"Trick or Treat" by Marti Ronemus

Okay, okay, I'm jumping the gun for Halloween, but only by one day. Halloween has everything-- candy, costumes, shivers of delight.

While bridge can be said to hold most of the same positives, it also has a full helping of tricks, in both senses of the word. Our hand is especially diabolical.

Let's warm up with some bidding challenges.

Question 1

Your Hand
♠ J 4
♥ A J 2
♦ A K J 4
♣ J 5 3 2

Q: 1 - South:

South	West	North	East
?	-	-

A: 1♦: Yes, I know this hand has 15 high card points. BUT!! Let's talk about that elusive concept "texture." This hand gets 2 of its points from unsupported Jacks. 15 is a "crease" number, and can be upgraded to be considered an intermediate 16-18 point hand, or downgraded to be a 12-14 hand. (The other "crease" number is 10 for responder. Is it 6-9? Or is it 10-12? Depends...) We think this hand should be downgraded to a minimum opener, and doesn't quite deserve a 1 No-trump opener.

(This hand comes from one of our Faithful Readers, who opened it 1 No-trump, and his Pard, with only 3 points, but five worthless Spades transferred him. The results were down 2, vul and doubled. How's THAT for a nice Halloween trick?)

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 2

Your Hand
♠ A 8 5 4 3
♥ Q 8
♦ 7 4
♣ Q J 9 4

Q: 2 - South:

South	West	North	East
-	-	1♥	Pass
1♠	Pass	2♦	Pass
?

A: 2♥: We are not expecting to get much candy for our goodie bag with this hand. Pard has shown nine (plus) cards in two suits. We need to choose which of his suits we want. When we support Hearts, he won't be expecting us to have three. If we did, we would have supported him immediately.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 3

Your Hand
♠ A 8 5 4 3
♥ Q 8
♦ K 4
♣ Q 10 9 4

Q: 3 - South:

South	West	North	East
-	-	1♥	Pass
1♠	Pass	2♦	Pass
?

A: 2 No-trump: What a difference a King makes! Now we don't have to choose a suit. We can bid 2 No-trump, which suggests stoppers in the unbid suit, and shows 10-12 points. Perfect! Lots of candy at this house.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 4

Your Hand
♠ A Q J 10 8 7 4
♥ Q 10 8 7
♦ 3
♣ 5

Q: 4 - South:

South	West	North	East
?

A: 4♠: For those of us who learned not to preempt with an outside four-card major, Eddie Kantar suggests otherwise. "A preempt in one major denies four cards in the other major-- unless the longer suit is independent and can play easily opposite a singleton in partner's hand."

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 5

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

Q: 5 - South:

South	West	North	East
?

A: Pass: Following up on our last question, Eddie shows this as an example you'd have to pass. It has a lousy suit, with the outside four-card major, and to add to the misery, two defensive tricks outside the bid suit.

So, continuing our Trick or Treat theme, our hand is an example of what happens to good people who do bad things.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Play this Hand

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

Play on Any Device

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

Rate yourself:

0 - 40%	We applaud your effort. Review the subject and try again. You'll be surprised how much better you'll do. We're here for you!!
41 - 50%	Buy your mentor a cuppa and ask for clarification on the ones you got wrong. No mentor? Make finding one a priority!
51 - 60%	Nice improvement! One more review and you'll have this down solid!
61 - 80%	What a good job! All that's left is some fine tuning
Over 80%	Wow! It's time for you to become a mentor. Find someone who needs help and share your knowledge!