Prologue: Bid these with partner

Why did I start publishing the segment called "Bid These With Partner"?  There's a brief story behind it...

Ever since our first bridge game together, partner and I had planned to meet periodically to practice our bidding system using randomly-dealt hands.  The plan was to make our mistakes (and correct them) in a neutral setting that we controlled, instead of learning from our mistakes the hard way: during a competitive tournament game. 

Unfortunately, two little wrinkles foiled our plan: (a) partner and I live 31 miles apart; and (b) both of us have busy non-bridge schedules.  Result: we never could find that neutral time to meet at my home or his.  Consequently, each and every learning-curve bidding mistake was costing us dearly in matchpoints at the local club.  Ouch.

Because masochism is not my bag, I'm trying a different solution: I'll periodically post some practice hands to this weblog, and we'll bid them over the phone whenever we both have a few minutes.  Six hands at a time seems about right.  I'll be experimenting with the frequency (...weekly? daily? don't know yet).

I'm thinking there might be a few other bridge partnerships out there who could make good use of these practice hands.  If so, be my guest, and spread the word. 

That's how "Bid These With Partner" came about; click here to see the first one.  I hope it saves you and your partner a few gallons of gasoline, and a few dozen matchpoints each month.

[What I'll do:  Post randomly-dealt hands, formatted to make bidding practice easy using the web and a telephone.  What I won't do yet:  Analyze those hands for you.  But maybe someday.]