Bridge questions
For member bridge questions - and their answers...
Have a bridge question? Simply email it - with all the relevant information - to
This is a hand from our SALT4 match on Monday night. It doesn’t get much worse. This was the first hand of the second match, a disappointing 1 point hand.
Board 9 from the Slam Dunk evening game on Tue 24 Aug 2021 - what do you bid? Whether you open this hand 1C or 2, 3, 4 or 5C might make all the difference.
All the tables played this hand in a slam contract, but the results were nonetheless dispersed. The pairs playing 6C shared a bottom board. Even bidding and making 7C did not get you the prize.
You needed to bid and make 7NT to get a good score - and three tables did, including club members Len Evershed and Bruce McDonald who won the night with a great score of 67.41%. Click on Read More below to see the full hand - and their bidding.
Terry H asked: When assessing your hand to open, you need 12+ opening points to open one of a suit, provided you have 5 or more cards in a major suit, or less for minors. Opening points are a combination of HCPs and length points. Length points are one point for a 5 card suit, two points for a 6 card suit etc. Then, when you find a fit with partner you can include shortage points (1 for a doubleton, 3 for a singleton and 5 for a void).
This raises 4 questions on points:
DC asked: My partner opened 1C (with two plus clubs) and I'm holding 4 hearts to the king, 4 clubs to the queen, 4 diamonds to the queen and a singleton spade, what would your response be?
I bid 1D, she said 2NT so I went 3NT and we made 7...
PG responded: Despite the most accurate bidding, you need to expect some hands not to make. Bidding systems cover the majority of hands not all of them.
KK wrote: Hello! While playing bridge the other day with my regular group, my partner bid two clubs, the next player bid two hearts, then I passed because I didn’t have any points (as did the next player).
A debate ensued as to whether or not I was allowed to pass vs. bidding.
What is your take on the situation?
TH asked: If you open with 1C – and you play 1C as showing minimum of two clubs – how many clubs does responder need to bid 2 clubs?
Cath W answered: Peninsula's Standard System is to open “Better Minor”, in which case 1C would promise a minimum of 3 (and a “fit” is 8 so you can do the math). Responder's priority is to bid four card suits “up the line” (but with a minimum one bid hand, responder should bypass diamonds and show a four card major).
David F added: Even though an opening 1C may only promise 2 clubs (if playing a "short club" or 3 if playing "better minor") opener will quite often have four. So on some hands responders may choose to bid 2C without the certainty of an eight card fit, if there is no other good bid.
TH asked: To open the bidding, you can add length points to your HCPs to get to 12+ . Length points are 1 point for a five card suit, 2 for a six card suit and 3 for a seven card suit etc. Isn’t this misleading responder because he/she expects you as opener to have 12+ HCPs - whereas in reality you may have only 10 HCP as the other 2 points came from length points? If responder had 13 HCPs and his partner opened, then responder would assume a minimum of 12 HCPs – add the two together to get 25 and therefore you bid to game – however in reality the total is only 23 HCP and you fail your game contract.
