April 2003

FOR THE OFFENSE

The rule of 11 can work just as well for the offense as it does for the defense. Suppose you are in 3NT and LHO (left hand opponent) leads the spade 7. Now you see your spades and dummy's spades, which are:

DUMMY          YOU (declarer)
S) Q J 5 2          S) 9 8

Q) What is your play?
A) 11-7 = 4. There are only 4 spades higher than the 7 in dummy, your hand and RHO. You can see all 4 so RHO has none. Play low from dummy, winning in your hand. Now you have a second spade stopper in dummy.

FOR THE DEFENSE

When the opponents are bidding and your side is passing, what are you thinking about? This is a good time to use your bidding skills to sort out honor points.

For example:

LHO            RHO
1 heart          1 spade
2 clubs          2 hearts

LHO's 2 clubs does not promise more than a minimum opener. RHO shows a preference for partner's hearts, and this does not promise anything more than his minimum response of 6 points.

Estimate the opponents at 13 + 8, or about 21 honor points. If you have 8 points for example, then partner has about 11 points. When the dummy comes down, you see half of the deck.

After a few rounds of play, you should be able to place the remaining hidden honors, just like an expert!

QUICK CURE

After lecturing a bridge class on how to get rid of losers, teacher Eddie Kanter presented a lesson hand and asked a student how she was going to get rid of her losers.

She said: "I am going to lose them right away so I don't have to worry about them any more."

BridgeSnaps newsletter is produced by John S. Thomas, author of Standard American 21.