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Bidding Quiz 31st May, 2006
Board 3 Dealer South E-W Vul
North could go one of two ways on this hand … either bid a Forcing No Trump, planning, on the next round, to show a 3-card limit raise in Spades … or to start with a game-forcing 2♣ bid. We wouldn’t argue with the Forcing No Trump plan (especially if Partner is apt to open light), but, as North has a hand we would open in first seat, we prefer 2♣, even if it is a slight overbid. Here’s a comparison of the two approaches:
Auction A Auction B 1♠ 1♠ 1NT 2x 2♣ 2♥ 3♠ … 2♠ … - shows 3 Spades - shows 3 Spades - and 10 other cards - and 5+ Clubs - invitational values (a bit heavy) - game values (a bit light)
The more we think about it, the more we like Auction B!
Board 5 Dealer North N-S Vul
Most players would open this hand in any seat, even though it is hardly a thing of beauty. Playing a 5-card major system, in 1st or 2nd seat, a 1♣ opening would be called for, the bid dictated by the system, and the bid most likely to provide a good foundation for a constructive auction. But, in third seat, things change somewhat. Here, with this apology for an opening bid, opposite a passed hand, we are not really in a constructive situation, we are merely competing. Furthermore, we are quite likely to end up defending. These two factors suggest that we make our first bid count in another way … as a lead-director. So, rather than bid that pitiful Club suit, we’d try 1♠ … sure, Partner may think we have 5 of them, but hopefully we can survive that … and, at least she’ll know where our strength is.
Board 8 Dealer West None Vul
Once the opponents have preempted at the 3-level, our overcalls are, by necessity, extremely wide-ranging. After South’s 3♠, who can say what is right with the North hand? At IMPs, North would just boot out 4♠ and hope for the best. And, at matchpoints? Less aggression is called for at the pairs game, and we’d just pass here, though not without misgivings, of course. After all, a contract which might make at IMPs might also make at matchpoints!
Board 9 Dealer North E-W Vul
A dilemma for South. As on the previous board, if we were playing IMPs we’d skip the delicate game-try approach and just charge into game. Again, this being matchpoints, we’d be more conservative … perhaps it’s a bit wimpish, but we’d simply invite game by whatever methods our partnership has available. 2NT is almost universally used for this purpose, either as feature-asking, or some version of Ogust … an Ogust agreement would work better on this hand, especially if N-S are playing the 5666 variant, as in: 3♣ 5-card suit (now, 3♦ asks for bad-middling-good) 3♦ 6-card suit, bad hand 3♥ 6-card suit, middling hand 3♠ 6-card suit, good hand
Board 11 Dealer South None Vul
East’s cue-bid of 2♣ showed Heart support and at least limit raise values. How about South’s 2♦ rebid? Is it a reverse showing a strong hand? No, South is merely raising Partner’s (implied) Diamonds.
What next? We like 4♥ here … only 7 HCPs, but who counts points when one has a fit with Partner and such magnificent distribution? Of course, there’s no guarantee that 4♥ will make, but the omens are good … we have a 9-card fit (at least), half the HCPs (or close), Clubs over their Clubs with Dummy in the over-ruffing seat, and a couple of singletons. And, anyway, there’s no point in asking Partner’s opinion here … we’ll make game opposite all sorts of minimum hands … and might go off opposite various maximum hands. No, this is not a hand for game-try subtlety, it’s a hand for bidding what you hope you can make.
Board 12 Dealer West N-S Vul
Would you open 1♥ with the West hand? We really don’t care to preempt at the 3-level with 2 Aces … we are not crazy about Weak Twos with a 7-card suit … and we hate to pass such a good-looking hand with a 7-card major. This one is something of a style choice, and our own preference would be a light 1♥ opening. Many will disagree with 1♥, that’s their style.
Board 12 Dealer West N-S Vul
After West’s 2♥ rebid, what should East do? He’s going to game, of course, and would like to convey the message of a good Spade suit. But, no number of Spades is appropriate … 2♠ would be a weak hand, 3♠ would be merely invitational, and 4♠ would be an overstatement of the Spades (the suit is not so good that East can insist on it as the trump suit). What’s the solution? We’d choose 3♣, which looks like the best way to create a game force, while also allowing the partnership to investigate the best game. It's a variation of New Minor Forcing.
Board 15 Dealer South N-S Vul
To start with, suppose that North opens 1♦ and South is not a passed hand. How do you play 3♥ in this situation? The two most common treatments are as a splinter in support of Diamonds, or as a preempt in Hearts … neither will come up very often, but it’s as well to have an agreement in place. We prefer the splinter approach, you may not.
But, in the featured auction, South is a passed hand, and surely 3♥ should very much be a splinter bid. For this bid, South is clearly quite distributional, with a big Diamond fit, we’d say at least 5. Yes, our choice here is a 3♥ splinter, which, on the actual hand, will steer Partner away from the doomed 3NT and into the splendid 5♦!
Board 16 Dealer West E-W Vul
If your partnership plays 2♣ here as non-game-forcing then that would be your bid, but if 2♣ is, indeed, game-forcing, then things become more difficult. In the world of “1♦ 2♣ is game-forcing”, these would be your choices: 2NT: This is right on values, but so wrong otherwise … surely one of the majors is our weak spot, and with zero help in those suits it must be better for Partner to play the hand, in order to protect whatever major suit strength he has. 2♣: If this is game-forcing, it’s an overbid, but we still prefer it to 2NT, at least the likely 3NT contract will be played from the right side. 1♥: No, not a misprint, but it is a bit bizarre … once every so often we have to invent a bid … we don’t like this bid much, but we still prefer it to 2NT! 2♦/3♦: Yes, that’s the ticket! If you play Inverted Minors you can make a limit raise with 2♦ … if you don’t, you can make a limit raise with 3♦ … true, you are short a Diamond, but to us it seems like the best solution.
Board 17 Dealer North None Vul
Yes, it’s a Lebensohl situation. North wants to compete to 3♥, but has no aspirations to game. Playing Lebensohl, 2NT here asks Partner to bid 3♣, after which North will bid 3♥ saying “This is where I want to play”. With a stronger hand, North would bid 3♥ directly, offering Partner a choice between 3NT and 4♥.
Board 18 Dealer East N-S Vul
After Partner’s 1♥ opening bid, what would be your own choice of response with the West hand? (a) 4♣? This would be a splinter, of course, showing Heart support and Club shortness and game-going values … we don’t like to do this with a 6-card side-suit, and this hand illustrates why … after 4♣, East will see the wastage of the AK♣, and will sign-off in 4♥ … however, what makes the hand for E-W is that lovely Kx in Partner’s 6-card suit. (b) 2♦? It would not be unreasonable to get this suit into the auction, certainly better than the splinter. (c) 2NT? Yes, we prefer the Jacoby 2NT, showing Spade support and game values … we have a 5-loser hand so feel that the Jacoby take-charge approach is a better way to go. Some partnerships play that a Jacoby 2NT denies a short side-suit, by virtue of the failure to make a Splinter. A rather poor treatment in our opinion ... we prefer to Splinter only with the right hand-type ... and we use Jacoby on all sorts of distributions, whenever we feel that we feel that we would do better to ask rather than to tell.
Board 20 Dealer West Both Vul
How would you plan South’s auction? (a) Club one-suiter? One option is to open 2♣ and rebid 3♣, but minor suit sequences after 2♣ openings are notoriously inefficient … and, anyway, this hand is of marginal strength, with it’s 4 losers. We’d actually prefer an opening of 1♣ (followed by a fake reverse into Hearts, or a 3NT rebid). (b) 2NT? Yes, this is more like it, the hand certainly looks No Trumpish, and this bid shows 20-21, exactly what we have. (c) 2♣ then 2NT? Given the source of tricks in Clubs, South might want to upgrade her 21-count into the 22-24 range
Of course, South is loaded with Queens and has a shortage of Aces and Tens, so perhaps that upgrade is a tad on the optimistic side. We wouldn’t argue with (b) or (c).
Board 24 Dealer West None Vul
After 1♥, we confess to being in two minds about whether to rebid 1♠ or 1NT. Here are some arguments and counter-arguments: (a) We’d guess to bid 1NT because: - If the hand belongs in 1NT, it’s probably better from the East side, so we’d better bid it while we still can; - With just 3 Spades, Partner might leave us playing in our 4-3 fit; (b) We’d guess to bid 1♠ because: - Partner might have 4 of them; - If Partner chooses to pass 1♠ holding just 3 Spades, that may actually be a good thing … in that case, he’ll probably have a doubleton in one of the minors … this suit is likely to be an enemy target in No Trump, but, in the 4-3 Spade fit, the hand with the 3 trumps will provide some protection against a forcing defense. There are the pros and cons … choose for yourself.
Board 26 Dealer East Both Vul
West’s 2♥ was a Michaels Cue-Bid, showing Hearts and a minor. What would you now do with the North hand? 4♥? True, the hand belongs in game, but bidding 4♥ directly is a preemptive bid, showing a big Heart fit and not much else. This hand is too good for that. 3♣? It would be nice to show a game-going hand, with good Clubs and a Heart fit … that way Partner will be well-placed to judge things correctly if the opponents bid 4♠. Unfortunately, if we start with 3♣, the opponents might well bid 4♠ before we get around to showing those Hearts … and, if they do that, we would not be comfortable bidding 5♥. 4♣? If your partnership has the agreement in this situation that 4♣ is a Fit Jump, showing Clubs, a Heart fit, and game values, then this is the perfect hand for it! It sounds like a reasonable treatment to us, but not one that is in common usage … to most partnerships, 4♣ would sound like a splinter, we suspect. 2♠? As usual, we saved the best for last, we would bid 2♠ here, showing a limit raise (or better) in Hearts. Showing support and high-card values looks like the best way to involve Partner in the ensuing auction if the opponents become rambunctious.
Board 26 Dealer East Both Vul
There’s not much doubt that South is going to bid here, either with 5♥ or Double, so the question we are about to pose may seem irrelevant. But bear with us. The question: “Is Partner’s Pass of 4♠ a Forcing Pass?” In other words, does the strength of our auction dictate that either we play the hand or else they play it doubled? The different viewpoints are: North’s Pass of 4♠ is forcing because N-S have freely bid to game in a non- preemptive fashion … the hand clearly belongs to N-S , North’s Pass indicates uncertainty as to whether to double 4♠ or bid 5♥ … one thing that it does not show is a willingness to defend 4♠ undoubled. North’s Pass of 4♠ is non-forcing because N-S have bid game in a competitive auction … a limit raise opposite a potentially light opener is not enough muscle to create a Forcing Pass situation … South’s 4♥ could be made on all manner of minimum distributional hands without much defense … if South had wanted to create a force, over 3♠ she should have bid 4 of a minor (this is not necessarily a slam try, but it does create a force).
We would say that the Pass is not forcing, but some would violently disagree, it’s not as if there is a right and wrong answer here. But it would be good if you and your partner were on the same wavelength! It’s worth discussing.
Back to the actual hand. If North’s Pass is treated by the partnership as forcing, then Partner is offering South the choice of Double or 5♥ … she’ll probably choose 5♥, though that is not guaranteed to be successful. If the Pass is considered to be non-forcing, then South has already misbid her hand! Over 3♠, she had a bona fide high-card raise to 4♥, she wasn’t merely competing, so she should have bid 4 of a minor in order to create the force. By failing to do that, she took away the useful Forcing Pass from Partner … such that, over 4♠, when the non-forcing Pass comes back to South, there’s not much more that she can do but double. On the actual hand, that would be +200 instead of +650.
Board 27 Dealer South None Vul
North has a slammish hand, and has various ways to proceed here. Here are the options, as we see them: 4♠: Just by bidding 3♠, and then 4♠, we are showing mild slam interest … with a hand that was interested in just game, we would have bid 4♠ directly. We think that North’s slam interest should be more than mild, so that eliminates 4♠ as an option. 4NT: No, that’s too extreme in the other direction … added to which we might be missing just one Key Card, but have 2 (or even 3!) Diamond losers. 4♥: It would be great if Partner took this as a slam-try, showing a Heart card, with Spades as the trump suit … but that’s a dangerous assumption … Partner may conclude that we are 6-4 in the majors, and are offering a choice of games … it would be somewhat embarrassing if we were to go down in our 4-2 Heart game, when some large number of tricks in Spades were available. 4♦: This would be an unambiguous slam try with Spades as trumps … however, the world may not yet be ready for cue-bids in 3-loser suits. 4♣: This would be our choice, provided that Partner is not one of those “First and Last No Trump” Gerberites that we encountered back on Board 21.
Of course, Partner may think we are showing Clubs for our 4♣ bid, but that’s not so dangerous, we can always bid Spades over his Clubs. The main objective of 4♣ is to elicit a 4♦ cue-bid … which is exactly what we get … now, we’d simply bid 6♠.
Board 28 Dealer West N-S Vul
East had a difficult choice at his second turn, he’s not really quite good enough to force to game, then again he does not have a suitable invitational bid available. Here are his three main options (after West’s 2♦ rebid): 3♣: This doesn’t achieve much at all, in our opinion … it forces to game, but doesn’t tell Partner anything about where we are headed. But, at least it gives Partner the chance to show 3-card Heart support, so perhaps we should not be too dismissive. 3♦: This would be something of an underbid … for example, West would make the same 3♦ bid without that K♦. 3♠: Yes, that would be our choice … a splinter bid, showing shortness in Spades, and (supposedly) game-going values … it’s a tad light, perhaps, but otherwise perfect.
Board 29 Dealer North Both Vul
Any ideas on a sensible rebid for West? So many tricks, so few HCPs! West would like to investigate a fit in Hearts before settling on a Club contract, and we offer two solutions, both of them flawed! Yes, it’s a tough hand to bid … here are those two flawed suggestions: 2♦: This is Fourth Suit Forcing, of course, and it’s not a bid that we are in the habit of recommending on a mere 6 HCPs … it’ll work like a charm if Partner gives us Heart support next … but, with 2 Hearts, he won’t give us that support, and we may end up in 5♣ when the 6-2 Heart fit was the place to be. We’d consider 2♦ to be not just flawed, but grievously so. 3♥: We prefer 3♥ which is only somewhat flawed. The bid shows invitational values and a good (or at least half-decent!) 6-card suit. If Partner raises to 4♥ we’ll pass, of course … if Partner passes, it may be a decent spot (but don’t count on it!) … if Partner bids 3NT, we’ll bid 5♣.
Board 30 Dealer East None Vul
West has no convenient bid opposite Partner’s 1♦ opening, so passes out of necessity. When it gets back to him, after Partner has shown at least tolerance for Clubs, he can hardly not try 4♣. It may seem strange to pass at the one-level, then come in freely at the 4-level. But, once West has decided to pass initially, he can upgrade his opinion of his hand to “magnificent!” and bid accordingly.
Board 31 Dealer South N-S Vul
Yes, everybody will bid 2♠ here, this part of the Bidding Quiz is merely a plug for Support Doubles. Playing that convention, South can raise immediately to 2♠ (as here) to show a minimum hand with 4-card Spade support … or, South can make a Support Double to show 3-card support (not necessarily a minimum hand). Knowing the number of trumps the partnership has is valuable information in the part-score battle, especially when determining whether to compete at the 3-level.
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