All News

For Junior, Intermediate and Novice players…and others. It's Fri day!

Who’s the boss?

Some deals require an exchange of information between partners in the bidding. Others see one partner take control, find out what they need to know and set the contract. Bearing that in mind, what should we bid here as North?

 

This is not a hand from my imagination! It came recently from the dealing machine at many clubs. So, you open your longest and strongest at the 1-level. You expect your partner to respond in one of the suits where you just hold the ace…but, no! They bid 1. Wow! What do you bid? The opposition remain respectfully silent…perhaps because they are vulnerable!

What should you bid? You certainly want to be in game. So, 4 is an option. Yet, how can you expect your partner to imagine you have this strong a hand? They only need to hold two of the top three heart honours to make small slam almost 100%..maybe just a 5-count.

So, what to do? You have to take control. There are 3 cards that really matter..the top three hearts. Find out how many partner has and go from there. Partner will be somewhat surprised when your next bid is 4NT. Surely 5 is safe no matter how bad there hand is?

What a great deal for Roman Key Card Blackwood? Partner’s reply is 5, showing 2 key cards (AK) and the Q. Great news. What now? Small slam should be easy. What about grand slam? The only problem is the missing Q. How many clubs does partner have?

no. of clubs

0, 1, 2    We can draw trumps and ruff the second/third round and with a normal break, we can ruff out Q. Where trumps break evenly, we maybe can get 2 ruffs.

3       Maybe a problem but we play AK and hopefully see the Q appear.

4       The Q will fall in 2 rounds unless we are really unlucky.

..and there is always the chance that partner holds Q.

We cannot find out how many clubs partner has or if they hold Q but chances of all 13 tricks are quite high. Time maybe to be brave?

It was even though no Q appeared in partner's hand:

 

West led J. South could draw trumps and play AK (do not take a second round finesse…against the odds) and claim when Q appeared!

I hope you did bid grand slam. Many pairs bid to small slam but the grand was not on the radar of the vast majority. It was not lay-down but had an extremely good chance of making. Some, alas, played in game. Maybe the North players did not take control.

When it is right to do so!

Richard Solomon

The disappointment of losing the Open Trial was partly alleyed when yesterday Jeremy Fraser-Hoskin, Zachary Yan, Lysandra Zheng and Zachary Yan were chosen to represent New Zealand in the Open section of the Asia Pacific Bridge Federation Championships, to be played probably in China next May. That is a just reward for their performance in last weekend’s National Trial. They will be joined in the team by Ashley Bach and Nick Jacob.

As stated yesterday, these articles will continue for the next few weeks as flashbacks 20 or 30 years with hands of interest from New Zealand Bridge Magazine. We will still try to make Friday deals ones of interest to our less experienced players.

Go Back View All News Items