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 ♥J. Dummy played the ♥Q, and you won with the ♥K and continued with the ♥A, with partner following with the ♥2.
What is the meaning of partner's lead?
What do you play next?
You tried a third Heart but declarer ruffed and continued with a Spade to dummy's ♠K, and partner followed with the ♠3. How many tricks do you count for the defense?
How many trumps does partner have?
Where does the setting trick come from?
How will you continue?
Solution
What is the meaning of partner's lead? Either top of a sequence or a doubleton.
What do you play next? Try a third Heart. If partner led from a doubleton, partner will ruff now. If partner led from ♥J102, the ♥10 will score a trick at this point.
You tried a third Heart but declarer ruffed and continued with a Spade to dummy's ♠K, and partner followed with the ♠3. How many tricks do you count for the defense? Three: ♥A and ♥K and the ♠A.
How many trumps does partner have? One. Declarer has shown at least five from the bidding. Only five, since partner followed to the Spade now.
Where does the setting trick come from? Since declarer has a relatively poor trump suit (QJxxx) and two Heart losers, it is unlikely that declarer holds any losers in the minor suits when bidding four Spades. So to defeat the contract, you need to score your fourth Spade trick as the setting trick.
How will you continue? Hold up this trick and the second trump round as well. Win with the ♠A only on the third trump round and then continue with your fourth Heart. With no more trumps in dummy, declarer will need to ruff from hand with the last trump and your remaining trump becomes promoted. If you shift to another suit instead, declarer will win, draw trumps, and the rest of the hand becomes high. If you win the first or second Spade round and play your fourth Heart, declarer will ruff in dummy and preserve the trump length in hand to remain in control. Declarer can then draw your trumps and avoid losing to your fourth trump.
Things to remember:
Think about timing on defense. Timing is the correct order in which to take your tricks. Here you must time winning your ♠A on the third round to keep dummy out of the play, which allows you to shorten declarer again with a fourth Heart.
When defending, count tricks whenever possible, count partner’s points so you know what to expect, count partner’s trumps from the bidding, count the general distribution, think about the meaning of the opening lead, identify where the setting trick can come from, and then plan your defense with the correct timing.
When you have long trumps, try to take control by shortening declarer. Force declarer to ruff from the long hand. If you succeed, you gain control because you now hold more trumps than declarer.
Second Question
West led the ♣9 against four Spades. East took the ♣A and switched to the ♦J. West won the ♦A and returned a Diamond, which East ruffed with the ♠5. East then continued with a Club and you won with the ♣K, with West following with the ♣8.
How are the points between the opponents divided?
How are Diamonds divided?
How are Clubs divided?
How are Hearts divided?
How are Spades divided?
How will you continue?
Solution
How are the points between the opponents divided? Likely a count lead, showing a three card suit in partner’s bid suit. It might also be an attitude lead, showing a high honor. Ask your opponents how they lead to partner’s bid suit.
How are Diamonds divided? Five with West and one with East, because East ruffed the second Diamond.
How are Clubs divided? Four with East and two with West. West has already shown two Clubs, which means East cannot have more than four. This gives East at least eight cards in the major suits, which must be a 4–4 shape. East cannot have three Clubs, because that would give East nine cards in the majors, meaning a five card major, and East would have opened one Heart or one Spade instead of one Club.
How are Hearts divided? Four with East and six with West, based on the earlier conclusion that East has four Hearts.
How are Spades divided? Four with East and zero with West, again based on the previous distributional analysis that places four Spades with East.
How will you continue? After winning with the ♣K at trick four, play a Heart to dummy’s ♥A and continue with the ♠10, planning to let it run if East plays low. If East covers with the ♠J, win with the ♠K, ruff your second Heart, and finesse East’s ♠Q. You can then play the ♣Q and ruff your fourth Club in dummy, or play the ♦K in dummy and overruff East, or discard a Club if East discards. In every line, you lose only the first three tricks.
Things to remember:
Count points and distribution. The bidding, the opening lead, and the play in the early tricks can reveal the full layout. In this deal, you learned at trick three that East has a singleton Diamond, and at trick four that West has at least two Clubs. From the bidding you also knew that East does not have a five card major, since East opened one Club. With this information you can complete the analysis and know with certainty that East holds a 4–4–1–4 shape, which makes West 0–6–5–2.
A negative double after a one level overcall shows six or more points and at least four cards in the other unbid major. It can be four cards with any strength of six or more points, or five or more cards with six to nine points, since with ten or more you would bid the suit at the two level. So if you have a long major that you cannot bid at the one level and fewer than ten points, you double first and later rebid your suit to show length and six to nine points. If the opponent overcalls at the two level, you need nine or more points for a negative double.
If the auction one Club by opener and one Diamond overcall by the next hand, then double shows both majors, and one Heart or one Spade now shows at least four cards.
If the auction goes one Club or one Diamond by opener, followed by a one Heart overcall, double shows four Spades and one Spade shows five or more Spades although pairs may agree otherwise.
If the auction one Heart by opener, followed by a one Spade overcall, double shows the minors.
Note North’s four Spade bid. This bid was not only aimed at making four Spades, since South could have overcalled with much less and then four Spades would not succeed. The bid also disrupts the opponents and makes it difficult for them to reach their excellent five Heart contract when both opponents are vulnerable. Some pairs will still bid on with West’s hand and reach five Diamonds.
Assuming the auction goes:
East
South
West
North
1♣
1♠
Double
3♣*
3♥
4♠
5♥
All Pass
*mixed raise, 7 to 11 points, four Spades
Now East can rebid Hearts more comfortably over partner’s negative double and West has a clear action too. Suppose South leads the ♠A. How should East play the hand?
Ruff the lead, play the ♦A and ruff a Diamond, then play the ♠Q and ruff South’s ♠K if South covers. Play a Club to the ♣A and discard the Club loser on the ♠J. Ruff the fourth Spade in dummy and ruff the third Diamond with the ♥10. Continue with a Club ruff, ruff the fourth Diamond with the ♥J, and ruff the third Club in dummy. Ruff the fifth Diamond in hand with the ♥Q and you make twelve tricks, losing only the final trick to the ♥A.
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.
