoy.

Dummy has honor + small trumps; the safety play is to ruff high against a possible overruff, yet at the table the urge to ruff low and “save” the honor is strong even when you know better. Postmortem it looks obvious. Live, under time pressure, the temptation hits.
For long-time players:
• Does real-time self-catching improve with experience, or do you mainly get better at recovering after the mistake?
• What specifically helped close the gap between “I know the theory” and “I stop myself before the card leaves my hand”?
• Can coaches/partners meaningfully accelerate this, or is it mostly built through personal repetition?
Is this a universal stage, or does it depend on how a player thinks?
Thanks