This lesson deals with forcing responses to one of a suit openings. All change of suit responses are forcing; that is, opener must bid again.
A summary of these was given in last week's handout; they will be discussed in more detail here. There are basically two types of these: simple change of suit responses, and jump shift responses.
Hands suitable for these responses are unbalanced with no support for partner's suit (i.e. less than 4 cards in that suit), and usually not incredibly strong (about 6 to about 15 points). The general rule here is to bid your longest suit at the lowest level possible. If you have two (or three) 4 card suits, bid the lower; if you have two 5+ card suits of equal length, bid the higher. The main exception is; if you have only 6 or 7 points and you can't bid a 4+ card suit at the 1 level, you have to respond with 1NT, even if your hand is unbalanced. This is because you are expected to have at least 8 points to respond at the 2 level.
If your partner has opened the bidding, showing 12+ points, then theoretically you want to be in game on most hands with 13+ points that responder could hold. However, it depends on finding a fit if responder has less than about 16 points. As responder with 16+ points, you want to make sure your partnership reaches game. To tell your partner this you make a jump response in a new suit (i.e. not a raise of your partners suit or a bid of no trumps). This is forcing to game which means that your partnership must not let the bidding stop until you have reached game.
A jump response shows one of three hands:
If you don't have a good suit, a fit for partner's suit, or at least 18 points it is better to start with a simple change of suit response, (which is forcing for one round), and then make a jump bid next time to tell your partner you have a good hand.
A useful thing to know when considering how best to bid your hand as responder, is that you can show strong support for partner's suit in three different ways:
Partner opens 1H, what do you respond?
1) S Kxxxx 2) S xx 3) S Axx 4) S x 5) S x H Qx H Qx H Qx H KQx H KQxx D xxx D Kxxxx D Kxxxx D AQxxx D AQxxx C Jxx C Jxxx C xx C QJxx C AJx 6) S x 7) S xx 8) S Axx 9) S AKxx H KQxxx H KQxx H Qx H Qx D Qxxxx D AQxx D AKQJxx D AKJx C Ax C Qxx C xx C QJx
Don't forget to rebid no trumps as planned if you have a balanced hand. The only exception to this is if you have (4+ card) support for partner's suit.
First, a quick reference guide.
Most of this is pretty straightforward. However, the concept of reversing needs further explanation. A general definition of a reverse is: A non-jump rebid in a second suit that forces partner to bid at the three level if he wishes to show preference to the first suit bid.
An example of a reverse is: 1H-2C-2S. If responder prefers hearts, he will have to bid 3 to show it. Because of this, you need a strong (16+ h.c.p.) hand to reverse. There are a few points to bear in mind:
These are the same in principle as the rebids after a simple change of suit response. The main difference is that a game forcing situation exists, and your partner is more likely to know which game you will end up in (he knows the reason for jump shifting). Therefore, you should tell partner all you can about your hand. As a game forcing situation is in existence, you need not worry about reversing if your hand is too weak. It is more important to tell your partner that you have that second suit.
You opened 1D. What is your rebid after (a) 1S (b) 2S
1) S xx 2) S x 3) S x 4) S x H Kxx H Kxx H Kxx H Kxx D AKQ10x D KQ10xx D KQ10xx D AKJ10xx C Qxx C AKQx C AQxx C AQx 5) S x 6) S J10xx 7) S x 8) S J10xx H AKQx H x H AQxx H A D KQ10xx D AK10xx D KQ10xx D AK10xx C Kxx C KQX C Kxx C KQxThe answers
In this lesson we will look more closely at declarer play.
The role that position can play in generating tricks is best demonstrated by example. Suppose that you, as declarer, have to try and make a trick in a suit with xx in your hand and Kx in dummy. The way to go about this is very important. There are two possible positions:
1) Kx 2) Kx
A... ... ... A...
xx xx
If you lead from dummy, the defence will win both tricks in the suit (and more, if the contract is NT). If you lead the king, the defence will win with the ace, and still hold the boss card in the suit - the queen. Leading the small card from dummy doesn't help either (unless the ace is singleton), because the defence will win the first trick with the queen, and still have the ace to bash your king with. So, to give yourself some chance of making a trick in the suit, you use the positional factor.
If position 1 is the case, you can always make one trick if you lead from your hand and play the king if the ace doesn't appear. If position 2 is the case you are very unlikely to make a trick (the only way you can is if the ace is singleton on your right, and you play small from both hands on the first trick).
By playing a small card from hand towards the king, you have a 50% chance of making a trick with the king. By playing small from dummy you have a very low chance of making a trick with the king. By playing the king from dummy, you have no chance at all of making a trick in the suit. It is easy to see which is the best line of play.
This illustrates a general principle that it is wise to follow as far as possible:
Play towards your high cards when you can.
The above example was the simplest possible finesse. The factor of position was combined with the principle of playing towards high cards to increase the chances of making a trick in the suit. Finesses get a lot more complicated than this, especially when there is a choice of high cards to play. Consider this example suit:
dummy: AQJ109
declarer: xxx
It is obvious that there are four tricks to be had from this suit, even if you lead the ace from table, then play the queen. Once the king has been played, the J109 will be winners. However, you can be cleverer than this. If the king is on your left, it is possible to make five tricks in the suit (unless there is a void on your right).
The way to do this is to take a finesse . That is, you lead a small card from hand, and only play the ace if the king appears; otherwise, play the 9. If the king is on your right you have lost nothing, you still make four tricks (the AQJ10). However, if it is on your left, the nine will win, and you can cross back to hand and repeat the manoeuvre twice, playing the ace when the king appears, and making five tricks in the suit. (Can you see why this will not work when there is a void on your right? - hint: how many cards are on your left?)
The only time this line of play is worse than playing the ace first is when there is a singleton king on your right. However, this doesn't happen very often, and your best chance is still to hope that the king is on the left.
There are many different situations where finessing is appropriate, for example:
1) AQxx 2) Axxx 3) AQ109 4) AJ109 5) KJ109 xxx QJ109 Jxx xxx xxx
In the first example, you only have one certain trick in the suit. However, you can increase your chances of making two tricks if you play small towards dummy, play the queen if the king doesn't appear on your left, and play the ace if it does. If the king is played from the hand on your right to beat the queen, you weren't going to make the queen anyway, so you have lost nothing.
The second example is slightly different. In this case, you play the queen from your hand, and only play the ace from dummy if the king appears on your left. If it does appear, the J109 become winners. If it appears on your right you have lost nothing. If it doesn't appear on the first round, it is probably on your left, and you can carry on with the jack, then the ten (if necessary), bashing the king with the ace when it appears.
Previously we have assumed that there will be no problem getting to your hand enough times to repeat finesses. In this example, to reduce the number of entries needed, lead the jack from hand, and cover with the ace if the king appears. Then, if the king doesn't appear, you are still in hand, and can lead a small card towards the high card holding on table.
In the fourth example you are missing the king and queen in the suit. You are bound to lose to one of these. If you play the ace on the first trick, you will probably lose to both. However, if you play from hand towards dummy, and cover whatever the person on your left plays (i.e. play the ace if an honour appears, play the 9 otherwise), you have a good chance of restricting your losers in the suit to one. If the KQ are on your right, you will always lose to both of them (unless they are doubleton - not likely). If they are both on your left, and one of them appears on the first round, you will win with the ace, and then only lose to the other honour. If they are split , and LHO (left hand opponent) doesn't play his/her honour on the first round, your 9 will be beaten by the honour on your right. You will then be able to finesse against the honour on your left.
The fifth example is slightly more complicated. You are missing the ace and the queen - two non-touching honours. Unless you have reason to know where these missing honours are, the best play is to play small from hand (lead towards the high cards), and cover whatever appears on your left. If LHO plays the queen, play the king. You can only lose one trick if this happens. If LHO plays small, play the 9 and hope RHO has the ace, and not the queen. If this is the case and s/he plays the ace, you can then finesse against the queen. If RHO has both the ace and the queen, you are bound to lose two tricks in the suit anyway. Also, if LHO has the ace and RHO has the queen, you must lose two tricks in the suit however you play it. If you play the king on the first round, the ace and queen are then both winners. If you play the jack, you lose to the queen, and the ace will still win a trick. The two cases where you will only lose one trick in the suit are when the AQ are both on your left, and when the ace is on your right, and the queen is on your left. By playing small from hand and covering whatever LHO plays, you are making sure of losing only one trick if either of these situations occurs.
It is worthwhile noting that it is often best to let the defence play suits like the suit shown in the fifth example for you - they may give you a trick!
These are very important. It is no good setting the stage for a finesse, and then finding out that you can't get to the hand you want to lead from. Take this hand, for example:
W: S AKxxx E: S xxx H Kx H Ax Contract: 4S by West D AQx D J10xx Lead: 3H C xx C Qxxx
At first glance there appear to be no problems - and no special reason for taking the first trick in one hand rather than the other. Your certain losers are one spade and two clubs. As long as trumps break 3-2 and the K is with South, you can make 4 spade tricks, 2 heart tricks, and 4 diamond tricks - enough for the contract. (NB assume the cards are in the right place - if they aren't, you're not going to make the contract anyway). As usual, the first priority is to draw trumps; so West's plan is to draw trumps and then take the diamond finesse (playing the jack from dummy's hand, so if the king doesn't appear on the first round the lead is still in the right hand and the finesse can be taken again). In order to do this, West must preserve the A(c) as an entry to dummy, because if he takes the first trick with it, s/he will have no way of getting to dummy to take the diamond finesse once trumps have been drawn.
Two important points to remember about declarer play are illustrated by this example: