I am about to start on a new series “Declare and Defend”. As an example of what that series will focus on, here is an example. If you were one of the many Wests who made fewer than TWELVE tricks in a spade contract, then maybe you would benefit from the series.

Board 13 from Thursday 6/06/2019
Dealer N All Vul

	JT J3 K875 KQ632
AKQ843 AT42 J84		962 AKT975 6 A97
	75 Q8642 QJ93 T5

An ordinary 1NT opening bid can often lead to all sorts of end results, as evidenced by this deal.
Board 11 from Thursday 6/06/2019
Dealer S Nil Vul

	6 K8764 A6 AK976
Q982 AT5 KJ75 QJ		KT7543 Q32 T83 T
	AJ J9 Q942 85432

Competing at low levels is a big part of the match point game, and lighter than normal opening bids can help or hinder both sides. South’s opening of 1D third in hand was reasonable enough, and it made life difficult for EW. It should not have but it seems that it did.

Board 21 from Thursday 30/5/19
Dealer N NS Vul

	AJ43 32 AT872 75
KQ865 Q974 AKQ9		T2 A865 963 T863
	97 KJT KQJ54 J42

SnippetNow that XG's have been with us for a few months and some 40% of players are progressing from Evolving (less than 1000 boards) to Mature status it seems timely to look at what sort of numbers our higher-ranking players are coming up with. The spreadsheet attached below clearly demonstrates what we all suspected .. top players have top XG's.

The population of 3116, sorted by XG Rating, was divided into 31 bands of 100 players of X-Club deals. Because some of the ranks had small numbers - eg 44 Life Masters vs 1375 Local Masters, the raw numbers would mask the point of the exercise. The chart is presented as the percentages of each rank falling into any particular band. A sample of how to read the chart might be: 50% of the 52 Grand Masters who play X-Club deals have XG's in the top 100 band: 15% in the second band of 100: 12% in the third etc …

Other observations:

• One third of NZB-affiliated members play X-Club deals
• Only 40% of these 3116 players have XG's over 50 which translates to 40% have negative handicaps while 60% have positive
• XG's for top of the table exceed straight averages by some 5%, about equal for middle of the table, 5% lower near the bottom of the table. This seems to indicate that handicapping by straight average (as clubs commonly do) favours the stronger player

Have a look .. it's interesting

Sacrifice bidding is something that few new players have as yet mastered, and perhaps that is just as well. But it helps to understand what it is about and how you can recognise when you have a good enough hand to compete, be it at a low part score level, or much higher.

Board 13 from 22/05/2019
Dealer N All Vul

	A9 AJ987 KJ AJ83
KJT762 Q6 T872 T		Q843 3 A653 KQ72
	5 KT542 Q94 9654