These days most of my bridge writings are published in the District 17 newsletter which my husband and I edit. Our columns from the newsletter are also online at the District 17 website. My Basic Bidding series there is mainly a reworking of the materials here without the drills.
But there are several articles there that are not previously published here that are of particular interest to the advancing player:
Please let me know what other topics you would like to see covered in our Basic Bidding series.
Also we have answered many of our readers’ questions in our Consult the Coopers column there, so keep those great questions coming!
you bid 1nt with 17 points your partner has 15 pts and 6 spades with A high you have 3 KJ3 would it b better to bid spade instead of transfer?
open 1nt responder has 15 pt 6 spades would it not be better to bid 2 spades since the opener had only 3 spades?
If I understand you correctly Sandra both your questions are asking why transfer and make the declarer the person with less spades when responder has lots of points so right siding is not so important. The answer is that transfers make it easier to bid your hand, show your spades,(possibly then any side suit), then jump in notrump to show your points. Plus it does notmatter if dummy has the long trumpsrather than declarer. Before transfers, bidding 2S was a drop dead bid, so a weak hand , and a slammish hand had to jump to 3S
If you hold 15 pts. & 5 spades do you open 1 No Trump or 1 Spade?
I prefer to open 1
but we teach beginners to open 1NT. It really depends on the specific hand and whether you have an easy rebid.
If you have a rebid you are happy with when partner bids 1NT then you can open 1
. This is more problematic with 5
s and 15 points where I am likely to open 1NT unless I am happy to rebid a 3 card minor. For example, with 
AKJxx 
xx 
xxx 
AKx you don’t mind rebidding 2
over partner’s 1NT. With weak spades and spread out values 1NT is better, for example 
Jxxxx 
Kx 
KQx 
AQx
Would appreciate hearing from you.
For some reason, my email program put these commnets in my spam folder so I never saw them. Sorry for the delay.
I am starting a bridge program at a senior retirement community. We have a wide range of skill levels.
We are planning an afternoon for all plyers and rotate partners.
The problem, most do not want beginners in the “club”.
I want to start a training program to qualify new members. Do you have a list of what the minimum requirements they need to learn to join the group sessions.
Sorry for the late reply, I am no longer getting email notifications of comments. Sorry, I don’t have such a list. Best to keep the beginners separate for a while and do supervised play. I am told my lesson plan for kids works well with seniors too.
What to do? East passes; N – 1 spade; W passes, S -less than 10 pts but 5 spades. Safe to bid game in spades
Yes fine to bid 4S when holding 5 of them. Sorry not to have seen this comment earlier.