Part 2 - POINTS SOLVING

If you’re dropping in without seeing Part 1, keep reading. You can complete this first and go back to Part 1 whenever you’re ready

Pop quiz Bridge Base Buddies

This is your club suit:

Without any other information and with ability to lead from either hand, how will you play this club suit.

Before we chat more about this quiz allow me to welcome you back to Part 2 of this Card Reading series. The main theme of the first 2 parts of this series is “getting out of your hand”. To best solve problems during the play of a bridge hand, you must think about the entire hand.

In Part 1 we talked about solving for the missing shapes and in this article we will be talking about solving for the missing points at the table. You cannot accomplish either of these tasks without thinking about the other hands at the table.

That’s the best part of this process folks. You may not be able to count shapes or points perfectly every time. In fact, if you’re like most of us, you’re likely to be really bad at counting at the start of your journey. But congratulations you are now finally thinking about the entire bridge hand! If you have been practicing Part 1 all month and thinking you will never “get it”, don’t despair. Your bridge brain is developing and hopefully you are remembering to “get out of your hand” when you’re playing or defending a bridge hand. With more practice you will be amazing.

Pop Quiz Answer

Without any other information, you would choose to lead the Ten (or 9) of clubs from the south hand and if west plays low, the north hand will play low as well. This is a classic finesse. If the K of clubs is in east’s hand, this suit will produce that one loser. If the K of clubs is in west’s hand, the declarer still has a chance to take all 5 tricks in the suit. This play is pretty automatic in almost any situation.

Now let’s give you some more context around this card combination.

Example :

You are South and declaring 3NT. The only other piece of information I can give you is that West (your LHO) opened the bidding 1 Diamond.

West leads the 7 of hearts and you follow with the 3 from dummy and east produces the queen of hearts which loses to your Ace. Plan your play.

If you just look at these two hands and make normal card plays you will be behind. Take all the information you have before making what seems like obvious plays.

On this deal we have two huge pieces of information. They are the opening bid (by left hand opponent) and trick one. How will you play the club suit now?

Solution:
Points you can see: 26 (21 in hand 5 in dummy) .

Information from bidding: ~12+ pts for west.

Opening lead info: east had 2 points with the Q of hearts.

Before taking the club finesse, you should realize that the king of clubs must be in the west player’s hand. There are only 40 points in the deck and we know that east has already showed 2 points.

Let’s do some quick math: 26 points we can see + 12 points we know about in west = 38 points.

East has already shown up with the Queen of hearts giving us 40 total points we know about. Even if west is being aggressive (opening with 11 say), they still MUST HAVE THE KING OF CLUBS.

Test your theory if you’re in doubt. Give east 5 points and add that to the 26 points you can see à 31 is your number.

Now ask yourself, would west have opened the bidding with only 9 high card points? No Way!

So, playing the Ace of Clubs is your best play. You are certain the club finesse will lose to the King so just don’t take it. Cash the Ace and hope you’re getting lucky. If not, play the Queen of clubs next and set up your suit that way. No need to burn entries to take a finesse that you know you’re going to lose. Let’s look at how the entire deal and see our reward for solving the points.

What a play. Your ace of clubs drops the singleton king and you take the entire suit. Did that seem super hard or like something you can manage?

The above deal is a relatively obvious example of “POINTS SOLVING” but shows you the power of “getting out of your hand”. Just like in shape solving, points solving will usually be easier on defense. In this position you have always heard at least some bidding from the hidden hand (declarer).

So, now let me give you two quick practice problems to get you started. Practice problem 1:

Opening lead: ♠6

How many points will your partner (north) have on average here?

This is the best exercise to start with for POINTS SOLVING. Whenever you are defending a hand after a No-Trump opening bid by declarer, you can dial in accurate information right at trick one. Just add the points you can see (always your hand and the dummy) to the other points you know about (the opening No-Trump range) and we can figure out how many points partner has on average. Both defenders can do this.

40 TOTAL POINTS
POINTS YOU CAN SEE (dummy and your hand).
THE DECLARER’S RANGE OF NO-TRUMP (take the middle of this range as their points).

On our example hand we can see 19 points and we know the declarer opened 1NT (showing 15 – 17 high card points). We should assign 16 points (the average) to declarer here.

So, how many points are left for partner on average? 19 + 16 = 35. 40 points in the entire deck so partner has 5 points on average here.

I promise this is the hardest the math will get for you. Let’s practice again.

Practice problem 2:

Opening lead: ♦K

QUESTION 1: How many points will your partner (north) have on average here?

QUESTION 2: Which player has the Queen of hearts?

QUESTION 3: If partner has 5 diamonds, how many tricks will you likely take on this hand if you and your partner play perfectly?

Let me remind you of the ways to practice this again and I will follow up with you next month with one of my favorite exercises called “FIND THE QUEEN”.

BBO Practice Suggestions

• Start a table with 3 Robots: You can find this from the front page of BBO by clicking on “Robot World” and then in the lower left region of that page clicking “Start a table with 3 Robots”. At these tables you will sit south and see random hands with 3 robots. I like practicing with random hands because we will be defending way more often than if we were to play a “best hand” event. As discussed above, we will find it easier to points solve as defenders as we will always see at least some bidding. Take all the time you need at these tables and don’t worry about the score.
• Any non-best hand event: If you need to see a score and compete every time you play (I get it), then try to confine yourself to non-best hand events. This will also see you defending more often than usual.
• Anything else that seems fun to you: Seeing hands is seeing hands. So, whichever way you prefer to experience the game, the important part is to get to a table and start making decisions and solving those points. Solving points as declarer is just as fun albeit it can be a bit more challenging when the opponents don’t bid.
• You may forget: Even expert players forget to “do the work” on every hand.  Don’t worry if you do, but when you realize you’ve stopped doing it, focus on starting again the next hand.  Also, if you’re having trouble remembering what you already know (a common issue for beginning players), feel free to use a piece of paper at the beginning of your journey to record the information you find out.  But get to brain only attempts as quickly as you can.

HOMEWORK: Get to a table and practice this as much as possible.  Focus just on points solving at first and take your time with it. Try to get one of the hidden hands solved every time.  Extract as much information as possible using the steps I’ve outlined and don’t worry about results.  Solving the shape is the only thing that matters.  See you for the next article.

Read the first part here.

About the Author

Rob Barrington is a professional bridge player and world renowned bridge instructor. He is the founder of bridgelesson.com and teaches large online courses on that site and through his popular YouTube channel. Rob resides in West Palm Beach, Florida.