Best Answer: ♠A,
♥ AKQ and ♣AK
You play 6♦ and West led the ♠K. How will you play?
Note that after the Spade lead, you have 2 immediate losers (meaning that if you lose the hand, your opponents will immediately win 2 tricks).
Therefore, you need to avoid losing the hand before getting rid of at least 1 immediate loser. So don’t play the ♦ K at trick 2, because if you do your opponents will take with the ♦ A and cash the ♠Q to set.
On any other lead, you could afford to play the ♦ K at trick 2, while still having the ♠A as a stopper, but not after the Spade lead, which removed your Spade stopper, exposing your Spade loser.
You need to play ♥ AKQ fast and discard the Spade from dummy to avoid losing that Spade. Once you’re rid of the Spade loser, you can turn to Diamonds.
But wait! There’s another "minor" problem that you may have overlooked: Playing the ♥ AKQ may solve the Spade problem, but it also creates a new problem, in Hearts. Luckily, opponents followed the 3 rounds of hearts and didn’t ruff your Heart winners. But now, one of your opponents has no more Hearts. Which means that if you then play Diamonds, they’ll take the ♦ A, and may well continue with fourth Heart which will get ruffed by the ♦ 9! And that is exactly what will happen here if you play Diamond now.
Therefore, start off by playing the ♣AK, then discard your Heart from hand, and only then you can play the ♦ K. That way you can overruff the fourth round of Hearts, if it comes.
Note:
Always looks for ways to improve your chance of succeeding. After playing ♥AKQ and discarding the Spade, your chances of succeeding were already high. At any time when the ♦A isn’t single (AX or AXX) or, it’s a singleton with only 3 Hearts (and the fourth Heart is in the opposite hand) you can still make even if you play Diamond after ♥AKQ, as opponents can’t ruff Hearts. But you can still improve your chances against the above distribution.
A loser is considered an immediate loser if it has been exposed or becomes exposed after the lead, and your opponents have the capability to capture it if they gain control of the hand. If the count of your immediate losers exceeds the number of tricks you can afford to lose, and you also possess a certain loser within the trump suit, it becomes essential to find a method to eliminate these losers before addressing the trump suit. It's true that in doing so, you run the risk of your opponents ruffing your probable winners, just as in this situation where there was a potential risk of the opponent ruffing one of your hearts. However, you must embrace this risk because you don't have any other viable alternative.
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Thanks for Sharing the deals
love tese, thx
Tess are fun, but please return me to regular Bridge Base page.
I’m not interested in 2/1 bidding but I loved the 3rd and 4th hands! They were totally illuminating. The stuff experts regularly think about. Thank you,
Thank you for a valuable lesson.
NO WONDER YOU OVERBID 95% OF TIMES
Hand 1: All you have are 9 points beginer!
Hand2: 2Sp is a dumb bid which forces game, a weak game
Yes, I am a beginner, but we all must start some where.
In a few weeks there will be a lesson 'How to Bid only 100% Games and Become the World Champion'
Once again a great quiz by Oren. Many thanks.
Yes, a bit tricky to bid with only 10 cards! Turns out three low clubs were omitted.
you're right! the missing cards have been returned. 🙂
Call the director!??
The director said the missing cards were tucked under the bidding tray! 😀
very likely, a typo
You're right! It's been corrected now. 🙂
There’s a typo in Hand One: S bids 1H not 1S.
Hi,
Thank you for pointing out the error; it's been corrected.
Only 10 cards in the hand
Yes, there was a typo, now missing cards are there. 😉
I didn't understand the 1 spade bid in problem one
Sorry there was a typo, the correct bid is 1H. 🙂