Test Your Bridge Skills #39

You have a huge hand and slam could be possible. Or if going for game, you need to decide which game to be in. Partner could have:

Slam in Spades is easy to make while 3NT relies on 4-4 in Hearts and 5♦ relies on 3-3 in Diamonds.

For this we’d want to play 3NT.

And here we could make 6♦.

And here 7♦.

So, to make the right decision on which contract to land, you need to find out more about partner's hand. To do this you need to find a bid which forces partner to bid. A fictive 3♣, jump shift here is that bid. A Jump shift is game forcing and forces partner to keep bidding until you’ve at least reached game.

Re-Bidding 2NT shows 18-19 and balanced.

Re-Bidding 3♦ shows 6 cards, 15-17 points and allows partner to pass if they have minimum.

Re-Bidding 3NT shows 6+ cards in Diamonds and a strong hand (with no other suit) and would be good here if partner bids 1♥.

4NT is possible, but we still don’t know enough about partner's hand.

4♦ jump is showing solid Diamonds plus a Spade fit (needs agreement).

Note:
When partner changes suit at the 1 level, any bid by you supporting partner or any return to your suit at the 2 or 3 level is NOT forcing. To force partner in at a relatively low level, you need to either bid jump shift (a new suit in a jump) or do a reverse bid (here it would be 2♥, but is not suitable for this hand).

After your 3♣ bid, partner's options are

• Bid 3♦ showing Diamond support (but could be a light hand)
• Bid 3♥, 4th suit forcing, likely with 5 cards in Spades.
• Bid 3♠, showing 6 cards in Spades.
• Bid 3NT, showing Stoppers in Hearts and no slam ambition.
• Supporting you in Clubs, which you will correct to Diamonds.

Hand 3

Against 4♥ you led the ♠K. Partner followed with the ♠10 and declarer with the ♠5. What will you do now?

Against 4♥ you led the ♠K. Partner followed with the ♠10 and declarer with the ♠5. What will you do now?

So, what do you know so far? Partner has 7 cards in Spades including the ♠A. Assuming partner didn’t bid with 8 cards (if not vulnerable, they would bid 4♠ with 8 cards), you can count that the defense has 3 sure tricks: ♠AK and ♥A.

It’s clear that you need to play another Spade fast, otherwise the declarer will be able to discard their Spade loser on the Club suit. But if you play your 2nd Spade at trick 2, partner will take the ♠A and will likely continue a 3rd Spade (best from their side), trying to help you promote a trump trick, which is what will happen if the declarer ruffs with dummy's ♥J – Partner's ♥9 will be promoted.

However, the declarer can ruff low in hand and now if partner discards, declarer will discard too, and if partner ruffs, declarer can overruff with the ♥J, and the ♥9 will no longer be promoted as the declarer can now pull out the trumps and only lose 1 Heart and 2 Spades.

But you have a line to set: Play ♥A at trick 2 (and get rid of that annoying ♥J) and then continue with a Spade. Partner will take the ♠A and play another Spade and now your ♥9 will be promoted: If the declarer ruffs low, you overruff with the ♥9 and if the declarer ruffs with the ♥10, you discard something, but after the declarer plays the ♥KQ, your ♥9 becomes good.

Note:

On defense, when planning a promotion, it’s important to win all the side tricks first and then try the promotion (plan your timing accordingly); either let partner ruff high, forcing declarer to overruff and by doing so promoting a trick in your hand, or, putting partner (or yourself) after the declarer so that if they ruff low, partner (or you) can overruff. If the declarer ruffs high, a trump trick will be promoted in partner's (or your) hand. Here are the 2 situations:

It seems that the declarer has all the trump tricks, but after leading ♣AK and playing a 3rd Club, partner ruffs with the ♥J. Declarer overruffs with the ♥Q and your ♥10 is promoted.

It seems that declarer has all the trump tricks, but after leading a Club to partner's ♣AK, a 3rd Club from partner promotes your ♥10: If the declarer ruffs low, you overruff and if they ruff high, your ♥10 gets promoted.

Hand 4

You play 6♠ and West chose to lead the ♠7. You won it in hand (East followed with the ♠2). What now?

You play 6♠ and West chose to lead the ♠7. You won it in hand (East followed with the ♠2). What now?

The trump lead is a little bothering. But no need to panic. Without that lead, you would be able to ruff the 2 Clubs losers in dummy. Later, you pull out the trumps and give away 1 Heart trick.

If you try to enter dummy with 1 of your aces and then attempt the Club finesse, you will make the contract only if the finesse works: ♣AQ, Club ruff in dummy and then later you’ll lose a Heart trick. But here, West will get the ♣K, play another trump and you will go 2 down, losing 2 Clubs and a Heart.

The best way to play, against any lead, is to try to develop the long Diamond suit: Win the Spade lead in hand, play Diamond to the ♦A, ruff a Diamond, return to dummy with the ♠J and ruff a third Diamond. The remaining Diamonds are high now. Pull out West's last trump. Return to dummy via the ♥A, and on the remaining 4 high Diamonds discard all you losers from hand (2 Clubs and 2 Hearts) to make all 13 tricks.

Note:

• Developing a side suit via ruffs is a great technique to make extra tricks when you are in a trump contract and also have a long side suit in dummy (or in hand). You can develop this suit by continuing to ruff and later, when opponents have no more of this suit, you can discard your losers on your promoted tricks. Make sure to go with the right playing order!

  a. Start by ruffing the long suit and count opponent's cards carefully so you know when the suit is high.
  b. Pull out the trumps when the suit is promoted, to prevent opponents ruffing your high tricks.
  c. You need to plan the entries to ruff that suit as many times as needed, plus you need an additional entry to enjoy your promoted tricks.
  

• On the hand above you need to plan 3 entries: 2 to ruff 2 Diamonds plus another to enter the promoted tricks: the first entry must be the ♦A to ruff the first Diamond. Then the second entry should be the ♠J to ruff the second Diamond. Now you need to pull out the last trump from opponents before using the last entry, the ♥A, to reach the 4 promoted Diamonds.
• If you started by pulling out trumps, you’ll miss a vital entry (the ♠J) which is needed for this operation.
• If you use the ♥A as second entry to ruff the third Diamond, you’d fail. Using the ♠J as third entry will not be good enough as West still has a third trump to ruff your Diamonds.