Test Your Bridge Skills #43

This quiz was written by Oren Lidor.

Test Your Bridge Skills #43

Test Your Bridge Skills #43


Hand 1

What will you bid as South?

Best Answer: 3♠

Hand Evaluation Guidelines:
Follow the list below to find out when your hand is more valuable and when it is less valuable. This will help you decide whether to bid higher or stay low.

Good hands:
1. When you have more trumps.
2. When you hold points in your partner's suits.
3. When you are short in the opponents' suits.
4. When your points are in your long suits.
5. When your points are over the opponent's suit, means you have specific cards that can potentially beat opponent's card (especially if they overcall on your right, and you have honors in their suit).
6. When you have Aces (and Kings) in a suit contract.
7. When you have many spot cards like 10s and 9s, it's better to raise, especially in No Trump (NT).
8. When the vulnerability is in your favor.

Not-so-good hands:
1. When you have fewer trumps.
2. When you hold points in the opponents' suits.
3. When you are short in your partner's suit.
4. When your points are in your short suits.
5. When your points are before the opponents' suit (opponent on your left overcalled, means they probably have higher cards to beat yours).
6. Queens and Jacks are better for No Trump (NT).
7. Anemic hand, means you have no spot cards.
8. When you're vulnerable versus not vulnerable.

Here, what does partner's 3 mean?

It shows a very good hand with a fit in Spades, a singleton Diamond and probably very good clubs.

What do you think of your hand now you know what partner has?

Your hand is NOT good! You basically have 8 wasted points. Your KQJ are wasted given your partner's singleton, you have no points in partner's suits and you’re not going to be able to help out in partner's weak suit (Hearts). You also have no length and a balanced hand, so you should bid 3♠ to show absolute minimum with no ambitions.

A possible hand could be:

Partner now has to make a decision on whether to pass or to bid on. You can already see that 3♠ has huge difficulties to make with a Diamond loser, 3 Heart losers and possible Spade and Club losers.

Note:

  • A splinter is usually a double jump in a new suit, especially when it comes from the responder, and if so, then it needs to have at least a 4 card support (normally at least 9 cards fit in total) and singleton or void in the bidden suit.
  • A Splinter by the opener (as with the hand above), is 1 bid higher than the strongest natural rebid. So, if 2 here is the strongest bid (a reverse bid, showing 16-21 points and 1 round forcing), then 3 is a Splinter, showing a good hand with a Spade fit and a singleton in Diamonds. In this case the splinter is NOT a double jump and it can be 1 round forcing if agreed upon. On the other hand, in situations where it’s a double jump, it has to be game forcing:
    Opener ----- Responder
    1 ------------- 1♠
    4♣ = A Splinter with a double jump, which is game forcing. Note that a 3♣ bid is a natural jump shift, showing at leads 5-4 in Diamonds and Clubs, 18-21 points. Therefore, splinter is 1 bid above it.
  • Look at the list and compare to your hand to see clearly why your hand is bad:
    *No extra trump length
    *No points in your long suits
    *No points in partner's suits
    *No aces in side suits
    * wasted points vs partner's shortness
    *Very balanced hand
    *Points are in the short suits

Hand 2

What will you bid as South?

Best Answer: 3

Here you also have 8 points but now ALL your points are working. Points in partner's suits and an ace in their weak suit, with no wasted values in Diamond, where partner shows shortness. Here you should Bid 3 to show a control and a suitable hand to move forward.

The hand could be:

You can see that partner has the same hand as in example 1 but now your hand fits their hand perfectly. 12 tricks are easy to make, even against a Heart lead: Win with the A, pull 3 rounds of trumps (say trumps are 3-1), play 5 rounds of Clubs rounds to discard a Heart and a Diamond from hand, and you’ll have 12 tricks - 5 Spades, 5 Clubs, 1 Heart and a Diamond ruff in dummy.

Note:

  • For hand evaluation - it's not the amount of points that matters, but where the points are (working points in this hand vs wasted points in the previous one). You’ve 8 points in both hands but you could make 12 tricks on this one but you’d be lucky to make 9 tricks with the previous hand.
  • Check your hand against the list below to see exactly why your hand is so good:
    *Extra trump length
    *Some points is your long suits
    *Points in partner's suits
    *An ace in a side suit (in , likely partner's weak suit)
    *No wasted points vs partner's shortness (= partner's singleton is very valuable as its in opponents strong long suit)
    *Not too balanced hand

Hand 3

Against 2NT your partner led the 6. You won with the A. How will you continue?

Best Answer: ♠K

Against 2NT your partner led the 6. You won with the A. How will you continue?

Partner led Heart and you plan to return suit, but on the way you can let them know what’s going on.

By playing the ♠K at trick 2 and then continuing in Hearts you’re letting them know that you have good Spades over dummy's ♠Q (it’s clear you have the ♠A when your K holds the trick) and when they get the hand with the A, it will be easy for them to play Spades. It will also help with the count - Declarer has 15 points, dummy 8 and partner has 5, coming to 28. And now partner sees you have the A, ♠AK, which means you’ve nothing in Hearts and Clubs.

So play ♠K at trick 2 and return a Heart. If partner has KJxxx, they will make all 5 heart tricks, and once they return a Spade you’ll make 9 tricks together! If partner's Hearts are poor (as they are here), the defense will still manage 1, 1 and 4♠'s to set (so it’s important that partner plays Spade to capture dummy's ♠Q). So here, partner has the A and upon winning with it, he will know to continue with Spade.

Note:

  • After winning your partner's lead with an Ace at trick 1 and planning to return their suit, follow these tips to help your partner count the cards in your suit:If you have AXX:
    Return your high card. For example, if you have A52, play the Ace and then return the 5.If you have AXXX:
    Take the Ace and return your lowest card.This will be easier for your partner to figure out how many cards you have in the suit, and will be helpful for planning the next moves.
  • Winning partner's lead, playing a top card with another suit when dummy has Q or J in that suit, and then returning partner's suit at trick 3 helps partner to continue with that suit once they get the hand.

Hand 4

You play 6♠ and West led the J. You won with the K. What will you play now?

Best Answer: 2

You play 6♠ and West led the J. You won with the K. What will you play now?

You only have 2 losers, and they’re both in Diamonds. As you can’t ruff or discard the Diamonds, you need to make a double finesse, hoping to find at least 1 of the missing honors in East. There’s a 75% probability that you’ll succeed. You’ll only fail if both honors are in West.

Win with the ♥K and play a Diamond to the 10. West will get the K and likely play a Spade or Club. Win with the ♠AK, and now play the A. Even though it might seem odd, you should ruff the A in the dummy. This is the only way (entry) to get back to the dummy's hand and make the second Diamond finesse - this will allow you to make the J as the 12th trick.

Note:

  • You'll need your K and the A ruff as entries to get into dummy and make the double finesse.
  • When an opener bids 2♣ and next they jump in a suit, it means that suit is the trump and must be a very strong or solid suit. This is also asking partner to show if they have control(s) in other suit(s).
  • A bid of 5NT asks for Kings, aiming to reach a contract of 7, especially if North has the K. Since 6 shows that they have no Kings in Clubs and Diamonds, South then settles for 6♠.
  • Note that as North showed a Heart control, and denied aces, it has to be a 2nd control (K or singleton). South knows it as they have all the key cards, which is why the 6 response shows more than just 2nd control – it could be KQ or singleton.

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.

21 comments on “Test Your Bridge Skills #43”
  1. Why would the biid on bd-1 imply strong clubs and weak hearts? Even if we swap an ace and x between clubs and hearts, won't we bid the same way? Can someone please clarify? Thanks.

    1. Too easy, all 4 problems took me like 5min and the answers were all obvious.

      Also, board 3 I'm getting a new partner that knows to lead their worse major vs NT contracts without going through staman.

  2. On hand 2,4D is more descriptive than 3H;meant to be "all my points are very good vs your singleton".Thus,North can evaluate his hand better.

  3. On hand 2,4D is more descriptive than 3H,meant to be "all my points are valuable vs. your singleton."Thus,North can evaluate his hand better

    1. Normally, there's not room to stop below game after a splinter. In this case, there is. I like to play 3D is game-invite or better and 4D is GF AND a void

  4. Boards 1 and 2: splinters are already forcing to game. It really should not be possible to stop in 3S. My choice in board 1 is 3NT (unless its a conventional bid) - if partner has what he promised, it should be a decent contract. IMHO, North's hand is too weak for a splinter.

  5. Good problems as always. This time my score was abysmal, because I missed the boat on the first two problems, thinking that3D rebid showed 56 in the minors. It's nice to have a bid alerted, but it would be even nicer to get an explanation :-). No matter, I guess I should have diagnosed the situation as 2D is already a reverse.

    1. I agree with you comment. I also interpreted the diamond bit as a reverse with clubs and diamonds. It would be nice to have an explanation of the bidding system

  6. On 3, is it not possible declarer has like 98532 QJ8 A2 AKQ. By playing the KS we let the contract through whereas we can always give him a suit pref signal on the diamond and be confident that he will make the correct switch if the layout is like the example in the actual hand.

  7. The explanation for 3D in the first 2 examples is not how I, and most players I know in the UK, would understand it. It would be a D suit and forcing to game.

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