I will begin this week's article with a question.

Is bridge, this game that we love, simple or is it complicated?

The answer is ¿Yes.

Bridge can be either as complicated or as simple as you like, and the way that you play depends only you.

For example, an opening bid of 1 in its simplest form means that you have at least 13 points and have no longer suit than clubs.

Or 1 (in the Precision System) may be totally artificial and just indicate that you have at least 16 points.

Or 1 in Poland means that you either have a long club suit, or you have a balanced hand with 15-17 points, or that you have a game forcing opening. Only your rebid will tell.

Also if you are playing at the Bermuda Bridge Club your opponent's 1 opening bid may only say that she has 13 cards and asks her partner to bid a five card major if she has one. Be very careful when contemplating bidding diamonds against this pair. The 1 opener may have lots of diamonds for her 1 opening bid.

Yes, bridge is complicated and it is simple, but you must realise that you will be much more successful at the bridge table if you know a few conventions well than if you know a lot of conventions a little.

Thinking about this a hand springs to mind that came up during a Team game at the recent ACBL Summer Nationals held in Toronto. (The best street hotdogs in the world are in Toronto.) The event was the AX Teams, which meant that players had to have at least 1500 Masterpoinrts.

Sitting West my hand was: " A 8 7 3, Q 10 6, Q 9 6 5 3, 7 and the auction proceeded as follows:

South West North East

P P 2 P

2" P 3 P

3 P 4NT P

5 P 6NT P

P P.

When the auction was over and before my partner Ian Harvey could lead, Dummy said that there had been a failure by her partner to alert the 2" bid, which she now explained as artificial, showing 9-11 points and saying nothing about spades.

Ian led the J of spades and the following dummy came down:

" Q

K 9 8 5 2

4

K J 9 5 6 2

The queen was played from dummy and when I played the ace declarer followed with the king.

I next played the 3 ", declarer showed out and we took the seven tricks in spades to beat the freely bid slam by six tricks.

Obviously, North had forgotten that they were playing step responses to two clubs and thought that his partner had a spade suit.

At the other table our teammates bid as follows (their opponents passed throughout).

North South

2 3 (natural)

4NT 5

6 P

This contract made with comparable ease as the whole hand was:

North

" K

A J 4

A K J 10 7

A Q 10 4

West East

" A 8 7 3 " J 10 9 6 5 4 2

Q 10 6 7 3

Q 9 6 5 3 8 2

7 8 3

South

" Q

K 9 8 5 2

4

K J 9 6 5 2

This board was a big swing for our team (plus 300 in our room and plus 1370 in the other).

The moral of the story is: "It is far more important to know a simple system well ,than to play a complicated system and run the risk of forgetting it."

This week's guest guest columnist Alan Douglas has been playing bridge for more than 30 years, and has represented Bermuda internationally more than ten times. He also has numerous regional and sectional wins to his credit, and is a Gold Life Master.