Kaitlyn S

Good advice for declarer play, however I believe the question was about counting losers when bidding (evaluating one's hand.)

That's funny, when I posted it, I expected people would think it was too easy compared to the other sets, and that it would be fairly non-controversial among the more experienced players. I can see that now. However, I presume that players in the USA can see the benefits of 3D, and ACOL and SEF players can benefit from the discussion which pertains to them. I really would never have guessed that there was a natural system in which 2NT would be the correct bid with a small doubleton heart. I thought that some of the other problem sets should be classified as intermediate or I/A, but when I asked, there seemed to be a slight preference to leaving the problems where they are. That being said, I believe that all these problems sets are difficult for my "intermediate" students. If the novices only pay attention to the discussion relevant to their system, it could be helpful.

Something like this? This seems like the perfect construction to make 2D look bad, and it assumes that partner opens 1D on four weakish diamonds and a decent five card club suit. I'll gladly pay off to that one hand and that partner that opens 1D.

I don't open this hand - even if I thought it was a borderline opener, I would pass because of the rebid issue. Since I think a 2D rebid shows six diamonds, if I had to fill in for someone else who opened the hand, I would rebid 1NT as 2D is quite likely to play in 2D on Jxxxx opposite a stiff or a small doubleton.

I think partner will overbid because you've overstated your hand. Kaplan-Rubens: Value of Hand 6 shows that Hand 6 when dealt was worth 8.55 points (the Kleinmann evalutaion is 9) putting it squarely in the minimum category. This hand has only gotten worse when partner opened diamonds and rebid clubs. I would bid 2D unashamedly using any natural system thinking I had shown my full hand. Your partners might have better opening bids than mine. I'd be afraid of going down in 3D, but at least it might be a good save against 2H.

Answers: (More advanced material in blue.) 1. [hv=pc=n&s=sak854hk93dj4c872&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp1sp2cp?]133|200[/hv] Hint: Any spade bid is non-forcing. How do you feel about a spade contract if partner has a singleton? Answer: You want to show invitational values but any spade bid is non-forcing and likely to be passed with any minimum, even with a singleton spade - a spade bid by you should show six spades here. You don't have a guaranteed fit in diamonds or clubs, and if the hand is to be played in notrump, you may have your side's only heart stopper. 2NT is a good description of this hand. If partner has three spades and is accepting the invitation, he may bid 3S on the way to game (3S would be forcing by opener after your 2NT - if partner had a hand with 3 spades, 1 heart, 5 diamonds and 4 clubs that wasn't going to accept your invitation, he might (probably should) have raised to 2S on his first rebid.) I am assuming that you either do not know fourth suit forcing and artificial or play it forcing to game. When I saw some of the other posts suggesting that fourth-suit forcing might be an answer to this question in some parts of the world, I did some research. Larry Cohen's Fourth Suit Forcing He does recommend it forcing to game, but of course, he lives in the USA. If you live in a part of the world where fourth suit forcing can be made on invitational hands, then you might bid 2H, forcing and artificial, and if you do play that, you and your partner have some agreements on what follow up bids are forcing. Fourth suit forcing and artificial is beyond the scope of this thread. 2. [hv=pc=n&s=s875hakj42d743ck5&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1cp1hp2cp?]133|200[/hv] Hint: If notrump is right, which partner should play it? Answer: You again want to show invitational values. 3H would do that, but partner might pass with a singleton heart and a minimum, and could raise to game with a singleton and no other good bid. (An old suit, one previously bid, at the three level shows an invitational hand when partner could be minimum.) You could bid 2NT, but if notrump is the right place, partner should be playing it to protect his dubious stoppers like ♠Kx. It is highly unusual to bid notrump when you have neither of two unbid suit stopped. You could bid a new suit to force (like 2D) but that will give partner the confidence to bid notrump with perhaps a singleton diamond. Worse, LHO with diamonds might double 2D and the opponents will make their best lead against any contract. (With three suits being bid, this double should be penalty-oriented; helping partner to defend correctly.) Partner should have six clubs. You do have a club fit. While partner might expect three clubs for a raise to 3C, your ♣K is a good filler which could make clubs a running suit for your side. If partner is dead minimum and passes 3C, that is likely the best contract for your side. If partner has the top of his minimum range and stoppers in diamonds and spades, he can try 3NT. If partner is accepting the invitation, he can bid a 3-card heart suit on the way to game (he's already denied four by not raising, so you can't misunderstand.) I am recommending that you raise to 3C. 3. [hv=pc=n&s=sj64hak852dk73c75&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp1hp2cp?]133|200[/hv] Hint: If your partner doesn't accept the invitation, what is your likely best contract? Answer: Again, you want to show invitational values. What does partner have? Opener rebidding a suit on the two-level should show an unbalanced hand. Partner shows at least four clubs. If partner is 4-4 in the minors, he either has a balanced hand that should rebid 1NT, or he has four hearts which shold raise hearts, or he has four spades which should rebid 1S. Partner should have at least as many diamonds as clubs so he should have five diamonds. I am aware that some players bid 1D sometimes with four diamonds and five clubs and no good rebid over an expected 1 of a major response. However, with a good five-card club suit and a poor four-card diamond suit, partner should open 1C and rebid clubs anyway. Partner strongly suggests five diamonds in this auction. You don't want to bid 2NT with the only unbid suit unstopped. You don't want to bid any number of non-forcing hearts and risk playing there with a singleton. You rate to have an eight-card diamond fit, and can show invitational values by bidding 3D, and that is what I recommend. If partner is accepting, he can bid 3H with three-card support. To more serious pairs: You want an agreement with partner whether 3S by opener after you bid 3D shows a stopper, asks for a full stopper, or asks for a partial stopper. Pairs (probably not in the USA) who play fourth suit forcing and artificial and not forcing to game may bid 2S on this hand. I won't go any further into this because I've already told you more than I know. 4. [hv=pc=n&s=skq65hat73d64cqt2&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp1hp2dp?]133|200[/hv] Hint: Can your partner have four spades? Answer: Partner should have rebid 1S if he held four spades, so he doesn't have four spades and there is no reason for you to introduce your spade suit. You want to invite and your most likely game (if you have one) is notrump, so bid 2NT. While you may very well want to play 3D if partner doesn't accept the invitation, this isn't the time to raise to 3D. Partner will think that there is something wrong with your hand for notrump if you raise diamonds, and you have both a stopper in both unbid suits. If partner accepts, playing 3NT from your side is a good thing. If partner declines, 2NT should be an okay contract, and some of the time that partner is more distributional, partner will sign off in 3D anyway. 5. [hv=pc=n&s=skj653h83d65caqj7&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp1sp2dp?]133|200[/hv] Hint: If you bid 3C, what will partner do with a heart stopper? Is that what you want? Answer: You have an invitational hand. First, we don't want to rebid any number of spades (non-forcing) because we don't want to play in spades opposite a singleton. We don't want to bid notrump because of our heart weakness; if we play in notrump, partner should play it so that the lead comes up to his heart honor(s) instead of through them. That brings us to 3C. If we bid 3C, partner with a heart stopper will probably bid 3NT (unless he has delayed 3-card support for spades - you probably shouldn't bid 3C if you're not ready for partner to show 3-card spade support.) He will bid 3NT with a dead minimum because your bid is forcing. You don't want to be in game with a dead minimum. In fact, most pairs play that a new suit at the three level in a non-competitive auction is forcing to game, because partner does frequently just bid 3NT. You can't afford to make a game-forcing bid with an invitational hand. So what can you bid? We come back to that two-card support again. You can afford to bid an old suit at the three level as that describes your strength accurately. If partner passes, 3D will be a fine contract. If partner accepts the invitation, he might show 3-card spade support, or bid 3NT. If partner is worried about clubs, partner could bid 3H to show that hearts are stopped and you can bid 3NT. (Partner isn't showing a four-card heart suit here because you shouldn't have four hearts on this auction. With a invitational hand and four hearts, you could have rebid 2H. There is no sense in him looking for a fit if your side can't have it.) 6. [hv=pc=n&s=skj653hqjdj63ck64&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp1sp2cp?]133|200[/hv] Hint: Your partner probably has five diamonds and four clubs. What is this hand worth? Answer: When you first started the game, you probably learned to count your high-card points and perhaps points for length. You would have counted this hand as 12 points (11 HCP + 1 for the fifth spade) based on what you were told. And that's fine, you have to be told something in order to be able to function with very little knowledge. If you've made it this far in this post, you should have learned something about how to evaluate your hand better than just counting HCP and length. First, your side has bid diamonds, spades, and clubs. What do you think the opponents are likely to lead? If partner does not have a heart honor, your ♥QJ might as well be the ♥32. Let's think about notrump for a minute. If your partner has two hearts, even if partner has the ace and they give you two hearts on the lead, you will likely have to give the lead up at least twice and the opponents will take three heart tricks as well as two others. It's much worse if partner's two hearts are the ♥Kx as you'll only get one heart trick with your combined six HCP and the opponents will take at least four. Partner could have three hearts to an honor. If partner has the ♥A, the fact that your ♥QJ are doubleton will likely prevent him from any chance of getting three heart tricks, and even if partner has the best holding of ♥Kxx, the opponents still know to lead hearts and will establish at least one trick for themselves, and two tricks if the opponents' hearts aren't 4-4. Note that partner should have nine cards in the minors. If partner does have three hearts, partner has a singleton spade. While your ♠K and ♠J will provide stoppers, your spade suit won't produce many tricks and your spade length is probably worthless. Suffice it to say that your high cards are not in the right place opposite partner's minor suit oriented hand. While the HCP may say this hand is in the invitational hand, you should realize that this hand isn't good enough to invite. I would call this hand a minimum hand for responder and correct to 2D. If partner makes another move as opener (which should show about 17 points), I'll cooperate, but if partner can't invite game himself after my 2D rebid, we shouldn't have enough strength for game. You might wonder about a possible 5-3 spade fit. If partner is 3-1-5-4, your ♥QJ aren't worth anything opposite partner's singleton, and if partner has a medium hand for opener, he can bid 2S himself and you won't miss your game.

I can't say universally but I'm sure most of the respected teachers would say that fourth suit forcing is beyond the scope of a beginner course (I introduce takeout doubles and preempts in a beginner course and from what I see, even that is pushing it.) Now, I'll try to answer the question I think you asked, which is "When the student is ready for fourth suit forcing, is it considered forcing to game?" In the context that most of the students I teach are not duplicate players, the actual concept of fourth-suit forcing and artificial is even beyond most of my intermediate classes, however, I will teach my intermediate students that they will sometimes have to make up a suit to make a forcing bid. I do teach it forcing to game because I think it's simpler, and it is what is done here. I won't argue the relative merits of it for die-hard duplicate players but if you saw the auctions that my (even advanced) students had before they have learned the material, you would agree with me that simplicity is best. In fact, 4SF to game is so common here that I'm not even sure how you would follow up after bidding 2H on hand 1; what bids by opener are forcing? While it might be partnership agreement, I have to think that if part of the world plays 4SF not forcing to game, that the agreements on what follow up bids are forcing are pretty universal. I just don't happen to know them and am going to answer the problems as if either fourth suit forcing is game-forcing, or the reader is unaware that the fourth-suit forcing and artificial convention exists. Of course this means that fourth suit is not going to be the solution for any of these problems. If someone in a part of the world where 4SF is not forcing to game would like to answer the problems in that context and give advice on the follow up bids, that would be appreciated.

I probably would have bid as you did. I'd like to think 4H showed three hearts. You haven't promised five hearts and could easily have 4-7 in the reds. Let's assume for a minute that he doesn't show three hearts and try to guess partner's distribution. Partner should never choose hearts on this auction with 2 hearts and 1 diamond so he would have to be void. 7-2-0-4? Your 3H bid is game-forcing even if you don't play 2/1 game forcing so partner can bid 3S here. 3NT would appear to be an awful misfit from his POV if his spades don't run. I'd want to bid 4S if this were his hand but I don't think partner should hold this. 6-2-0-5? Partner is so weak that he can't even bid 3C? Probably nothing makes here but 4H is no worse than anything else. Given that partner has three hearts, playing in hearts seems sensible. While I have a 4-loser hand, I suspect that much of partner's hand is wasted (partner needs at least one club card to bid 3NT and probably has honors in spades.) I think partner has at most one diamond so setting up diamonds could be a problem, and a club lead could start tapping you. I'm going to be content with game here. Even if partner produces ♥Kxx and the ♠A and a stiff diamond, for practical purposes, you still need 3-2 breaks in both red suits to make slam.

Problem Set 20 is available. Problem Set 20

Hi - these problems should be very easy for experienced players but an I/N player needs to think about the right things in an auction. If you get them wrong, don't feel too bad as long as you understand the rationale for the answers. I'll provide the answers later but I'll put a hint as a spoiler. Try to solve the problem without the spoiler. Also, let me know if you would be interested in seeing more of these from time to time. Assume you are playing Standard American (a natural system with 15-17 1NT openings and 5-card majors), IMPS, and nobody is vulnerable. 1. [hv=pc=n&s=sak854hk93dj4c872&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp1sp2cp?]133|200[/hv] 2. [hv=pc=n&s=s875hakj42d743ck5&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1cp1hp2cp?]133|200[/hv] 3. [hv=pc=n&s=sj64hak852dk73c75&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp1hp2cp?]133|200[/hv] 4. [hv=pc=n&s=skq65hat73d64cqt2&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp1hp2dp?]133|200[/hv] 5. [hv=pc=n&s=skj653h83d65caqj7&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp1sp2dp?]133|200[/hv] 6. [hv=pc=n&s=skj653hqjdj63ck64&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp1sp2cp?]133|200[/hv]

I can also disagree on a friendly basis. Many beginners who play only the most basic of conventions, if any, post questions here, and get answers from the experienced players involving conventions that beginners shouldn't play with their peers. You are apparently not one of those. I did not know that when I answered your question, and depending on who you were, my answer could have been the only worthless one or the only worthwhile one. Your response tells me that you are probably a seasoned bridge player who has picked up some of the attitudes of certain other seasoned bridge players. That's fine, I'm used to that. However, some players who bid nothing but naturally and don't want to hear about gadgets and esoteric bridge theory might enjoy my response in a sea of answers explaining how some convention might help. I can only hope that the next poster will be one of those, for if I get several posters like you in a row, it may drive me away from trying to be helpful. In theory beginners are supposed to post in the B/N forum so that the others can answer in a way that will be understood by the OP; but most don't know that and aren't willing to read all the "read this first" information that tells them, so they post in the Expert forum thinking that this is the way to get answers from experts, and some of the experts respond in a harsh or condescending way (How dare you enter our forum with this drivel?) which only serves to make the poor beginner wonder why he plays bridge in the first place.

The thing that makes this hand so tough is that both sides have an undiagnosed double fit. Give North three spades and four hearts, more likely from South's point of view, and you don't want to be anywhere. By the way, what would 3D by South mean? Having failed to bid 2D directly, I think it has to mean three diamonds and a high degree of game interest from the previous pass. If North guesses to bid 3S all is good but North might guess that South has hearts and just play 3D.

The jack us the standard card - third hand plays lower of touching honors and playing the queen denies the jack. That being said, there are some hands where you play the wrong card to get partner to do the right thing, for example, denying an honor you hold so partner will shift to something you really need. Thus doesn't appear to be one of those situations. If partner has K9xx or KTxx you want him to lead low to your remaining honor to unblock so don't deny that honor. Play the jack.

4S came after 2 passes. LHO doesn't have a big hand.

I wouldn't even attempt double except on the last board of an event. For if I do double and partner has a pull, partner is not going to be in the right frame of mind on the rest of the boards. (To those of you who want to reply "if partner screws up later because of a bad result, get a new partner", I can only say (1) some towns don't have that many decent players and the rest are partnered, or (2) sometimes one is playing with a significant other, and (3) partner-hopping isn't a desirable trait to others who are looking for partners who might think you will bail on them at the first sign of trouble.) Also, while double of 4H is takeout, I'm not sure this hand is good enough. You don't think you can get caught? I've seen some players make strong 4H and 4S bids in third seat (thinking slam is unlikely) and then reopen with a double to express those values.

You make a good point. That being said, (say) if Timo presented the problem, I would presume a world class partner. When someone doesn't specify anything about his partner's ability, or even imply that it is with his regular partner, I feel somewhat justified in giving a practical response based on playing with a "random expert" in the BBO Main Bridge Club. An example should illustrate the value of being practical, rather than making the technically correct bid and explaining to partner later why she should have done something different: First board of a pairs event I overcalled 3D with 3NT and partner bid 4H. Our agreement was that 4C was a prelude to a signoff and everything else was encouraging, but it had never come up. I had AKQxx (!) of hearts and thought that I should accept the encouragement and bid 6H. Partner had jack-sixth of hearts and out and started screaming at me for making such a "stupid" bid. When I explained what our agreement was, partner was unmoved and played the rest of the game as if I was an idiot. Clearly there was a good chance that partner forgot the convention (my heart holding might have been a clue) and would totally ruin the game if that happened so it was probably right to pass and admit to forgetting the convention myself if it turned out that partner remembered, since partner would have been less upset had that happened and might have played the rest of the event reasonably (clearly partner's temperament matters in these decisions.) If others would prefer that I keep my "practical" views to myself and only answer as if the partnership is going to be a rapidly advancing one with on temperament issues if they score a bad board, I can try to answer the questions in that way (although why should I answer at all when there are clearly better bidders on the site?) But I believe that the practical side of bidding is important and few, if any, others are addressing practical bidding with a human being who might have flawed bidding ideas. People can see the context in which I am replying, and if the question was in the context of a serious partnership with much talent, they can choose to ignore my answer which clearly won't apply to them. Should I put a disclosure on my posts like "Assuming that partner has limited or unknown bidding skills"?

Can you answer some simple questions about this? (1) I presume that the responder can pass 2H? (2) If (1) is yes, then opener has to bid something other than 2H when he wants to play something other than 2H opposite something like: Qx, KJTxxx, xx, xxx (which I am assuming transfers and then passes)? (3) How few hearts can opener have and still just accept the transfer? (4) Does the 2D transfer promise at least five hearts? (5) What does it take for opener to ignore the transfer and bid 2NT? To bid 3H? To bid 2S?

I see nobody has answered this yet so I'll say what I think. 1D (2C) X shows about 8+ and at least one four card major and a place to play if partner bids the wrong major. Also, I do not think this sequence is straightforward or even basic. I can see some good players having issues if they're in a new partnership. [hv=pc=n&s=sa876hkt65d974c52&d=n&v=b&b=1&a=1d2c]133|200[/hv]Because my distribution is good for the call, I'll double here with 7 points. On the other hand, [hv=pc=n&s=saqhk765d65c86432&d=n&v=b&b=13&a=1d2c]133|200[/hv]Here I have no great call when partner bids 2S (not at all unlikely) so I pass. The problems come when opener has a decent hand. A jump to 4H or 4S is risky opposite no guarantee of a fit, so opener frequently has to cuebid 3C when holding the values to bid game. (Do some people play that 4H promises spades as well? I play that the jump to 4H shows four hearts and lots of diamonds; thus I'm playing in a red suit.) There was a thread not too long ago which discusses bidding over this auction. 1D 2C Dbl P ?

We may have a different definition of intermediate. Yours might have 200 masterpoints. Mine are either fresh out of beginners' class or played 50 years ago in college and come to me thinking that all weak hands respond 1NT and that leading the queen from Qxx opposite Axx is a perfectly normal finesse, and that you always lead top in partner's suit and fourth best from KQJ9. And yes, the random the OP was playing with could have been one of those; I have seen many such players on BBO and some of them call themselves experts.

Actually I would bid 3S playing with a known partner.I bid 4H playing with a random - take the stretching rather than risk a misunderstanding.

Preempt opponents? How about opening 1NT to show a balanced hand with 15-17 points, which you can't show if you don't open 1NT? What do you do when you open 1D and partner bids 2C? Bid 2NT showing 12-14? Bid 3NT showing 18-19? Bid 2H after which you will never convince your partner that you have a balanced 15-count? I open 1NT (15-17) because it's the best description of my hand. If I go down 300, stuff happens. Next time partner will hold QTx, xxxxx, xx, Jxx and I'll be in 2H and you'll be in 1D.

Phil, if I was playing with you or Rhm I would play the bids as you intended them undiscussed. However, (a) there was talk of playing with a random partner and (b) the OP said he was playing with another beginner so in his shoes I would not be at all surprised that the "forcing" 3D got passed or that 3S would be misunderstood or that 4C would be taken as Gerber (if his partner even knew Gerber - otherwise it would be taken as a huge hand with clubs.) Fortunately you don't have to play with beginners, but when I play, it doesn't matter if I know what the bids are supposed to mean, it matters if I know what partner means or how partner is going to take my bid. And if I bid my "forcing" 3D and my partner passes, it's not his fault, it's my fault because I know (or should know) that's a possibility with that partner. Of course I also know it's a possibility with a random expert in the BBO Main Bridge Club. I am guessing that if it happened to you, you would tell the table that your partner needed bidding lessons and then leave. I'd prefer to avoid the -11 IMPs in the first place by not assuming that my random partner knew such nuances about bidding, because it's just so likely that he doesn't.

Less than 1 in a thousand play that non-forcing? Surely you jest. If I asked the 70 players in my intermediate class, I'd bet at least 10 of them would say non-forcing. (This would be true even if I had taught it as forcing last week :P ) And any one of them could potentially be the random partner you speak of.

Playing in game is fine on these cards. Half the time you're going to have two trump losers. This time you didn't and you still could have been beaten. Frankly I would rather be in game than slam on these cards. Those who splintered will stay out of slam because of the spade wastage opposite the singleton. However, it sounds like "splinters" don't mean anything to you and you could have (in theory) avoided that issue by posting in the Novice/Beginner forum. I'd like to think that although many experts do answer questions in that forum, they try to restrict their answers to something that would be understood by a novice or beginner, which I would not expect in this forum. (I say "I'd like to think" instead of "I'd expect" because there was a lot of talk of splinters in a recent N/B forum thread.)

"Them" is beginners. They know nothing in theory and the goal in most cases is to get them playing and having fun, and most of them will never play duplicate bridge. That being said, the fact that 1C-1S-1NT-2H is nonforcing is beyond the scope of most beginner courses I've seen, and while I'll teach intermediate students that, I won't confuse beginners with this. So they happily bid 2H forcing or 2D forcing and hope to guess well with game going hands with five spades. Which is fine because the friends they are playing kitchen bridge with think that 2H is forcing also. Would I do the same if I expected the beginners to play on BBO with random "expert" partners? Probably not. But there are many things a beginner needs to learn before they learn how to properly bid over a 1NT rebid, so we ignore it in a beginners' course. The reason we say that 1C-1S-1NT-(3C or 3S) is invitational is that it is consistent with everything else we are telling them - that bidding an old suit is generally not forcing. Exceptions in the hands of a beginner are really treacherous and should be avoided whenever possible IMO. You may think I'm being inconsistent as some of my "Bidding Problems for Beginners" do go into exceptions. However, the definition of a beginner on BBO, according to some of the Bridge Movies published with a Beginner label on it, is probably higher than my definition of an intermediate student, so I'm trying to stay consistent with the BBO labels which ironically give Beginners a farily high skill level and Experts a level not much higher than that. But when I teach beginners professionally, I assume they know nothing; the average student age is probably about 70 (nothing wrong with 70-year olds but many of them don't learn like college students do) and as many of them are there to meet people and socialize as learn to play bridge well, and trying to teach the ins and outs of bridge to beginners is likely to turn a 20 table class into a 3 table class. I have never had a student say that I was teaching too little material in a beginner course. Someone mentioned that some simplistic way of bidding was unplayable. Indeed, but for most beginners taking a live class, anything that is the least bit complicated is unplayable. I have had many students that have come knowing nothing; if you watch them bid and play, you will wonder why I would let them tell people that I taught them (i.e. the right bid or play is a lucky coincidence in most cases), and yet they tell me that they went and played with their friends or in some 0-5 game and placed high. The fact is, as badly as they are playing, they are playing better than their friends (or others in the 0-5 games) and I have to think that stressing consistency and simplicity over "the correct technical bid or play" has a lot to do with that. Speaking of "the correct technical play", you may think it's wise to teach beginners early to win (as declarer in a suit contract) with the ace as opposed to the king because if they win with the king, each opponent will know declarer has the ace. I tend to ignore the issue but occasionally a student has read it in the newspaper that winning with the ace is a better play and I get asked about it. My reply: "If you win with the ace, will you know the king is good later?" Most of them honestly say no so they should win with the king because I'm pretty sure most of them will realize that the ace is good later in the hand. A few of my brightest students will say "Yes, of course I'll know the king is good" (of course, now we're getting into high intermediate students) so I'll attempt to explain why the ace is better because I think that student can handle it. Quite honestly though, I have seen many students not know that their king is good later in the hand after having won the ace early. And yet there are people out there that think we should teach beginners 2 over 1 game forcing! I don't get it. Just today one of my intermediate students asked me what it meant if she opened 3C and her partner bid 4H. Turns out her friend did this with a singleton heart (!) and the student was trying to figure out how she could have known that. I'm guessing her friend probably recently learned Splinter Bids. (If any beginners are reading this, 4H says you want to play 4H - please don't think I am advocating bidding 4H on a singleton!) Anybody that is thinking of giving advice to a beginner that advocates such complications should think about this story and think twice about confusing the beginner.