Greetings from Philadelphia! The ABTA conference was great. Everyone enjoyed my talk on overcalls. I was joined by Larry Cohen, Robert Todd, Amber Lin, and Patty Tucker on a celebrity panel at the final banquet, emceed by George Jacobs. What a fun time!!
I spent a week on Cape Cod with my mom before coming to Philadelphia. I got into a routine of swimming every day, which I really enjoyed. I had a lot of oysters and got to eat at my favorite fried seafood joint, Seafood Sam’s.
The tournament is going well. We didn’t have great results in the pairs games over the weekend, but we upset the 18 seed and made the round of 32 of the Spingold, which is awesome.
I’ll be on Cape Cod for all of August. I don’t have many plans for the month—just relaxing by the pool with my family! I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll still be working, though—bridge never rests!
I’m planning to attend the regional in Warwick (Providence), Rhode Island after Labor Day. Then I’ll head back to New York. My first concert is September 20. I can’t wait to get back in the swing of things!!
The next tournament on my calendar is the Fall NABC in San Francisco.
I am going to be teaching a beginning bridge class in the Fall at Honors Bridge Club in Manhattan. It will be Tuesday nights at 6:30, starting September 30. The class has a hybrid format: both in person and online. I’m hoping the class will mostly be young professionals. So you can encourage all your friends, children, and grandchildren to come learn! They can reach out to me for more information.
My Monday "Expert Thought Process" and Thursday "Thinking Through Declarer Play" classes are on their regular schedule for August except next week’s Monday class (August 4) will be held Tuesday, August 5—I’ll be on a plane back to Cape Cod on Monday! You can get information about both classes here: https://learnbridgeonline.com/adam-parrish/
Upcoming topics in my Monday Class:
Tue August 5 Defense August 11 2♣ Openings August 18 Handling notrump interference August 25 Play
Time for some questions! Please keep them coming.
I love getting questions that come from my books!
Hi, Adam,
I am looking at the example hands in your new book, Modern Defensive Thinking, on pages 34 and 39. The offense has shown 2 suits in each example.
The defense against a two-suited hand might include preventing ruffs in the hand with short trump and also forcing declarer to ruff in the long hand. The latter might work if one of the defenders has 4 trumps and the defenders have a side suit of their own.
Ruff prevention calls for a trump lead and trump depletion calls for a lead in our side suit. Knowing which to do requires experience and good judgment. The clues are in the auction and the cards. Do you have any general suggestions about how to choose?
You’re absolutely right that against a two-suiter it’s usually right to either lead a trump to prevent declarer from ruffing out their second suit or to lead your strong suit for a Forcing Defense. Knowing which is really hard. The biggest criterion is whether one of you has 4 trumps. If not, the Forcing Defense will rarely work. If so, it will likely depend on which hand is short in your suit—the long hand or the short hand. If the long hand, the Forcing Defense might be the winner. Forcing Defenses are pretty rare, but when they work they are beautiful.
The other factor to consider is your holding in their side suit. If it’s really strong, declarer is more likely to need to ruff it out, so the trump lead will often be the winner.
Adam
It’s always important to know whether conventions are on by a passed hand
Dear Adam,
We had the following auction:
Pass - Pass - 1♥ - Double; 2NT
I thought my 2NT was Jordan; partner thought Jordan was off since I was a passed hand and so took my 2NT as natural.
Is this a partnership agreement issue or is there a common understanding?
It’s always important to discuss whether conventions are on by a passed hand. Before answering whether Jordan is on, here’s a related question: Do you play that Drury is on over the double? Some do, but most don’t. If you do, you don’t really need Jordan—you can use Drury with 3+-card support. If not, I think Jordan should be on by a passed hand.
Adam
I get “Do you like…” questions a lot
Dear Adam,
Do you like odd/even discards?
I don’t. For those of you not familiar with them, odd/even discards, which are only legal on your first discard, differentiate positive from negative attitude by whether the card you play is odd or even, rather than whether it’s high or low.
Say you hold ♣ AK852. Declarer leads a spade, which you don’t have any of, and you decide to discard a club. You want to encourage clubs. Playing standard signals, you would play the 8—high to encourage. Playing upside-down signals, you would play the 2—low to encourage. Playing odd/even discards (which you can play alongside either standard or upside down signals), you would play the 5—odd to encourage.
If you are discouraging, you can also give suit preference: a high even card is SP for the higher suit, a low even card is SP for the lower suit. So if you were discarding from ♣ 8652, you could discard the 8 to discourage clubs and give SP for hearts, or the 2 to discourage clubs and give SP for diamonds.
This all works great when you have the right cards. But often you don’t. What do you discard to encourage in clubs when you hold ♣ AK862? Or to discourage with ♣753?
With standard or upside-down signals, your signal won’t always be immediately readable, but because it is about your relative rank, rather than odd/even, you will always have a “right” card to play. If you are encouraging from ♣ AK32 playing standard signals, you have to play the 3. But if you follow with the 2, partner will get the message. Same problem occurs playing upside-down when you hold ♣ AK98.
What happens a lot with odd/even is you don’t have the right card, and you take a long time to make your discard, giving unauthorized information to partner that your signal might not be exactly what you wanted to play. This is why the ACBL disallowed odd/even signals except on the first discard.
Adam
That's all for now. I encourage you to send me questions about my column or anything else at adam@adamparrishbridge.com. Maybe they'll end up in the next newsletter!
Great answers to all questions!
thanks for reviewing odd/even discards