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.
Partner led the ♣3. You won dummy’s ♣K with the ♣A, and declarer followed with the ♣7.
- Where is the missing club (the ♣6)?
- How many tricks do you count for the defense?
- Where is the setting trick likely to come from?
- How will you continue?
Solution
- Where is the missing club (the ♣6)?
With the declarer. Partner led their singleton. With ♣63 they would have led the ♣6 (high–low from a doubleton).
- How many tricks do you count for the defense?
Three: ♣A, ♥K, and a club ruff.
- Where is the setting trick likely to come from?
Partner might have the ♦A, ♠A, or ♠K. Maybe they have the ♥Q and can ruff another club.
- How will you continue?
If partner has an ace, they can take it after the club ruff, but if they have the ♠K, you need to help develop it. If you play a second club at trick two, partner will ruff, but now the defense is stuck with only three tricks as partner cannot afford to play a spade. The spade must come from your hand to help partner develop their ♠K. The club ruff can wait—it can wait because you have a sure trump trick, and you can let partner ruff a club later. So play a spade now. Say declarer wins with the ♠A and tries to finesse a heart. Win with your ♥K and play a club for partner to ruff. They will cash their ♠K then for the setting trick. If you play a club at trick two planning to let partner ruff again, that will not happen as declarer can ruff high on the third club. If declarer doesn’t have the ♥Q, then they will likely play ♥A and another heart, pulling your trumps to prevent another ruff.
Things to remember:
- Think of timing, also in defense. Timing is the right order to play your tricks.
- Though partner led a singleton and wants a ruff, you do not always need to let them ruff immediately. Count tricks and think first about where the best chance for the setting trick lies, then plan the timing.
- New Minor Forcing is a way for the responder to force the opener to bid again. (You can play it as game-forcing or one-round-forcing—requires agreement.) You use NMF in situations where you can’t use fourth suit forcing, but it serves the same purpose. You ask opener to describe their hand as follows:
- Bid three cards in responder’s suit – like here: the 2♥ bid shows three hearts (with four cards, opener would have supported on their second bid).
- Bid notrump with a stopper in the fourth (unbid) suit (spade here), denying three-card support for responder’s suit.
- Rebid your own suit otherwise (so here, if opener didn’t have three hearts nor a spade stopper, they would bid 3♣).
- As partner led the ♣3 and you saw the ♣2 in dummy, you could conclude partner’s lead was a singleton. From a doubleton they would have led high–low.
Second Question
Against 3NT West led the ♥8.
- What does the opening lead suggest?
- Say you won the first heart trick with the ♥A, played the ♦Q, and both opponents followed suit. How many tricks do you count?
- So, what is the problem then?
- How do you plan to overcome this problem?
- How do you continue?
Solution
- What does the opening lead suggest?
Likely high–low from a doubleton to partner’s bid suit, as East showed six hearts from the bidding.
- Say you won the first heart trick with the ♥A, played the ♦Q, and both opponents followed suit. How many tricks do you count?
Nine tricks: two hearts, five diamonds, one spade, and one club.
- So, what is the problem then?
If diamonds are 3–1 with the opponents, then the diamond suit is blocked! After playing ♦AKQ, your fourth diamond in hand will be higher than the two remaining diamonds in dummy, and when you win it in hand, you will have no more entries to your fifth diamond in dummy.
- How do you plan to overcome this problem?
To overcome a blockage, you need to discard the blocking diamond from the short hand. That way you keep your five diamond tricks and avoid entry problems.
- How do you continue?
The only suit longer in dummy than in hand is hearts. Therefore, you need to discard the blocking diamond on a heart: after winning the ♦Q, cash the ♥K, play a diamond to the ♦K, and then a third heart from dummy, discarding a diamond from hand. East will win and continue with three more hearts, on which you discard two clubs and two spades from hand. Win East’s club or spade return, and you have one more diamond in hand for your remaining ♦A43 in dummy to complete five diamond tricks.
Things to remember:
- A blockage occurs when the high cards are in the short hand, leaving no low card there to reach the long hand. To overcome a blockage caused by low cards (as in this hand), you need to discard the blocking card from the short hand, assuming you have no more entries to the long hand. Examples:
You play 3NT, and the opponents lead a spade. Diamonds are 2–1 with the opponents, but your suit is blocked, and the spade lead has removed your entry to dummy (otherwise, you could play four rounds of diamonds and then enter dummy with a spade). So, play ♠A, ♠K, and ♠Q, discarding two diamonds from hand, and now you can take six diamond tricks.
Again, you play 3NT, and again the opponents lead a spade, which removes your entry to hand to enjoy your remaining heart tricks. So, win ♠A, ♠K, and ♠Q, discarding ♥A and ♥K from dummy. Now you can make your ♥QJ109, and you have nine tricks.
- Lebensohl can be played in many situations. The most common ones are after partner opens 1NT and an opponent overcalls, but also after an opponent opens a weak 2 and partner doubles. According to Lebensohl (after a weak 2 and a double):
- Any 3-level bid without a jump shows 8–11 points and is natural.
- With 0–7 points, bid 2NT (artificial), and when partner bids 3♣ (forced if they have a minimum/medium opening), then bid your suit or pass if your suit is clubs.
- With a game-forcing hand:
- Bid 3NT without a stopper in the opponent’s suit and without four cards in the other major.
- Cue bid with four cards in the other major and no stopper in the opponent’s suit.
- Bid 2NT and, on partner’s 3♣, bid 3NT with a stopper in the opponent’s suit and no four cards in the other major.
- Bid 2NT and, on partner’s 3♣, cue bid to show both a stopper and four cards in the other major.
- Another possible bid for South was 2NT, which shows 15–18 points after a weak 2 bid by the opponents (with a heart stopper).
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.
Thank you Oren.
All your lessons are very useful
Excellent, as usual.
Another excellent lesson