[straube]

What's the best way to learn how to play card combinations? I know they're printed in the Bridge Encyclopedia but it's hard for me to just study 30 pages like that.

Do folks make flash cards? Or is there a computer program that will teach you?

Also, it would be nice to learn how to work out how to play a combination at the table even without remembering the exact combination. Like "See, this combination resembles that other one that you already know..."

[rbforster]

SuitPlay - Don't know if it helps you learn, but it gets them right.

[blackshoe]

IIRC, you can buy flash cards for this from Baron-Barclay.

[whereagles]

Some textbooks have that. I learned them from one, but I don't think you can find it easily. I can't even give you the name (very old).

Most books make a mess of it, though... they concentrate more on practical situations than theory

[jjbrr]

really? suit combinations?

[blackshoe]

I think one of Lawrence's books was on suit combinations. There's Roudinescu's Dictionary of Suit Combinations but that's not really suitable for learning how to play them, it's more a reference work.

[hanp]

Think?

[gwnn]

*necessary plug for Bridge Master

[Jlall]

I know it was way before your time on the forum but we used to have a lot of really good suit combo threads/discussions on the forum (I think largely because Fred and I both have a weird love for them). If you read those threads you will not only read some interesting suit combinations, but you'll learn how think about them.

For more basic stuff you should definitely learn all the ones missing KJ, and how they change when you are missing the 8 and when you have 8 vs 9 etc.

Then I'd try learning the ones missing QJ.

But the point is to learn how to figure them out at the table since there will always be a new one. If you can quickly narrow it down to a couple of lines, and evaluate when one line loses vs when it wins then you can do any suit combo. This doesn't require any math skill really, just count the number of combos. The one that caters to the most combos is always the best. In case of a tie, it depends which one caters to the most likely combos...for that remember a more even split is always more likely (eg if a line caters to 2 3-3 combos, and another line caters to a 3-3 and a 4-2 the first line is better).

That confuses people sometimes because a suit itself is more likely to break 4-2 than 3-3, but that's just because it can be 2-4 or 4-2.

[babalu1997]

whereagles, on May 1 2010, 12:20 AM, said:

Some textbooks have that. I learned them from one, but I don't think you can find it easily. I can't even give you the name (very old).

Most books make a mess of it, though... they concentrate more on practical situations than theory

dorothy truscotts declarer play book has a collection, with the reasonign behind it

mike lawrence has how to play card combinations

[y66]

JLall, you just moved to the top of my list of bridge heroes.

No pressure man.

Thanks for many extremely thoughtful, lucid posts.

[dake50]

Try filtering Roudi's rules for those you expect you get. Subdivided by 5-3 missing Q/K/A/J; then 4-4; 4-3; 6-2; ..

Second filter for "surprise! this one isn't instinctive to me".

Then test yourself on the majority for third filter "ones I missed" Imprint these.