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Vil Gravis Writes

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A VERY Restricted Choice

Vil's Tips - Fri, 19/06/2026 - 4:45pm

This deal comes from many years ago. I write about it because a similar hand came up at X-Clubs and
I asked a panel of club players how they would play the trump suit when they held AQJ962 in hand and
the singleton 5 in dummy. There were different answers and quite a bit of statistical analyis but it
seems the play that would yield the best result (by a very small margin) is to lead the 5 and finesse the
9. I was asked this question and said my gut feel was to finesse the nine: if the ten was with East and
the nine forced the king I would make the rest of the spades unless there was a very bad break. I am not
great with statistics but it seems that AI says that finessing the NINE would result in five tricks 48.44%
of the time, finessing the queen or jack 37.50% of the time, and simply playing the ace followed by the
queen would yield five tricks 35.94% of the time. But in the back of my mind was the question of
whether the first card that East played should make any difference. It brought back vague memories of
a very similar hand I wrote about years ago:

Dealer W NS Vul
5AQAKJ42A6532T743KJQT9KQJ7K8T6532876584AQJ96298743J2

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

How to ...

Vil's Tips - Mon, 15/06/2026 - 12:16pm

This interesting hand raised questions on how to play the trumps. It comes from a MATCH POINT session at X-Clubs, Monday 8 June

Spades is trumps and you hold AQJ962; dummy has the singleton 5

Everybody should know how to FINESSE. The idea of finessing is to make as many tricks as possible. In order to be able to finesse, you have to start by leading the FIVE. Otherwise there is no finesse. If you want to win the first TWO tricks, you LEAD the five and put in the jack or queen. That is simple enough, you either win the trick or lose to the king 'off side'

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

Thanks Angela

Vil's Tips - Sat, 16/05/2026 - 9:48am

Angela sent Vil this problem which came from Tuesday 12/05/26 at X-Clubs

Hi, just one question for now, match points. All vul, dealer West who
passes. Your partner, North, opens 1D and East passes. What do you bid, holding

AQJQ9AT732J42

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

Questions and Answers

Vil's Tips - Tue, 12/05/2026 - 5:44pm

Vil recently proposed a set of posers for his readers. He says:

Just let me say that there is a lot of misunderstanding about the situations
I have outlined, and I'm not surprised that disasters occur. I suggest you
and your partner take a few minutes and agree on what you do in these
situations. Here is my very simple view, take it or leave it!

Subject: Double Trouble

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

1/1 Chapter 8

Vil's Tips - Wed, 22/04/2026 - 12:04pm

This is the final deal I want to review from the session on Friday 17/04/26 where, once more, the game
force 1NT was very effective and the result could have been great but only if you were Deep Finesse

Board 25. Dealer N EW Vul
AKJ75T2J9K652943285K762T93Q86KJ63T5Q874TAQ974AQ843AJ

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

1/1 Chapter 7

Vil's Tips - Tue, 21/04/2026 - 11:22am

As promised, here are some examples from very recent X-Clubs deals, on Friday 17/04/26. They are all
examples of the game force 1NT response to an opening bid

Board 2. East is dealer and passes. South opens 1S and these are the North and South hands:
NorthK652Q75K5A732
South
QJ943AKJ843262

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

1/1 Chapter 6 - A Deadly Sin

Vil's Tips - Thu, 16/04/2026 - 5:04pm

One of the deadly sins in bridge is to overbid to a minor suit game when nine tricks are easily
available in No Trumps. But a bigger sin, in my opinion, is to choose an unmakeable 3NT when
a minor suit slam is a much better proposition

This deal comes from X-Clubs, Tuesday 14/4/2026. It is an EW hand where most EW pairs chose the
impossible 3NT when a minor suit slam was a much better proposition, and just bidding the minor suit
game would have scored over 90%. Let’s take a look at the EW hands and see how we might bid them

Board 16. Dealer East, Nil Vulnerable.
A85A72J92K832KJ72KQT854AJ9

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

Two-Boardy Problem

Vil's Tips - Mon, 13/04/2026 - 2:03pm

Vil posed two problems to his mailing list recently. The first was:
Match Point session. You are South

At All Vul the bidding has been, dealer East
SouthWestNorthEast---1Pass2Pass2NTPass3NT

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

1/1 Chapter 5

Vil's Tips - Thu, 02/04/2026 - 10:45pm

Non Forcing Responses to One of a suit openings:
All responses other than 1NT are non forcing. Often when partner opens 1H or 1S it is necessary to
raise with only a three card suit if you don’t want to force to game. That is why I prefer to play ‘five
card majors’
Normal suit responses to 1 level openings:

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

1/1 Chapter 4

Vil's Tips - Thu, 02/04/2026 - 11:10am

Responding with weaker hands:
After a 1 of a suit opening bid:
Because 1NT is a game force, all other bids are natural and bidding continues in a normal fashion, but a
lot of responses are not strong and hence not forcing, something to be kept in mind. Keeping in mind
also that we are playing 5 card majors and that 1C can be as short as TWO.
Let’s take a look at responses to a 1C opening bid:

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

Q&A 09: CUE BIDS BY RESPONDER

Vil's Tips - Mon, 23/03/2026 - 11:24am

There are going to be many times at the bridge table that you will want to tell partner about your hand
but won’t know how best to do so. That is why it is so important to discuss such things with your
partner. This article is aimed at getting a common understanding with partner by using takeout doubles
and cue bids when you and your partner want to compete against your opponents. I will describe the
potential bidding in plain English because, after all, the bridge bidding language is no different, it just
takes a different form

Here are some bidding situations from recent teams play

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

1/1 Chapter 3 - A grand start

Vil's Tips - Tue, 17/03/2026 - 3:21pm

Now let me show you a deal from X-Clubs, from Monday 16/3/2026

Board 6, Dealer East, EW vulnerable
JT52Q86T8543232AKJ74KTAKQJAQ64QT9A75329K9875863J9476

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

1/1 Chapter 2

Vil's Tips - Tue, 17/03/2026 - 2:56pm

Responding to 1 Level Suit Opening Bids:

A 1NT response to a 1C, 1D, 1H, or 1S opening bid is GAME FORCING, with no reference to any particular suit or denomination. Bidding after this continues in the normal way, but a rebid in a major shows at least a six card suit, 2C or 2D should be natural but can be a good three card suit, though with a balanced 5332 hand the rebid should be 2NT

In such a game forcing situation, any suit agreement or a new suit by the 1NT responder, can be treated as a KEY CARD ASK, which will be covered later

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

1/1 Bidding System - Chapter 01

Vil's Tips - Sun, 15/03/2026 - 3:53pm

Vil is starting a new series which he's picking will be of interest to only a few players. The concept is simple: 5 card majors, a strong (15-17) 1NT and a GAME FORCING 1NT response to all 1-level opening bids. Anyone interested in following the series can get the articles first hand by registering with him (villyn@xtra.co.nz). His articles will be published on this site while he continues to answer any questions anyone may have and helps juniors as much as possible

This system is based on “Five Card Majors”
We have all gotten used to responding to partner’s opening of one of a suit in time-honoured fashion: bid our suit at the one level, or bid 1NT with “6-9” if we haven’t enough points (usually 10+) to bid at the two level. But how often do we really need to bid 1NT? With ‘five card majors’ that is something that I find can be circumvented, with the 1NT response being far more useful to create a game going scenario, with many, many advantages to off-set the loss of the 6-9 1NT response. Read on if getting more out of your system interests you

Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

No partner?

Club Sessions

Vil Gravis Writes

A VERY Restricted Choice

How to ...

Thanks Angela

Questions and Answers

1/1 Chapter 8

1/1 Chapter 7

1/1 Chapter 6 - A Deadly Sin

Two-Boardy Problem

1/1 Chapter 5

1/1 Chapter 4

Q&A 09: CUE BIDS BY RESPONDER

1/1 Chapter 3 - A grand start

1/1 Chapter 2

1/1 Bidding System - Chapter 01

Vil's Red Book

X-Club Blog