Vil says .. Hi, hope you’re up for another ‘progressive’ exercise. This time it is a match point session.
You are South and hold the following hand:

5

852

KQ63

KQT95

At favourable vulnerability you pass as dealer. West passes and partner opens 1NT (12-14). East bids 2S. No alert. You do not play Lebensohl or anything fancy in this situation. Your bid?

This will be a progressive problem, so answers to villyn@xtra.co.nz as quickly as possible please. The next question will then come depending on your answers to the earlier one.

Teams all vul. Partner opens 1S as dealer. What will be your bid holding:

5

AQ72

J

AKQJT82

This week we have some TEAMS play questions.

1. Teams: Dealer North All vul

52

T52

K7543

Q63

You are SOUTH.
The bidding has been:

South	West	North	East
-	-	1	1
?

What do you bid and why?

Some more What and Why, this time all from a match point session.

1. Match Points Dealer South NS vul.

AQJ3

8

T7532

AK5

You are SOUTH
The bidding has been:

South	West	North	East
1	Pass	1	Pass
1	Pass	3	Pass
?

What do you bid and why?

Let me now show you the full deal and decide whether Deep Finesse can teach us anything about defence or not. When you do look at the following deal you may well raise some pertinent questions, like why did East open 5D and how, in a more sophisticated teams match, the bidding might have proceeded. But in real life you do not have the means to check out the pedigree of the opponents and have to take their bidding at face value. I suspect that the end result might well have been 5D doubled but not until EW had bid to 4H and NS to 4S. That might have made a difference to the defence, but let’s look at the what actually happened at the time, because things do happen at the table that may not happen in theory.

1. Teams. Dealer East all vul.

	J6532 6 65 J854
KT7 QT875 8 K976		Q AJ4 AKQT9732 T
	A984 K932 J A762