"First Camels Imported" by Marti Ronemus

In 1856, David Dixon Porter imported a shipment of camels from Turkey, hoping to create a commercial empire. No, not cigarettes, CAMEL camels, the kind with humps. One has to wonder what he envisioned: A camel in every backyard? Camels replacing horses? A cavalry of camels in time of war?

Obviously this didn't work out or David Dixon Porter would be a household name.

And in bridge, so many things don't work out for us, but at least we don't have to clean up huge piles of you-know-what. Can you imagine the mess poor David was faced with?

And so on to our quiz.

Question 1

Your Hand
♠ A 7 5
♥ 7 5
♦ K Q 7 5
♣ Q 7 4 3

Q: 1 - South:

South	West	North	East
-	1♥	1♠	p
?

A: 2♥: We're going to cue-bid the opponent's suit. This is such a useful bid... it tells Pard we've got a limit raise or better with a fit for his suit. We are asking him to limit his hand on his next bid. See next question for a continuation of the bidding.

Pay attention: You will be NORTH who just bid 1♠.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 2

Your Hand
♠ K Q 10 3 2
♥ 9
♦ J 10 9 3
♣ Q 8 2

Q: 2 - NORTH!! We are the partner of the cue-bidder.

South	West	North	East
-	1♥	1♠	p
2♥	p	?

A: 2♠: Pard's cue-bid asked us to limit our hand. We have the barest minimum for an overcall, so we bid 2♠. Now it's Pard's problem. He is still unlimited and he now knows we have less than an opening hand. LOTS less.

Back In The Day, we needed an opening hand to overcall. Thanks to cuebidding sequences, we can now stay out of trouble overcalling low-point hands.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 3

Your Hand
♠ K Q 10 3 2
♥ 9
♦ A 10 9 3
♣ Q J 8

Q: 3 - NORTH!! We are the partner of the cue-bidder.

South	West	North	East
-	1♥	1♠	p
2♥	p	?

A: 3♠: When we overcalled, we could have between 7 and 17 points. Pard's cuebid promised a limit raise or better. Our goal responding to the cuebid is to keep him out of the camel you-know-what by limiting our hand. Our 3♠ bid defines our hand as being between 12-ish and 14-ish points.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 4

Your Hand
♠ K Q 10 3 2
♥ 9
♦ A 10 9 3
♣ A Q 8

Q: 4 - NORTH!! We are the partner of the cue-bidder...again.

South	West	North	East
-	1♥	1♠	p
2♥	p	?

A: 4♠: Pard's overcall showed a limit raise or better with our 17-ish points, we've got game opposite a limit raise. We tell him we've got 15-17 pts by going to game. Is that the end of the bidding? Up to Pard. We've done all we can to keep him out of trouble.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 5

Your Hand
♠ A 9 7 6
♥ 8
♦ J 10 6 5 4
♣ 4 3 2

Q: 5 - South again:

South	West	North	East
-	1♥	1♠	2♥
?

A: 3♠: In a competitive auction, raising your Pard's suit is the weakest bid you can give, thusly the importance of the cuebid is reinforced. A jump raise like this is pre-emptive, showing the number of trumps we hold and following The Law of Total Tricks. We know we've got a nine-card trump fit, so we raise Pard to the level of nine tricks. Pard will know we DON'T have a limit raise. If we did? We would have cuebid.

So far, we've managed to avoid stepping in you-know-what, so let's try a hand.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Play this Hand

Now that you've bid five hands, let's see how your play goes.

Overall Results

Your results: out of Average:

What next? You may enjoy playing our prepared hands series.
More informations on our website: www.VuBridge.com

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