The bidding system-SAYC

After introducing some skills of playing bridge, I want to talk about the bidding system. Bidding plays an important role in bridge, and good bidding system can let you find a good contract to make. Today, I will introduce a useful bidding system which can teach you how to bid.

It is called SAYC(Standard American Yellow Card), which is also called nature bidding system because it is very nature. This is the most common system in the world because it is very easy to understand and to learn. The idea in this system is very simple: just bid the suit you have. The more cards of the trump suit you have, the more easily you can make the contracts. However, sometimes we use "alert(特約)" to present some different meanings. It means the bid doesn't present that you have the suit. For instance, in SAYC, if you open(開叫) 2 club doesn't mean you have many clubs, but means you have more than 22 HCPs.

What is HCP? The most valuable card is A, and then K, Q, J, so we determine your cards' value by counting HCP, high card points. A is four points; K is three points; Q is two points, and J is one point. The more HCP you have, the more valuable your cards are.

Here are two links. One is talking about the details of SAYC. The other is a video talking about how and why to learn SAYC.

https://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/sayc.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYHMw01vi8Q

How to play bridge?(3)

After learning the different way to play the trump and no-trump contract, I want to talk about more advanced skills. Last time, we have learned how to count the winners and make a contract.

Counting the winners you have can help you to know more about the situation of the game. However, in some contracts, perhaps you don't have enough winners to win the game. Therefore, we should learn some skills to win more tricks as possible.

Now, here are two skills which are easy to learn.

In this picture, I want to talk about "finesse"(飛牌). In this case, you only have one winner. However, if you play a small card from South, and then you can win one more trick. Because if the West plays the K, you can use A to eat the K, and then the Q and J become the winners. If the West plays small card, you can play the Q and win one more trick.

 

In the picture below, there are three winners in the North. If you cash the A, K, and Q, and the distribution is 3-2 or 2-3, you can win three more tricks(4,3,2) because the defenders don't have spade anymore.

How to play bridge?(2)

Now, we all know that the contracts can be divided into two categories, trump and no-trump. Last time, I was talking about the no-trump contract. Today, I want to introduce how to play the "trump contract".

Take this game for example. If you are sitting at South, and you are playing 7S. How to play?

The first step is counting how many tricks you can win. However, the trump contracts are more complicated than no-trump contracts. The most important reason is that there is one special skill in the trump contract, which is called "ruff(王吃)". Because the trumps are the biggest cards in the game, you can win the tricks by using trumps to "ruff" the other suits. The only requirement is that when you ruff the trick, you should not have the suit in your hand.

Look at this picture. How many tricks you can win directly? Eleven. You can win 6 spades, 3 hearts, 1 diamond, and 1 club. However, if you use the trumps to ruff the small diamonds in your hand, you can win 2 more tricks, then you can make 7S.

How to play bridge?(1)

After introducing a lot of things, I eventually want to talk about how to play bridge.

I should say again, bridge is a "trick-taking" game, so taking the tricks is the most important thing.

Let's learn how to play.

First, the contracts can be divided into two categories, trump and no-trump. The different is that if there is a trump contract, then the suit of trump are dominant in this game. If it is a no-trump contract, then the card led by the player determine the dominant suit in that trick. Today, I want to talk about how to win the tricks and play no-trump contracts.

Take this game for example. If you are sitting at South, and you are playing 5NT. How to play?

In fact, playing bridge is very very easy. The first step is counting how many tricks you can win.

In the no-trump contract, ace is a "winner", which means that ace can let you win a trick. And if you have ace, then K is a winner, too. If you have A and K, Q is a winner. However, it doesn't mean that if you have 8 top cards(AKQJT987), you can win 8 tricks. Why?

Look at the picture. How many tricks you can win in the spade? Five. You only have five spades in hand, and three on table, so you can only win 5 tricks. Now, count how many tricks can you
win in total? Can you make the contract?

ANS: 11,YES!