Author Archives: Julian Foster

This hand is taken from the Wollstonecraft matchpoint pairs congress played on 16th November 2025. A forcing defence (forcing declarer to ruff so they run out of trumps) can be extremely effective but sometimes there are things declarer can do … Continue reading →

(With thanks to Peter Newman who told me about the hand). This hand came up at the Parramatta congress recently. Holding the East cards how do you react when partner opens 2♥, a weak two in a suit where you … Continue reading →

9th November 2025 Two weeks ago I described a disaster hand from the Spring Nationals. So to level the score a bit(!) this week I’ll focus on a hand I got right since it involved some “table reading”. The auction … Continue reading →

30th October 2025 This week’s hand is taken from a congress I recently played in New Zealand which became an instructive defensive problem. I was fortunate my opponent got it wrong at the time but he had enough information to … Continue reading →

16th October 2025 This is a hand taken from the recent Spring Nationals tournament which I played in and contains many useful lessons in what not to do! The bidding began with 3 passes to West who opened 1♦. Now … Continue reading →