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Bidding Quiz 17th January, 2007
Board 1 Dealer North None Vul
Would you open the North hand? Those 11-point hands with 5-4 distribution certainly pass the Rule of Twenty but this one does not pass the rule of common-sense in our opinion, too many flaws, we’d downgrade the hand to below opening strength for these reasons: - Three Queens, a card which is over-valued in the 4-3-2-1 HCP scale. - One of those Queens is a singleton and of dubious value. - It’s not always possible to open good suits, but, when we have a hand which a marginal opening, a weak suit is another argument to keep silent, it might induce Partner into a disastrous opening lead. - If we open 1♣ and Partner responds 1♠, we’ll have to rebid 1NT which is a tad inconsistent … there we are opening light based on our distribution, then we go and rebid 1NT showing sound, balanced values.
We should counter the above by saying that the hand has some useful fillers, but nonetheless we would not open the North hand.
Board 1 Dealer North None Vul
What’s the plan here? First of all, is this an invitational hand or should we just be playing in 2 of a major? We’d say that it is borderline, so perhaps our evaluation of the hand should be influenced by our methods. This may seem like putting the cart before the horse but it seems to make sense here. Our plan would be to use Stayman, with the following results: - If Partner bids 2 of a major, we’ll invite to game - If Partner bids 2♦, we’ll bid 2♠
Wait a minute, you say, different people play 2♠ in different ways. Yes, here are the two most common interpretations: - Weak: Typically 5-4 in the majors … East was hoping that Partner had a 4-card major and when that turns out not to be the case, he elects to play in 2♠ - Invitational: Same type of distribution but with a better hand.
Our own preference is for the latter treatment, but in fact we’d bid the hand the same way using either method! If East is using the invitational approach then his sequence is a slight overbid, but worth trying anyway as it maximizes the chances of playing in the right major. And, if 2♠ is weak, then that is where we’ll play it.
Board 3 Dealer South E-W Vul
Clearly we’ll be playing this one in Spades, and we’ll be raising Spades here. To 3♠ or to 4♠? South’s sequence (at least as it is most commonly played) is game-forcing, so the question is: “What is the difference between 3♠ and 4♠?” According to the Principle of Fast Arrival, 4♠ here is weak, and 3♠ is at least slightly encouraging. This is only logical if we think about it … with a promising hand we bid slowly which permits Partner to investigate further if she is of that mind … with a wretched hand we go straight to game, discouraging such thoughts.
That’s a generally accepted approach in this situation, perhaps it would we more useful if we somehow defined what we mean by “wretched hand”. It’s a partnership choice, of course, our own style is that we would not bid 4♠ with any hand that contained a first- or second-round control … yes, even holding ♠ xxxx, ♥ xxxx, ♦ x, ♣ xxxx we would show some signs of non-wretchedness (in this case via a 4♦ Splinter).
Board 5 Dealer North N-S Vul
Drury has to be one of the most useful of conventions, we bid 2♣ opposite a third seat opening (or fourth) to show a fit and a decent hand and to check on the soundness of that opening bid. But, is it on in competition? That’s up to the individual partnership, our own preference is “Yes!”, so, in the featured auction, North’s 2♣ showed Spade support and decent values.
Board 8 Dealer West None Vul
North has a smattering of values and game is not out of the question, but she has no really satisfactory way of moving forward: - Double would be Responsive, we’d need a 4th Spade for that bid - For 2NT we’d like slightly better Hearts, and perhaps also a hand with a tad more
We suggest a bid of 3♣ here, despite our rather paltry support. If Partner has something extra, she can try for game via a 3♥ bid, and we’ll be happy to give 3NT a shot. Of course, it won’t always work out, partners do not always have “something extra”, and, furthermore, sometimes their 2-level overcalls are perpetrated on moderate 5-card suits. If this sounds like your partner then bidding 3♣ may well put her into Undertrick Minimization Mode, a frequent state of mind for adventurous bidders.
Board 11 Dealer South None Vul
It would be difficult to find extreme fault with a 1NT opening bid here. After all, it is a balanced hand with 15-17 HCP’s and that is probably what your Convention Card describes as your requirements for a 1NT opening bid. Also, there’s a lot to be said for making the same opening bid as the rest of the field, it allows you assert yourself through superior card play.
Having said all that, consider downgrading your hand to a 1♦ opening followed by a 1NT rebid, showing 12-14 instead of the actual 15 that you possess. It always such fun to upgrade our hands, isn’t it? We fall in love with our shape, our Tens and Aces, our working honors, and our blessed absence of unsupported Queens, and we bid one more for the road. The flip side of this, which we often omit, is to downgrade our hands when appropriate. We would say that the featured hand is just bursting with downgradeable appropriateness: - Square hand - Not a Ten in sight - More Queens than Aces, one of them unsupported.
So, bid 1NT if you really must, and get your top when you play the hand even more brilliantly than the rest of the field. But consider also getting your top by superior hand evaluation, which in this case, and in our opinion, would be to open this hand 1♦. Food for thought.
Board 13 Dealer North Both Vul
Only 10 HCP’s, but this lovely hand is at least going to game! Yes, of course we’ll get to game, but what is the route which will best keep our slam chances in play? Here are the options: - 4♠: This is not our style, we prefer to reserve that bid for purely preemptive hands, typically 5 trumps and precious little else … this is far too good for that. - 2♣: Showing Clubs, establishing a game force, planning to support Spades next time around. We get our Clubs, such as they are, into the picture but Partner won’t place us with such stellar support when we finally do support Spades. - 4♦: Not a bad choice, a Splinter bid showing enough for game (preferably not too much extra), a fit and Diamond shortness. Descriptive up to a point, but the downside is that it keeps our semi-decent 5-card side-suit under wraps. - 2NT: We could use the Jacoby 2NT, showing game-forcing values and a fit, not bothering to describe our hand and hoping that Partner can do a good job at describing hers.
To be honest, we’d have no serious argument against any of the last three options, but our preference is for the Jacoby 2NT. The reason? Simply that when we have trouble describing our own hand, perhaps we should make the bid that allows Partner to describe her hand.
Board 14 Dealer East None Vul
We very much belong to the school of thought which says that we really have to bid some number of Diamonds with this hand. In other words, just because it would be an imperfect preempt or a shaded 1♦ opening, does not provide us with an excuse for inaction. Having said that, the choices are: - 3♦: Perhaps a little bit “out there”, what with our outside Ace and Queen and void and rather suspect suit. - 2♦: Unlike some, we are not utterly averse to occasional 2♦-with-a-seven-card-suit adventures, but they are few and far between, usually when we are vulnerable and lacking the courage to preempt 3♦, typically with a rotten suit where the 7th card provides some much-needed bolstering for a 6-card preempt. - 1♦: Yes, that’s the ticket! Maybe not the perfect ticket, but we’d consider it the best ticket available. Just a point shy on the Rule of Twenty, with all sorts of compensating plus factors.
Board 15 Dealer South N-S Vul
This one looks like a choice between: - 2♣: No, this does not convey the strength of the hand, nor where that strength lies. - 3♣: At least this tells Partner that we have a good hand, but it’s a slight overbid and somewhat misdirected, we’d prefer to have a better suit and more distribution (at least 5-4 in the minors) - 2NT: Right on values, but again misdirected … worst of all, if Spades is our weak suit, as seems likely, we’ll be playing 2NT or 3NT from the wrong side. - 3♥: This is supposed to show 4-card support, and will no doubt consign our side to 3♥ or 4♥ when 3NT by Partner may well be the place to be.
We dislike all the bids! We suggest 2♣ or 3♥, but we are singularly unenthusiastic about both of them. The good thing about 2♣ is that it is the bid most likely to give us a second chance, without committing us to game. This one is just plain difficult!
Board 16 Dealer West E-W Vul
Back on Board 10, West was 5-6 in the majors, and we suggested that the right opening bid was the 5-card Spade suit. Here, North is 5-6 in Spades and Diamonds, should we still open the higher-ranking 5-card suit? Absolutely not! OK, then why not? It’s all about planning the rebid: - When we were 5-6-1-1 with just 10 HCP’s, as on Board 10, if we opened 1♥, and Partner then rebid 1NT, the Spade suit would be lost forever as Opener is not good enough to reverse into 2♠ … so we open 1♠, planning to rebid 2♥ … yes, it’s a distortion of the respective length of our suits, but at least we manage to get both of them into the auction. - When we are 5-2-6-0, we can bid our longest suit first because we can handle (almost) anything that Partner throws at us … if she bids 1♥ we have an easy 1♠ rebid … if she bids 2♣, we are in a forcing auction and can investigate fits at our leisure. Not quite so hunky-dory would be a 1NT response from Partner, but that’s the only downside, and more often than not, if Partner cannot bid Hearts and can also only bid 1NT, then surely we’ll be hearing from the opponents.
So, the odds favor opening 1♦, we would say.
Board 18 Dealer East N-S Vul
West’s 3NT was the Gambling 3NT, showing a solid minor. The way that this convention is generally played, West shows little or nothing outside the solid minor in first or second seat, but in third seat he may have a smattering of outside values. North’s Double was value-showing, and East’s 4♣ bid said “Let’s play it in your minor, Partner”. At this point, East may or may not know for sure which is West’s minor, but, either way he bids 4♣, knowing that East will correct to Diamonds if that is his suit. South’s own hand tells her that the solid suit is Clubs, of course. What next?
First, let us suppose that the auction had gone: South West North East Pass Pass 3♣ Dbl 4♣ ?? We’d say that this sequence is essentially the same as the actual auction … West has preempted, our partner has shown some values, and East has furthered the preempt. In this situation the Double is played by some pairs as Responsive, and that would be our suggestion in both of the auctions above.
If you do play Responsive Doubles, then how high? We’d suggest up to 4♦, and the next question is what to do in the above situation if we don’t play Responsive Doubles that high (or not at all). We cannot just sit there and do nothing when we have an Ace and a King opposite a good hand, so we would double anyway, and let Partner interpret it as she will. At least she won’t place us with trump tricks, West has proclaimed a solid suit.
Board 19 Dealer South E-W Vul
Back on Board 1, after a 1NT opening, we encountered a hand which was 5-4 in the majors and border-line invitational. Here, North’s hand is certainly not invitational and the plan is surely to play in the best major fit available. What are your methods after the auction starts 1NT 2♣, 2♦? Some of the possibilities include:
Method A: 2♥ is invitational and 4-5 in the majors 2♠ is invitational and 5-4 in the majors
Method B: 2♥ is weak and 4-5 in the majors 2♠ is weak and 5-4 in the majors
Method C: 2♥ says “pick a major” (aka “Garbage Stayman”) 2♠ is invitational and 5-4 in the majors.
Of the three, Method A is our least favorite because it makes no provision for weak major two-suiters. Method B is flawed because it provides no method for showing the 5-4 invitational hand, so our preference is the hybrid Method C, which handles all weak and invitational two-suiters. To recap: 1NT 2♣, 2♦ 2♥ All weak 4-4, 5-4, 4-5, 5-5 hands 1NT 2♣, 2♥ 2♠ Invitational, 5-4 1NT 2♦, 2♥ 2♠ Invitational, 4-5
Method C is also flawed as can be seen on the actual hand. When the auction starts 1NT 2♣, 2♦ 2♥, Opener has no way of knowing when one of Responder’s majors is longer than the other. Consequently, it’s possible to end up in the 4-3 fit instead of the 5-3, or even (perish the thought) the 4-2 instead of the 5-2.
Board 23 Dealer South Both Vul
1♥ or 4♥? We’d go for 1♥ ourselves, we think that we have a bit too much outside for a 4♥ preempt. The main knock against 4♥ is not that it has too much playing strength (it has 5 losers, not unreasonable for a 4♥ preempt), but that it has too much defense. When we preempt, Partner should feel entitled (at least if she is an unpassed hand) to sacrifice at a high level, safe in the knowledge that the preemptor is not loaded with defense. Having said that, we are the first to admit that this scholarly approach is not always the winner, and the rock ‘em, sock ‘em 4♥ preempt will sometimes work better.
System Note: Suppose that South does indeed perpetrate a 4♥ preempt, and that North holds (as she did on the actual deal) the following: ♠ 63 ♥ A43 ♦ AQ8 ♣ AQT97 Not a bad hand, slam is definitely a possibility. How would you proceed? After a game opening preempt, a fairly common (and recommended) treatment is for a new suit to be an asking bid. Perfect! We can bid 4♠, asking Partner about her Spade holding. There are various response methods in use, this is the method prescribed by Bridge World Standard: - First step: no first- or second-round control - Second step: second-round control (King or singleton) - Third step: first round control (Ace or void) On the actual hand, South will respond 5♣ (she has a singleton), and now 6♥ seems like a reasonable shot. If Partner has a stray minor suit King, that should be 12 tricks. Failing that, there will likely be a finesse required.
Board 23 Dealer South Both Vul
After 1♥ nobody would violently disagree with a simple Pass here, but we must confess that we rather like West’s actual choice of a Take-out Double (and a lead-directing overcall of 1♠ has something to be recommended also). True, the Double is a few points shy, but it does have the perfect shape, and no doubt West also tacked on a couple of points for the void in their suit. The risk of doubling is that Partner will expect us to have substantially more defense than we actually possess.
Anyway, let’s say that you felt compelled to make that Take-out Double, perhaps the devil made you do it, and the auction unfolds as shown above. Partner’s 4♠ is a preemptive effort, in the highly unlikely event that he had genuine game-going (or invitational) values, based on high cards, he would have cue-bid 2♥ first. Hopefully, you can trust your Partner’s preempts more than he should trust your own take-out Doubles, in which case it’s pretty clear that they can make 5♥, and probably 6♥ also (though they may have two Spade losers). So, yes, bidding again is indicated … we’d bid 5♠, and we’d also bid 6♠ if they bid 6♥.
On the actual hand 5♠ doubled is down 2 for -500, a good save against their vulnerable game. As they can also make 6♥, we do well to bid 6♠ over that for -800, which won’t be a great result unless a few on the N-S pairs bid the slam. But it sure beats -1430.
Board 27 Dealer South None Vul
Just as South was on Board 23, North is confronted with strong 8-card Heart suit, and a couple of outside cards. We can think of three possible ways of proceeding: - Double: When we double and then bid a new suit we show a very good one-suited hand. Our hand certainly qualifies offensively, but we’d normally expect a little more defense for that sequence, and a good 5- or 6-card suit, not 8 of them. One danger with doubling is that Partner might have a slew of Diamonds and pass 1♦ doubled. It’s a slight risk, perhaps, but on the actual board, that is exactly what will likely happen, 1♦ doubled by West making 7 tricks, when N-S are cold for 11 tricks in Hearts! - 4♥: A preemptive effort might well work well here, putting East on the spot. The danger here is that the opponents will bid 4♠ or 5♦, giving us a guess on the next round. Also, if we bid 4♥ when we have 3 likely defense tricks, how can Partner make any useful contribution to the auction? For example, give her something like: ♠ 876, ♥ K743, ♦ 98732, ♣ 4, and she would be quite entitled to sacrifice all the way to the 7-level, not realizing that 6♥ is the par spot and that it the other side that is doing the sacrificing! - 1♥: The slow approach gives us better chance of figuring out where the hand belongs, and we would have to say that this hand does look like a candidate for constructive bidding rather than preemptive bidding. Needless to say, we would be somewhat miffed if 1♥ got passed out but that hardly seems likely when we have so much distribution.
Board 27 Dealer South None Vul
Perhaps East could have stretched to a 1♠ bid over 1♥, he does have a decent suit with shortness in the enemy Hearts. But Pass was reasonable, and now East must decide whether to come in over 4♥. We’d say “Yes!” Partner’s Double showed some extra values and interest in the unbid suits, so Spades should certainly be playable.
We have no idea what contracts are making here, but it’s a fact of bridge life that it is so often right to bid 4♠ over their 4♥. Let’s look at the Total Trick situation … we have 8 or 9 trumps … the opponents surely have 10 maybe 11 (Partner’s Double suggests no more than two Hearts), so the total trumps are in the 18-20 range. Assuming that the Law of Total Tricks stands up on this deal, and even assuming the worst case of only 18 total trumps, the only time when it will be wrong to bid 4♠ is when both sides can make precisely 9 tricks. So, provided that we do not expect 4♠ to be down three, which seems unlikely, it’s surely worth bidding 4♠.
On the actual board, there were 8 Spades and 11 Hearts. In 4♠ doubled, E-W would escape for down two, a good save against their game. As for N-S, they can make 11 tricks in Hearts, but at least our 4♠ bid put them to the test of whether to double or bid 5♥.
The moral of the story is that when there is an abundance of total trumps (let’s say 18 or more), and when the points are fairly equally divided, it usually pays to push on to 4♠ over the opponents’ 4♥.
Board 29 Dealer North Both Vul
Only 6 HCP’s, and vulnerable to boot, but nonetheless we’d jump into the fray over North’s 1NT bid, at least if we had a two-suited bid available, such as is provided by DONT and Cappelletti.
If we were playing DONT, we’d bid 2♣, planning to show the Spades freely if the auction permitted that at the two-level, as in: East South West North 1NT 2♣ Dbl Pass 2♥ 2♠ That may see like a lot of bidding for a 6-count, but let’s not forget the old adage “Six-five, come alive!”
If we were playing Cappelletti, we’d have to start with 2♠ (Spades and a minor), at which point we would be done (other than to show our minor, if asked).
Board 30 Dealer East None Vul
This one is not quite good enough to insist on game, in our opinion, at least not opposite our regular Partners, whose opening bids are not always exactly super-sound. So, in a 2/1 system, we’d bid a Forcing No Trump, planning to rebid 2NT if Partner rebids 2♣ or 2♦ or 2♥. As it happens, Partner rebids 2♠, showing a 6-card suit, and that changes things. Now, we have an 8-card major fit, and suddenly our hand seems somewhat better, our Ace and two Kings are fine cards for suit play, and we’d say that our hand is now worth upgrading to game values in Spades. So, 4♠ is our suggestion here.
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