My partner and I scored 57% on Board 1 for bidding and making 6H.  We thought we had done well to avoid 6NT as two key cards, the KD and the QC were poorly placed from declarer’s point of view, and surely there were only eleven tricks available in a NT contract?   We, on the other hand, could ruff one loser to create the twelfth trick.  But it turned out that four of the E/W pairs who played in NT, always with East as the declarer, made twelve tricks.  This might have been the consequence of generous defending.  Maybe South led the fourth highest of her longest suit, the 3C, so that East’s JC made a trick?  But the app says that E/W can always make twelve tricks in NT. 

I cannot see how East can make 12 tricks in NT except with a Club lead (or a Club switch after South wins the KD).  So I can offer this as a challenge to those of you who like a double dummy challenge.

On Board 6 there was likely to be a competitive auction.  The pair with the better cards, in this case E/W, have to decide if they can make game.  The other pair have to decide how high to bid.  There are two possible pitfalls in bidding too high.  First you might push the opponents into a making game that they would otherwise fail to reach.  Secondly you might finish up losing too many points if you are Doubled. 

East opens 1D.  She has 20 Hcp and a three-loser hand, so it is close to being a 2C opening bid, but probably the Diamond suit doesn’t seem quite good enough to insist on a game contract.  North has a standard 1S overcall and East, with a weak hand including three-card Diamond support, bids 2D.  South might well now bid 3S, bidding to the level of fit.  What should West do?  She knows that her partner has a weak hand and that the opponents have a Spade fit.  3NT is out of the question – a Spade will be led and with the minor suit aces missing ...  With partner having a weak hand, 5D is unlikely to make.  Double seems sensible.  As both sides have identified a fit, this should be taken as a penalty Double.  West has excellent defensive values with certain or at least likely tricks in all four suits.

At my table the bidding was slightly different, following the second sequence shown.  South was more cautious than I recommended above, and was maybe wise to be cautious, in which case maybe North’s 3S bid was unwise.  The question was, how many tricks could N/S make with Spades as trumps?  If they could make eight tricks, then even Doubled they would show a profit compared to allowing E/W to make a Diamond part-score.  In the event they could only make seven tricks, so playing in 3SX gave N/S a poor result.

One of my Players of the Week this week is my partner Alan Shackman, who saw that the route to a good result was by Doubling 3S rather than rebidding Diamonds at the four-level.

I made a mistake on Board 15 – one that a number of other players also seem to have made.

At the club on five out of eight tables the final contract was 1NTX by South.  Presumably the first bidding sequence occurred at all those tables.  I was sitting East and Passed without much thought.  But although with a very weak hand it is tempting to forget to think, you really should think before you take any action at the bridge table!  I should have reasoned that partner has shown something like 16-18 Hcp and I have 1 Hcp, so therefore the opponents have over half of the high-card strength and are likely to make 1NT.  So I should have bid something.  Fortunately I had a five-card suit, so I had an obvious 2C bid (and when I Passed I had no excuses).  In all probability this would have been Passed Out. The app says that E/W can only make seven tricks in Clubs, but -50 would have been a much better score than the -380 we achieved when South made 1NTX+1!

If East bids 2C then North might make the same calculation that East should have made and might have tried 2D – the app says that N/S can make 3D – but with no guarantee that South has a Diamond suit North is more likely to Pass.

My second Player of the Week is the one East player who found the 2C bid, Pauline Shelley (although I know that Pauline and her partner Sue Reeve sometimes get their names in the wrong way around, so it might be Sue who deserves the accolade).

One last hand this week to illustrate a potentially valuable piece of advice.

If N/S play a Weak NT system, then South opens 1NT.  Suppose West Passes.  Should North bid or Pass?  With 11 Hcp North might reckon that if partner has a maximum opening hand then the partnership will have 25 Hcp, usually thought to be enough for 3NT, so she might bid an invitational 2NT.  I think this is an unwise bid.  The chances are that South has 12 or 13 Hcp and also North has no five-card suit.  It is odds on that 3NT will fail, in which case it must be better to play in 1NT.  It is true that on occasion 3NT will be making, but in the long run I think Pass is the best bid at pairs scoring.  If you happen to make 1NT+2 you will in all probability still get a decent score, even if 3NT is bid and made elsewhere.

Of course on this particular board, West might overcall.  Playing Multi-Landy 2S is a possible overcall, showing a Sade suit and an unspecified minor suit.  If West does bid, then North can Double, to show that her side has the majority of the points.

The app says that N/S can make exactly 1NT, which would score +90.  2NT-1 would score -100.  The app also says that E/W can make exactly 1S.  If E/W finish in 2SX going one off N/S will score +100.  I am surprised that at the club none of the N/S pairs played in 1NT.  At my table West Passed and North bid 2NT.  Maybe at other tables West overcalled?  But as all N/S pairs played in either 2NT or 3NT I rather think that most Wests Passed.

My advice is that if, at pairs, partner opens with a Weak NT, with a flat 11 Hcp hand you should Pass.

Board 7 provided an interesting insight into how to (or how not to) utilise weak 2 opening bids.

The first question is, should West open the bidding?  Assuming that you play Weak 2s, the point count and the Diamond suit suggest a 2D opening bid, but some players do not like to open with a Weak 2 when they have a four-card major side-suit.  This depends on whether the partnership has a method of finding a major-suit fit after a Weak 2 opening bid.

After the Weak 2 opening bid, assuming that left-hand opponent is silent, partner might Pass, bid her own suit or bid an artificial 2NT showing 15+ Hcp and asking the opening bidder to further describe her hand. 

If the responder Passes, clearly there is no danger of missing a high-level major suit contract.

The next possibility is that partner bids a new suit.  I think it is important that such a bid should be understood as forcing for one round.  The responder does not have a very strong hand, i.e. with 15+ Hcp, but she might have a strong enough hand to allow game to be made.  In such a case it is important to exchange a bit more information in order to find the best contract.  The opening bidder will have the choice of showing support for partner’s suit, bidding a second suit or rebidding her six-card suit.  This week’s Board 7 shows how this can work in practice.  After West’s 2D opening bid, East is not strong enough to bid 2NT but she does have a decent hand and also a distinct lack of Diamonds.  She bids 2H.  West has an upper-range Weak 2 so rather than simply re-bid Diamonds she shows her second suit by bidding 2S.  Now East knows there is a 4-4 Spade fit.  East has a six-loser hand and knows that a good Weak 2 opening bid is usually based on a seven-loser hand.  The Losing Trick Count suggests that 5S will make (as 18 - 6 + 7 = 5), so East bids 4S.  4S makes comfortably, losing two Spades and a Club, it being easy to establish both the red suits.

The third possibility is that partner shows a strong hand by responding 2NT.  If you play Ogust then it is now difficult to find a 4-4 major suit fit.  The Ogust responses to partner’s 2NT only show the character and strength of the opening bidder’s six-card suit.  But if you use a features system in response to partner’s 2NT enquiry, then it is possible to show a four-card major side-suit.  With a lower-range Weak 2 hand opener simply rebids her suit.  With an upper-range hand she shows a positive feature of her hand.  A bid of an unbid major suit can then be used to show a four-card suit.

Returning to today’s hand, it is interesting to consider whether it would be possible to reach 4S if West chooses to Pass on the first round of bidding.  I think it would, but I don’t think it would be easy.  I assume that N/S would remain silent throughout.  East would open 1H and West would respond 2D.  West has 9 Hcp, which is not enough for a two-level response, but if you apply the Rule of 14 the hand is goiod enough to bid 2D.  The Rule of 14 says that your hand is strong enough for a two-level response if, when you add the number of points to the number of cards in your longest suit, the total is 14 or more.  In this case West has 8 Hcp and a six-card suit, which just satisfies the Rule of 14.  East has to rebid 2H, not being strong enough to bid 2S, which would be a reverse.  It would be tempting for West to Pass this, having stretched a little to bid 2D.  But if you have made a two-level response you should always find a second bid.  On this hand, West should bid 2S.  It might seem that West is too weak to make a responder’s reverse, but a little thought shows that this is the correct bid.  Consider what West knows about partner’s hand.  West does not have a balanced hand as she has failed to bid NT on the first two rounds of bidding.  She does not have a four-card Club suit as in that case she would have bid 2C in preference to 2H.  She does not have a four-card Diamond suit as in that case she would have raised Diamonds.  She must have either at least six Hearts or a four-card Spade suit.  If she has a six-card Heart suit then you are going to finish up playing in Hearts with an eight-card fit, which is fine.  If partner can establish the Diamonds then 4H will almost certainly make.  And if partner has a four-card Spade suit then you want to play in 4S.

My Players of the Week are the two pars who bid and made 4S on this hand, Pauline Shelley & Sue Reeve and Judy Roose & her partner.

This week there were a number of boards where one side could make game, but very few pairs were able to do so.  Board 1 was a good example.

3NT is an easy contract to make, but only one pair bid it.  Why not?  North opens 1D.  East might Pass, although a 1S overcall may be tempting.  The Spade suit just meets the suit quality test, which says that if you add up the number of cards and the number of honours in your suit you find the level at which it is wise to overcall (expressed as the number of tricks you will need to make your contract).  In this case the answer is seven, meaning that a one-level overcall is acceptable.  If East does overcall, what should South bid?  South has good Diamond support with only 7 Hcp but she has a seven-loser hand.  The high-card strength of the hand suggests a bid of 3D, which should show a weak hand with four-card Diamond support.  But the LTC suggests a bid of 2S, showing a stronger hand (usually with at least 10 Hcp and with a minimum of eight losers) with Diamond support: this is an Unassuming Cue Bid (“unassuming” because it says nothing about the denomination bid, in this case Spades).  There is something to be said for either 3D or 2S – the choice will depend on your individual style and how you feel at the relevant stage of the session.  If East Passes then with good Diamond support and a seven-loser hand South should bid 3D.

In any of the three cases, I think North should bid 3NT.  There may well be nine tricks on top – two Spades, one Heart and six Diamonds.  If not then partner has only got to provide one trick, probably in Clubs or Hearts.  5D on the other hand might easily fail – for example there might be a Heart and a couple of Clubs to lose when 3NT is cold.  You cannot guarantee that 3NT will make, but surely it is a sensible gamble?  One of my Players of the Week is Ros Midgen, the only North to find the 3NT contract.

On Board 17 E/W could make 6D and one pair successfully bid and made the slam.  It took me a little while to see how 6D would make against any opening lead.

I don’t know how 6D might be reached – with extremely distributional hands normal bidding systems don’t really work – but I have suggested a possible route there.  Once East has opened the bidding, West, with a good nine-card suit, is only interested in controls, so she uses RKCB to check for aces.  The 5H response shows that East has at least one ace, so there will probably be a play for 6D – so let’s bid it!

6D is obviously easy on any lead except a Heart.  If a Spade is led then declarer wins with the KS, lays down the AD in case the KD is singleton, crosses to the AH, discards and Club loser on the AS and concedes a trick to the KD.  If a Diamond is led then there is no trump loser.  Declarer will discard a Club loser on the AS and will finish up with an overtrick.  If a Club is led then declarer can try to QC from dummy, which will win the first trick leaving the KD as the only loser.  But what if North leads her singleton KH?  In this case it looks as if declarer must lose a Diamond and a Club as there are insufficient entries to dummy to unravel both Spade tricks.  Not so!  In practice declarer will win the AH in dummy, cross to the KS and lead two rounds of trumps.  In with the KD North will be end-played, having only Spades and Clubs left.  A Spade lead will allow declarer to discard her Club loser on the AS and a Club lead will allow the QC to make.

Although it was slightly lucky that 6D can be made against any lead, I feel that it is a contract that should be bid.  Once West has opened the bidding, West should be thinking that 6D is the minimum contract that E/W should settle for.  And trump support in partner’s hand is not a priority when you hold a nine-card suit!  So my second Player of the Week is Tom Keith, the only West player to bid and make 6D on this hand.

When choosing the opening lead, it is generally unwise to lead an ace unless you also hold the king of the suit.  This principle was illustrated by Board 11.

At my table the contract was 3D after the first bidding sequence.  South led the AH.  North ruffed the second Heart and led a Spade, hoping to reach South’s hand to receive a second ruff, but East went up with the KS and in due course the contract made with six Diamonds and one trick each in the other three suits.  The opening lead set up the KH as a trick in declarer’s hand, which was crucial, but could North have defended better, or at least more effectively?  A Club lead at trick 2 wouldn’t have worked as this would have been won by the QC in dummy allowing declarer to lead a Spade and thereby promote the KS.  What about a trump return at trick 2?  Declarer would have been able to draw trumps and then enter dummy with the 8D to take the Spade finesse.  So again the contract would have made.

If South has led the JC then the contract should have been defeated.  Declarer would have no way of avoiding five losers, three Hearts and the two black aces.  So: don’t lead unsupported aces!

My partner and I achieved a poor result (29%) as a consequence of allowing 3D to make.  So it was tempting for North to blame South for the result, but before apportioning blame it is important to remember that bridge is a partnership game.  Could North have done anything to avoid the poor result?  As explained already, the game was up once the AH had been led to trick 1, but what about the bidding?   Suppose North had competed by bidding 3H after East’s 3D bid?  With two aces and the QH (albeit a singleton) this was not an unreasonable bid.  If E/W bid again then N/S surely should have been able to gain a plus score and the app says that 3H can be made.  At the club South was the declarer in a Heart contract three times and nine tricks were made only once, so presumably the play wasn’t straightforward, but even 3H-1 would have given N/S a much better score (64%) than we actually achieved.  So the reality is that the blame for our poor result on Board 11 should be shared.  Bridge really is a partnership game!

On Board 16 the question was, should South allow the hand to be Passed Out?

At the club the hand was Passed Out only once – at my table.  I presume that at all tables West, North and East all Passed, so it must have been the South players at the other tables who found an opening bid.  In general I like to Pass with 11 Hcp or fewer in the fourth seat.  I tend to think that the side that opens light on a hand that might be Passed Out usually gets a poor score.  In addition I tend to Pass 4441 hands with 12 or fewer Hcp.  There is also a problem with opening the South hand insofar as the singleton is in Clubs.  If you open with a major and then rebid 2D then you are telling partner that you have five cards in your major suit, which could be dangerously misleading.  If you open with 1D then what can you rebid if partner bids 2C?  If you are strong enough to reverse this isn’t too much of a problem as you can bid a major suit at the two-level, but with 11 Hcp you are certainly not strong enough to reverse!  So I think South was correct to Pass.

This is a slightly strange hand as although E/W have the majority of the points, it is N/S who can make the highest-level contracts: the app says that N/S can make 2D or 3S, whilst the highest contract that E/W can make is 1C.  To be fair it takes accurate defence by N/S to hold E/W to seven tricks with Clubs as trumps, which gives me my Players of the Week, who are Judy Roose and Betty McAskie who took six tricks when defending against 3C on the hand.

My conclusion is that my partner and I were somewhat unlucky to only score 14% on this board – it was just one of those bridge sessions!

On Board 1 North dealt and it was perfectly reasonable for her to start with a three-level pre-empt.  With South having an unsuitable hand this might have proved a bit of a disaster, but it was up to E/W to achieve a good result.

North opens 3D, East Passes and South has a feeling of approaching doom but cannot do anything but Pass.  With 19 Hcp and a good Diamond suit, West could bid a direct 3NT, but it could be that East has good Spades and nothing in Hearts, so it must be better to start with a Double.  In all probability East will bid 3H in which case West should bid 3NT.  It is easy to make nine tricks whatever North leads.  The app says that West can always make ten tricks in NT but it looks a bit difficult to unravel the tenth trick.  Notice however that on a Diamond lead the tenth trick is provided by the defence wrapped up like an early Christmas present.  On this sort of auction it pays for North to refrain from leading her suit.

Once West has Doubled, E/W should achieve a decent score.  Maybe the only way they could go wrong is if East decides to bid a direct 4H in which case West would have to Pass.  At the club no one played in Hearts but the app says that 4H would be one off.  3NT is likely to be the final contract, but suppose that East were to Pass after West’s Double?  This would be a brave Pass, but it is worth bearing in mind that sometimes when you have a weak hand it pays to Pass partner’s take-out Double, especially at the three-level.  The app says that E/W can make eight tricks with Diamonds as trumps and indeed when 3D was the contract at the club, which was the case at three tables, twice N/s only made five tricks.  As N/S weren’t Doubled, this gave N/S a score of 50%.  But suppose E/W had found the Double?  In that case the N/S score would have been -800 which would have given E/W 100%.

N/S achieved a game bonus at only three out of eight tables.  Three times N/S played in 3D undoubled.  Twice E/W played in 3S.  Five E/W pairs allowed North to get away with a pre-empt which though sound looking at North’s hand in isolation nevertheless deserved to be punished.

As is so often the case, the opening lead on Board 19 was key in deciding the result on the board.  South has a 2NT opening bid and ended as declarer, usually in 3NT.  When declarer has a strong hand, should West make an attacking or a defensive opening lead?

Sitting West I decided to make an attacking lead.  I led the TS in the hope that partner, who could not have more than 3 Hcp, might have the JS or the KS.  Declarer played the JS from dummy, correctly played a Diamond to the AD, dropping my QD, and then had all thirteen tricks with three Spades, five Hearts and five Diamonds.

The hand was well-played by the declarer.  She might have run the JD on the first trick in the suit, in which case I would have won the singleton QD and then I would have switched to Clubs, having seen the cards played to the first trick.  With the N/S Diamonds as dealt, it is a safety play to cash one of South’s honours before taking the finesse, precisely in case there is a singleton Q offside.  So my Player of the Week is the declarer on this hand, Frances Sutherland.

But my opening lead was poor.  Playing pairs you should aim to take as many tricks as possible.  Making or breaking a contract is of secondary importance.  On this hand declarer can always make nine tricks.  But if E/W could hold declarer to only nine tricks then they would get a good result.  At the club on Tuesday a score of -400 would have given E/W 100%.

Andrew Robson says, “If you have an AK you don’t have an opening lead problem”.  I should have led the AC.  Partly this is because at pairs against a confidently bid 3NT contract it is usually best (a) to make a defensive lead, trying not to give a trick away, and (b) to take your tricks whilst you have the chance to do so.

If West follows the AC with a low Club at trick 2 then the defenders can score the first four tricks.  The key to this defence is how East and South play to trick 1.  East presumably plays the 7C.  If E/W play reverse attitude signals (“low like”) then the 7C may seem like quite a high card, but except for the 3C west can see all the Clubs lower than the 7C, so West might understand that  East’s card  is encouraging – and East will only encourage if she holds the QC.  It follows that declarer’s choice of card on trick 1 is important.  If she plays the 3C then it will be clear that the 7C was East’s lowest Club in which case West can lead a low Club to trick 2.  But if declarer plays the 9C to trick 1, then it will appear that East holds the 3C in which case the 7C must be a discouraging card.

At the club if West began with three rounds of Clubs it would still have given E/W a score of 100%, even if they weren’t able to unravel the fourth Club trick.