Another important feature of responding to a No-Trumps bid is the Stayman convention. It is bid of Two Clubs over partner’s one No-Trump, or Three Clubs over his Two No-Trumps, made irrespective of the holding in the suit, to ask partner to bid his better four-card poker major suit, or, if he lacks one, to bid diamonds.

Without the convention East, with 11 points, would have no alternative except to jump his partner’s opening bid of One No-Trump (16 to 18 points) to Three. The combined total of 29 points is more than adequate for the bid, but Three No-Trumps may be defeated if a diamond is led and Four Hearts can hardly fail.

There is a large range of bids which show weakness and that may be recognized as such by the logic of the situation.

E’s bid of Two No-Trumps shows a count of from 11 to 13 points, and over it West cannot do more than repeat his suit.

His poker hand, therefore, cannot be strong, and his bid of Three Spades no more than the cheapest way of keeping promise to rebid, which he made when he opened with One Spade.
In the same way, if the bidding is:

West should pass. East’s bid must be showing a weak hand that he considers will play better in a suit than in No-Trumps, otherwise, over an opening bid of One No-Trump, it would be impossible for partner ever to play in Two of a suit.
Or we may consider the following sequences:

In all these sequences the bid of Three Hearts shows weakness. A poker player cannot be holding much of a hand when he cannot do better than rebid his suit at the lowest level, and it is particularly pronounced when he rebids it twice.

If we assume that South deals, a sequence of bidding to illustrate some of the points mentioned might be:

The final contract, therefore, is Five Diamonds, and the hand will be played by South, because he was the first on his side to mention diamonds as the trump suit.

THE PLAY

During the online poker playing, the player who has won the contract strives to make it, playing his own hand and that of his partner exposed on the table, against the ‘defenders’ striving to prevent him.

The playing period begins by the player on the left of the declarer leading to the first trick. As soon as he has done so, the partner of the declarer places his cards face upwards on the table as dummy..

He takes no further part in the play except that he has a right to draw his partner’s attention to certain irregularities, such as asking him if he has none of a suit when he fails to follow suit, and warning him against leading out of the wrong hand. The declarer plays the dummy hand as well as his own.

The play follows the normal routine of trick-taking games: if a player is able to do so he must follow suit to the card led; otherwise he may either discard or trump.

The trick is won by the player who plays the highest poker card of the suit led, or the highest trump. The player who wins a trick leads to the next. If a trick is won in the dummy, the next trick must be led from there.