Free Bridge Puzzles!

You are sitting South and vulnerable, which as you know means that the rewards and the penalties are greater for this hand compared to when you are not vulnerable. North, your partner is the Dealer, and opens 1 Club. Your understanding of the 1 Club bid is that partner has an opening hand, say 13 points and at least four clubs. The fact that they have not bid 1 Heart or 1 Spade means that they do not have a five card major suit.

What your response would be to 1 Club for this hand:

Your holding is -

What is the optimum contract?

What is East's best lead?

Answer:

What is the optimum contract?

The optimum contract is 5 Clubs by North.

North opens 1 Club with 12 points, having a 5 card club suit, a 4 card Heart suit and a singleton Spade - it is fine to open with 12 points on a hand with this distribution. South has the necessary 11 points and 4 Clubs to give partner a double raise IN THE SAME SUIT.

Actually they have five Clubs which makes their hand stronger. At this stage West may bid 3 Spades, but even if they do, North can bid 4 Clubs or 5 Clubs with their distribution. If they only bid 4 Clubs, South can raise to 5 Clubs as they have a fifth Club.

What is East's best lead?

Probably the Ace of Clubs in order to have a look at Dummy before
leading the second card.
 

Previous Puzzle 13 - October 2004

You are sitting South with the following hand:

North opens the bidding with '1 Club', what do you bid?

Answer: 

You should bid 1 Diamond. Partner's bid of 1 Club is showing at least 5 Clubs and you only have one. You might be tempted to bid 2 No Trumps but this would take you much too high with a singleton in clubs. Much better to bid 1 Diamond and see what partner comes back with.

 

Previous Puzzle 12 - September 2004

You haven’t been getting very good cards tonight when all of a sudden it is your turn to deal, and you pick up your cards, and just look what you have turned up! -
 

What is your opening bid?

Answer: 

2 Clubs.

It really is a very straightforward case, even though you may not see such a hand very often during your bridge career. You have 27 points, and any hand with 23 points or more requires you to open 2 Clubs.

You will observe that you have nine certain tricks, but have you really? If you opened 3 No Trumps and that was the final contract, the opposition would almost certainly lead a Club, and it would only
require one of them to have five clubs in their hand for you to lose five tricks in Clubs, and, hey presto, your safe nine tricks would have disappeared.
 

Previous Puzzle 11 - August 2004

Partner opens 1 Heart. You reply 1 No Trump, and then partner says 3 Clubs.

You hold -

What do you bid now?

Not 4 Clubs because that would be asking for Aces

Not 3 Spades because your spades are so low.

Not 3 No Trumps because you have a singleton and a doubleton

What do you think?

Answer: 

5 Clubs.

You have 5 clubs and partner is showing at least 4 when they bid 3 Clubs. In addition you have a singleton in hearts which is partner’s opening suit, so you must try for game.

Previous Puzzle 10

You are East leading against a contract of 3 No Trumps, the bidding having gone:

 North 1 No Trump

South 3 No Trumps

East West did not bid at all.

 Your hand is

What do you lead?

Answer: 

Jack of Diamonds

If you follow the traditional ‘rule’ you will lead the fourth highest of your longest suit - but you have two 4 card suits this time. As it happens your diamonds are much stronger than your spades, so there is a greater prospect of you making tricks in diamonds, and so you should favour leading them.

The only problem is that if you lead the fourth highest, the 5, you may well end up helping Declarer to take a cheap first trick. I should like to encourage you to think about leading the Jack. This lead will immediately put the pressure on Declarer especially if your partner should turn out to have the Ace.  

Think about it!

Previous Puzzle 9

You are sitting West and the bidding has gone -

You hold -

What do you bid, given that you and partner have previously agreed that you will always respond to a bid of 2 No Trumps?

Answer: 

You are expected to reply to an opening bid of 2 No Trumps, but when the opponent to your right comes in with a bid you can pass if you have very little. This time though, you have 5 points and you would have bid if South had not bid.

Your bid would have been 3 Clubs, but you can't say that now as South has said 3 Diamonds. You can't say 3 No Trumps as you have no cover in diamonds, so bid 4 Clubs.

Showing a 5 card club suit, partner will understand that you are not asking for aces by bidding 4 Clubs - again provided that you have agreed beforehand that bidding 4 Clubs is only asking for aces when neither of you have bid clubs.

Your bid is, therefore, 4 Clubs (East will no doubt bid to at least 5 Clubs as they have a good 4 club card suit).

Previous Puzzle 8

North is Declarer in 3 No Trumps. You are sitting East with -

 South is Dummy and when they put their hand down you see -

You lead the 6 Hearts at the first trick which is won by Declarer with the 9. Declarer then leads the 4 Diamonds. Which card do you play? And why?

Answer: 

The King of Diamonds. You are never going to win a trick with the King because South has the Ace and Queen, and Declarer will surely try the finesse against you. Despite this you should play the King in the hope that it will help partner, particularly if they have the Jack of Diamonds, to make a trick in diamonds.

If you had three diamonds to the King you would not play it on the first round, in the hope that even if Declarer finesses the first time round, you would end up securing a trick with the King.

Previous Puzzle 7

The bidding goes -

Answer: 

I strongly recommend that you should also pass. Admittedly you have twelve points, but you don’t have a decent suit, and you have absolutely no idea where the other twenty-eight points are. It is quite possible that each of the opponents has twelve points leaving partner with just four. So my advice is don’t risk it, and pass.

When you pass, everyone will have passed, and so it will be necessary to have a re-deal. It is far better to do that, than have all the other players asking who sent this awful hand round for the evening when they could have re-dealt!

Previous Puzzle 6

You are sitting East with the following hand - 

North has dealt and opens 1 Diamond. What do you bid?

Answer: 

1 No Trump.

You count your points - 16. As always you need to tell partner how strong your hand is as precisely as possible. You could bid 1 Spade, but your spades are not very good even though you have five of them, and if you do bid 1 Spade partner may think you  have as few as 10/11 points, and that would not describe your present hand very well.

Bidding 1 No Trump over your opponents after they have opened the bidding tells partner that you have a hand on which you would have opened the bidding if the opposition had not spoken. If you open the bidding with 1 No Trump then you are showing 16 - 18 points, and the same principle applies with the overcall bid.

Previous Puzzle 5

You are sitting East. The bidding has gone -

Neither East nor West bid.

 Your hand is -

What do you lead against North’s contract of 3 No Trumps?

Answer: 

My much preferred lead is Ace of Hearts, because playing the Ace enables you to see the other three cards played in the first round, and you keep control. Once you see Dummy you gain a lot of information to help you plan your moves.

In the actual play of this hand at my club, East led their fourth highest heart, the 5, and North raced to eleven tricks. If East leads the Ace of Hearts followed by a small diamond to West’s Ace, then North can only make eight tricks.

Previous Puzzle 4

What do you bid?

Answer: 

Pass. You have no guaranteed tricks in your hand. Partner’s bid means that they think they can make eight tricks with spades as trumps, and you need certain tricks to bid.

Previous Puzzle 3

You are sitting West, and the bidding goes -

Your hand is -

What should you lead?

Answer: 

You could lead a heart - it probably won’t cause you and your partner much danger.  You could lead a Club, as you have just a doubleton, but the two cards are very small. You could lead a diamond as you have a run from the Jack down to the eight. You should NOT lead a spade, because North sitting to your left, has bid 1 Spade, and quite possibly has the Ace and Queen sitting over your King and Jack.

So my preferred lead would be from your Diamond run, and with this type of run you should always lead from the top of the run - i.e. the Jack of Diamonds.

Previous Puzzle 2

You are sitting South. North opens the bidding with 2 No Trumps, and East passes. Your cards are -

What does partner’s bid mean? Do you bid?

Answer: 

What does partner's bid mean? Partner is telling you that they have 20 - 22 points. You cannot be certain of the distribution of their hand at this stage.

Do you bid? You have 5 points - so you and partner must have at least 25 points and you must bid.

 

Previous Puzzle 1

You are the dealer and pick up the following hand –

Would you open the bidding? If so, what and why?

Answer: 

Yes you would open the bidding - with 1 Spade.  You must bid as you have 13 points. You have 2 five card suits, and the hearts are marginally better than the spades, but you always open the higher ranking suit first, so it is 1 Spade.