Article: There is always more to learn about bridge strategy. The best way to improve your game is to practice by playing a lot. Books and guides can help a lot, but at the end of the day, developing a sense of when to do what is a matter of gaining experience with the game. You can't directly communicate with your partner during bidding, but there are ways for you and your partner to send each other cues about what each of you would like out of a contract. The opening round of bids is often used to tell your partner what your strongest suit is, rather than actually make a serious bid. Your partner can support your bid by bidding a higher number in the same suit as your bid (signaling that he or she is also happy with the suit), or suggest a different approach by bidding a different suit. No trump bids often indicate that a person has a hand full of face cards and aces that are likely to win a lot of tricks based solely on rank. If you're having trouble estimating the strength of your hand, there is a commonly used way to score the cards in your hand in order to assess it more accurately. In this system, the deck has a total of 40 points. The points are assigned as follows: Aces are worth 4 points. Kings are worth 3 points. Queens are worth 2 points. Jacks/knaves are worth 1 point. If your hand has 12 or 13 points or more, it is probably a very strong hand. With practice, this system can help you decide where to place your opening bids to guide the final bid to an advantageous result. Two of the four cardinal ways to win a trick are easy enough to understand that you can adopt them into your strategy right away. (The other two methods are more complicated, and rely on indirectly controlling the way your opponents play their hands by keeping track of the cards they have already played and are likely to play in the future.) By anticipating which of these two techniques to use at what time, you can improve your chances of making the contract (or successfully defending against it). The two methods are: Playing the highest card in the trick. Beating an opponent's high card with a trump card. When you lead a trick as the declarer, if you and your dummy control the highest cards in the trump suit between your two hands, you can be sure that each trick leading from that suit will be yours. These are called sure tricks, and they are a good simple way to up your trick count. Lead with a card in your sure suit, and then play the next highest card from the dummy's hand to lock in the victory. Since you won the trick, you will lead the next trick as well. Repeat the pattern until you have played out all your sure tricks. Remember, you only need to make your contract to win the deal. Get as many sure tricks as you can to easily boost your total.
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Play often. Learn to read your partner. Try card scoring to determine hand strength. Keep your strategy simple at first. Work with your dummy's hand to make contracts.
Article: There are 6 universal human emotions: happiness, surprise, anger, fear, sadness, and disgust. These fall into two categories: positive (happiness, surprise) and negative (anger, fear, sadness, disgust) emotions. To identify these in others, you need to know what kinds of actions and behaviors they are associated with. These include: Positive emotions reduce stress, improve mood, and increase our memory and awareness. For example: happiness, surprise, sympathy, kindness, love, courage, confidence, inspiration, relief, etc. Negative emotions increase stress, allow us to recognize threats, and deal with challenging situations. Examples are: sadness, fear, anger, contempt, disgust, etc. The two most important regions of the brain for expressing and understanding emotion are the amygdala complex and the prefrontal cortex. Damage to either of these areas can impair someone's ability to read emotion. In general, people express emotion through the eyes and/or mouth. The region of the face in which a person displays emotion is influenced by culture. For example, people focus on the eyes in Japan, while people in the United States interpret emotion in the mouth. When reading emotion, look at her entire face and not just the eyes. Stand far enough away so you can see her face, but have a normal conversation. About 1 1/2 to 4 feet is a good distance to keep between yourself and the other person. Next to facial expressions, tone of voice is the second most important way people express emotion. People use their voice to both show and control their emotions. However, some emotions are not conveyed through voice. For example, people can easily identify relaxed, stressed, boredom, contentment, and confidence from tone of voice. Emotions weakly expressed through tone of voice include fear, friendliness, happiness, and sadness. Similar tones of voice can express different emotions. For example, a tense/harsh voice is associated with anger and hostility as well as confidence and interest. A whispery or soft tone of voice can be associated with a range of emotions. These include relaxation, contentment, intimacy, friendship, sadness, and boredom. A soft, breathy voice (where the person takes loud breathes while they talk) is associated with fear, shyness, and nervousness. When you look her does she portray a friendly atmosphere, or is she more reserved? Emotion can be experienced unconsciously without you being aware of it. Using your best judgment and going with your gut feeling can sometime be the best way to read emotion. Recognize emotion in others by noting your reaction. Often, we mirror the emotions of others in our facial expression, tone of voice, and behavior. Emotions are contagious. We're affected by emotion in other people. Our mood and behavior changes depending on how someone else is feeling. This is why if someone smiles at you, you are likely to smile back! Emotions can influence health in both positive and negative ways. If a friend or family member is sick or feels tired all the time, she might be stressed-out or depressed. Physical symptoms of mental illness and depression include: headaches or migraines, low energy, stomach problems, back pain, changes in eating habits, and alcohol or drug use. Mental and emotional symptoms of mental illness and depression include: confusion, sudden and extreme mood changes, isolation from friends, unable to cope with everyday problems, and increased anger or violence. Teach yourself to recognize emotions in others by becoming more aware of them in yourself. The four branches of emotion intelligence are: (1) be able to perceive emotions in yourself and others; (2) use emotions to promote thinking; (3) understand the significance of emotions; and (4) manage emotions. Strategies to improve emotional intelligence include: Put down your phone and step away from your computer. Improve your social skills and ability to read nonverbal cues by engaging in face-to-face communication on a daily basis. Don't back away from uncomfortable or negative feelings in yourself or others. These are important and necessary. If you feel sad or angry, step back and think about why you are feeling this way. Then, try to counteract the negative emotion with three positive ones. Listen to your body a knot in your stomach may be stress, or a fluttering heart may be attraction or excitement. Keep a journal or record of your thoughts and feelings. Several times a week, stop and write down what you are doing and how you are feeling. You can include other information such as how much sleep you had the night before, or what you had for breakfast. Ask a close friend or family member someone you know and trust to read your emotions. Sometimes other people know us better than ourselves. Their answers can be surprising and insightful.
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Recognize positive and negative human emotions. Focus on the eyes and mouth. Listen to the tone of voice. Observe and note the general behavior and demeanor. Assess the other person's physical well-being. Develop and improve your emotional intelligence.