Deal generator

if you need a simple deal generator to balance your partnership, or whatever, I recommend

http://www.firesides.net/dealhand.htm

It's free, easy to use, and you get the deals by mail, instantly.

Taking a break

Tehnically speaking I've been playing very little bridge lately, but I'm keeping in touch with the competitions. Currently I don't have much time for it, but things will get better. Someday...

Prism Signals

Some probably heard about prism signals, as some very advanced defence signals.
First word about it: something simple that is presented in a complicated way. You can find the book free on the net, guess the authors try to make them popular.

I will point the principles.
Their purpose is to find out the distribution of the whole hand. Everybody holds 13 cards, and there are 4 suits. Now in every suit there are also 13 cards. Some simetry...
13 is odd. Any four numbers that will add to 13 will be either 1 odd and 3 even, or 3 even and one odd. There is no other way.

Coming back to our game, you will have precisely one suit that has a distinct parity than the other three. They call that "single suit". When you defend, you can see 2 hands, yours and the dummy. Suppose your partner will tell you what is his single suit, and what is it's parity. That means you know the parity from all your partner's suit. Now that you know three parities, is simple to know the fourth hand's parity. If you know the parity, you can make up the distribution effectively. That will help in certain situations.

Now about the book. You don't need to know the rules about discovering what is the singular suit declarer holds, you don't need to know the type of prisms symetries, and others. They are all consequences, just rules so you don't have to make the additions yourself. I think one can get the distributions without all those rules fast enaugh since the adition rules involve mostly parity and are elementary.

The means to signal are simple in some situations and somewhat more difficult in others. My guess is it could be all presented pretty clearly in one or two pages.

Now about there usage, the stuff that matters. If you are not expert, they are not usefull. In order to use them, you should be accustomed to always count declarer's and partner's hand, follow signals, read them, and make deductive plays based on those information. That for me are attributes of expert players.

Otherwise, you can play them, they are not difficult to play, but you won't benefit from them. I think every pair shoud import the signals both players are able to follow and understand well.

About the book: a lot of expert defence problems and deals where you will find prism signals usefull. Now even if you're not interested in prism signals, the deals are certainly worth studying a bit.

Polish versus standard 5 majors

In the past few month I have started playing more often Polish Club, as opposed to standard five card major sistems like sayc and 2/1.

Main reason for that was to avoid so many misunderstanding on undiscussed sequences. It did help a lot in this aspect. First of all, there are at least three major styles of playing 2/1, and if you don't take time to discuss what particular version you play you are very likely to get in trouble on simple sequences. Then most players add their particular style and ideas. Truth is there is no standard of 2/1 that has imposed.
Sayc is more simple under this aspect. There is a certain standard. However, my opinion is that sayc is slightly inferior compared with 2/1, and that is the majority view, as most people made the switch towards 2/1.
Polish club is quite different. There is a standard version, that is well described and maintained. It can be freely downloaded from the internet, the WJ standard. From 5 to 5 years, they release an updated version, the latest beeing the WJ2005 standard.

Now stricly comparing the efectiveness of the systems, I will say the Polish club is generally easier to use. Bidding sequences are more clear and effective, despite some bids having multiple meanings. It never happened to misguess the meaning even with opponents interference.
Another aspect where Polish club is superior to 5 card major systems is that it does not neglect the minor suits.
Contrary to what most people think, the Polish Club is a natural system. Looking in a simple way, you exchange the 2 clubs atrificial strong with the 1 club multi meaning bid. In 5 major systems 1 club is not that much of a natural bid anyway, since it is usually minimum 3 cards, or even 2, while the 2 clubs bid played in polish is trully natural. However, the 1 diamond response over 1 club is no longer natural in Polish, still you will be albe to show diamond later.

Generally I would say using the Polish club is easier to use and you are generally better placed in the bidding. However I have to say that I did not play this system long enaugh to explore so many troublesome positions.

The 5 card major systems are more sophisticated and difficult to master. I think you need to find a player about your level that shares your views of the auction to make it more effective than a polish system. It might be better if you have it sorted out with your partner very well.

Whatever system you choose to play, I recommend reading the WJ2000 or Wj2005 polish club standard, as there is a part on Conventions that are used in both systems. You will find good descriptions and explanaitions for most usual conventions and also the slightly difficult ones, like cuebids, splinters, game invitations, and others.

Nightmare system

From what I have seen so far, nightmare is a very good natural based relay system. The most important principle related to this system is that one of the partners will most likely get in position to give a good description of his hand, so his partner will be able to evaluate the final contrat, without giving much information to the opponents.
Note that often is not important for both partners to have an exact description of the opposite hand in order to reach the final contract. Keeping the defence in dark is often an important asset.
Another interesting aspect is that one may have more then just 1 way to descirbe his hand, the difference beeing very subtle, it is future development that is different, allowing to choose who will be captain of the auction and also who will be declarer for the final contract.
The system is very agressive, using a weak NT, and also it does not have many invitational bids.
At first glance relay sequences are pretty complex, but I think there are common principles governing most of them.
Looks like a very good system, but not recomended for a pick-up partnership, might need some effort to learn and settle with.