The eBridge Cup Begins

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]Good day, it's Pete here. And today, I'm going to be playing the E-Bridge Cup.

[00:00:04]That's right, it's back again. And uh I have already qualified. I was planning on recording the first video that I did, but I did that on mute. So, that's Yay, go professional Pete for making videos.

[00:00:17]Um so, I thought you watching a whole video on mute probably wasn't the best.

[00:00:21]So, I figured, yeah, we'll scrap that one. But, the E-Bridge Cup is the event that runs on both BBO and Funbridge.

[00:00:30]And you play against robots.

[00:00:33]Uh but, this time there is a live final in uh Poland in Katowice.

[00:00:39]Uh where if you're basically in the top 50 in the world, I think it's top 30 in on BBO or top 20 uh in Funbridge, then you qualify over to uh to play the final in Katowice. There's also an online final for the people that didn't make that. And there's also a challenges. So, how it works is the first month uh so, all of May um Yeah, just trying to get the dates right. Uh all of May uh you can play tournaments. You need at least uh to play 10, and you need an average of 55% or higher in your top 10 tournaments to qualify to the next stage.

[00:01:20]And then in the semi-finals, that's the really critical part uh where if you make the top 30 in BBO, you get uh funded to go to the live final in Katowice uh which uh I think you get if you're outside of Europe, you get $400 for your flight plus um accommodation for the event. Um Don't hold me to that, but it's something approximating that. So, it's just a bit subsidized. But, really cool if we can do that. And this lines up with the World Bridge Series. So, this is going to be my goal. Anyway, long-winded story um but for this what we want to do uh you go on Funbridge or BBO uh special events and we'll go E Bridge Cup.

[00:02:08]And give it a shot.

[00:02:10]So, this is 12 boards and I want to see what I can do.

[00:02:17]Um before I go on uh sort of in the middle, I want to highlight a uh website uh that a friend Paul Dalley has been creating. Um it's a teaching website but more on like that later. It's called Bridge Champions. So, uh board number one. Uh we got a 13 count so pass pass to me.

[00:02:38]I was going to like just routinely open a heart.

[00:02:41]Um maybe I consider a diamond just for the lead. Let's try it. One heart's like normal but um I'm kind of a bit stuck here.

[00:02:52]Uh my goal there was if they bid spades which I thought they were going to do. I I really want to pattern the lead of diamond but they didn't overcall spades.

[00:03:02]But now I have a secret weapon. So, six of hearts.

[00:03:07]So, um let's hide these lower pips just so that they're more inclined to continue hearts.

[00:03:18]Uh so, six of hearts.

[00:03:22]I'm missing eight, nine.

[00:03:26]Queen.

[00:03:29]I think it doesn't matter what pip I use.

[00:03:32]It's the nine.

[00:03:34]And I could let's take a diamond finesse and I was thinking about just knocking out the clubs but Okay. Uh I need all my spades for protection here cuz I've now set up my hearts which is good news, but my stiff king of spades no good.

[00:03:56]I really want them to continue clubs, so let's get that king out of the way, so it looks enticing to continue clubs.

[00:04:03]Probably Okay, great.

[00:04:05]This is a fantastic start.

[00:04:07]I am just losing one.

[00:04:11]All right, they had the entire spade suit. My one diamond opening had unintended consequences there.

[00:04:17]I love that when that happens. Um All right.

[00:04:21]Uh here I have 14.

[00:04:25]Another thing that I've been trying with these robot tournaments is a four card majors, and I've got a nice heart suit here, so um I largely I'm happy to play uh um four three fits, cuz it might generate a swing. Um here I'm playing one.

[00:04:49]Like here, four hearts could be reasonable.

[00:04:52]I'm not sure if four hearts or three no is better.

[00:04:56]But, what do I want to do?

[00:04:59]Uh how greedy am I?

[00:05:02]I mean, he's got seven diamonds, so I could win the king of spades, diamond the ace, rough a diamond.

[00:05:10]I can't can't really set them up.

[00:05:14]What about win just run the jack of diamonds, losing one?

[00:05:19]Get in rough.

[00:05:22]Possibility, but not really feeling it.

[00:05:27]What about I win the ace of spades and just lead a club up?

[00:05:32]Just try and abandon diamonds and give that a shot.

[00:05:37]I've got good pips in spades as well.

[00:05:47]Okay, missing jack 10 of clubs.

[00:05:53]Okay, so I'm just missing the 10 of spades and West rates to have it.

[00:06:01]Um I think I'm largely going to be cross-ruffing a fair bit. So, let's just take the queen of clubs here.

[00:06:14]And I'll see if I can sneak the seven of spades past. Okay, I can't do that.

[00:06:20]So, West has a doubleton spade.

[00:06:30]I really don't want to get over-ruffed here. Okay, so the diamonds are all good.

[00:06:34]Um I've got So, West has two spades, three diamonds.

[00:06:46]Um presumably some long hearts.

[00:06:51]If I can score one low ruff here, then we're all good. And I know West is out of spades, but I don't have good pips. Like, if I play a spade, they just ruff and I ruff with the ace.

[00:07:06]Uh So, let's try a club and hope that they don't have five clubs. Good. All right, so we're in business here. We are making.

[00:07:21]So, we just ruff.

[00:07:24]And I guess I just play ace for the jack of hearts.

[00:07:34]Didn't seem like that's what was going on, but uh Okay.

[00:07:45]King queen third diamond on the side.

[00:07:48]10 tricks. How How do we reckon that's going to score?

[00:07:51]Good or bad? I don't know.

[00:07:54]Uh here I got 13. Let's just bid a diamond.

[00:07:59]Two no.

[00:08:01]Two no three no.

[00:08:07]Okay.

[00:08:07]>> [laughter] >> I was got 71% for hearts. So far so good.

[00:08:12]Uh West overcalled a spade. Let's just get these hearts rolling.

[00:08:21]Another club. Great.

[00:08:25]Uh Okay. So My entries are messed up. I can't untangle it all.

[00:08:37]So let's spade over and start running these.

[00:08:48]They've three hearts. They've got five spades. They've got long clubs.

[00:08:58]It's two spades. So they're down to three.

[00:09:05]It's a club.

[00:09:09]So and we see if they have to just give me They don't need to.

[00:09:25]Yeah, if West had like stiff ace of diamonds or something or like just a four card club suit and stiff diamond on her.

[00:09:32]Think they're going to get trapped to send the uh king of spades over to me.

[00:09:38]All right, board four we've got a 13 count just normal takeout double.

[00:09:44]Two spades preempt forcing, okay.

[00:09:55]Natural.

[00:09:58]Oh, good news I'm not worried about playing four three spades.

[00:10:01]>> [laughter] >> All right. Um We've got a club, we've got a couple of diamonds, we've got a spade loser as well.

[00:10:14]Uh diamond.

[00:10:25]Like Maybe I just like rise ace and hope like I know that's a stiff so let's just hope hearts break nicely or if not that East has the long hearts and I still get to rattle off heaps of clubs.

[00:10:43]Okay.

[00:10:48]So, I only get these clubs.

[00:10:52]And now I just need to lead a diamond up cuz my final club isn't good.

[00:10:59]Uh we can see if my last diamond comes good.

[00:11:09]Okay, making nine.

[00:11:11]See these four three fits are fine.

[00:11:16]Who needs trumps anyway?

[00:11:19]Okay.

[00:11:20]Uh board five, so I got a 14 count. Uh let's try like this nice four card hearts and see what happens.

[00:11:30]Yeah, they're in three diamonds.

[00:11:33]We're off to a good lead.

[00:11:38]Should really at some point talk about why I do this. Some people think that just like I need to I really [clears throat] just dropped my partner's stiff queen of diamonds.

[00:11:49]That's rough.

[00:11:53]Uh I don't think this going to score very well.

[00:12:07]Um So, I got six diamonds, three hearts.

[00:12:15]Don't think I need to rush with like a club or anything.

[00:12:30]Yeah, I I should talk about this style this former scoring and creates um an interesting dynamic about how we want to be uh playing suits or like what you're trying to achieve in the bidding and uh often like in bridge what you've got is Okay, sweet. We beat it one.

[00:12:55]Um what you often have is there are two like very close contracts. Let's say um here I'm talking about 4-3 fit. So, let's compare, you know, board two.

[00:13:10]Fix that up.

[00:13:14]Okay.

[00:13:15]A little bit better.

[00:13:17]Okay.

[00:13:18]So, there's there's two contracts, like three no and uh four hearts on this one. And let's say that, you know, excluding the hand, three no is right, you know, 52% of the time. Four hearts is right 50% of the time. Something like They're two contracts that are really close. Um but given just you want to be normal like you want to be getting the best result on each board, then you would always want to be in three no trump because that's a 2% better thing.

[00:13:48]Whereas in this when you need to get good results, if everyone's bidding three no, which is 52%, but you're getting to four hearts, which is 50%. You've you've skewed what you're getting. So, 50% of the time you'll be getting 100% and 50% of the time you'll get 0% or like Sorry, like 48% you'll be getting 100%. 52% of the time you get zero. You get that really polarizing score. So, what you want is you want to find ways to get to relatively decent contracts, but you want polarizing scores so that you've got a good chance of getting the super high ones. So, I think of the bidding a bit of as as a journey. So, I'm trying to get to one of these uh diff- like slightly different contracts, but pretty good, but with more polarizing scores. Because if you know, I have a bad set and I score, you know, 40 to 55%.

[00:14:50]It's weird calling 55 bad set, but you know, it is in this format.

[00:14:55]Then it doesn't matter. But what you're really targeting is like the 65 to 70.

[00:14:59]So, how do you actually get those?

[00:15:02]You can have like, well, how do I have a bidding journey that slowly shifts that?

[00:15:07]And uh yeah.

[00:15:09]Yeah.

[00:15:11]Uh so, that was uh 47% for that.

[00:15:17]Okay. Board six.

[00:15:19]Uh we've got a a nice four team with a five-card suit, open at no trump.

[00:15:24]Two hearts, three no, four hearts. Okay.

[00:15:30]But you don't also have to do that on every hand. It's not like all the hands you have to do it. You just need to get some good ones in the bank and then try and play a good bridge.

[00:15:40]But I tend to get on the bandwagon and keep going.

[00:15:45]Um right.

[00:15:48]So here I kind of want to take a club finesse. I want to draw trumps.

[00:15:54]I've got a ditch on this final diamond.

[00:15:58]But I'll probably be out of trumps.

[00:16:02]This is a bit awkward. Let's guess a hearts hearts. They might have flown king.

[00:16:08]Good.

[00:16:10]Let's we win.

[00:16:13]They didn't rough that, so we've got time to set up the clubs and just take a club finesse.

[00:16:21]Uh It doesn't feel like the king's on side, but I didn't think to play for stiff king and it's not.

[00:16:30]450.

[00:16:31]All right. I'm just going to highlight this other thing you might be interested in.

[00:16:38]So uh this is a new website that is set up by Paul Dalley. He's on the Australian open team um and he's got this site for basically learning bridge. Uh it's got practical learning, it's got articles. So it's got things on lots of different topics. So you can choose declarer defense, bidding, counting.

[00:16:57]And lots of different topics here.

[00:17:00]Uh you've also got practical learning.

[00:17:03]So here all of these um So what they've got is I've got a hand that you can play. There's an attached video and it's got sort of like a questionnaire as you go. So if I start here, uh we're defending four spades, one no by East, three clubs puppet diamond, three spades I've got five spades, and here we led the ace of hearts. And so, the strong dummy's come down and you can see three tricks in your hand. We've got the ace king of hearts, the ace of spades. Where's the fourth trick coming from?

[00:17:37]Um So, let's cash second heart first and then decide what to do. So, um Okay, king of hearts.

[00:17:48]And here. Now, question, what do we want to play here? And for me, uh I want to play a diamond. So, here East has a balanced hand. Uh six diamonds, we've got four East has at least two.

[00:18:03]Partner has a diamond, uh probably like one diamond at most.

[00:18:08]Uh but importantly, if we play a diamond, we're getting in with the ace of spades and then we can give partner a diamond ruff. So, here I want to do it.

[00:18:16]And uh gives you a ruff. And yeah, uh it goes through uh all this reasoning and in the attached video for all that. And he's adding more stuff all the time that you can do. And again, all these different things. One feature that I really like is the treadmill, which is like a counting game. And uh yeah, I kind of got addicted and uh topped the leaderboard here. Uh but what this is is basically, you have to answer what's the number that adds up to 13. And you have to see who can get how many you have to get 10 in a row uh and doing it as quickly as you can.

[00:18:54]So, uh gives these and you just uh highlight them.

[00:18:59]A lot harder to do when you're actually talking, but uh two.

[00:19:03]Yeah, so I got that one wrong.

[00:19:05]Um but yeah, you just go through like this and see how long you can do this.

[00:19:09]And this becomes like pattern recognition uh rather than actually counting. And um Yeah.

[00:19:20]There we go. So, did it in 16 seconds while still trying to talk to you. And uh yeah, you can give it a go and see how quickly uh you can get.

[00:19:29]And I really liked it. Super addictive way of doing it. Anyway, uh there is a code uh if you sign up for this, there's If you use code Pete 26, that's Pete 26, you get a free month to try. So, give it a shot.

[00:19:49]Okay. Uh on to board seven. Oh, we got 91% for that last one.

[00:19:54]Seems a lot.

[00:19:56]Uh got a flat 14. Uh up seven of clubs.

[00:20:01]Uh I can make a sport redouble.

[00:20:05]Three clubs, competitive, take out.

[00:20:07]Okay.

[00:20:10]I don't want to double them.

[00:20:16]Maybe this was too much to double them.

[00:20:20]Um Okay. So, spade that 4-4-3-2.

[00:20:28]So, I'm going to score my king of spades as well. I might get a diamond.

[00:20:36]Heart lead is not what I want.

[00:20:41]Uh They can't ruff all their clubs.

[00:20:48]I'm worried that their diamond's going to set up. So, if diamonds are 4-3-3, they're long They get to play a long diamond and throw a spade away.

[00:21:01]I Okay. So, partner's got four clubs.

[00:21:10]I don't know. So, I think uh West probably has five hearts uh bidding this way.

[00:21:18]Um so, I've got five hearts, two spades, four clubs, and two diamonds.

[00:21:27]Okay.

[00:21:34]Uh switch to diamond.

[00:21:57]Yeah. Uh they made.

[00:21:59]Sad.

[00:22:02]Uh so, was there a way to beat that?

[00:22:09]Yes.

[00:22:12]Lead a heart at trick one or even a diamond at trick one. Heart.

[00:22:21]Basically, I need to get my I I was kind of right about this. I was worried that something that the diamond trick goes away, but there's not much I can do about it.

[00:22:35]Okay.

[00:22:36]Uh ooh, nice hand.

[00:22:39]Uh diamond.

[00:22:44]Two spades, just general forcing, sure.

[00:22:48]Three clubs.

[00:22:56]One or four key cards. Okay, that's no good.

[00:23:03]Yeah.

[00:23:04]That is a cool one where I was happy to play in clubs, but when I got the wrong response, I can switch over to playing in diamonds. I was thinking of a hand with king of clubs, ace of uh a major.

[00:23:15]And then I'd be on finding the queen of clubs.

[00:23:18]Uh usually you wouldn't want to be in a slam missing the queen of trumps, but this scoring format back yourself to find the queen basically.

[00:23:28]Uh here I'm backing myself to find the queen. So, pass pass pass.

[00:23:34]Uh I've got 15, dummy's got seven, so 22.

[00:23:38]18 missing. Neither hand opened, East overcalled.

[00:23:44]Yeah.

[00:23:45]Let's see what we find out. King of hearts. Let's try counting high card points.

[00:23:52]All right. I want to see what hard honors they have. So, they got the ace of hearts and presumably like maybe ace queen or ace jack of spades. So, I think the queen of clubs is going to be in the West hand.

[00:24:04]Straight up.

[00:24:05]Uh no no rush here to find out.

[00:24:10]Ace diamonds are two two.

[00:24:18]The ace. There's the queen. So, ace ace queen. They're a passed hand. I am now certain of the club position.

[00:24:27]So, let's just go ace of clubs.

[00:24:31]Jack of clubs.

[00:24:34]And we're all good from here.

[00:24:37]Uh yeah, if partner managed to bid three no with the king of spades protected, that probably wouldn't have gone well with what's going on in hearts.

[00:24:47]Uh but that's sort of what I was angling for.

[00:24:52]Okay.

[00:24:54]19.

[00:24:56]Okay, partner opened.

[00:24:58]Got 91% five diamonds making.

[00:25:01]Um All right.

[00:25:08]So, I probably want to play six no trumps uh nearly all the time on this hand.

[00:25:15]Um So, I'm going to do that. Let's just cause a bit of chaos in the auction.

[00:25:29]Reverse. Ooh, I like that.

[00:25:34]All right. So, at three clubs it's forcing.

[00:25:39]So, I want to set clubs.

[00:25:42]Four clubs, let's key card.

[00:25:46]Six clubs, odd number of key cards with a void.

[00:25:57]Uh Partner can only have the ace of clubs.

[00:26:05]I don't know where that void is.

[00:26:08]That's kind of annoying.

[00:26:09]Um I think that void's slightly more likely to be in spades than in hearts cuz like if the opponents had a heart void, they might have bid.

[00:26:23]Anyway, let's bid six no.

[00:26:31]Okay. Uh I think I've got all the tricks.

[00:26:39]There's one way I [laughter] think if they had I knew they had a heart void, maybe I can bid seven.

[00:26:43]Uh I need to win the first trick.

[00:26:53]Okay.

[00:26:58]Um here 13 nice 6 5. All right, I'll bid a diamond and then show my hearts. Happy to reverse on this one.

[00:27:14]Uh here they showed diamond support and like a forcing hand.

[00:27:25]I think I've shown a 6 5 and I've just settled, so.

[00:27:32]All right, we got nine tricks here assuming the diamonds come in.

[00:27:42]I could have ducked some clubs. I don't know why I didn't.

[00:27:47]Yeah, the diamonds are fine.

[00:27:51]All right, so at the end here I just want to lead a heart up and see if I miraculously get a heart trick somehow.

[00:27:58]Uh the opponents should have clubs and spade winners and all that good stuff, so I don't think that's realistically happening.

[00:28:15]Yeah, I In lots of these spots I often just exit and see if they have to open up the suit for me.

[00:28:20]Um maybe I should have tried that.

[00:28:27]Okay.

[00:28:29]Three no, nine tricks.

[00:28:38]Uh 11. I've got a 16 count, so one no.

[00:28:44]Two hearts, that's I like let's make it takeout double. I feel like that's being a takeout double forever and now it's penalties.

[00:28:54]>> [laughter] >> All right.

[00:28:56]Uh Okay.

[00:28:59]Not continuing that. Um East has hearts and a minor.

[00:29:05]Um So, I just want to stop them roughing them. Right to have a singleton spade.

[00:29:25]Okay.

[00:29:28]I don't know why partner false carded by overtaking with the um the queen.

[00:29:36]I was like, all right, well, I guess I have to just do that, but I've presumably just got a doubleton diamond.

[00:30:00]All right.

[00:30:03]And do we get any heart tricks? I haven't been paying attention.

[00:30:11]Yeah, that defense was like sloppy, but I'm not sure it mattered.

[00:30:16]Uh It would have been nice to be able to compete two three clubs, which I think we comfortably make.

[00:30:28]All right. Uh 14.

[00:30:31]Takeout double.

[00:30:34]Yeah.

[00:30:35]All right, I got 74% for that.

[00:30:38]Yeah, I am not Okay, >> [laughter] >> I was like, two hearts isn't good.

[00:30:47]>> [laughter] >> All right.

[00:30:50]Yeah. I was a little bit stuffed there.

[00:30:53]Okay, so that's like a doubleton club.

[00:31:00]Uh they raised diamonds, so it's just like a 4-4-3-2, exactly.

[00:31:05]Uh if that's the case, let's just go club, and then do they cover?

[00:31:14]No. So, let's just pitch a spade. They can rough.

[00:31:18]Now, trumps are trip 4-3-3 around the table.

[00:31:26]Okay.

[00:31:32]Uh I was aiming to rough a spade, but that's not good.

[00:31:53]Yeah, I think I'm down two here.

[00:32:16]Yeah.

[00:32:22]Yeah, that's fine.

[00:32:26]Yeah.

[00:32:27]3-3 fit was not uh what I was after there.

[00:32:31]Uh we finished with like a decent score.

[00:32:34]And um here, they've got the Ebridge Cup leaderboard.

[00:32:40]Oh.

[00:32:43]67%. So, good result all up.

[00:32:47]Um and [ __ ] Useless is already number one with a 68% average.

[00:32:54]Um I'm in the top 100, 58%.

[00:33:01]Uh yeah, I've still got a couple of 40% scores, uh but yeah, couple of higher scores there.

[00:33:10]It was my third highest, but uh fourth highest. Yeah, uh that's the Ebridge Cup. I'm excited for the live final. See if I can make the top 30 on BBO.

[00:33:19]Uh thanks all for watching, and uh yeah, check out Bridge Champions if you want to, and the code was Pete 26.

[00:33:27]Bye for now.