Monday Meanderings by Marti Ronemus

Another Monday, and it's going to be a great week! Let's begin it with some mental aerobics. We've got five bidding questions (some harder than others) plus a nifty hand for you.
And feel free to disagree with us. There's nothing in bridge that three people agree on. Can you come to a meeting of the minds with your partner?

Question 1

Your Hand
♠ A J 5
♥ 9
♦ Q 10 2
♣ A K J 8 7 6

Q: 1 - As South, what should your bid be?

South	West	North	East
1♣	double	redouble	3♥
?

A: Pass: Pard Redoubled, so he has guaranteed you another bid. You have the best of all possible worlds by passing. You deny Hearts and still leave room for Pard to bid 3NT with enough strength and Hearts stopped. It also shows you don't really have another suit to bid. You could rebid your long Clubs, but that would rule out a nice 3 No-trumps contract.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 2

Your Hand
♠ K 10 8 6 5
♥ Q 7 6 5
♦ J 6 5
♣ 5

Q: 2 - As South, what should you bid?

South	West	North	East
-	-	1♣	pass
1♠	pass	2♥	pass
?

A: 3♥: Partner reversed! His second-named suit is one we bypassed and to respond to his original suit, we'd have to bid at the three-level. He's got an intermediate or better hand, and more Clubs than Hearts. (If the suits were equal in length, he'd bid the Spades first.) We're going to support his hearts as cheaply as possible and await further developments.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 3

Your Hand
♠ Q J 2
♥ K Q 6
♦ Q J 4
♣ K Q J 10

Q: 3 - As South, what should your bid be?

South	West	North	East
1 no-trumps	pass	2♣	pass
2♦	pass	3♣	pass
?

A: 4♣: What's up with this? Pard's showing a four-card major, a five-card Club suit and a game force hand. We need to visualize what he's got. If he's moving away from 3 No-trumps in a suit (missing four honors in that suit!) he must have a very distributional hand, with a singleton or a void. It's up to us to raise the suit and let him place the contract. We've already shown our point count when we opened. We don't like game in a minor without a singleton, void and/or a note from our mother, and it sounds like he's got a note from mom.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 4

Your Hand
♠ 9 8
♥ Q J 5 3 2
♦ K Q J 10 3
♣ K

Q: 4 - As South, what should your bid be (Vulnerable)?

South	West	North	East
-	pass	pass	1♠
?

A: Pass: Temptation rears its ugly head. You've got a great hand for a Michael's cuebid of 2♠ showing five Hearts and five of a minor. BUT! You are opposite a passed partner and would be pushing him to the three level. You could catch him with only worthless doubs in the red suits. What about bidding 2♥? Listen: You can't have both a bad suit and a bad hand. (You didn't count anything for the wretched ♣K, did you?) How about 2♦? It would give Pard a lead, but would be misleading and is a bad habit to get into. Just where do you think you're going anyway. Opposite a passed pard and sure to be doubled (did we mention you're Vul?) you are better off defending.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 5

Your Hand
♠ A Q J 9 8
♥ 10 9
♦ A 4 3
♣ A 10 7

Q: 5 - As South, what should your bid be?

South	West	North	East
-	pass	pass	pass
1♠	double	redouble*	pass
?

*Some people play redouble shows a fit; others, neither promising nor denying. Today we are playing that it only shows point count of 10 , and doesn't promise a fit or deny it.

A: 3♠: Pard originally passed, so he can't have more than 11 pts. Because we don't know if Pard has a fit or not, and with no other suit to bid, we'll show our point count by jumping, and leave the rest to him. When we play the hand in just a minute, we'll see what he does. Ready?

Your result so far:

Open Question

Play this Hand

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

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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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