Hilo Bridge Club Updates
See update below
Your partner opens the bidding one diamond in second seat. RHO passes and you respond one heart holding:
Partner’s rebid is two clubs and it’s back to you. Don’t you have a game forcing hand with your nice 14 points? Your call?
Please respond in the comments. I will post my recommendation Wednesday evening.
Update: This is a perfect example of the opportunity to use 4th suit forcing to game. Bid two spades. Partners next bid should help guide you to the right spot.
Here is an interesting bidding situation from Sunday.
Your hand:
Your partner opens one heart in second seat. RHO overcalls two spades! What do you do? Give it a little thought before you scroll down.
Pass! You have a misfit with partner, and opponents are in trouble. This situation is similar to our earlier discussion here. Jim Cheney will be happy that you are waiting for partner to make a reopening double.
Holiday Party and STaC game is scheduled for December 22nd. Please put it on your calendar and let me know if you need a partner.
Exercise 3. North’s Lead against contract of Four Hearts by West:
You are North holding:
Bidding:
Your opening lead and why? Feel free to opine in the comments.
Exercise 2. North’s Lead against contract of 1NT by West:
You are North holding:
Bidding:
Your opening lead and why? Feel free to opine in the comments.
Eight of us had a lot of fun discussing possible opening leads yesterday morning. It’s not surprising that there was no consensus on which alternative lead would be best. Here is the 1st exercise. I will post the other two later today. Feel free to opine in the comments.
Based on the criteria for opening leads, rate a couple of possible leads for each of these exercises.
Exercise 1. East’s Lead against contract of 1NT by North:
You are East holding:
Bidding:
Your opening lead and why?
I just got word via the Unit 469 monthly report that Joan is now a Bronze Life Master. Congratulations, Joan!
Here is board 7 from yesterday:
Notice that West in a contract of six spades would lose the first five tricks on lead of the King of diamonds.
But what happens if North’s lead is the seven of hearts? Can you make six spades in that case? Give it a try double dummy. Enjoy! 
Word comes via Joan Shafer that Robin has made Life Master. Congratulations, Robin!
You are West and open the bidding with one heart (both vul). Here is your hand:
LHO (North) overcalls one spade, partner passes, and South (LHO) passes. Summary of bidding so far:
It’s often a good idea to double in this situation, because partner may have made a trap pass with a good hand and good spades. In fact, Jim Cheney says, “it’s automatic”. You will never lose the heart suit unless partner passes your double for penalty.
However, you have a strong hand containing seven hearts. You would have to set the opponents down three for +800 to do better than your vulnerable game in hearts for +620. But if you can only make +140 part score in hearts, you would do better setting the opponents down one (+200) or down two (+500).
Is it best to rebid your hearts? If so, at what level? Or is it best to double? Your hand is too good to pass, so what is your bid? Double? Two hearts? Three hears? Four hearts?
Your thoughts in the comments, please.
Wednesday’s lesson’s emphasis was unblocking on defense. Most players have no problem unblocking as declarer, because in that case they can see the dummy with their own eyes. Unblocking on defense requres you to “see” partner’s suit holding based on clues from the bidding and lead. Here are some examples from the lesson. In each exercise what card would you play and what is your plan from there?
Exercise 1. Defense against 3NT:
You are the South defending West’s 3NT contract. Your partner (North) leads the K of diamonds. Declarer calls for the diamond 3 from East. Here is the layout that you can see with your own eyes in the diamond suit:
Opponents have reached 3NT effortlessly, so you can assume that partner is pretty weak in the other three suits. Your plan?
Exercise 2. Defense against 3NT:
You are the South defending West’s 3NT contract. Your partner (North) leads the Q of clubs. Declarer calls for the club 2 from East. Here is the layout that you can see with your own eyes in the club suit:
Opponents have reached 3NT effortlessly, and you only have the three points you can see. That means your partner may have an entry outside of the club suit. Your plan?
Exercise 3. Defense against 3NT:
North and South are defending East’s 3NT contract. North opened the bidding with two spades. East overcalled 2NT, and South raised partner to three spades. West bid 3NT, and that ended the bidding.
You (South) hold Q 9 2 of spades. You are going to lead your partner’s bid suit, right? Yes, right! What card do you select and why?
I will put solutions to these three exercises in an update on Friday. In the meantime please give these puzzles a try in comments.
Here is an opening lead problem from yesterday’s game. Your right hand opponent passes in 1st seat, and you open the bidding with one heart holding:
Left hand opponent passes, partner passes, and RHO overcalls one spade. You pass and LHO raises to two spades, which is passed out. Bidding summary:
What is your opening lead and why? Please give me your thoughts in the comments.
Update: Your partner is broke, so best is to go passive and lead a club. Make declarer do all the work. Each time you are in continue to lead clubs unless something else comes to light.
See update below. You are sitting South (both vulnerable). West opens the bidding with one club. Partner (North) overcalls one heart and East passes. You have a nice hand:
What is your call? Please give me your thoughts in the comments.
Update: You have an opening hand and a known heart fit. Best is to bid two clubs showing your limit raise or better. Yes, you may also have a spade fit, but no reason to give the opponents additional information.
Here is a fun double dummy problem. See if you can solve it. Hint: subject of yesterday’s lesson was unblocking.
South is in four spades, and West leads the ace of clubs.
Here are the last two exercises from Wednesday’s class:
Exercise 3. Defense puzzle
Put yourself in the East seat. Bidding was:
West leads the 5C and you see this dummy in North
North calls for the jack. What do you make of West’s lead? What is your plan? Give me your ideas in the comments. I will post the solutions on Sunday.
Exercise 4. Declarer play puzzle
You are South in four hearts after the following auction:
Do your like the bidding? How many losers do you have? What do you make of West’s lead? What is your plan? Give me your ideas in the comments. I will post the solutions on Sunday.
We had another fun discussion in yesterday morning’s lesson. Subject was the reasoning that led to two of my bidding errors from Sunday:
Exercise 1. It’s Your Call:
You are the dealer (favorable vulnerability) and open the bidding one diamond. LHO passes and your partner responds one spade. RHO passes and it’s your turn. Bidding so far:
Here is the your hand (the hand I held):
How good is your hand in view of partner’s response? And what is your rebid? Give it some thought before scrolling down to read my reasoning.
My thinking was that partner must have five spades. Why? There are 13 missing hearts in the other three hands, and partner would have responded one heart with 4-4 in the majors. But holding five spades and four hearts, partner would respond one spade. And partner would also respond one spade with 5-5 shape in the majors. Since opponents were silent at their first turn (did not overcall or preempt in hearts), I concluded there was an odds-on likelihood that partner had five or more spades. With the presumed 8-card or better spade fit and my big hand, I invited game in spades by leaping to three spades.
That was a mistake. “Odds-on” does not mean it’s a sure thing. I failed to allow for the possibility that partner held only four spades. Much better would have been to show my invitational hand by leaping to three diamonds. We could still find an 8-card spade fit (or better) as the auction progressed from there. There was no need for me to be in such a rush.
BTW, do you agree that my hand contained invitational values? How do you evaluate the hand?
Exercise 2. It’s Your Call:
Put yourself in my seat as West enjoying favorable vulnerability. North deals and opens the bidding one spade. East passes and South responds two spades. Bidding so far:
Now it’s West’s turn. West holds:
The question is should you “balance in the direct seat”? That sounds contradictory (and it is), but it’s sometimes done when you deduce from the bidding that partner is unlikely to balance in the pass out seat. In this case you are worried that the bidding will die with North-South in two spades. Why are you worried? You think they can make two spades, and you would like to push them up one level. But is it right to pre-balance with your hand by bidding three hearts at this point in the auction?
Give it some thought and then scroll down.
I made the mistake of bidding three hearts. It was way too aggressive without a known heart fit and much better hand, including decent strength in my 5-card heart suit. There is good guidance for balancing in direct seat on Wikipedia (looks like Larry Cohen probably authored most of it). You can prebalance at the two level if the auction in not higher than two hearts and you have a reasonable prospect of finding a fit. The link has a nice summary of when and why you should consider balancing.
You are South in a contract of four spades. The opening lead by West is the spade deuce. You begin by counting your potential losers you are in a suit contract: one spade, one heart, one diamond, and one club for a total of four losers. You start by trying to drop the spade queen, but that does not work. West started with four spades to the queen. Now what is the best chance to reduce your losers to three?
North Dummy:
South Declarer:
Give it some thought before scrolling down for my recommendation:
How about trying the diamond suit? If diamonds break 3-3, the jack will later provide a parking place for a heart loser after you have lost a trick to the queen of diamonds. That’s a 36 percent chance. But there is also the chance that you will drop the queen of diamonds when it is singleton or part of doubleton. That would eliminate the diamond loser. Its chance is roughly one percent for the singleton queen plus 16 percent for the doubleton queen. Bottom line: the diamond suit provides approximately 53 percent chance of eliminating one loser (36+1+16).
Here is a double dummy puzzle that we had fun with in class two weeks ago. So far Jane Waldron is the only one I know of who has solved it. You are West in 5H. Opening lead by North is the 3 of clubs. How are you going to make 5 hearts against perfect defense? Specifically, how are you going to keep from losing two clubs plus the ace of hearts? Give it a try and let me know your solution in the comments:
Aloha, Bridge Players!
Here’s the second part of our August 14th bridge lesson, with a focus on Weak Two bidding.
First, you may be interested in reading some ACBL (that’s American Contract Bridge League) lessons about Weak Twos:
Exercise 3: It’s your call. Bidding so far:
You are South holding:
Your call?
Think of your answer before scrolling down.
Your partner has a weak hand, and you have a known 9-card fit in spades. Further the preempt by responding 3 spades. It’s unlikely that you have a game. You may or may not make 3 spades, but the idea is to make opponents decide at the 4-level! They have more strength than your side. Good job in making their bidding life difficult.
Exercise 4. It’s your call. Bidding so far:
You are dealer as North (not vulnerable) holding:
Think of your answer before scrolling down:
You are weak and have the right kind of a spade suit to open the bidding 2 spades. The problem is that you also have 4 hearts. Experts generally recommend passing in 1st or 2nd seat when you hold four of the other major. Here you don’t want to miss a game in hearts. Shortness in the minor suits is a real feature if you discover a heart fit, and your long suit may enable you to discard losers when it sets up. If your partner is a passed hand, however, it’s a good idea in 3rd seat to make bidding life difficult for the opponent in 4th seat by opening 2 spades.
The first is board 1 from Wednesday the 14th:
Allan commented:
Board 1. Assume bidding starts 1D 2C . How does south express his holding? Be aware that direct 2S is strong and forcing 1R. Negative X and intending 2S seems suitable; if (west passes and) opener rebids 2D, then what? If west raises to 3C and south becomes balancer, then what? [Note – negative free bids allows initial 2S by south.]
My comment: South has 10+ points in context of the auction so far. Why shouldn’t South respond 2S? South’s hand looks strong enough to me.(I don’t usually don’t play negative free bids.) Maybe I need a stronger hand to make a 2 over 1 response when my suit is higher ranking than the one partner opened? Any thoughts from the thousands of awesome bridge players reading this?
The second is board 8 from Wednesday the 14th:
Allan asks:
Assume P 1C X P / 1H . North’s next call is either P or 2C. How vigorously does E raise hearts?
What do you think? I would bid 3H in response to East’s take out double. With 5 hearts to the J 10 8, ace of spades, and singleton club it looks like 9 support points.
I held the East hand and chose to bid 2H rather then double at my first opportunity. NT looks out of the question because of East’s awful holding in clubs. I thought the smallest lie was 2H with the top three honors (so good it looked like a 5-card suit to me). We did not have any trouble reaching 4 hearts once my partner raised me.