A rather traversable cryptic

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• n0hk constructor · over 2 years ago

  Woo! You’ve gotten through the grid – hopefully you enjoyed it. As mentioned, I’ve elaborated on some of the terminology used – and also have included a link to a more complete glossary because character limits. ᵃ During bridge’s cardplay, one player puts their hand face-up on the table and their partner chooses the cards they play each turn. The player(‘s hand) is called the dummy, while the declarer is the one who chooses the cards. ᵇ Kit is a top American bridge / backgammon player. ᶜ Preempting = taking up lots of levels of the bidding quickly, punter = an average player, people sometimes use their opponents tempo to help determine who has particular cards. ᵈ Squeezes are a tactic to try win additional tricks, which frequently need one to lose but one of their losing cards early on. ᵉ If someone has a really good hand for what they’ve shown, then it’s said to be a rock. ᶠ Doubling and redoubling are ways to raise the stakes of contracts in bridge. ‘Sending it back’ is a colloquialism for redoubling. ᵍ The player who wins a trick in bridge gets to play first to the next one. The card they lead to the new trick is one they’re said to have returned. ʰ A ‘top’ in bridge is a the best result attained on that deal by anyone who played it. ⁱ To ‘egg’ someone is to give them a zero – which means you’ve done something very good on the board. Here discarding (jettisoning) an ace is quite an unusual play, and if successful is likely to get a decent result. ʲ A clash squeeze is a rare type of squeeze. ᵏ Grand is short for grand-slam, which is when a side claims they’ll win all 13 tricks on one deal. For completenesses sake, an ‘active’ lead is one where a defender has tried to set up a trick for their side; while a ‘passive’ lead would be one where they attempt to not give a trick away. ˡ ‘Doubler’ refers to the defender who chose to double the contract being played ᵐ Covering a card is when a player plays a higher card than the person before them, typically to try win a trick.

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• n0hk constructor · over 2 years ago

  ⁿ Reversing is a way to show an unusually strong hand in the auction by bidding suits in an inconvenient order.

  ᵒ If someone has a long spade suit (say), they’ll have fewer cards in the other suits. In bridge this concept is frequently referred to as vacant spaces.

  ᵖ Tournaments in bridge are often referred to by the scope of the event, e.g. sectional, regional, provincial, national...

  𐞥 A particular sequence of bad decisions during the auction, which results in defending a doubled contract which makes.

  ʳ When leading a long suit, most players adopt a style of leading 2nds & 4ths or 3rds & 5ths to convey their holding in the suit. (e.g. 2nd from bad suits, 4th from good suits)

  ˢ During the auction, some people choose to exchange lots of information in order to be confident they’re bidding a contract they can make. Others prefer to leave the opponents (& their partner) in the dark by taking a wild stab at what they can make – which is called ‘shooting (a contract)’.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_contract_bridge_terms

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• dooiemus 🤓1:04:20 · over 2 years ago

  Tough but fair.

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  • n0hk constructor · over 2 years ago

    Thanks for commenting! I'm happy to hear that you felt the fairness held up with some of the more offbeat fill / interprising charades.

    Hopefully it was as satisfying for you to crack as it was for me to construct :)

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• quatrevingtneuf 32:34 · over 2 years ago

  made it through about two thirds of it clean before having to resort to revealing some clues. pretty cool despite the extent of my bridge knowledge being "it's a card game"

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  • n0hk constructor · over 2 years ago

    I'm glad you still were able to enjoy it. Some of the parses were a little hard, and especially if you're unfamiliar with the terms (e.g. 28A).

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