REBECCA ROOD'S MAILBAG...........................................................

• Dear Rebecca, I thought my partner was an experienced player, but he went down in an ice cold game. After I laid into him good and proper, he then turned on me for over-bidding !! Taken completely aback, I was rendered speechless and unable to reply. What should I have said ? Yours angry as hell, Arnie
• Dear Arnie, I have looked at the hand in question where you held: J8xx.....AKxxx......xx....xx opposite your partner's KQxx......J9....AQx.....Kxxx, and in my view the right course of action was for you to apologise. Although the club Ace, diamond King were fortunately sitting right, you have clearly mis-analysed the hand. For a start, if it was ice-cold then howcome your partner went down ? Moreover, I could see at least one or two ways in which competent defenders could defeat 4S. From a different perspective, given that your partner had already failed to convince you of his experience, howcome you pushed him into game on very thin values ( combined 23 count ) ? Sure enough as the cards lie he has 5 side-suit winners outside trumps, but he needs to make five trump tricks in order to see the contract home. But with hearts breaking 4-2 and spades being led at every opportunity, only four tricks in spades will be available. Surely, you can see that. And on a final point, if the opponent's hands were reversed, the contract would have been a complete disaster.
• I therefore recommend the following books for you to read in the hope they will correct your bidding deficiencies:

Avoid Jumping To Premature Conclusions ..........Callum Downe

The Conversation Of Bidding ....Lady Chatterley

Bidding: Catering For Problem Hands.........Noel Cook

• These groundbreaking works will help get you back to winning ways irrespective of who you are partnering. Remember, it never pays to over-bid your hand, if you don't trust partner's declarer play. Moreover, table presence is about knowing when to push on or bow out of the bidding.....something I suspect you haven't got. Yours putting things into perspective, Rood