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Test Your Bridge Skills #63

Welcome back readers!

Bridge is a brilliant game—full of logic, creativity, and endless discovery.

These quizzes are here to help you sharpen your skills in both declarer play and defense. Each hand presents a real-world challenge: you’ll only see your own and dummy’s cards, just as at the table. Along the way, I’ll pose questions—clues to guide your thinking and help you work through the hand.

In a way, it's like solving a riddle.

The goal? To train you to ask the right questions at the right time. Whether you’re declaring or defending, success often hinges on knowing what to look for—and what you need to figure out.

Try each hand on your own before checking the solution.

As before, you’ll find a “Things to Remember” section at the end—highlighting key lessons in bidding, play, and defense that you can carry into your next game.

I hope you enjoy—and keep growing on your bridge journey.

First Question:

You've agreed to play standard carding with your partner - for attitude, high encourages, and low discourages; for count, high–low shows even, and low–high shows odd.

You led a top Club and partner followed with the ♣2.

  1. What does the ♣2 mean?
  2. What do you continue with?
  3. Suppose you chose the ♦A now and partner followed with the ♦2. What does the ♦2 mean?
  4. What is partner's holding in the minors?
  5. What do you continue with?
Solution
  1. What does the ♣2 mean?
    If it shows count, partner has an odd number of Clubs (low high shows odd). If it shows ATT (attitude), partner doesn’t want you to continue Clubs (a low card discourages this suit). Unless it is a singleton.
  2. What do you continue with?
    ♦A. Partner must be short in Diamonds for not correcting the bid.
  3. Suppose you chose the ♦A now and partner followed with the ♦2. What does the ♦2 mean?
    If it shows count, partner has an odd number of Diamonds (low high shows odd). If it shows ATT (attitude), partner doesn’t want you to continue Diamonds (a low card discourages this suit). Unless it is a singleton.
  4. What is partner's holding in the minors?
    3 Clubs and 1 Diamond! With 3 3 in both minors, partner would have corrected the bid to 3♦. As partner passed your 3♣ bid, they must be longer in Clubs. Also, if they had xx in Club or Diamond, they would have played high low.
  5. What do you continue with?
    The ♦10. Planning to let partner ruff a Diamond, you want them to return a Heart. So a high Diamond now asks for a high suit (Heart), while a low Diamond would ask for a low suit (Club).
    Note that it seems natural for partner to return a Club, as you led and bid Clubs. But the ♦10 asks specifically for a Heart return.
    So the ♦10 at trick 3 is ruffed by partner, followed by a Heart return, ruffed by you, then a Diamond ruff and another Heart ruff to complete 6 tricks for the defense.
    If at trick 3 you continue with a low Diamond, partner will ruff and play a Club. Declarer will ruff, pull out trumps, and make 9 or 10 tricks: 2 Diamonds, 2 Hearts (can make 3 Hearts by playing twice to the 10), and 5 Spades.
    If at trick 2 you play another top Club, declarer will ruff, pull out trumps, and make at least 9 or 10 tricks.

Things to remember:

  1. You can agree to play two-suited bids after an opponent's opening (such as Michaels cue bid, Ghestem, Unusual 2NT, or any other convention). You need to agree on the range of these bids. Some partnerships play them as unlimited in strength, others as weak, and some as either weak (up to 10 points) or very strong (16+). With 11–15 points, the player bids the higher-ranking suit first and then the second suit later, as in the bidding in this hand. This requires partnership agreement.
  2. Suggestion for partnership: When leading an Ace (or a Queen), it asks partner for an ATT (attitude) signal (high = want, low = don’t want, when playing standard carding). When leading a King, it asks for count (high–low = even, low–high = odd, again assuming standard carding).
  3. Suit preference can be given in several ways:
    • On the first discard (using Lavinthal, where a low card asks for a low-ranking suit and a high card asks for a high-ranking suit, or using Odd/Even — odd cards encourage, even cards show suit preference similar to Lavinthal).
    • When partner leads the Ace and the suit is dead (i.e., there’s no value in signaling attitude or count because there are no more tricks in that suit — see previous article here), then signal suit preference.
    • Also, as in this hand, when giving partner a ruff: you can signal which suit to return in order to get another ruff. In this hand, a high Diamond asked for a Heart, and a low Diamond would have asked for a Club (since partner has no Diamonds and Spades are trumps, only Clubs or Hearts are possible returns).
  4. When you bid two suits and partner passes the second suit, it means they are definitely longer in that suit and very likely short in your first suit. If partner has equal or greater length in your first suit, they are obliged to correct the bid back to it, even with zero points. So here, in this hand, partner freely passed your 3♣ bid, which means they prefer Clubs over Diamonds. With a singleton Club, they would have bid 3♦ even with zero points.

Second Question

West led the ♠4

  1. How many losers do you have?
  2. How are the opponents' points divided?
  3. Which card will you play from dummy?
  4. You played low and East took the ♠Q and returned another Spade. Why didn’t West choose another lead, such as a Club?
  5. Where is the ♣A?
  6. Where is the ♣K?
  7. Where is the ♦Q?
  8. Where is the ♥Q?
  9. Where is the ♠K?
  10. How will you play the hand?
Solution
  1. How many losers do you have?
    Six: 2 Spades, 1 Heart, 1 Diamond, and 2 Clubs.
  2. How are the opponents' points divided?
    At least 12 points in West and a maximum of 5 in East, based on the bidding.
  3. Which card will you play from dummy?
    Try a low Spade from dummy. You gain nothing by playing the Ace, as you cannot discard your Spade losers. If you play low, you might manage to develop a Spade trick if the ♠10 is in East.
  4. You played low and East took the ♠Q and returned another Spade. Why didn’t West choose another lead, such as a Club?
    With ♣A and ♣K, West would surely prefer a top Club lead, so West is missing a Club honor — specifically the ♣K. Also, if East held ♣A and ♠Q, they would not have passed their partner’s opening. That confirms West does not hold both Club honors.
  5. Where is the ♣A?
    The ♣A is with West. East has fewer than 6 points. If East holds the ♣K and ♠Q, then West must have all the remaining high cards.
  6. Where is the ♣K?
    The ♣K is with East, as West did not lead a top Club.
  7. Where is the ♦Q?
    West.
  8. Where is the ♥Q?
    West.
  9. Where is the ♠K?
    West.
  10. How will you play the hand?
    Since all the high cards are marked, you can play the hand as if the cards were open: Win with the ♠A at trick 2, play a Heart to the ♥K, and continue with the ♥J, finessing West if they play low. Then play the ♥A to drop West’s ♥Q (be sure to keep the ♥7 in hand), and continue with the ♦A and ♦K.
    Your only chance to make the contract is if the ♦Q or ♦Qx is with West, as it cannot be with East. If the ♦Qx drops, continue with the ♦10.
    Use your ♥7 to reach dummy’s ♥8 and discard your Spade or Club loser on the ♦J.
    You make 1 Spade, 5 Hearts, and 4 Diamonds.

Things to remember:

  1. This is another important counting hand — and once again, we count high-card points. The lead gives a strong clue: since West didn’t lead a Club, East must have a Club honor — the ♣K. That completes East’s 5 maximum points from the bidding (including the ♠Q seen at trick 1).
    Note that in the balancing seat (4th seat, after a left-hand opponent opens and two players pass), the meanings of bids change:
    • A double shows (8)9+ points (instead of 12+ in second seat).
    • 1NT shows 11–14 points (instead of 15–18 as a direct overcall).
    • A new suit (as in our auction) can be much lighter than a standard overcall.
    • A jump shows a good six-card suit with an intermediate hand (around 12–15 points), not a weak two as in second seat.
  2. Think about timing: you need a fast discard of a Spade or Club to avoid losing two Spades and two Clubs. You must therefore hope to drop the ♦Q and prepare an entry to your fourth Diamond. Keep the ♥8 as an entry to your ♦J and discard a black-suit loser on it.

About the Author

Oren Lidor is considered one of the best bridge teachers in Israel, is the author of 5 bridge books, and teaches bridge to people from all over the world on BBO.

3 comments on “Test Your Bridge Skills #63”

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