Marc Smith (bridge)

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Marc Smith (born 1960) is a British bridge player, columnist [1] and writer. [2] Marc Smith represented Great Britain as a junior, winning the 1985 European Union Junior Teams Championship. [3] He has a host of wins in national events, and reached the final of the World Mixed Pairs Championship playing with his wife, Charlotte. [4] [5] His book, co-authored with Barbara Seagram, 25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know, won the American Bridge Teachers' Association 1999 Shirley Silverman Award for Best Student Book. [6]

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A squeeze play is a technique used in contract bridge and other trick-taking games in which the play of a card forces an opponent to discard a winner or the guard of a potential winner. The situation typically occurs in the end game, with only a few cards remaining. Although numerous types of squeezes have been analyzed and catalogued in contract bridge, they were first discovered and described in whist.

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A bridge convention is an agreement about an artificial call or a set of related artificial calls. Calls made during the auction phase of a contract bridge game convey information about the player's card holdings. Calls may be "natural" or "artificial".

In the card game "contract bridge", a splinter bid is a convention whereby a double jump response in a side-suit indicates excellent support, a singleton or void in that side-suit, and at least game-going strength. Some partnerships agree that the maximum strength can be only that necessary to reach a game contract; stronger holdings with major suit support instead might temporize with a Jacoby 2NT bid.

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In the card game contract bridge, DONT is a conventional overcall used to interfere with an opponent's one notrump (1NT) opening bid. DONT, an acronym for Disturb Opponents' Notrump, was designed by Marty Bergen, and is therefore also referred to as "Bergen over Notrump". Although the method is often criticized for being too nebulous, it remains fairly popular. The convention was first published in the September/October 1989 issue of Bridge Today.

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Bridge Base Incorporated was a company founded in 1990 by Fred Gitelman, president, and Sheri Winestock, vice-president, and based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Although its first two products, BASE II (1990) and BASE III (1991), were analytical tools designed for serious students of bridge, it was most famous for offering free online contract bridge through its website Bridge Base Online (BBO), with which it became synonymous. As of October 2007, it was owned by Gitelman, along with Uday Ivatury, Bill Gates, Sharon Osberg, and David Smith. Bridge Base, Inc. was dissolved on February 15, 2019, after its main product, Bridge Base Online, was sold to another company.

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Barbara Seagram Canadian contract bridge teacher, writer, and administrator

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<i>Bridge Squeezes Complete</i>

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Texas transfer, or simply Texas, is a bidding convention in contract bridge designed to get the partnership to game in a major suit opposite a one notrump or two notrump opening, thus making the opener declarer and keeping the stronger hand hidden from the opponents. Texas is used in response to a notrump opening when holding a six-card or longer major suit and at least game-going features; responder may have interest in slam via continuations in Blackwood or its variants. Originated independently by David Carter of St. Louis and Olle Willner of Sweden,

References

  1. Stated in the author's cameo on the back cover of his book World Class that he "writes monthly columns for Bridge and Bridge Plus magazines and for OKbridge Spectator" and "occasionally for the Bridge Bulletin in the USA and is an expert bidding forum panelist for numerous magazines".
  2. Stated in his co-author's cameo for Over Hoffman's Shoulder that "Marc Smith is the author of twenty books on bridge and writes regular columns in bridge magazines worldwide and on the internet. He is a Grand Master and a member of the British junior team that won the 1985 European Union Championships."
  3. Stated in the author's cameo on the back cover of his book Bridge Cardplay - Attack and Defense that he was "a member of the British junior team that won the 1985 European Union Championships".
  4. "International record for Charlotte Smith". World Bridge Federation.
  5. "International record for Marc Smith". World Bridge Federation.
  6. "American Bridge Teachers' Association book awards". Archived from the original on 2011-07-16. Retrieved 2011-03-07.