Bridge Defense for Beginners
By Ralph Welton
Bridge Defense is complicated by seeing only one of the hands in the partnership. Bridge defense is also complicated by only getting to make half of the card-playing decisions in your partnership.
Improvements in partnership defense come from learning standard ways of handling common situations, and learning how to draw conclusions from the cards partner chooses to play.
We'll look at a limited number of topics, but cover them in depth, with interactive examples so you can practice each topic. The goal is to help you actually learn to play bridge better.
What can you expect? Expect (at least sometimes) to be able to tell who holds the honors you can't see, and how many cards partner and declarer hold in each suit.
Let's get started!
Defensive topics for beginners
| ♣ | Opening Leads |
| ♦ | Third Hand Play |
| ♥ | Placing the Honors |
| ♠ | Second Hand Play |
| ♣ | Declarer's Plan |
| ♦ | Defensive Signals |
| ♥ | Discarding |
Bridge Bears is run by a retired teacher and ACBL life master who has 35 years teaching experience and who's been playing bridge for over 50 years. I don't claim to be one of the top players, but I do understand how slowly beginners need to go when they are trying to learn how to play bridge.