Robert Todd’s

ADVENTURES IN BRIDGE

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Latest This Week in Bridge (TWIB) Lesson ♣

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(584) Exclusion Keycard

Latest Webinars ♠

Fundamentals - Opening and Responding Basics

9/2024 (62 min)

Here we review some fundamentals of opening bids and look more deeply into your thought process before we open the bidding. Then we pivot to the responder’s actions and make sure that we are prepared to construct a good auction with some problem situations.

UPCOMING WEBINARS

Fundamentals - High Level Response to 1-Major Openings

July 2025 - Coming Soon!

When partner opens the bidding with 1-Major then we normally go slow and make a low level response. But we can also use some immediate jumps to high bids to describe some interesting and difficult hands. Let’s look at the meaning of this high-level jump responses.

Webinar Notes

Fundamentals - Other Responses 1-Level Openings

July 2025 - Coming Soon!

Here we look at some other complex auctions and special responses to 1-level opening bids. We focus on some jump shift responses to 1-Major and 1-minor and then turn out focus to NT responses to minor suit openings.

Webinar Notes

Fundamentals - Hand Eval after Responder's Jump Shift

July 2025 - Coming Soon!

When Responder makes a jump shift, either a weak jump shift or a 3/1 invitational jump shift, then Opener is left to figure out what to do next. Here we look at what types of hands Opener should bid with (like) and when they should be conservative and Pass.

Webinar Notes

Fundamentals - Some Confusing Auctions

July 2025 - Coming Soon!

There are some classic auctions that lead to confusion between partnerships. Ones that you should make sure you and partner agree upon.

Webinar Notes

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Robert's Upcoming Seminars

Steamboat Springs, CO Seminar

Steamboat Springs, CO Seminars
Steamboat Springs, CO Bridge Club
July 14 , 2025
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Vail, CO Summer Seminars

Vail, CO Summer Seminars
Vail Christian School
July 15-17, 2025
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Colorado Springs, CO Seminars

Colorado Springs, CO Seminars
Colorado Springs Bridge Center
July 18, 2025
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Charlotte, NC Seminars

Charlotte, NC Seminars
Charlotte Bridge Association
Aug 7, 2025
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Asheville, NC Seminars

Asheville, NC Seminars
Blue Ridge Conference Hall
Aug 8-9, 2025
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Highlands Falls, NC Seminars

Highlands Falls, NC Seminars
Highlands Falls Country Club
August 11-12, 2025
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Denver, CO Seminars

Denver, CO Seminars
Denver Metro Bridge Club
Aug 22-24, 2025
Flyer

Bermuda Seminars

Bermuda Seminars
Bermuda Bridge Club
September 12-16, 2025
Details TBA

N CA Teaching Week

N CA Teaching Week
September 22-25, 2025
Details - TBD

Sharon Heights Teaching Series - September

Sharon Heights Country Club
September 23-24, 2025
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Madison, WI Seminar

Madison Bridge Club
Madison, WI
October 7, 2025
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Woman's Athletic Club of Chicago Seminars

Woman's Athletic Club of Chicago Seminars
WAC Seminars
October 9, 2025
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St. Louis Seminars

Saint Louis Bridge Center
Oct 10-11, 2025
Flyer

Palo Alto Seminar

Palo Alto Bridge Center
October 18, 2025
Details - TBD

N CA Teaching Week

N CA Teaching Week
October 18-22, 2025
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Sharon Heights Teaching Series - October

Sharon Heights Country Club
October 21-22, 2025
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Miami Seminars

Riviera, Miami, FL
October 29-3 2025
Contact Robert for details

N CA Teaching Week

N CA Teaching Week
November 9-11, 2025
Details - TBD

Sharon Heights Teaching Series- November

Sharon Heights Country Club
November 11, 2025
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N CA Teaching week

N CA Teaching week
December 8-10, 2025
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Sharon Heights Teaching Series - December

Sharon Heights Country Club
December 9-10, 2025
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N CA Teaching week

N CA Teaching week
January 4-6, 2026
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Sharon Heights Teaching Series - January

Sharon Heights Country Club
January 4 & 6, 2026
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Registration & flyer coming soon

Ocean Reef Seminars

Ocean Reef Seminars
Key Largo, FL
January 8-9, 2026
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Jupiter Island Club Seminars

Jupiter Island Club Seminars
Jupiter Island Club, FL
January 11-14, 2026
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Mt Lake, FL Seminars

Mt Lake Seminars
Mt Lake, FL
Jan 15-17, 2026
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Belleair Country Club Workshop

Belleair Country Club
Belleair, FL
January 18, 2026
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Cabo, MX Bridge Seminars

Cabo, MX Bridge Seminars
Cabo Mexico - Querencia Golf Club
February 7-13, 2026
Details - Members, Guests, & Friends

Sharon Heights Teaching Series - February

Sharon Heights Country Club
February 15 & 17, 2026
Details - Members & their guests
Registration & flyer coming soon

Naples Bridge Club Seminars

Naples Bridge Club Seminars
Naples, FL
February 23 , 2026
Details - TBD

**Latest This Week in Bridge (TWIB) Practice Hands ♦**

Featured

Advanced Same Bidding 7 - 582

Kickback Keycard Ask

One of our most commonly used tools for determining if we should bid slam or not is Keycard Blackwood. The most popular version of this is 1430 Keycard. This tool allows us to exchange a lot of useful information with partner. We attempt to determine how many of the 5 Keycards we have, plus we also hope to be able to determine if we have the Queen of the trump suit. When ♠ is the trump suit, then we have plenty of bidding space to communicate, but when lower-ranking suits are the trump suit, using 4NT to ask for Keycards leaves us little room to exchange information without getting the auction too high. To fix this problem, some partnerships use Minorwood for their minor suit Keycard auctions, but this does not solve our problem in the ♥ suit. There is another approach, called Kickback, that tries to solve this problem. Let’s see how this works.

Recent This Week in Bridge (TWIB) Videos ♥

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Hand Evaluation: Counting Points - Before the Auction Begins

Lesson 1 of 8 (25 min)

Video of Robert further discussing the topics in TWiB Lesson #329.

Buy - $10

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TWiB Lesson

Robert’s Bridge News & Articles

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Robert and Michael Berkowitz - BAMSA Conference

Robert and Michael discussion building a Vertically Integrated Youth Bridge Program (bridge for all types of players), and Other Education Foundation (ACBL) Goals at the Real Bridge / BAMSA bridge teachers & coaches conference.

ON THE ROAD WITH ROBERT TODD
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“Bridge is the greatest of all card games. It’s both entertaining and challenging at the same time. Here you can get started learning to play this great game or work to improve your game, no matter your level of bridge experience. ”

— Robert S. Todd