Test Your Bridge Skills #38

This quiz was written by Oren Lidor.

Test Your Bridge Skills #38

Test Your Bridge Skills #38


Hand 1

What will you bid as South?

Best Answer: 7♣

What do you know about partner's hand? They have between 12 and 14 points, a balanced hand and 3 aces, otherwise they can’t have an opening. They must have 3 Cards in Hearts but not 4 cards in Spades (given they didn’t bid 1♠). That also means that they must have at least 4 cards in Clubs (if they’d had 3♣, 4, 3, 3♠ - they would’ve opened the bidding with 1).

Next you can count the tricks: 1 Spade, 5 Hearts, 1 Diamond and 4 Clubs. So there are 11 sure tricks. You can’t hope partner has a K, as if they had they would've opened 1NT with at least 15 points.

So, if partner has only 4 Clubs you can’t make a small slam in Spades, or in NT as you’ve only 11 tricks (you can only make 12 tricks if partner has 5 cards in Clubs, which is possible, but not sure).

However, if you choose Clubs as trump, partner will have a great chance of making 13 tricks by ruffing twice in dummy (your hand), making the ♠A plus 2 Spade ruffs, 4 Clubs, 1 Diamond and 5 Hearts.

This could be the hand:

Note that although partner has absolute minimum and a bad 3-3-3-4 distribution, 7♣ is cold even if Clubs are 4-1, while 6 and 6NT have no chance to make as you’re stuck with 2 Diamond losers that you can’t do anything about. Playing 7♣, partner simply ruffs 2 Spades in dummy, pulls out 4 rounds of Clubs (discarding 2 Diamonds on the last 2 Clubs) and then plays all the Hearts, onto which they can throw the last 2 diamonds from hand.

Note:

  • Playing in 4-4 fit is almost always better than playing in 5-3 (or even 6-3) fit as you can ruff from 1 hand and discard 2 losers on the long 5-3 side suit. While if the 5-3 suit is the trump, you can’t discard anything on the 4-4 side suit, and will probably only be able to ruff from the long hand, which doesn’t help, as you’ve already counted the tricks from that hand (while ruffing from 4-4 fit, you have 4 tricks plus the amount of ruffs you get from the same hand).
  • New Minor Forcing asks partner to continue to describe their hand. If they bid your suit, it means they have 3 cards in it (with 4 cards – they’d have supported immediately).

Hand 2

What will you bid as South?

Best Answer: 3

Partner's 2♠ is a reverse by the responder, showing opening plus values and a game forcing hand (although the bid was at 2 level).

Therefore, there is no need for any jumps, as no one will pass before reaching at least game.

Partner showed at least 5 Diamonds and likely has 4 cards in Spades. You have support for Diamonds, points in both partner's suits plus controls, a good long side suit in Hearts, shortness in Clubs (which is likely to be opponent's suit) – so you need to show the support in Diamonds, as Slam could have a great chance to make through developing the Heart suit and/or ruffing the Clubs in your hand (the short hand).

The hand can be:

You can see that 6 is cold as points are laying well and the singleton Club is very valuable.

Here Partner just settles for game, having good values in Club and not too many controls.

Note:

  • When playing 2/1, the 2 bid is already game forcing. If playing sayc, 2 is 1 round forcing but 2♠ makes the bidding game forcing. With less than game values, North should bid 1♠ on the 1st bid.
  • Note that the 2 bid does not have to have 6 cards in Hearts (unless agreed otherwise). It shows minimum, while a 2♠/3♣ bid after 2 by responder must have extras, also when playing 2/1 (unless agreed otherwise). This way the responder can tell if partner has minimum or not, and slam can be found, with say two hands of 15-16 points.
  • Hand evaluation: it's important to understand that when you have points in either yours or partner’s long suits and shortness in opponent's suit (after finding a trump fit), it means your hand is stronger. If partner also has a suitable hand, like in the first example above, achieving a slam is possible even with fewer points.

Hand 3

Against 4 you led the ♠2. Partner played the ♠J and declarer won with the ♠A and played the J. You won with the A. What will you do now?

Best Answer: 9

Against 4 you led the ♠2. Partner played the ♠J and declarer won with the ♠A and played the J. You won with the A. What will you do now?

You have 3 sure tricks. The key card which partner played is the ♠J. That card DENIES the ♠10 (otherwise partner would play the ♠10 - 3rd hand plays high, but LOWEST from a touching sequence) and also denies the ♠K (else he plays it as 3rd hand).

That places ♠AK10 in declarer's hand, so don’t whatever you do continue with Spades.

You have 3 sure tricks: 1, 1 and 1♣. The setting trick would need to be the ♠Q which means you need to put partner on lead so they can play a Spade to your hand to help you to develop your ♠Q.

The menacing Club suit means that you need to win your tricks fast, before the declarer develops Clubs and discards losers on it. The only way to set is to hope partner has the K, as it’s the only possible entry to their hand. So, play the 9 (preference to Spade) and when partner gets the K, they’ll continue with a Spade. Declarer will win with the ♠K, pull out the last trump, but when they play Clubs you can win the ♣A and the ♠Q to set 1 down. If you play A and something, declarer will manage to pull out the trumps and develop Clubs for a Spade discard. If you play a low Diamond back, partner might continue with Clubs, wrongly thinking you have a void (♠Qxxx Axx AQxxxx ♣ - ).

Note:

As 3rd hand:

  • Play high (assuming hands 1 and 2 played low)
  • From a touching sequence of high cards - Play the LOWEST card of that sequence (unlike 1st hand, which plays TOP of sequence). For example. If partner had played the ♠10 at trick 1 to the declarer's ♠A, it would be clear to you that they also have the ♠J, otherwise the declarer would have won the trick with the ♠J. Then, the right play would be to continue with another low Spade to partner's ♠J. But here, when partner played the ♠J, they deny having the ♠10 in their hand).
  • Dummy completes the sequence:
    a)

    As 3rd hand play the ♠K (3rd hand plays high, and you have only 1 high card).b)

    As 3rd hand play the ♠Q (lowest from a touching sequence)c)

    As 3rd hand (if dummy played LOW) play the ♠10 (the ♠Q in dummy completes the sequence and therefore you play low from a touching sequence. The ♠10, is high enough to win the trick if partner holds the Ace OR high enough to draw out declarer's ace, if they have it).
  • If partner led a top card (or dummy okayed a top card) – you should signal attitude (want/don’t want) OR count (odd/even cards in hand), according to you agreement with partner.

Hand 4

You’re playing 3NT. West chose to lead the ♠K and East followed with the ♠2. What will you do?

Best Answer: ♠A and ♣2

You’re playing 3NT. West chose to lead the ♠K and East followed with the ♠2. What will you do?

Many players sitting West will chose to lead a low Spade (as K is normally from KQJ or KQ10 vs NT), but "your" West has found the worst lead for you, which immediately kills your entry to dummy - if they lead low, you try low, win it in hand and start developing your Diamonds, using your ♠A to make your developed Diamonds later, and make overtricks.

Clearly, you can’t hold up, otherwise you will win only 1 Spade trick and by continuing a 2nd spade, opponents will be able to kill your entry to dummy and promote their Spades.

Counting tricks: 1 Spade, 2 Hearts and 1 Club, gives you 4 sure tricks. Assuming opponents will hold up 1 Diamond, you can make 1 Diamond trick too. You will also manage another Spade trick, bringing you to 6 in total. So, you’ll need 3 more tricks form the Club suit, and that will only happen if the Club finesse works, and Clubs are 3-3 – not a high chance, but that is what you have.

On top of this, if this is going to happen, you’d need to finesse twice and start immediately! So, take the ♠A, finesse Club to the ♣J and now play LOW Diamond to dummy.

If opponents take with the A (which could be a singleton) your Diamonds are now high and you still have another Diamond to enter dummy and take them. Assuming opponents hold up, win the Diamond in dummy, finesse another Club to the ♣Q, take ♣A and when the ♣K drops, win your 4th Club too. Now it’s time to develop another Spade for 9 tricks: 2 Spades, 4 Clubs, 1 Diamond and 2 Hearts.

Note:

  • Normally, in NT play, you develop your longest suit assuming you have an entry to enjoy your developed tricks. But if you have no entry, or you had it and opponents attacked it, you’ll need to seek an alternative plan, even if the chances of succeeding are lower. You don’t have any other choice.
  • Note that you had to hope for a successful Club finesse, and that you had to make sure you could make it twice. So a Club at trick 2 for the 1st finesse was a must as you only have 1 more entry to dummy to finesse again.

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.

24 comments on “Test Your Bridge Skills #38”
  1. Two things I don't like about hand 1.

    In the system for BBO bidders challenge, 5Cl means 1 or 4 key cards. It seems Lidor plays 03-14... How do we know which is applicable?
    Lidor sais "What do you know about partner's hand? They have between 12 and 14 points, a balanced hand and 3 aces, otherwise they can’t have an opening".
    I think North could have KQ in spades, KQ in diamonds and one Ace...

  2. ty for reply/clarification. My opinion on XYZ is we should teach everyone xyz as it's better than NMF 80/90% of the time.

    Supper easy to learn and comes up all the time.

  3. I would like to see our host respond to the objections of 7C being far too speculative. When I bid 7C, partner comes down with a 4=3=3=3 hand (anti-percentage). When I bid 6C, partner comes down with a 3=3=2=5 hand (losing in MPs to 6H).
    And Shiang is right, the 4NT bid stinks, but to respond to the other half of his comment, since these quizzes are designed for intermediate players, they use NMF instead of the more complex XYZ.

  4. Sir, I found this Queeze as an Interesting Learning and Skill Improving exercise. I can continue with such more exercises.

  5. Oh. Two annoying errors in a very good and instructive set.
    Small: in the example for 3, d10 should be with our partner, otherwise the game is cold. Win sK, take a ruffing finesse against our dA, return to hand with a trump and discard a spade loser on good diamond.
    Big: as people already commented, 7c in 1 are bad. If c10 is with our partner, they require 3-2 break in both clubs and hearts (if hearts are 4-1, heart lead destroys the communication). This is less than 50%. If the partner holds three small under the cA, there is no chance on a heart lead (and if partner also lacks h10, any lead would do). The grand requires at least 56-57% IF we can be sure that either 6 or 7 in the right denomination would be played at all tables. With a good portion (or even majority) of the field playind in hearts, bidding 7c can be profitable with the chances, I guess, over 80%. One last thing: partner will show maximum with the majority of hands containing five clubs, heart fit, and three aces, so he is very likely to have exactly 3334 (other shapes contradict the first two bids).

  6. 20/20, 3 was hard.

    Not sure I like the bidding on 1. 4nt killed a lot of space and didn't allow for exploration of shape and cue bid of 2nd round controls. 4nt also looks more like quantitative than key card for hearts.

    Play xyz what's the rush start by setting trump or bidding 3c it's forcing to 3nt.

  7. Yes very informative again. I found hands 3 and 4 particularly so. In hand 3 I recognised the spade problem,but failed to see the solution was not to blindly take my ace of iamonds while I could. A wake up call I'll try to remember next time Ikm in that dilemma. Hand 4, the power of 4-4 trumps and longer fit side suit for ruffing - will help the penny to drop for me to not choose the long fit as trumps....

  8. 7c = 45.9684%. bad slam 🙂 you need cl 3-2 and hearts 3-2 . on heart lead there is no communication to ruff 2nd spade if hearts are 4-1 and if clubs are 4-1 and hearts 3-2 you need also A109x not only A10xx. 6hearts good bridge.

  9. In Hand 3, dealer has a singleton in Diamonds so winning a second trick in D (as you analyze) seems not possible as it will be trumped.

  10. on hand 1, the claim that 7c is cold is nonesense (hyperbole?). Ignoring the possibilities of 5-0 trumps and a heart ruff (Lightner double from W), a 4-1 trump break makes it thin, and the normal trump lead complicates matters. I would estimate that 6c bid and made is 90% (no other slam has play). Bidding a grand needing good breaks all round risks losing 90%+ to gain at most 10%

  11. Assuming the system played here is the system the Bots play, on board 1 1NT does NOT deny 4 spades, it just says balanced 12-14. Nor does the 2 hearts rebid denies 4 spades, showing 3 hearts is mandatory even with 4 spades. Partner having a 4 card club is likely yes, but certainly not guaranteed.

  12. To be more precise, for many 1n may be bid on 4333 (or 4324 4234 without hurting the case), which would make the grand in c a little wanting

  13. On hand one, it should be stated 1n excludes 4s. In any case 3c over 2h seems to be a better bid than b-wood

  14. There is a sound reason why Oren's quizzes are awesome - every problem teaches a concept. An incredibly good teacher!

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