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 "Groundhog Day" by Marti Ronemus

It is a measure of the desperate depression we all feel in February that we have a celebration centered around a malicious, verminous, destructive animal that we loathe the rest of the year... the Groundhog. Honestly! How pathetic can we be. For those of you who don't "celebrate" Groundhog Day... or haven't seen the movie... a groundhog is dragged out of its hibernating slumber. Whether or not there is six more weeks of Winter depends on whether or not the said rodent sees his shadow or not. I said "desperate," didn't I?

The solution to the February Doldrums is bridge and more bridge. To help cheer your day, we start with five bidding questions to keep you busy while we wait to see if the wretched groundhog sees his shadow.

Question 1

  Your Hand
♠ J 9 5 4
♥ 7 4 3
♦ Q J 10 7
♣ J 3 		 
Q: 1 - As South?
SouthWestNorthEast
--1♠2♣
?


 Your choice:
A: 3♠: The intervening bid changes everything! If we had a GOOD hand, we'd show our shadow by cuebidding the opponent's suit, which would promise a fit and 10-plus points. Our jump to 3♠ shows a miserable hand with four pieces of trump. It's meant to be preemptive also which is terrific.

Your result so far:
Open Question

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Question 2

  Your Hand
♠ J 6
♥ A K J 6 5
♦ A 9 4
♣ J 8 3 		 
Q: 2 - What now? South:
SouthWestNorthEast
--1♥2♣
?


 Your choice:
A: 3♣: As a follow-up to our last question... it is such a key concept that, in a competitive bidding auction, ANY raise of your Pard's suit is a WEAK bid, showing the number of trump you hold. With a fit and a GOOD hand, just like we've got here, we cuebid the opponent's suit. We get the best of both worlds. (We gotta wonder what Pard's Hearts look like! His points are elsewhere, that's for sure!)

Your result so far:
Open Question

Question 3

  Your Hand
♠ 4
♥ 9 4
♦ A K 8 4
♣ A K Q J 7 5 		 
Q: 3 - Here's an exciting sequence for you. What are you, South, going to do?
SouthWestNorthEast
--1♠Pass
2♣Pass2♥Pass
3♦Pass3♥Pass
?


 Your choice:
A: 3 No-trumps: My goodness, we thought the bidding would never end. The problem is this: We're sitting here with eight tricks in the minors, and a partner who actually opened the bidding. We are concerned with missing slam. BUT!! We've got a misfit. Pard has shown ten cards in the majors, and no interest in our suits. (Wonder why?) Here's the plan. We've got three entries to Pard's hand, and surely one of them will result in a trick. That's all we need, so 3 No-trump makes sense. Why try for game in a minor where we need 11 tricks?

Your result so far:
Open Question

Question 4

  Your Hand
♠ Q 10 3
♥ A J 5 4 3
♦ 5 2
♣ A 8 4 		 
Q: 4 - Here's a breather after the last one. Sort of. As South?
SouthWestNorthEast
--1♦Pass
1♥Pass4♥Pass
?


 Your choice:
A: 5♣: Last hand we eschewed a slam attempt because we had a miserable fit. This time tho', we've got a Pard who's shown 19-21 pts., and here we are with 11 HCP plus some distribution points. Plus we've got a nine-card trump fit. Whew. We need to go forward. BUT!! Without first or second round control of every suit, we don't have the right to ask for aces. So, we'll show a control cuebid of our lowest ace. Pard will know we've got slam interest and the ♣A.

Your result so far:
Open Question

Question 5

  Your Hand
♠ A K J 8 7
♥ J 6
♦ J 5 4
♣ A 6 5 		 
Q: 5 - And our last chance to get it right. South?
SouthWestNorthEast
1♠Pass2♣Passe
?


 Your choice:
A: 3♣: Our choices are limited. We could indeed rebid a very blah 2 No-trump but that would suggest red stoppers. We could rebid Spades, but you know what they say about people who rebid unsupported five-card suits. In a situation like this, raising the minor doesn't promise four, and is the least bad of bad choices.

Your result so far:
Open Question

Play this Hand

Now that you've bid five hands, let's see how your play goes.

Overall Results

Your results:   out of    Average: 

What next? You may enjoy playing our prepared hands series.
More informations on our website: www.VuBridge.com

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