Author Archives: Julian Foster

The auction on today’s hand from an online pairs session might look quite strange but we’ll get to what happened and what the implications might be. The auction went 1NT (11-14) Pass Pass 2♦. After that North South bid uncontested … Continue reading →

Today’s hand is taken from the SBC Fixed Income Solutions Christmas in Winter teams congress held on Sunday 2 August 2026. Board 7 from the 1st match was a potentially unpleasant experience for North South with several incurring significant penalties … Continue reading →

Today’s hand is taken from the SBC Fixed Income Solutions Christmas in Winter pairs congress held yesterday on 1 August 2026. There was a wide variety of results on board 11 from the 2nd round: https://nsw.bridgeaustralia.org/showtraveller.asp?id=679189&board=11&pair=1 In many cases North … Continue reading →

Occasionally a board comes along that everyone should bid to a grand slam. Today’s hand is like that. But sometimes people over complicate matters! 4NT Blackwood is of course the most famous slam going convention. In its simplest original form … Continue reading →

A pre-empt forces you to start bidding at a much higher level which naturally makes it harder to reach the best contract. On the other hand, a pre-empt can often help declarer figure out the shape of the hand and … Continue reading →