Test Your Bridge Skills #42

What does partner's 2NT mean?

Well, rebidding 2♣, following a 1♦ opening shows 12-17 points. It’s a relatively wide range – if they had had 18+ they could’ve done a Jump shift to 3♣, with normally 5-4 in the minors. Your 2♦ is a correction bid, showing 6-9 points. If partner had a minimum hand (12-14), they’d pass your 2♦ and play for part score.

But partner’s 2NT, shows a maximum for his hand (16-17), invites you to game and promises a stopper in Spades, the unbidden suit.
As you have a maximum hand, you need to accept the invitation and raise to 3NT (with 6-7 points you would need to pass).

Possible hands could be:

You can see that 3NT is an excellent contract which has a great chance to make.

Note:

• Partner's 2NT bid does NOT promise a balanced hand. Their 2♣ rebid had already shown an unbalanced hand.
• Partner's 2NT does show a stopper in Spade, the unbidden suit. With a maximum hand and no Spade stopper they should’ve bid something else or 2♠, fourth suit, asking for a Spade stopper - you then bid NT with a stopper or 3♦ without.
• With the same hand and 3 cards in Hearts, partner would’ve bid 2♥ (after your 2♦), showing a max (16-17) and 3 cards in hearts - likely 1-3-5-4 – as per hand 2.
• With a stronger hand, partner would’ve jumped to 3♣ (jump shift), showing 18-21 points, is game forcing and shows a maximum opening.
• Note the change of suit by the opener shows 12-17 and doesn’t yet limit their hand completely. It’s the same if they bid their 2nd suit at the 1 level: 1♦ - 1♥ - 1♠ means Opener's 1♠ rebid shows 12-17 points.

Hand 3

Against 2♥ you led the ♠J. The declarer played low from the dummy and your ♠J won the trick. How will you continue?

Against 2♥ you led the ♠J. The declarer played low from the dummy and your ♠J won the trick. How will you continue?

A quick look at dummy, reveals lots of things once your ♠J has won the trick. Your partner holds the ♠AQ, so if the declarer doesn’t have a void in Diamonds or shortness in Spades, you can easily count 5 tricks for the defense: 3 Spades, 1 Diamond and 1 Club.

So, where can the 6th trick come from? Can partner hold the ♣K? Yes, it’s possible. If you play the ♣A, partner might signal. In any case, continuing Spades seem logical from your hand, through dummy's ♠K to partner's ♠AQ. The thing is though, that your highest trump is the ♥8, which is lower than dummy's ♥9, which means you won’t be able to ruff the fourth Spade as dummy will overruff.

So, if partner doesn’t have the ♣K, where can the sixth trick come from? The solution is simple: Play the ♣A at trick 2 and regardless of partner's carding, continue with the ♠10. Partner will cash ♠AQ and you can discard your 2nd Club on the 3rd Spade. A club ruff will then return the setting trick.

This line of play is better than immediately cashing the ♦A, as there’s a chance that the declarer has a void in diamond and partner has the ♣K; and if you play the ♦A, declarer will ruff and make overtricks. Whereas by playing ♣A and ♠10 the defense will make 3 Spades, 2 Clubs and a Club ruff without needing the ♦A. On the above hand both defenses set.

Note:

• If you don’t play the ♣A before playing the second Spade, it will be fruitless to discard a Club on the third Spade as you still have the ♣A blocking the suit. Plus there are no more entries to partner's hand for the setting Club ruff.
• And how can partner know that you wish to ruff Club and not the fourth Spade? It's simple. Your sequence of plays signals your intention: after winning the lead, you played the ♣A, then the 2nd Spade, followed by the Club discard. If you wanted a Spade ruff (with, for example, ♣AXX, and not ♣AX and a trump higher than dummy's trumps), you would've played the ♠10 at trick 2, instead of the the ♣A.

Hand 4

You play 6♦ and West led the ♠K. How will you play?

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.