Note to subscribers:
I am experimenting with creating a quiz format. It's still a work in progress.
Today we are going to try a
bidding quiz
1. You are the dealer and you hold
♠ A2
♥ K42
♦ KJ3
♣ AJ962
What is your bid?
2. Let's move a couple
cards to the heart suit. What is your bid now?
♠ A2
♥ K9642
♦ KJ3
♣ AJ2
Today, we’ll look at a hand where a weak two spade opening bid makes it difficult for the opposing side to find their best contract. Well, that’s part of the reason for bidding a weak two, isn’t it?
Edie picks
up this nice hand. She has 16 HCP and 5-3-3-2 distribution. She intends to open
1NT, but Norm, sitting to Edie’s left, thwarts her plan by opening 2 spades.
Edie
♠ A2
♥ K42
♦ KJ3
♣ AJ962
Edie could bid
2NT over 2 spades, but she is worried about the weak spade holding, now. Still,
with 16 points (17 with distribution) she would like to bid. She chooses to bid
3 clubs. Making an overcall at the 3 level requires a strong hand. She has
that.
Sally is
next and considers competing with 3 spades, but decides to pass, hoping that
her partner’s opening bid will keep the opponents from finding their best contract.
Sally
♠ 864
♥ JT
♦ AQ952
♣ 843
Walt is
delighted to hear about his partner’s strong hand and 5-card club suit. His
void is more valuable with his extra length in his partner’s suit. He counts
his points as 7 in high cards, 5 for the void with extra trump support and one
for the doubleton. That’s 13 points, and he expects his partner to better than
an opening hand to be able to make an overcall at the 3 level. He wants to be
in game, for certain. He thinks that slam might be possible. After all, his
partner might have 20 points. On the other hand, how does he find it? Blackwood
is no use. If Edie responds with 5 diamonds, showing just one ace, they are committed
to going to slam—off 3 aces.
Walt
♠ J3
♥ Q98763
♦ -
♣ KQT75
Walt just
silently curses Norm’s weak 2 bid, and bids 5 clubs. Norm has said all he is
allowed to say with his opening bid, so he passes. Edie decides that she has
already shown the full strength of her hand with her 3-level overcall and
passes, also. Sally passes.
Sally is on
lead.
Sally
♠ 864
♥ JT
♦ AQ952
♣ 843
There is
hardly anything to think about. She leads the 8 of spades as a “top of nothing”
lead to her partner’s suit.
Edie makes a
plan for the hand.
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
She sees no losers in clubs even if they break 3-0. There is a loser in spades and at least one in hearts. From the point of view of her hand, she would like to ruff three diamonds in dummy. The AJ9 of clubs in her hand will be able to pull the trumps, so she can use the big trumps in dummy to do the ruffing before pulling trumps. She will need transportation to her hand. That shouldn’t be a problem. She can get there with the A of spades and two rounds of trump.
She still
needs to hold heart losers to one. She can try a heart finesse through the
opponent of her choice. If that fails, there is the possibility of a 2-2 heart
break. If that also fails, there might be a chance for a second finesse toward
the Q98 in hearts. We’ll see how that works out. Let’s play.
Edie plays
small from dummy, Norm plays “third hand high” with the Q. Edie takes the A in
her hand and immediately starts to ruff diamonds. She leads the 3. Sally plays
small. Edie ruffs with the K. Norm follows with the 4.
Edie returns
to her hand by leading the 5 of clubs to the A. Norm discards the 6 of
diamonds. Sally follows with the 3. The 3-0 break is no problem.
Edie
continues by ruffing a second diamond with the Q and returns a small club to
the J. Edie still has a diamond to ruff and another trump to pull. Then, she
needs to tackle the hearts.
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
Edie stops to worry a little. She still needs to ruff the diamond in dummy but
won’t be able to immediately pull the last trump. Her plan is to lead a small
heart toward the K, hoping that Norm jumps up with the A. That would solve her
heart loser problem, but might Sally have started with a doubleton spade or singleton
heart and be poised to ruff Norm’s return? Norm probably started with exactly 6
spades. That leaves 3 for Sally. They might have started 7-2, but probably not.
How about a singleton heart? That’s a distinct possibility. If Sally started
with a singleton heart, and Norm has the A, and Norm returns a heart after
taking the A, Sally will win a trick with her last trump. Well, hardly any hand
is sure thing. There isn’t any way to avoid this risk after the 3-0 trump
break.
Edie
continues with her plan. She plays the K of diamonds, Sally covers with the A,
and dummy ruffs with the ten. Now, Edie leads a small heart toward the K. Norm
jumps up with the A, cashes his K of spades, and returns a heart. Edie plays
the K, and Sally follows suit. Thanks, Sally.
Now, Edie
pulls the last trump with the 9, and leads the 4 of hearts to the Q. All the
opposing hearts are gone, but Edie is left with nothing but trumps in her hand.
She claims the rest.
Today, we’ll look at a hand that has several chances to make. Declarer’s job is to figure out the plan with the highest chance of success.
Three
players pass to Sally who holds
Sally
♠ 7
♥ 76
♦ AK83
♣ AKQT32
She has 16 points in high cards and can count 2 distribution points for the 5th and 6th club plus one more for the second suit. That’s 19 points. She could open 1 club, but her hand will only have 4 losers with reasonable breaks in the minor suits. She decides to open with the artificial strong 2 club bid. If you would prefer to open 1 club with this hand, I wouldn’t criticize you.
Remember that Sally’s opening 2C bid does not promise anything about clubs.
Walt,
sitting to Sally’s left, passes. Sally’s partner holds
Norm
♠ KT52
♥ A32
♦ QJT4
♣ 86
That’s 10
points in high cards, and 1 distribution point for the second suit. Norm wants
to make a positive response to the 2C opener. Any suit bid that he makes would
imply a 5-card suit. He chooses to respond 2NT. The opponents pass at every
opportunity from here on.
Norm’s
positive response forces the team to game, and is a strong invitation to investigate
slam. Sally isn’t crazy about NT, and she hasn’t said anything about her suits
yet. Both players understand that they are going to game, and slam is a possibility.
There is no reason to hurry the bidding. They should take their time to find a
fit. Sally bids 3 clubs.
Norm doesn’t
care for the clubs, even though Sally ought to have 5 of them for her bid.
Having already denied a 5-card suit, Norm can show his 4-card suits, hoping to
find a 4-4 fit. He should bid them up the line to keep the bidding low. He bids
3 diamonds.
Sally is
happy with the 4-4 fit in diamonds. Sure, the 6-card club suit is pretty, but there
is a guaranteed diamond fit. She decides that the team will be playing a
diamond contract. Next, she needs to figure out whether the team should be in a
slam or not. Even a grand slam is possible. Norm has not limited the upper end
of his strength. Sally figures that if Norm has one ace, along with his other
4+ points, there should be a reasonable chance for a small slam. Sure, his ace
might be the ace of spades and the rest of his points might be in spades and
diamonds. That would be bad news. The opponents could take the AK of hearts off
the top and set a small slam. It could happen, but that is too pessimistic.
Sally bids 4NT, the Blackwood convention to find out how many aces Norm has.
Norm
responds 5D showing one ace. Had Norm bid 5H, showing both of the missing aces,
Sally might ask for kings to see if a grand slam were possible. But, he didn’t.
Sally is satisfied with the 1 ace and bids 6 diamonds. Everyone passes.
Edie leads
the ace of spades and Norm makes a plan for the hand
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
It looks
pretty good, so far. There shouldn’t be any losers in diamonds unless they
break 5-0. Edie’s lead just promoted the K of spades to a winner. Norm will
still have 2 spade losers and 2 heart losers in his hand after losing the A of spades.
He could try to ruff some spades and hearts in dummy, but that will require
getting to his hand several times, and he’ll need to do all that ruffing before
pulling trumps. He might be able to avoid ruffing anything if the clubs break
3-2. If that is the case, he can pull trumps, and then discard all of his
losers on the clubs. But, what if they don’t break 3-2?
Let’s stop
and take a look at the hand from dummy’s point of view. Dummy will lose a trick
to the ace of spades and has one heart loser. Clubs might not have any losers.
If that is the case, dummy can discard the losing heart on the king of spades,
and everything is wonderful. If the clubs don’t break, Norm can ruff a club in
his hand and the rest of the clubs will be good. That sounds like a
pretty good plan. This idea of thinking of the dummy as the “long hand” and
ruffing in declarer’s hand is known as a “dummy reversal.”
Dummy plans to pull trump, run clubs, and discard a heart on
the king of spades. Norm is ready to play the small spade from dummy and a
small one from his hand. Edie continues with the 4 of clubs, leading around to
weakness. Sally plays the ace and Walt follows suit. Sally
start her plan by drawing trump. She leads the A and K from dummy, and Walt
discards a small spade on the second trump.
Sally can
still pull all the trump, but it will take all her trumps to do it. That’s
still not a problem if the clubs break 3-2. Unfortunately, by the time Sally
finds out that they don’t, all her trumps will be gone. She can’t test them,
first, by leading a second trump, because if they break 4-1 and the player with
the singleton is the player with the remaining trumps, she will lose a trick to
a ruff. Her only choice is to hope for the best in clubs.
She
continues pulling trump and leads a second club. Edie uncooperatively discards a
heart on the second club, and there is no way for dummy to avoid losing a club.
What’s worse is that she won’t be able to take any more clubs even after
knocking out the Jack. She doesn’t have any more entries to the board. The
contract ends up down 3.
Still, for
such a disastrous result to happen, the trumps needed to split 4-1 and the
clubs needed to split 4-1. Probability favors getting a 3-2 break in at least
one of those suits. It was a good plan. It just didn't work out.
A bid of 2 clubs often has an artificial meaning. It's important to know when 2 clubs means that you have a club suit and when it means something completely different. If you mix these things up when either you or your partner bids 2 clubs, expect disaster.
Today we look at a 1 NT hand. We will see how declarer uses all the information that is available to make a brilliant choice for a play at the end of the hand.
Norm is the dealer and bids 1 diamond with this hand:
Norm
♠ J8
♥ T986
♦ AT74
♣ AK8
He has 12 points in high cards and can count one
distribution point for the second suit. He has no 5-card major, so he bids his
better minor suit.
Edie is sitting to Norm’s left and was surprised that Norm
opened the bidding. She holds:
Edie
♠ AK6
♥ A75
♦ KQJ85
♣ 64
Without Norm’s opening bid, she was trying to decide whether
to open 1NT or 1 diamond. She has the balanced distribution and the required
15-17 HCP to open 1NT, but she was worried about the worthless doubleton. One
diamond is a safer opening bid, and she could jump in diamonds at her next turn
to show her strength. Then, Norm goofed up her plan with his opening 1 diamond
bid. Now, bidding diamonds is out of the question. Her only alternative to
bidding 1NT is to pass. She decides to risk the club trouble and overcall 1NT.
Sally happily passes with this hand:
Sally
♠ Q954
♥ QJ3
♦ 9
♣ QT753
Had there not been the 1NT overcall, Sally would have a
demand bid with 6 points opposite her partner’s opening bid. She doesn’t have
the required 10 points to show her club suit, therefore she would have responded
with 1 spade. The overcall, however, relieves her of her obligation to keep the
bidding open for her partner. A free bid over the 15-17 points shown by Edie
would need to guarantee that her side had the balance of the strength in the
hand. She should probably pass any hand weaker than 10 points. She does.
Walt holds
Walt
♠ T732
♥ K42
♦ 632
♣ J92
With 8 or more points, Walt might look for a 4-4 spade fit
with the Stayman convention, but he has only 4 points. He passes.
Norm has just a minimum opening hand and no help from his
partner. He passes also.
Sally is on lead against 1NT. She wants to find the
strongest combined holding for her side. He first consideration is the suit
that her partner bid, but his 1 diamond opening might be based on a 3-card
suit, Sally holds only one card there, and the 1NT overcall should have the
opener’s suit stopped at least once, preferably twice. Sally needs to look
elsewhere for an opening lead.
Sally
♠ Q954
♥ QJ3
♦ 9
♣ QT753
The clubs are longer than the spades, however, Norm
indicated that his diamonds were better than his clubs. A spade lead is worth
considering, but Sally decides to go with clubs. Having just two honors at the
top of the suit, she leads her 4th highest—the 5.
Now, Edie pauses to make a plan for the hand before playing
to the first trick.
|
Dummy |
|
|
|
Declarer |
In no trump, Edie starts by counting how many tricks she can
take off the top. Well, with the club lead, that number is zero. She can use
the rule of 11 to reason that there are 6 cards outside of Sally’s hand that
are bigger than the 5 of clubs. Edie can see 3 of them, so Norm must have 3
clubs bigger than the 5. That’s good. It means that the opponents can run at most
5 tricks in clubs. Let’s suppose that happens and the 6th trick is
either a spade or a heart. Now, Edie can take 4 tricks in spades and hearts. She
will need to take 3 more tricks to make the contract. The diamonds look like a
good choice. Edie will need to force out the ace of diamonds, probably losing
one of her top honors in the process. Then, she will have two good honor cards
to cash. If the diamonds break 3-2, her two small diamonds will be set up, and
she’ll make an over trick. If they break 4-1, the 4 cards will certainly be in
the hand that opened 1 diamond. She might be able to win a trick with a deep
finesse. She might not have the luxury of just losing the 4th
diamond trick to set up the little one. If the opponents lead hearts at every
opportunity, Edie will be out of heart winners after losing the 4th
heart, and she will lose a bunch of hearts before she can cash her little
diamond. Still, it looks like she has a solid plan.
Edie decides to play a small club from dummy. Norm wins with
the ace, cashes the King of clubs and returns a small club. Edie discards a small heart. Sally takes with
the Queen and continues to cash her small clubs. Now Edie needs to be careful
with her discards. She needs to preserve two small diamonds in dummy in case
she needs to try a fancy finesse if there is a bad diamond break. She discards
a small heart from dummy. Norm plays a small heart and Edie finds herself in a
tight spot. She discards a spade, and plans to discard a small diamond on the
next club. There goes one chance for an extra trick in diamonds.
Sally leads her last club. Edie discards a spade. Norm plays
a heart, and Edie plays a diamond as planned.
Here is what is left for Edie before Sally leads. Edie hasn’t
taken any tricks, yet.
|
Dummy |
|
|
|
Declarer |
Sally continues with the Queen of hearts. Edie needs to
preserve the entry to the board, so she takes with the ace in her hand. Now,
she needs to force out the ace of diamonds. She leads the King. Sally follows
with her 9. Dummy plays small, and Norm takes the ace. He hopes that he can
eventually take the ten of diamonds after the Queen and Jack are played. He decides
to take out declarer’s only entry to the board by leading a heart.
The King wins on the board. Now, Edie leads a small diamond
from the board and Norm plays the 7. If the diamonds break 3-2, Edie can take
the Q and J of diamonds and cash the last diamond. However, if they break 4-1,
this play will set up the ten for the opponents. She could, instead, decide to
finesse the 8. That play works against a 4-1 break, but loses if Sally started
out with the T9 of diamonds. Edie knows that Norm started with at least 3
diamonds based on his opening bid. The only way that the finesse fails is if Norm
opened 1 diamond with the A74 of diamonds and the AK8 of clubs. Since Edie was
paying such careful attention to the cards that Norm had played and could
visualize the hand he started with, she bravely plays the 8 of diamonds on this
trick.
The 8 holds. Edie breathes a sigh of relief, and she cashes the rest of her tricks to make 1 NT.
Today, we’ll look at a small slam that is easy to bid and easy to make. Not every lesson needs to be hard.
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Dealer: Edie
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
For this
lesson, the opponents’ hands don’t matter much, so I haven’t shown them. Edie
passes and Sally chooses to open the bidding. She has 11 HCP and can count 2
points for distribution—one for the 5th diamond and one for the
second suit. Walt passes. Norm has 19 HCP and balanced distribution. No trump
seems like a good place to land, but he doesn’t have an appropriate no trump
response. Remember that no trump bids generally show a specific point range. Point
ranges for trump responses to a one-of-a-minor opening are:
1NT:
6-9 HCP
2NT:
13-15 HCP
3NT:
16-18 HCP
Another
issue is that Norm should be thinking about slam. His partner should have at
least 13 points and he has 19. Just one more point makes the 33 points needed
for slam. Sally could easily pass the 3NT response with a minimum opener. The
solution is to make a jump shift. The jump shift by responder shows 19+ points,
is forcing to game, and strongly suggests that slam is possible. Norm bids 2H.
Edie passes.
Sally is
happy with hearts. She responds 3H. That bid doesn’t give any additional
information about the strength of her hand. It just shows a heart fit. Walt
passes.
Now, Norm has
a difficult decision to make. He is happy to have found a heart fit, but he
still likes no trump. The problem with no trump is that 3NT is likely to be
passed and 4NT is the Blackwood ace-asking convention. Norm needs to give up on
no trump. He needs to be happy with finding a heart fit.
Now, how
does Norm figure out if their side has enough strength for a small slam? How
about a grand slam? What about all the holes in his hand? Let’s consider the
last question first. Sure, it looks like his hand is only good for 5 tricks,
but Sally has to have her 13 points somewhere. That’s why you consider the
combined strength of the two hands when deciding where to place the contract.
There really isn’t any way to figure out if Sally has the 14 points needed to
add to Norm’s 19 to get to 33. He just needs to take a chance. There isn’t any way
for him to figure out if Sally has the 18 points needed to get to the 37 needed
for a grand slam either. Norm is going to need to leave that up to Sally.
What about
Blackwood? Well, there is no information to be gained from asking for aces.
Norm has them all. He could bid 4NT, knowing what Sally’s answer will be, and
then bid 5NT to see if she has the missing 3 kings. What does he do if she
answers with 2 kings? It’s hard to say. Norm just skips all the rigmarole and
bids a small slam.
The bidding
isn’t over, yet. Sally knows that Norm has at least 19 points. If she happens
to have 18 or more points, she can raise the 6H to 7H on her own. She knows
that Norm hasn’t learned about her extra strength yet, and his first jump-shift
bit has told her that the team has enough strength for grand slam.
Edie is on
lead and starts with a small club. Norm starts by counting his losers. He can
only afford to lose one trick.
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
There
shouldn’t be any trump losers unless the missing 5 trumps break 5-0. Norm might
lose the K of spades. He shouldn’t lose any diamonds, but clubs might be an
issue. He could try to ruff two clubs in dummy, but he will need dummy’s high hearts
to pull trump. A better plan is to discard the club losers on dummy’s small
diamonds after that suit is established. That will work if the 5 outstanding diamonds
break 3-2. If all else fails, there is a spade finesse for the king. So, there
are multiple ways to make the hand.
Plan A: Pull
trumps. If they break 5-0, Norm will lose a trump trick. If that’s the case, he’ll
need the favorable diamond split and the spade finesse. Knowing which hand
holds the trumps, might open up some fancier plays, but we won’t get into
those.
Plan B: Pull
trumps. They break 4-1. Now, Norm needs only the favorable diamond break OR the
spade finesse. He can try the diamonds first by leading the A and K. If they
break 4-1, he leads to the diamond Q and tries the spade finesse.
Plan C: Pull
trumps. They break 3-2. That’s the easiest way. After pulling trumps, each hand
has a little trump left. If the diamonds break 4-1, Norm can ruff the 4th
diamond in his hand and return to the board by ruffing a club. Then, he can
cash the 5th diamond to discard his losing club.
Let’s play
through one of those scenarios. Norm starts by taking the A of clubs and cashes
the A of hearts. Both players follow. He leads a small heart to the K on the board.
Walt follows and Edie shows out. Norm is on the board with this holding:
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
Norm is
going to need the QJ of hearts to pull Walt’s trumps. There is still a spade to
lose. If Norm finishes pulling trumps before knocking out the K of spades, he
can lose a club—having no more trumps in his hand. Therefore, he needs to switch
gears and work on the spades.
He tries a
finesse. The finesse doesn’t need to work, but it doesn’t hurt to try. Norm leads
the spade Q from dummy. Edie follows small. Norm ducks in his hand and Walt
takes the K. Now, Walt leads the K of clubs. Darn! Norm can’t afford to use one
of the high trumps to win this trick, and he can’t afford to lose the trick
either. He’s sunk.
Let’s back
up. Suppose on trick 2, Norm leads a small trump to the KQJ on the board. He
takes the K and leads the Q. Edie shows out. Now, Norm is in almost the same position,
but he still has a small trump on the board that he can ruff a club return
with.
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
Now, Norm
tries the spade finesse that loses. Walt returns the K of clubs, but Norm can
ruff with the 7 of hearts. Walt still holds 2 trumps. Norm is on the board and
cannot afford to lose any more tricks. Once trumps are pulled, he has two spade
winners and can run the diamonds as long as they split 3-2. He leads the J of
hearts and the 6 of spades to the A. As long as Walt didn’t start with 4 trumps
and the singleton K of spades, Norm will win this trick with the A and can pull
Walt’s last trump. Then, it is a simple matter of running the diamonds. This
play works with an unfortunate 4-1 trump break and a losing spade finesse, as
long as the diamonds break 3-2. Those are pretty good odds.
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
