Angela sent Vil this problem which came from Tuesday 12/05/26 at X-Clubs

Hi, just one question for now, match points. All vul, dealer West who
passes. Your partner, North, opens 1D and East passes. What do you bid, holding

AQJ

Q9

AT732

J42

This is the final deal I want to review from the session on Friday 17/04/26 where, once more, the game
force 1NT was very effective and the result could have been great but only if you were Deep Finesse

Board 25. Dealer N EW Vul

	AKJ75 T2 J9 K652
9432 85 K762 T93		Q86 KJ63 T5 Q874
	T AQ974 AQ843 AJ

One of the deadly sins in bridge is to overbid to a minor suit game when nine tricks are easily
available in No Trumps. But a bigger sin, in my opinion, is to choose an unmakeable 3NT when
a minor suit slam is a much better proposition

This deal comes from X-Clubs, Tuesday 14/4/2026. It is an EW hand where most EW pairs chose the
impossible 3NT when a minor suit slam was a much better proposition, and just bidding the minor suit
game would have scored over 90%. Let’s take a look at the EW hands and see how we might bid them

Board 16. Dealer East, Nil Vulnerable.

A85 A72 J92 K832

KJ72 KQT854 AJ9

Non Forcing Responses to One of a suit openings:
All responses other than 1NT are non forcing. Often when partner opens 1H or 1S it is necessary to
raise with only a three card suit if you don’t want to force to game. That is why I prefer to play ‘five
card majors’
Normal suit responses to 1 level openings:

There are going to be many times at the bridge table that you will want to tell partner about your hand
but won’t know how best to do so. That is why it is so important to discuss such things with your
partner. This article is aimed at getting a common understanding with partner by using takeout doubles
and cue bids when you and your partner want to compete against your opponents. I will describe the
potential bidding in plain English because, after all, the bridge bidding language is no different, it just
takes a different form

Here are some bidding situations from recent teams play