A different type of hand this time, and one of the sort that we all have to deal with, but surely not as bad as this one!

I have only shown you one hand, which is just about as bad as it can get, and then your partner opens 1NT. OH DEAR! what should you do? 

• PASS - Although you may think that you are in a hole, and you want to not dig any deeper, think about it. Playing a weak NT (12 - 14), your partner could hold the equivalent of three Aces, i.e. three tricks. Four down, vulnerable as you are, would be very costly, and most likely a bottom. Playing a strong NT (15 - 17), your partner could hold the equivalent of four aces, i.e. four tricks etc. You cannot try blaming your partner for bidding, they have no idea how good your hand is (NOT). - so try again.

• BID - But what? The answer is staring you in the face. A convention that you learnt at the dawn of your time learning Bridge, but with a twist. BID 2♣. Yes, Stayman (but this one is called "Garbage Stayman", named again by Americans). Think about why?

Your partners' bid promised you a balanced hand, whichever brand of NT you play. Therefore, whatever reply you get from your partner, you should PASS. If you partner bids one of the majors, then you shold pass this. If your partner does not have a four card major, and bids 2♦, then you should also, still pass this. Why? Because you will be playing in at the minimum a 5 /2 fit in ♦, and your partner has at least two ♣, which because of your void, means that you have the hope and means to trump both of them (if required), or dependent on the holding in ♣, perhaps trump another suit (when you discard that suit on ♣). Although you have gone up a level (from 1 to 2), you are thinking that you can add two tricks to your partners' tricks, so that you can crucially go one trick less down than before. (All this relies upon average distribution).

This is damage limitation. You cannot hope to ever make this contract, but it should leave you wondering, "Why did my opponents never bid?", when they have the majority of the points?      

I thought that it would be nice, if having just been away on a Bridge holiday, I would bring a hand back for you to enjoy.

We all see the hands that look to be impossible to make, but are made, and we all wonder how! Could it be by an amazing play? Could it be by amazing skill? Could it be by penalty imposed by your opponents for some transgression? Or in this case, when your opponents decide to unwittingly help you. 

The bidding goes as shown (the opponents are playing strong NT (15 - 17)). You have poked your nose in with a cheeky over call, which holds. After an opening lead of 9 ♠ from South, you survey the dummy & your hand, and realise that you are in trouble. You have three top tricks between the two hands, and although there are possibilities to make extra tricks, you are going to need a lot of luck to get anywhere near gaining the eight tricks, that you need for this contract. With the opening lead, you play low from dummy, and North ventures the Q ♠, on which you cover with the A. Now there is a slight glimmer of hope. You can now see that you stand a chance of converting the J ♠ into a trick, later. At trick 2, you lead a small trump towards the K ♥, which gets the A played on it. At trick 3, North plays a small ♣, on which you have to guess with Q ♣, as you need all the tricks that you can acquire. At trick 4, you now play J ♥, aiming to clear the Q out of the way. When this happens, you now reassess your possibilities. Now you can see seven tricks (the two that you have, + the two aces which you hold, and your three remaining trumps). Now, although you do not know it, North is going to help you out, when they decide to cash K ♠. South only started with two ♠ is now looking to trump a third round of ♠, but the damage has now been done. If a third round of ♠ is led to South to trump, they are now end-played as they can only play a ♦ or a ♣ to the A which are held in either dummy or declarer's hand, and the now eighth trick of J ♠, as the previous round of ♠, which was trumped, allowed declarer to play the loosing ♠ that was in dummy.

If, as really happened, another ♣ was led, this was taken by declarer with the A, the last trump was removed from South, and the eight tricks still rolled in. So, where did it all go wrong? Well, North was to blame. If they do not cash K ♠, then declarer can never win the J ♠, no matter how they try.  But is that all?

If you go all the way back to the opening lead, here is the real error. Why does North play Q ♠, here? There is no point, as North can see every card above the opening lead, except the A, so they should play their small ♠ at this point. Then all that follows will not happen, and declarer can never make this contract. Even if North decides to play their ♠ winners, when they get the lead, on the fourth round either declarer rises with 10 ♥, or discards another card, allowing the 9 ♥ to take the trick or now be the top trump remaining. In addition to this, away goes the trick with J ♠.

Other people either did not get the help that I did, and went down one trick, or allowed North to play in 1NT, which actually goes down one trick also. Going down one trick with 1NT gets you 100, but 2 ♥ making scores 110 for a top. Never rule out the possibility of help from unlikely sources, miracles can happen.................              

Another month & another hand. Here you have reached what seems like a nice contract of 3NT, and as the dummy goes down, you remember to thank your partner for such a lovely hand.Wow! no ♣ stopper. Are we going down straight away when West leads 4 ♣ (with a 5 / 3 split or worse), or are we going to get lucky, when the ♣ divide up nicely 4 / 4?  Well, if it was the former, what would be the point of showing this hand?, so it must be the latter.

So, why show this hand, because on the face of it, left to your own devices, you can take ten tricks easily, without declarer's interference (4 - ♠ tricks, 1 - ♥ trick & 5 - ♦ tricks - with careful play). However, that plan has just gone up in smoke, as the defenders did not block the ♣ suit, and took all their four tricks. And what have we done. First of all, we have had to make a new plan. This became active when the third round of ♣ was played, and we had to find a discard from dummy, and on the next round, from our own hand as well. Which cards do we choose?

The answer is to sort the wheat from the chaff, the good winners away from the pretty & colourful losers. It is not just as simple as discarding the lower cards in the hands, as this rarely produces bona fide winners. On this particular hand, you should be able to make the easy choice of discarding the ♥ suit. Honours might look attractive, but that is all they are with this hand. You have ONE sure winner in ♥, and no more. Why would you look for extra tricks in ♥,  when you have lots of ♠ & ♦ guaranteed winners, provided you can play them without blocking them.(You cannot make any extra tricks - there is only nine tricks remaining - but what you can do is go down on your contract, which was making until you had a brain lapse).

You can thank yourself lucky that the ♣ suit divided nicely. 

This should be a relatively flat board, unless you really want to achieve a bottom................

What should you do in the third seat with a hand like this? 

On original viewing, if your partner had opened say 1NT, would you be tempted to just bid 6 ♥ straight away, as all you need is the equivalent of two A's to be making 12 tricks, or three A's to be making 13 tricks, which is perfectly possible. But when your partner has passed already, what should you do?

When your partner has passed, you have been taught that you have too many HCP's to preempt, so a bid of 1 ♥ looks like being the correct bid. But is it? If you bid 1 ♥, it is likely that N with a nice five card ♠ suit will overcall 1 ♠, and then your opponents will find their ♠ fit, and probably bid to 4 ♠ against you (which will make quite easily).

You have a losing trick count of 4, and you do not need your partner to have a lot for 4 ♥ to be making, so you should open 4 ♥ on this hand. If you were to bid 1 ♥, and if your opponents (in the unlikely scenario) do not bid, what are the chances of your partnership bidding to 4 ♥? Bidding 4 ♥ straight away, leaves your opponents in a guessing situation, and in this situation, where neither of them is strong enough, they will probably pass.

When dummy comes down, your partner turns up with A ♣, and so ten tricks are quite easy. You should lose a ♠, a ♥, and a ♣, therefore making ten tricks on good defence. However, on bad defence you can make all thirteen tricks - I will let you work out how this can be done!!!

This example, shows the true power of a preempt, as it takes away the bidding space for your opponents to find their game contract.

Just to update you all, recent trends in Bridge, have seen the advancement of five card preempts and a stretching of preempt hands to be from three to eleven HCP's, by the experts. How long before these things filter their way down to Club players?

Following on from the last hand shown (No 19), we feature another hand where good defence can defeat the contract, and poor defence can let the contract make - it is up to you to decide whether you want a top or a bottom!

I only show you two hands in this instance, so can East work out the correct way to defeat this contract?  The opening lead from West is Q ♥, what should East do?

This is where a little bit of thought (but not excessive), can pay dividends. So, what can East deduce from everything that they know? They know from the bidding that West has some HCP's, and presumably a 5 card ♥ suit (at the least). So then, East can work out from the bidding & the opening lead, that West does not have the K ♥, and can not have a ♦ suit (as they are all in dummy), and is very unlikely to have anything in ♠, when North can jump with such confidence to 4 ♠. So, where are West HCP's? Your other clue is to look & see where the dummy is weak. You can work out that West must have a good ♣ suit, otherwise they cannot make that overcall. Your next decision is what does that lead mean? 

We should all know that Q ♥ is the top of a sequence, and bearing in mind that this is West's suit, we should all know the location of K ♥, which of course is in South's hand. So which choice will you make?

1.  The lazy way - play a small ♥, allowing declarer to win with the known K ♥, and then cash five ♠ tricks, and four ♦ tricks to make ten tricks in total and contract made.
2.  The half asleep way - overtake the ♥, with the A ♥, and play a small ♣ to your partner. If declarer plays low, West can always only take two club tricks. This will leave the position that declarer can take the same ♠ & ♦ tricks, plus either of K ♣ or the K ♥, again making ten tricks and contract made.
3. The wide awake way - overtake the ♥, with the A ♥, and play J ♣. This leaves declarer in a no win situation, where no matter what they play, they are going to lose three ♣ tricks in addition to the ♥ trick which you already have, to leave declarer with nine tricks and a failed contract. (Although it is not seen, it is implied that West started with A,Q & 10 ♣ & that South started with the doomed K ♣).  

Which solution do you like? or will you just look at the Bridgemate and say that 4 ♠ makes, when in fact if you apply a little thought to the situation, then 4 ♠ should never make. 

You may say what difference does it make?

Well, in duplicate pairs, the difference is either between a top or a bottom, there should only be any middle results if North/South do not bid game. This could mean that bottom might not be as bad as you might think, who knows in a hypothetical world. But in teams play, this could be a disaster, if one half of a team makes 4 ♠ and the other half defeat 4 ♠. When the dust settles your team has the potential to win or lose 12 IMP's, which if you are on the loosing end of this, it will take a lot of pulling back.

I often try and show techniques which some of our members would describe as easy, so here is one that is at the opposite end of the scale, and I have unashamedly borrowed.

I got this wrong as will the majority of people, so there is no disgrace in that. The question is "WHAT DO YOU LEAD?" You can assume that declarer is a sensible bidder, so they must hold an amazing hand - but what?

Well this problem, was part of a session about finding the one & only lead, which will defeat this contract. But what could that be? They cannot be holding all the HCP's, as you have 8 HCP's, and some cards which will not allow declarer's hand be a claiming hand. So what can you do :-

1. Guess - who knows, you could be correct, but it also could lead to you giving a trick away.

2. As there is no clue in the bidding, try thinking & constructing a type of hand that declarer may have - herein lies the answer.

With the cards that you are holding, you can assume that declarer has to have a massive unbalanced hand, probably with all the Aces (why bid 7NT without stoppers?). So your lead is the making or the breaking of this hand. It is very likely that declarer is holding a long suit, possibly an 8 or 9 or even 10 card suit somewhere, and by the bidding, is assuming that their partner has nothing.

Well, you should be able to ascertain that declarer needs to have a solid or semi solid suit to make this call - so that should be A,K,Q & possibly J of that said suit. You know from your hand that the last statement cannot be true, so there is a hope of defeating this contract.   

Consider each suit in turn, can you work out which suit it is that declarer can never have? The answer is ♥. Declarer can never have a long suit in ♥ , as with you having the K,J, the bid would be foolhardy if they were missing these two cards. It is more likely that declarer will have a singleton A ♥. As this is the case, it does not matter which ♥ you lead, because when declarer puts up their A, they have to lead from their hand. Now, because you have found the correct lead, this contract will go down, regardless of you not knowing which suit declarer holds. You hold in your hand a stopper in each of the other three hands, and declarer cannot now avoid losing a trick to you. 

It is true to say, that with a guess, you could get this right. But why guess, when you can resolve this conundrum, so that you are 100% confident that it is going down. 

For declarer to bid this way, they could have as few as 21 HCP's, so you/they do not need a massive hand to bid this way.  

Here is another hand, showing a different principle in action. This one was actually played on a Thursday evening at our Club, where everybody arrived in the same contract of 3NT by East, but made different amounts of tricks, based on the opening lead.

Two pairs were unfortunate to get the very good lead of 4 ♦ from South, which leads to two tricks being taken in that suit by the defence, giving the defenders a top, because declarer can only make the ten top tricks that can be seen.

Most pairs got the lead of 6 ♥ (although one declarer got the lead of 8 ♥), which successfully finesses the Q ♥ out of his partners hand, and makes twelve tricks easily.

However, what can you do if your opponents lead a ♠ (irrespective of which one)? Perhaps they took notice of the bidding, or possibly West just bid straight to 3NT.  Well, you can still make twelve tricks, but you have to rely on taking a better than 50% chance. Any standard finesse, has only a 50% chance of making always, as the card you are after could be in either hand, and you do not know which.

If you have something that has more than a 50% chance of working, would you be a fool not to try this first? When you have two honours missing in a suit, they can be split in three different ways. They can be both in one hand or the other, but the biggest percentage chance (yes, someone is sad enough to have worked this out), is that they are split over the two defenders hands. So, bearing that in mind, before you play any card from dummy, you need to consider all your entries into dummy. Why? So that you can lead a small heart twice from dummy, trying to trap a ♥ honour in the North hand. What you see is that you have one entry in ♠, and one in ♣. You can now play your first card, and win in dummy.    

Having played K ♠ on the first trick, you can now lead 3 ♥ from dummy, letting it run around to K ♥. Now, you can win whatever South plays back in declarers hand, unblock A ♠, and then cross to dummy in ♣. Then you can take your other ♠ tricks and lead the other ♥ in dummy, repeating the exercise. With this hand, it works, as North is trapped with Q ♥, and can do nothing to stop you taking three ♥ tricks, which alongside your 4 no ♣ tricks, 4 no ♠ tricks & 1 no ♦ trick, takes you to twelve tricks.

Is it biddable - No, as on a diamond lead you are always down. Are you lucky - YES, because ♥ split nicely for you (North could have been the one with 4 no ♥, instead of South), in which case you cannot always make the three tricks that you need from ♥. This hand works because of North having exactly what they have. Incidentally, what happens if South decides to duck the first ♥? The truth is that it does not matter. With this line of play, on this layout, you will always get three ♥ tricks. How many ♥ tricks were you actually entitled to? 

Here we are with yet another hand, but one which focuses on defence. This is a hand which can make or go down - it is entirely up to you as defenders to make up your own minds, as to the type of defence you want to try. The hand is shown through the eyes of East. Can you find the correct play to extract the maximum for your partnership? The bidding goes as shown, with the opening lead of Q ♥, so you play low & South wins with the King. South now can play in such a way, that it leads to East/West only taking one more trick, the A ♣, but is that the best that the defence can do? Let's find out..........

This is the classic case of East knowing a lot of the answers, but being guilty of not being awake to the situation.

So, what does East know?  Firstly, after the opening lead, East knows from the bidding, that West has some HCP's somewhere. Also from the lead, they know that they do not have the K ♥, and so East MUST in this case overtake the lead with A ♥. When East looks at dummy, they can see that the weak suit is Clubs. (Spades can never be weak as South opened the bidding with 1 ♠, and is happy enough to pass 4 ♠). By leading back a high Club in this case J ♣, the defence will find that South is trapped with K ♣, and so the defence can take three ♣ tricks, no matter what card South plays. This play will defeat the contract for a much better East/West result than before. (If you lead a low ♣, then West is end played into giving South a trick with K ♣, thus letting the contract make, providing that South plays low on the first trick).

South always has a ♥ loser, and a ♣ loser, but with help from their opponents they can make this contract. After winning the opening ♥ lead, South can clear the trumps and they can play the ♦ winners in dummy, throwing away the ♣ losers in declarer's hand. They can eventually ruff away their third ♥ loser, making eleven tricks, not forgetting to thank East for being asleep.

We can be awake enough to read bad results, and asleep enough to let it happen, but is that what we desire......................... 

Here is a hand, made up just to illustrate a point. On this hand it is possible to make anywhere between 10 & 12 tricks, dependent on how you play this hand, and which line of play you follow.  

As East, from the bidding you know that South has 12 - 14 HCP's (this has been announced), and that North has 5+ ♥ and 4 - 6 HCP's at the most. The auction does depend on whether or not you play any defence against 1NT. If you do not then West will bid 2♠ and that will be the end of the auction. If you do play any defence then West will either bid 2♣ or 2♦ to indicate the majors. (I have shown 2♦ in the bidding, just because that covers more options).  Whether or not North interferes with 2♥, then East should still bid 2♠ as a preference bid. West will probably now jump to 4♠, and end the auction.

No matter which contract you end up in, the play should be remarkably similar. You get the opening lead of A♥, to which everyone follows, and followed by K♥, which is ruffed by East. From here, you can take out the Trumps in two rounds, play your A & K♦, and A♣, and with your remaining 4no trumps, you will make your contract, losing 3no ♥ tricks. Can you do better - of course you can, you just need to look at the hands in a different way. 

You should notice that you have all the top trumps across the two hands, and that your opponents have helped you by playing the top two hearts to start off the hand (your opponents cannot over ruff you!!). You can get to dummy by either playing two rounds of ♣, ruffing the second round, or by playing a small ♦ to the A. If you now lead say J♥, then North is in the worst possible situation. North can cover it, get it trumped and so promote the 10 ♥, or they can duck it, and declarer should ruff it (this is the safest way). Then declarer should repeat the same exercise, thereby converting all the trumps in your hand into winners. Dependent on what has been played, you can return to dummy by ruffing something, and then you can clear the trumps and claim the rest of the tricks. You now have lost the opening lead and no more tricks.

So 4♠ +2 should be the top result, as I think that 6♠ is not biddable (would East ever be that willing to co-operate in bidding anywhere near?). 

We are all very guilty of looking at results, and wondering how some people get to certain contracts. This is one way, and there are many, but the most unachievable results of all, are as a result of penalties (revokes etc), which you can never replicate.   

This is a hand taken from the British Spring Sims Pairs of last week. The question is does West bid this hand as a preempt, or do they bid this hand slowly?

West looks at their hand, and makes the decision that they do not want to play in anything else but a ♥  contract. The crux of this hand rests on the decision of how high to bid.

If West decides to bid slowly, this works out poorly, as it allows North to overcall with ♠, and then South will support their partner with that suit, and they will finish probably in a 4 ♠ contract, which can make up to two overtricks. Not a very good result for the East / West pairing. If however, West decides to preempt with seven ♥, and a bid of game straight away, it is likely to shut North out of the bidding. They are really forced into a guess if they bid, as they do not really have enough to bid anything but pass.

Dummy comes down, after the opening lead of A ♠, and turns out to be pretty useless to declarer, apart from the help that is given to the ♣ suit. So West is left to play just about everything directly from their hand, when they get the lead. It is all over very quickly, as West will lose 1 no ♠, 3 no ♥ and 1 no ♣, to finish two tricks down, but, although West is vulnerable and concedes 200 points for going down, it is still a top when 4 ♠ makes for North / South.

This hand is just another example of the strength of really unbalanced hands. They may not always be achieving contracts that make, but the disruption that they can cause is powerful. 

Another interesting hand from a recent session played at the Club, which was requested to be featured here by some of our members.

East starts here with a fairly standard Acol bid of 2NT (standard bidders would bid the same, but Benji Acol bidders would treat this hand slightly differently). Anyways, I will treat this hand as a 2NT opener (20 - 22 HCP's and a balanced hand).

Most of the time when you have more than 50% of the HCP's of a hand, you will have an uncontested auction. Here we have something different, as South enters the auction and continues bidding, how annoying is this to East! However, your partner has doubled and what could South have to elicit such bidding, when you have 21 HCP's in your hand & your partner raised you?   

Well, South gets an opening lead of 3 ♦, on which the A ♦ is played and declarer discards the 10 ♥. Then declarer has a choice, establish the side suit of ♠ or take out trumps, either of which is a viable option. This declarer decided to take out the trumps, and gets his first piece of good luck, when Q ♣ falls in two rounds. Then it is time to tackle the side suit & lead a small trump to the Q ♠, which East rises with the A ♠, and follows this up by playing the K ♠. Now it is all over and you have made your contract and an overtrick for an excellent score, but not quite a top.

As the dust settles on this hand when everybody has played it, you find out that a lot of different contracts have been played. The top score is 3 ♣ doubled, which makes two overtricks, for a higher score. Also someone was allowed to play the same 4 ♣ hand undoubled, just making. Someone as North bid 3NT doubled over the 3 ♣ bid, which gives them a complete bottom, by going down four. One East tried escaping to 4 ♦ doubled, which goes off two, but the other two tables allowed East's opening bid to be passed out. This should go off by three tricks, seven ♣ tricks off the top, and A ♦ as well. However one pair were not able to cash the A ♦ , and the other pair fortunately managed to make +one, when South led 2 ♣. 

From South's point of view, it is entirely possible that you could lose 1 ♥, on a ♥ lead, and with continually getting South to trump ♥, the defence can come to 3 ♠ tricks as well, if they avoid leading ♦, and so go one down.

A real assortment of contracts & results and possible outcomes here, but why I like this hand is that it shows all the power that a really unbalanced hand possesses, and the results of not competing with such shapely hands. Bridge is always unpredictable................  

This is another made up hand, designed with inspirations from other teaching sources, featuring a 4441 type of hand. There are many different ways of opening these type of hands, where in all probability, everyone will have their own opinions - so I show my own favourite here. Opening with your lowest suit, gives you the most room to find a fit, but other people will tell you otherwise. Who is correct - you can make your own decision there, but in this instance you find a fit fairly quickly. In fact, when dummy comes down, you find a double fit in the major suits, rather unexpectedly, which is a bonus. You get a lead of K ♣ from West, which would suggest either the top of a doubleton, or possibly a sequence, so you think and come up with a plan.

Why should you make a plan?  Well, if you just take all your top tricks (4 ♠, 4 ♥, 1 ♦, & 1 ♣), you can make your contract. Well done & you congratulate yourself by getting a bottom!!! Anybody can do that. You must remember that you are playing in a duplicate, and that everyone else is playing the same hand, with the making of a plan makes all the difference. Whichever hand you treat as the Master trump hand (this is usually the hand with the most trumps in), you should look & see if there is a way to make extra tricks by turning your losers into winners.

You have three losers in ♣ in your hand & three ♦ losers in the dummy, which you could trump all of them, and loose trump control, or just trump all losers in just one hand. But how do you achieve this? Simply by having enough entries in each hand to put this plan into effect.

But which hand should you choose to trump? By digesting the bidding - did either of your opponents give you any clues by bidding anything & so suggesting length in a particular suit. When both hands have the same length in trumps, any bidding by your opponents would suggest which is the better option, unless both opponents bid each of your short suits - then beware.

What happens when the trumps do not divide nicely? Can you throw away any of your losers on any of your winners? What about cross trumping the two hands? So many questions, how do you make up your mind about what to do? 

Well, if you have no clues, normally it is better to make a plan that involves trumping losers in your hand, as your opponents cannot see your hand, unless one of the hands has more master trumps in it's hand, which is not the case here. (If ♠ were trumps here, look at the ♠ suit in the dummy, compared the ♠ suit in declarer's hand). 

In this case, cross trumping the two hands, will leave you without control of the trump suit, and inevitably lead to you going down in the contract - an even worse result! You need to make all four of your ♠ tricks, this is the suit where your opponents will be short of cards, and will trump your winners.

So you plan to trump your three club losers, to start with, planning to ruff two low & the last one high. Why like this? Well, you are hoping that the suit will divide at least 5/3, and that trumps divide 3/2 (either way). You also need to keep three winning trumps between the two hands,to cater for this, but first you must ruff the ♣ losers. Then, hopefully, when the trumps have all gone, you can run your ♠ tricks.

So, you win the opening lead and return a ♣ to ruff in dummy. Return a small ♠ to your hand & repeat the ♣ return to be ruffed. Now play A ♦ followed by another ♦ to be ruffed in your hand. Now lead your last ♣ which you will have to ruff high. Play you last trump from dummy, and then play a ♠ which you should overtake in your hand. Now play the last two trumps in your hand to clear the suit & return a ♠ to dummy, so as to enjoy your preserved ♠ winners. When everything fall nicely as in this example, you can make ALL the tricks (4 ♠, 7 ♥, 1 ♦ , & 1 ♣) and you will achieve a top or equal top.

Is slam on? Very unlikely in this case - you have 28 points between the two hands, and you need a lot of help with the distribution to make more than ten tricks. All the suits break nicely, but this type of hand shows you just what can be achieved with just a little planning. 

Incidentally, what happens if you play three rounds of trumps first, just as you have been taught? Well, you will make eleven tricks, because you can trump one extra loser only. 

What can you take from this? If you can do something more than just play trumps to start with, you should consider this. You can often wonder why, when you think you have played well on a hand, your result is poor - this is just one of a few ways..............

A new hand, but this time a made up hand, so not played anywhere. The bidding is reasonably straight forward, I think that nearly everybody will open this the same way with a good six card ♠ suit. I think that every responder (partner) should raise this to two ♠, and then declarer should raise this to four ♠.

There is nothing unusual in this auction, and because the defenders have not bid anything, West does not have anything to go on for an opening lead. What are the options :-

• A ♠  - will your partner have any? Also, you stand an outside chance that your ten and nine ♠ could become useful cards?
• A ♥  - why - going where? leading from a shortage can look attractive, but do you really want to broadcast your shortage?
• A ♦  - again as above - going where? It is a possibility, leading nine ♦ from a MUD playing suit (middle, up, down). 
• A ♣  - A low one, telling your partner that you have an honour in the suit, this seems like the best option - and so you choose to lead this.

And so, as West you lead 3 ♣, as it happens to your partner's Ace, who returns the suit to your King. Now where? Looking at dummy, it seems that hearts is the place to go, as your partner probably has something here. And so you continue with J ♥. This looks from East's point of view as a good lead, as you are now trapping dummy's ten & eight ♥, with their Queen and nine ♥, when declarer plays the Ace from dummy. It seems like declarer will hold the King, so your holding in this hand got better! 

Turning to declarer, when dummy went down, you counted up your winners and came to nine (two loosing ♣ , a loosing ♦ and a loosing ♥), but can you eliminate one of these? Making a plan, your best chance is to eliminate your loosing ♥, but where? You have three options :-

1. Hope that your opponents play two rounds of ♦, so that you can win the second one, and in doing so, you can throw away your loosing ♥ - easy!!
2. Well that plan did not work, as your opponents somewhat fortuitously, have not played ♦ , and so you have to come up with an alternative. How about hoping that one of your opponents has both the red suit winners left at the end, and that they will be squeezed into throwing away the wrong card? As this hand has been progressing, this is looking more & more possible - good news, perhaps.
3. Or your third option. As the hand has unfolded, another possibility jumps out. What about when the the ♥ is lead, playing off two rounds of ♠, hoping that they split well,and that East has two spades. Then playing the ♣ winners, as you think that West is marked with having four ♣, throwing away the two loosing ♥ from dummy, and then playing your winning ♥ and another ♥, trumping this in dummy? To put this into effect, you must win J ♥ in the dummy. This will work, as long as the West hand has three ♥ in their hand. Even when the ♠ do not split favourably, there still is the chance that this will still work.

Well, which option would you choose?

Option 3 is probably most peoples choice, as this looks like the easiest one to set up - but it fails as West has only two ♥ and bigger trumps than dummy to take the winning trick for their side.

Could you foretell this? Well, when you look at the hands at the start, before you play a card from dummy, you will notice that your opponents only have six ♥ between them. The best percentage of split between two hands, statistically, is four and two across both hands. As for the ♦, they have nine between them.

If you chose option 2, well done. You gave yourself the best chance of making this contract. If you now play off all you winners, firstly by leading a small trump from dummy to your hand, and then playing all the ♠ from your hand and then play your top two winning ♣, East then has a problem with the second ♣ about what to discard (if you play K ♥ first, East still will have the same problem about what to discard, but a trick later). Playing the ♣ first is a marginally better play, as it squeezes East sooner. What would you as East do? Did you count the cards? If you did ( and most people do not), you will know what to keep (your partner can be really helpful by throwing away hearts first). I think that most people will come down to saving the Ace ♦, because nobody likes throwing an Ace away. And so, the little two or three of ♥ makes the contract - WOW!!!

Squeezing an opponent out of the final winner, is a legitimate play, but how many times does it matter? Starting the false breadcrumbs of a trail by throwing away the ♥ in dummy is an element of this MISDIRECTION!!

Who can blame East for throwing away their winner? They had no clue about what declarer's final card was - it could have been from all four suits, and yet.................

Here is another hand with a decision to be made. As South, what will your decision as to what your bid should be? If you double, is it for take-out or is it for penalty? What are your partnership agreements?

You are sitting with a really nice hand with a void. It is fairly obvious that your opponents have a big ♦ fit, and in all probability your partner has next to nothing in terms of HCP's. But do they have a long suit?

Firstly you should think about your partnership agreement, and at what point a double changes from take-out to penalty.

• If it changes at higher than 2 ♠, then you should pass. You should be aware that a double here would end terribly, as any doubled contract making, leaves the defenders with a terrible position when it makes (or makes with over-tricks), usually a 0% (BOTTOM). I will tell you at this point that 3 ♦ makes, and can make over-tricks as well.
• If your changeover point is 3 ♠, then you should double.Your partner should understand that you are forcing them to bid, regardless of whether they have any HCP's or none, and that passing is not an option. As South you are showing shortage in the suit bid, support for the other three suits (you have opened already - which perhaps eliminates one suit from the conversation). You will find out that North has five ♠, and so you find your fit.
• What happens if West puts in another bid? Obviously, West has enough HCP's to overcall, but do they have enough (or shape) to go on further? West should take into account that East's jump, will be a weak jump, and that everyone is vulnerable.

This hand when played, went in all different directions, a real mixed bag of results, all dependent on the bidding & the playing of the hands. The results were (from the N/S position) :-

1. 100% for 3 ♠ + two (I don't know how this was achieved - seems impossible to me without penalties assessed by the TD coming into effect).
2. 90%  for 3 ♠ making nine tricks.
3. 80%  for 4 ♦ going one down.
4. 65%  for 3 ♠ or  4 ♠ going one down.
5. 45%  for 3 ♦ making nine tricks
6. 15%  for 3 ♦ + one.
7. 0%    for anybody not taking out the double.

I hope you can see that not doubling can leave you with a less than average score, and that doubling & getting a response from your partner (on this particular hand) is the winning action, regardless of the result.

Here is an interesting hand which has not been played at our Club. On the face of it, this hand contains three losers (when looking at it from the long trump hand (North)), one ♠, and two ♥, so not that engaging & seemingly flat. However it is possible to play this hand, to go down one, just make or gain two overtricks. The way to the best possible result, is to realise that trumping the two loosing ♥ in the dummy (short trump hand), could possibly be the way. It will all depend on the distribution of the ♥ suit.

The lead that was given was 6♣, which seems to me to be the wrong lead. There is a natural lead of K♦, the top of a sequence. However, it makes no difference to the hand, as Dummy (South) should win with the A of whichever suit is led.

1. If you are in the mindset to make your contract, you should start now by drawing trumps. This method leaves you with the two small loosing ♥ as well as the ♠ loser to the A, and so 10 tricks.
2. If you are in the mindset to go down in your contract, you should start now by trumping ♦. This method of trying to cross trump the hand, will mean that you eventually run out of trumps, and the East/West hands will put you down eventually, and 9 tricks. 
3. If you are in the mindset to go for overtricks in your contract, you should start now by playing ♥. Lead a small ♥ to the A, and then play K♥, followed by another small ♥, trumping with either of the two smaller trumps. You are hoping for a good distribution of the remaining ♥ between your opponents (4/3). When both opponents follow to the third round of ♥, this is your first overtrick. Now, to gain a best in terms of percentage for this hand, you lead a small ♣ back to your hand playing either the Q or J of ♣  to win this trick. Then lead the last ♥ from your hand, and trump with the 10♠ in dummy. Why play the 10, when if East has discarded, so you know that West must have the last ♥ ? Well, in this particular case, it is not important to have counted the ♥, but playing the 10 ensures that the only card which can beat it is the A, a card which is always going to win a trick. (We recommend counting suits which are important to you, always).By playing the 10♠, this ensures that when you lead trumps, as you should do now, you have to lead either 7♠  or 4♠ (whichever you have not already played), and play higher than this from your hand. At this stage, you only have one loser, the  A♠. You should have more trumps than East (the bad split does not cause you any problems), and in Dummy you still hold either 2♣ or 1♣/1♦ winners, dependent on what the opening lead was, and so 12 tricks. 

This is an instructive hand, for your perception of what to do, when Dummy goes down on the table. Is it possible to play in 6 ♠, making 12 tricks by the method shown above, and so gain an overall top?

Well, with only 27 points between the two hands it is unlikely, but not impossible, and would depend upon bidding techniques & partnership agreements. 

Very often, with these hands of the month, they are used to show problems & difficulties of card play. For a change, here is a bidding problem for you.

This was recently played at our Club, and I think that this particular hand should be recorded for posterity, as it is ever so rare to see the amount of HCP's shared between West & East.

Sitting East, your partner has opened 1 ♦ (which is their only opening bid), and you have this monster hand. You should bid your hand slowly, rather than rush to any game contract. Sometimes you can assume that your partner has at least opening points, and it turns out that they have opened light (with a hand with less than 12 HCP's). Bidding slowly should reveal where your partner is, as with their opening bid, they have promised a re-bid, so your bid should be 1H (not denying a 4 card suit). 

West should reflect on this bid & think carefully.

So, they have two options:-

1.  - Rebid ♦ to show the length that they have. 
2.  - Bid 1NT to show the points that they have.

We are all taught that playing in a game contract in the minors is not a good choice, so you should try & look to see if there are any other options available.  

With West holding seven ♦, it is unlikely that East will have any length in ♦ and so bidding 1NT is a much better option. Holding length in a minor has usually got great potential when playing in a NT contract. West has some points scattered in the other suits, so bids 1NT (showing 15 - 17 HCP's), to see what East has to say to this.

Well, East absolutely loves this bid, as they are sitting with 22 HCP's, so, being able to add up, realises that there is at least 37 HCP's between the two hands. So East reaches deep into the bidding box and bids 7NT. (I do think that if you can make this bid without spilling any of the bidding cards, then you should claim an extra point!!!).

There should be nothing in the play, providing that West does not get themselves fastened into one hand. There should be 4no ♠ tricks, 3no ♥ tricks, 7no ♦ tricks & 3no ♣ tricks, but as we only have 13 cards, West has to settle for this result.

When this was played at our Club, the contracts were a mixed bag, but all in NT's. It was played by 6no partnerships, 2no reaching 7NT, 1no reaching 6NT, 1no reaching 4NT, and 2no reaching 3NT, but strangely, one partnership managed to only take 11 tricks. Most of the variation in the contracts, is no doubt down to the initial bid by East. If East decides to try & show their strength by, for example, bidding 3NT (which could be the correct bid here), it is very difficult for West to bid on, and so you can end up in an inferior contract. There is nothing so deflating as playing your heart out, to achieve most (if not all) of the tricks, only to find out that you are playing in a contract that can only delivery you a poor result.

Personally, I was sitting East, and I had two unique moments in this. Firstly, pulling so many bidding cards out in one bid (emptying the bidding box), and secondly, seeing the look on my partner's face as I placed the bid down was priceless!!

Here we have a fairly standard part score hand, which will make fairly easily, but generating no over tricks, requiring not much thought about it. This is a completely flat hand, so why include it as a hand of the month?

This hand is shown to illustrate a very simple point. You should all have this statement drilled into your brains -

"Trumping in the long hand does NOT generate any EXTRA tricks".

In fact with this hand, you can actually never gain or lose a trick by trumping by either hand   

When you look across both hands for winners, you have five trump tricks (AKQJ10 ♠ ), two aces (A ♥ & A ♦ ) & a king (K ♥ ), with no possibility of any more tricks from anywhere else (you can see this when you look at all four hands). It is basically just about impossible to go wrong with this hand (unless you are truly that bad).

If you try trumping ♦ in dummy, you will be over trumped by West. If you still believe that trumping in the long hand will get you extra tricks, you can trump the two loosing hearts, with let's say the J & 10 ♠ , yes, you have managed to deal with the two loosing ♥ , but you also managed to promote a winning trump in the West hand - well done!

Please be aware that trumping in the long hand, can also cost you tricks with a lot of hand layouts. As, you can assume from all this, there is no upside to any of this, just lots of downsides, resulting in doomed contracts and poor scores and results. Is that what you wish for?

There are only three reasons for trumping in the long hand :-

1. To return to the Master hand, so as to lead a particular card from it (the Master hand is normally defined as the hand with the most trumps in it). Such cards, include a suit that cannot be led from the other hand (with it being void), or to finesse something, or
2. To lead or trump a long second suit, so as to establish tricks in the suit by length, or
3. To cross trump the two hands.

Any other reasons do not hold water - please eliminate such thoughts from your head!

This is a hand generated out of my head, with an exaggerated deal, just to illustrate a point, which I have seen beginners do too many times.

Yes, I know that technically East should double the initial bid of 1 ♠ , but this hand is just for example only. 

A brand new year & a brand new problem hand which I came across whilst I was away. You have reached the excellent contract of 6♠ , but when you look at the hands, you can see two losers, one of which is unavoidable, especially as you receive a ♦ lead. What can you do?

In bridge you will have read in books a concept named the "Frozen Suit". This is all about a suit, of which, whosoever leads this suit, will always give away a trick.

How do you (as declarer) ensure that you are not the one who breaks open this suit? Here the suit is ♣ - so read on.

You get the opening lead of 4♦ , and you decide to go up with A♦ . You have an unavoidable ♦ loser, so how can you use this to your advantage? If you use another concept in Bridge named the "End Play" this will achieve that result, as long as it is timed correctly.

To put this plan into operation, you need to eliminate your opponents trumps & the other two suits in your hand and in the dummy (namely Hearts and Diamonds). You start off on your plan by first removing the trumps (♠ ) from your opponents, and they co-operate in two rounds. Then, you clear all the ♥ from your two hands, so coming down to the remainder of ♠ , the ♣ suit in it's entirety and the single ♦ in each hand. Here comes the clever part. If you now play your losing ♦ , you end play whichever defender decides to take that trick (your opponents ducking the trick does not help, as you are then guaranteed to make your contract & may make an over trick, if you can guess correctly the location of the Q♣ ). 

The defenders are now forced into giving you the contract, either by :-

A - Playing a ♦ or a ♥ , and trumping with the hand with two ♠ in, and discarding a ♣ from the hand with three clubs in it. (Trumping with the hand with three ♠ in, and discarding a ♣ from the hand with four clubs in it does not create an extra trick), or

B - Playing a ♣ from either direction, will deliver three club tricks, no matter which club is played.

Twelve tricks and contract made, but how did the players fare on this hand?

Well, three pairs played in 4 ♠ ,which obviously makes, but only one pair made 12 tricks. Three pairs played in 6 ♠ , all of them only making 11 tricks. One pair played in 6 NT, which can only be made with a ♣ lead. How jammy are some people?

Do not ask me how I fared with this hand, as I was West!! 

A common hand in a Bridge session, is the part score hand. So, here is one from a recent session at the Club, where nobody reached the full potential of the hand.

The bidding goes as shown. If East is tempted to bid or double ♣ , then this works out poorly for them, as this gives them a bottom for their direction.

This is a hand where no matter how you bid the 4441 hands, you should always finish in a ♥ contract, possibly reaching it in the manner shown. If you open 1♥ from North (as no doubt some will), you should take the 2♥ bid from South as a shut off bid and pass.

The question is, can you make an overtrick? 

The opening lead that you get (if South is playing the hand) from West is the 4♦ . I would suggest that the lead should be K♠ , but I did not play the hand. If East is on lead, the text book lead is J♣ .

Well, in reality when this was played one pair managed to bring home 2♥ , just making. Most pairs played this hand in a combination of either 2♥ or 3♥ , either N or S, all going one off. The one pair who played in ♣ went two off, for a disastrous result. The best result is 2♥ +1, either North or South.

How did you fair? 

Another hand with an interesting problem for you. You have managed to avoid ending up in the disastrous contract of 3NT, but 4 ♠ looks not very easy with 4 losers across the two hands. What can you do about this?

You get the ominous lead of K ♥ from E. What should you do?

From the bidding, you can guess that E has got length in ♥ and probably has at least, one of the missing Aces, so ducking here may not be a very good idea, so you rise up & take the A ♥ straight away. Ducking the ♥ lead twice, will automatically end up with you going one off.

Playing trumps now, is also the wrong option, as you have to lose to the A ♠ & A ♣ no matter what, and when your opponents will get back in, they will continue with ♥ again, and you still lose more two tricks in the suit. Your solution here is to play K ♦ from N, and following this up with 6 ♦ to the Q ♦ , and then play A ♦ discarding a loosing ♥ , hoping that the ♦ break nicely.

When the A ♦ succeeds, you can now tackle trumps, confident that your contract is going to make, loosing only to both the black A's and your remaining ♥ loser. 

This is one of those occasions, when you need to do something else first, other than play trumps. Watch out for these type of occasions - they are truly the stuff of tops or bottoms. 

PLEASE try not to press the button "SHOW ALL HANDS", as I think it destroys a lot of the ideas & mystery behind this hand, which firmly puts you directly into declarer's thinking. Please try and read this article first, before you "Play it Again", as that also displays all the hands. You can press it at the end if you so desire.

I have been saving this one for you all. This to all intents and purposes is "Mission Impossible", and an exercise in limiting how far you can go down, and thus limiting the pain.

You have a combined 17 points between the two hands, and it looks very much like the K ♣, and the J ♥ are both useless. You are way over your head if you look at your top tricks, whereas, the losing trick count shows 8 losers in W, and 6 losers in E, so you are still in trouble.

What do you know. North opened the bidding, presumably from a 5 card suit and with probably most of the missing points, which the resulting double would suggest. South's simple raise to 2 ♠ suggests 6 - 9 points with a 4 card suit.

You get the lead of K ♠, suggesting that the Q ♠ is also with North. You have to decide on a plan of action - what are you going to do? 

You decide that the hands look good for getting somewhere near the 11 tricks that you need, if you cross trump ♠ and ♣ from the respective hands. So to start this off, you go up with the 2 ♦  from dummy, preserving your A ♠. To continue this plan, you try leading a small ♣ from dummy, wondering if you can sneak a trick with the K ♣, which fails, as North comes up with A ♣. Not wanting to under-lead anything from their hand, North decides to continue with Q ♠, assuming that their partner holds A ♠, when declarer declined to take a trick with it. This is again trumped low from dummy, and another club follows trumped low by declarer. Another low ♠ follows, trumped low by dummy. You expected the ♠ to break somewhat evenly, as evidenced by the original bidding.

Now we have the crucial part. You lead another low ♣, hoping for a 3 - 3 split between your opponents, and hold your breath when S follows. You have to trump low, as by doing so, means that you can still deal with trumps being 3 - 0 with one of your opponents. PHEW!! W plays the last unaccounted ♣.

Now you have to change your plan of action, because now you can see a route, from your contact going 1 down, to it making an over-trick. You now need to clear the trumps, by leading a low trump to dummy. When both opponents follow suit, you know that this is all going to work. You play a second round of trumps from dummy, clearing  trumps from your opponents. Now you can play your three preserved ♣ tricks, ditching the three ♥ from declarers hand. Finally you lead a ♥ from dummy, trumped with your last one, and lead A ♠ for your over-trick. Could your opponents have done better if they had led a ♥ ? Well, it is hard to lead from a suit which is A Q x x - I will leave that one up to you.

So, you sit back & think, how have I, effectively made a twelve trick contract with only 13 working points?  As with all things, you need your share of luck, or do you?    

Well, this is a board that was played earlier this year on nine tables at Wakefield. Four of the tables let N /S play in ♠ or ♥ which can make ten / eleven tricks, dependent on how you play the ♠ suit (♠ divide 5 / 4 & ♥ divide 4 / 4). On the other four tables, E / W played in a variety of ♦ contracts. One pair played in 5 ♦ x, just like the above, but managed to only make nine tricks. Unbelievably, one pair were allowed to play in two ♦, which gave a next to top score for them. how does that happen!!!

Interestingly, the computer reckons that the best contract is 5 ♦ x, going down one trick. A good sacrifice when faced with your opponents possibilities of + 620 or 650. There again, do computers always get it right?........ I will let you decide. 

A wise man once told me that in Bridge, all the rules are there to be broken except one (Over-calling).

Here is an example of the results of breaking one of these, which works out amazingly well. 

What does East do here? Some partnerships could decide to bid on with ♥, however, without hearing any support from West, a better option is to Pass. The possibility is that West has made a forcing Pass, with them holding a ♠ suit.

East, with no clue what to lead, decides to commit to breaking a rule, and underleads one of their Aces, by leading 4 ♣. (Leading the A ♣ works equally well). JACKPOT!! West returns K ♥ which stands up & then another ♥. Another small ♣ follows, as East has worked out that declarer has a 4 card ♣ suit. What does West return? Well, with no ♥ in dummy, West decides on a ♦. Then East cashes A ♣ and plays the last ♣ for a ruff, and with declarer completely helpless, and as the dust settles, they are 2 down, before they have even got started.

If you commit to leading A ♥ or A ♦, then you will have removed an entry to your hand, and therefore a trump trick from your partner, and declarer can make more tricks.

Just to finish this off, if East continues to 4 ♥, then this will not make. If North opens a strong 1 NT, then this only makes 6. Interestingly, the computer reckons that the best contract is E/W in 3 ♦, but how do you get there?    

Have you ever picked up a hand like this when sitting North? 

Well, I will complicate this & try and muddy this up a bit further for you. You are playing with a partner that you have never played with before & have agreed a simple method of playing in the limited chance that you have had to discuss things (not having talked about high level contracts at all). So what do you bid? No doubt, that if you are in an established partnership, then you will have your own methods to deal with these type of hands.

Well, you can bid 3♦ as a "forcing" bid, but what if your partner does not understand this & passes?  Another alternative could be that you construct opening hand types that your partner can have (what points & in what suits). It literally boils down to the fact that your partner must have the majority of points in the black suits, as you cannot construct any hand without this being the case. So, you take the bull by the horns and bid 6 NT! 

This turns out to be a wise decision, as you can see 12 tricks without any problems (did any of you expect your partner to open short?). Can you make 13? Only if your opponents want to gift this to you.

The opening lead from East SHOULD ALWAYS be A♣, without exception, and 12 tricks are there for the taking. What happens if you lead J♥ from the top of a sequence. Declarer wins with A♥ and leads Q♣ towards dummy (using up the high cards from the short suit first). If East decides not to take, then you continue with 10♣ and finally 5♣ and overtaking the last one in dummy. Still East has not taken A♣. So, now you cash A♦, K♦ and Q♦, and when the ♦ split 3/2 between East & West, in the fullness of time your 3♦ ends up collecting A♣, and so you make 13 tricks. 

Unfortunately, although the first part of this is what happened to myself, I never spotted the switch to ♦. The ♥ lead had made me throw a ♦ from dummy, and I was concentrating on finding somewhere to dispose of my 3♦, and so I continued the ♣ suit, the difference between an equal top & an outright top.

Could you change your plan of playing the hand, given the opportunity that is offered to you on a silver platter?

Can you make this contract?

Have you ever fancied going rogue?

This is a very unpromising hand, but with a nice six card suit. It has too many points for a weak opening, and also wasted points in the two doubletons. 

You open the bidding & it goes as shown, and you get the lead of A♠ followed by K♠. Having seen Q♠ & 10♠ drop from declarer, and with no signal from your partner, W decides to give up the lead, by continuing with another ♠. You clear trumps in two rounds ending in Dummy, and decide to lead a ♦ in a forlorn hope that something might happen, which of course it doesn't. You trump the third round of ♦, and lead a heart towards K♥. You need some help from your opponents.

This is the pivotal point. When E is offered the chance of a free gift, should they take it? How many times have we all turned a free gift down, only to discover that the trick with the A has gone away!

Well, it should be easy to work out the hand shape of S. Two ♠, two ♦ (both third rounds were trumped), six ♣ (one left in Dummy & declarer has not continued them), so there must be three ♥. So, you should automatically duck the ♥ lead, and thus you will end play Dummy into giving you two ♥ tricks, and going one down. However, E here decided to rise with the A, and in so doing, end-played themselves into giving up the contract.

In the end result, it turns out that this choice also turns out to be between an equal bottom or an outright bottom for your opponents. These part scores hands are the staple of a session of Bridge.

This great result for N/S stems from your original decision to open the bidding. As W, we are all taught not to overcall without a five card suit, and a double here is the wrong call (being neither a take out double or a negative double).  

Poor W! Did not do much wrong, but ended up with a bad result, because most S passed & allowed W/E to find their ♠ fit, in which 4♠ can make.