Parrish the Thought Newsletter
July 2025
Greetings from Michigan! I had a busy June! I played a regional in Cincinnati with my former mentor, Marshall Tuly. I went up to Boston to see my family and play a couple of days in the Newton regional. After a couple of VERY hot days back in NYC, I flew to Michigan, which has been phenomenal (as always). I’m in a hoodie most days, enjoying the breeze off the lake. We made S’mores the other night and have been eating well and drinking good wine. (I ship a case of wine up here for us to enjoy! Plus enjoying some of the local wineries.)
After Michigan, I’m heading back to New York for a couple of days, then a week or so on the Cape with my family. And then it’s off to Philadelphia for the American Bridge Teachers’ Association annual conference and the NABC. I’m giving a lecture on Overcalls for the teachers, and am on the celebrity panel on the last night of the conference.
At the NABC, I’ll be giving a talk on Being a Good Partner Saturday, July 26, at 9:15am. Please stop by and say hello if you’re there!
Greg and I are ramping up our practice in preparation for the Nationals. That means lots of Cuebids and some set games in the evenings. We’ve got a “soft lock” on the notes, which means no more big changes before the NABC. We’ll fix something that’s clearly an error or very dumb, but we’re mostly stuck with what we’ve got at this point.
We’re playing the Life Master Pairs and then the Spingold. We have great teammates—Danny Sprung and Phil Clayton, my teammates from the Team Trials.
I am going to be teaching a beginning bridge class in the Fall. It will be Tuesday nights at 6:30, starting September 30. The class has a hybrid format: both in person at Honors Bridge Club in Manhattan and online. I’m hoping the class will mostly be young professionals. So you can encourage all your friends to come learn! They can reach out to me for more information.
The annual Spark! auction benefitting the ACBL Education Foundation is happening through July 13. There is a special game on Monday July 21 at 7:00pm ET, and you can bid to play with one of the celebrities who have donated their time. You can also bid for the chance to play an online game with a celebrity. Including me!
My Monday "Expert Thought Process" and Thursday "Thinking Through Declarer Play" classes have some schedule changes in July during the ABTA conference and the NABC. The 7/28 and 7/31 classes will be recorded while I’m playing at the Nationals. The Monday classes scheduled for July 21 and August 4 will be rescheduled; details TBD! You can get information about both classes here: https://learnbridgeonline.com/adam-parrish/
Upcoming topics in my Monday Class:
July 7 Reverses July 14 Play July 21 Defense July 28 Robot tournament (recorded)
I’ve got some great podcast episodes coming up. Look forward to conversations with Chip Martel, Bart Bramley, and Augie Boehm.
Time for some questions! Please keep them coming.
Learning how to count
Hi, Adam,
I have a request: many expert players seem to be reluctant to articulate how they visualize hand patterns around the table. I understand that the shapes are at the tip of their tongues 5-3-3-2, 4-3-3-3, etc. But how do they personally count / visualize? And do they always count all suits or most important suits, or do they count all the hands all the time?
I have difficulty holding a picture of all four hands in my mind. I know that takes a lot of practice, so am working on it. It is a skill that I would really like to get better at and was looking for some ideas from experts as to how they went about developing their skill and memory for counting.
I have been asking people this on my podcast, because it’s an area every advancing player struggles with. The problem with talking to experts is that they often can't articulate what they're thinking—it's just second nature to them. Or it's been so long since they learned they don't remember the process.
I can tell you that it's very rare to worry about all 52 cards. Usually there are one or two suits that you need to really focus on. And it's usually pretty clear which they are from the start. When you have a 4-3 suit, you're always looking to see if they split 3-3. You're also paying close attention to the spot cards. A lead or signal can be the key to figuring out the distribution of a suit. And the bidding, of course.
Norman Beck alerted me to a great new book by Eddie Kantar, which is the best I've seen about counting.
Making counting out a hand second nature is the work of a lifetime. It’s something I still work on. You just have to do it over and over again and create the habit. It’s all about the work.
Adam
Some questions about Inverted Minors
Dear Adam,
Two questions for you on Inverted Minors.
Question 1:
One of my mentors has suggested that a jump minor-suit raise be constructive, not weak. Do you agree with this?
Question 2:
If playing a single raise is Invitational+, then is a new suit by opener game forcing?
1♣ - (P) - 2♣ - (P)
2♥
Thanks for any thoughts you have on this.
One of the frustrations of modern bidding is that just agreeing to play a convention with someone isn't always enough; there are enough variations out there that you need to discuss some of the details. Inverted Minors is a great example. There are three things I always discuss, two of which you have touched on in your question.
What constitutes "weak" for the 3m raise is one of the areas of Inverted Minors that is not 100% standard. Some people mean WEAK, some mean constructive.
Here's how I think about it: the most common hand opener is going to have where game is a possibility is the 18-19 point balanced hand. So you want the 3m raise to either say, "Bid 3NT with 18-19" or "Don't bid 3NT with 18-19." I like it to be the constructive hand, saying opener should bid 3NT with 18-19. If you play the 3m jump as really weak, the 8-count hand has no good bid over 1m.
The second thing to discuss is what bids are forcing (assuming 2m is INV+). Another way to think about this is: what partscores can we stop in? Some like to be able to stop in 2NT, especially at matchpoints. But I like to play 2NT as forcing—the only partscore we can stop in is 3 of the minor. So everything other than 3m is forcing. Below 3m, it doesn't show or deny extra strength. New suits show stoppers, notrump shows a balanced hand with stoppers. Going past 3m shows extras and forces to game.
The third thing is when the convention applies. Is it on by a passed hand (standard for Inverted Minors is yes) or in a competitive auction (standard here is no).
Adam
Deciding when to open 2♣ is hard!
Dear Adam,
My partner and I were having a friendly debate about whether one should go straight to slam in NT using total point count, versus using Gerber or RKB to get more information first.
In a sectional yesterday, my partner opened 1NT (our range is 15-17) and I held a balanced 21 points (including 4 aces, one king, one jack, no queens). Trying to contain my adrenaline, I bid 5NT. I remembered an elderly ABA partner had taught me the “Grand Slam Force (GSF),” i.e., 1NT - 5NT, meaning opener had to rebid 6NT if he was at the minimum or 7NT if at the maximum of his range. I had never used this before. My partner had no idea what I was doing, and bid 6♠ (but we weren't bidding suits). I had a strong feeling this would make, and rebid 7NT. Turns out my partner had only 15 HCP, but 3235 shape, 3 kings, and 2 queens. The missing honors dropped, and we made 7NT for a top board. My partner was delighted at the bid, but retrospectively skeptical if it was wise.
I have searched to find references about how to bid a GSF for NT. 90% of the articles say the 5NT GSF only applies to suit contracts. I did find 3 online resources that discuss using 5NT for NT contracts.
It seems to me that one risks missing the grand slam by going through Gerber/Blackwood because there are a lot of steps, and people (at my level) often forget or mix up the responses. And then you have to look for the queens, etc. Plus, Blackwood is primarily a tool to avoid bidding a slam if you don't have all the needed cards. I'm guessing on the above hand many pairs bid 6NT, and some got a +1.
Your thoughts are much appreciated.
You have some concepts and terminology mixed up, but you're on the right track.
The "Grand Slam Force," which was also called "Josephine" (after Ely Culbertson's wife) was used back in the days before Keycard Blackwood was ubiquitous. It only applies when a trump suit has been agreed. A jump to 5NT says, "Bid a grand slam if you have 2 of the top 3 trump honors."
Nowadays, unless it's in the context of a keycard auction, 5NT is usually "Pick a slam."
The 5NT raise you're thinking of is a part of "standard" notrump raises. But it comes up so rarely that most people never learn it or have forgotten it. 5NT is forcing to a small slam and invitational to a grand slam. So it's saying, "Bid 6NT with a minimum and 7NT with a maximum."
Usually with two balanced hands, just counting HCP is a good enough guide to how high you belong. 21 HCP is perfect for 5NT: if partner has 15, the partnership has 36, under the threshold for a grand slam; if partner has 17, that's 38m, and the grand slam is probably right. If you're not sure or comfortable with that, you could use Gerber to make sure you have all the aces, but that won't tell you whether partner is at the top or bottom of their range.
Hope that helps.
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!