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Bidding Quiz 11th April, 2007
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Board 1 Dealer North None Vul
In this situation, a rebid of 1NT shows 6-10 and a rebid of 2NT shows 11-12. But there’s always room for judgment and hand evaluation, some 10-counts look just too good for a mere 1NT rebid. Is this such an occasion? We don’t think so. True, we do have the plus factor of a 5-card suit, but that’s about where it ends … no Tens, no Aces, and though that Q♦ is likely to be a useful card, the fact that it is singleton may complicate communications between the hands. Definitely a 1NT bid.
Board 5 Dealer North N-S Vul
When we overcall we like to have a purpose in mind, here are some common excuses for not passing: - Maybe we can buy the contract (not a factor here, when they open 2♣ it is invariably their hand) - Maybe we have a good sacrifice (less likely here when we have no distribution) - We can help Partner find the right opening lead (but probably not on this hand where we are a strong favorite to be on lead ourselves) - Perhaps we can disrupt or preempt their auction (well, one out of four ain’t bad!)
Yes, we’d bid 2♠ anyway, our main hope is that Partner can raise Spades and crowd their auction. On the actual hand, Partner is indeed able to dredge up a 3♠ bid, which as it happens causes problems for N-S.
Board 5 Dealer North N-S Vul
After the 2♠ overcall, as North, what are your methods? Nowadays, many tournament players use Pass here as a way to show values … Double would show a bad hand … and a bid of a new suit or No Trump would show values and something worth saying. So, let’s say that North’s Pass shows some values but nothing particular to say. For our rebid we could not bid our originally planned 2NT without a Spade stopper, so we doubled. Now what do we do when the bidding comes back to us?
The real question here is what does 3♠ show? One of two things, surely: - Either, we have Diamond slam aspirations, in which case we’ll bid on if Partner bids 3NT next; - Or, we are trying for 3NT.
Partner won’t know which type of hand we have, but for the time being he should assume that we are angling for 3NT (as in fact, we are). The next question is whether we are asking for a half-stop, such as Qx, or a full stopper. We’d say that a half-stop should be sufficient. After all, Partner has already had the opportunity to show a full stopper directly following the 2♠ overcall, but instead he made an uninformative Pass. He also could have bid 2NT after our Double, but instead chose to bid Diamonds. It really doesn’t look like Partner has a full stopper, does it? So, surely 3♠ here is asking for a half-stop.
Board 7 Dealer South Both Vul
Once Partner has preempted, a Double by us is for business. Should that be our choice? Surely we can make 3NT so, at equal vulnerability, to beat that score we’ll need 8 tricks. Of course, that’s a distinct possibility, but it’s not out of the question that they can score 4 natural trump tricks, the A♦ and a ruff on the board, giving us a poor board.
One feature of our hand that makes us especially nervous of a Double, is our 9-card Diamond fit. Low-level doubles below our own Total Trick level, when we can make game, is risky business, and so we would make what we consider is the practical bid of 3NT. True, 6♦ might be making but we would take that chance.
On the actual hand, doubling 2♥ is not a success, it’s down just one trick and 3NT is the winning call.
Board 8 Dealer West None Vul
We have the values for 3NT and we have a stopper in the unbid suit. 3NT is probably where we’ll end up, but does that mean that we should be bidding 3NT directly? No, there are a couple of reasons why we should temporize with a Fourth Suit Forcing bid of 2♠ (denying 4 Spades): - A direct 3NT bid expresses a strong opinion that 3NT is where we belong, and will discourage Partner from looking for alternative contracts. With just Axx in the unbid suit our opinion is not that strong, we should take things more slowly. - It’s quite possible that the hand will play better from Partner’s side, especially if she holds Qx or Qxx in Spades.
Board 9 Dealer North E-W Vul
Partner has made a simple 2♠ raise. How do you evaluate your hand, is it worth a game try? We have only 12 HCP’s, and we have good reason to be nervous about our Club holding, all the more so as the suit was bid on our left and the defenders are in the over-ruffing position. Even so, we do have nice distribution and a hand with only 6 losers, we’d make a try of some sort.
Having decided that we are worth a game try, how should we go about it? For uncontested auctions there are a host of methods available (see link to an earlier Bidding Quiz, 6 Dec 06, Board 19), but how about when there is competition? Well, in this case the competition takes away none of our methods, we still have our full range of bids available over Partner’s 2♠, so there is no reason not to play “game try systems on” in this situation.
Anyway, perhaps we are getting overly theoretical here. As we said before, we would invite, and considering our holding in the enemy suit, we would love to be able to make a Help Suit Game Try in Clubs, if such a bid is available to us. If not, then a simple 3♠ would be called for.
Board 14 Dealer East None Vul
We’ve all been in this situation many times. The opponents are in a cozy low-level contract, we are in the balancing seat, even though we have a lousy hand we want to compete, but we don’t have an obvious way to do so: - We don’t have a stopper in Spades, so 1NT is out - Our Diamonds are not worth rebidding - Our Clubs don’t merit a 2♣ bid.
Yes, when all else fails, we resort to the balancing Double, saying “I don’t know what to do, Partner, hopefully your own hand has more direction”.
Board 14 Dealer East None Vul
Which of these three plans to you prefer? - Rebid 2♠? Sure, this shows a 6th Spade, but it hardly does justice to the rest of the hand, we’d make this bid on much less. And what about those Hearts? Do we really want to give up on that suit? - Rebid 2♥? Yes, a possibility, but we could easily end up in the wrong major, the 4-3 fit may not play so well if they start forcing the long hand in Diamonds. - Redouble? That would be our choice, we have a good hand, both on offense and defense, and would like to get Partner involved in the auction. If Partner remains stubbornly silent, we’ll compete to 2♠ later.
On the actual hand, the bid that invites Partner to the party, namely the Redouble, is the one that gets N-S to the correct strain (Hearts).
Board 17 Dealer North None Vul
We confess that with those scattered values we would rebid 1NT with the West hand rather than 2♦. And, given more or less equal alternatives, we have a strong preference for the bid that limits the hand more narrowly (1NT, showing 12-14), rather than the more wide-ranging bid (2♦ showing 11-17 or thereabouts).
Alas, our choice of 1NT is not a great success on this deal. If West plays it in 1NT he’ll surely be held to 7 tricks after the obvious lead from North of the Club Ten. If West rebids 2♦ then East will raise to 3♦ and Declarer will scramble 9 tricks.
Board 18 Dealer East N-S Vul
We don’t suppose that many would object too violently to a value-showing 2♠ bid here. But one person who did object was our curmudgeonly friend, Professor Oddbid. He preferred a 1NT bid with the North hand, planning to compete with 2♠ later in the auction. That’s a sequence that might not occur to everybody, but it does have its merits, doing justice to that No-Trumpish Heart holding and to the general strength of the hand.
Board 20 Dealer West Both Vul
How high do you play your Negative Doubles? Against aggressive opponents, playing them up to 2♠ or 3♠ just doesn’t get the job done in our opinion, we’d suggest up to 4♦ or 4♥. Anyway, that’s how the featured N-S were playing them, and South’s Double was Negative. Partner’s 4♥ bid was a pleasant surprise, should we now make a slam try?
The first point to make is that our K♦ is almost certainly useless. If Partner has a doubleton, then it’s likely that the defense can start with A♦ and a Diamond ruff. And if she has a singleton then she won’t need our King. So our 16-count is really just 13, albeit a very nice 13 … that K♠ is a great card and we have an extra trump.
To be honest, we could live with Pass here, and also with a slam try. But, let’s make sure that our slam try is not 4NT, Roman Key Card Blackwood! What a disaster that would be! Partner would show “two with” by bidding 5♠ and we have now gone beyond our last making contract of 5♥.
So, if we decide that we really must make a slam try, we’d bid 5♦, presumably denying the A♣, and hoping that Partner will know what to do. Board 21 Dealer North N-S Vul
West’s 2NT showed a game-going raise in Spades, the so-called Jacoby 2NT. Normally, we would show our singleton here, but not when it’s an Ace or a King, that is altogether too misleading, frequently causing Partner to mis-evaluate his own holding in that suit. So, East declined to bid the shortness-showing 3♥ and instead bid 3♠ showing extras (he could jump directly to game with a poor hand).
Now, Partner bids 4♠, without taking the trouble to cue-bid along the way. It goes without saying that he doesn’t like his hand very much! Is our own hand worth a try anyway? A little tempting, perhaps, but we really don’t think so, we have already announced a pretty good hand. Partner did not splinter at his first turn, and did not cue-bid the A♣, so it looks like he needs the perfect minor suit cards, with nothing wasted in Hearts. That’s a long shot, we’d just pass 4♠.
We’ve been most well-behaved lately, it’s been at least six months since we grumbled about the standard responses to the Jacoby 2NT. Enough’s enough, grumble, grumble! For an alternative, please follow the link.
Board 22 Dealer East E-W Vul
Let’s suppose that you are playing your 2♣ bid as forcing to game. What are your methods for Opener’s rebid? Here’s one suggestion, attributed to Marty Bergen: - 2♦ shows at least 5 Diamonds, and could be made on all sorts of hand strengths … the bid does not deny a 4-card major. - 2 of a major is natural tends to deny a 5-card Diamond suit, but it does not necessarily show extras (in other words, it is not a Reverse) - No Trump bids and Club bids are natural, and of course forcing if below game.
With that in mind, as West, what do we know about Partner’s hand? Not very much at all! He has an opening hand and 5 Diamonds and who knows what else? No matter, we have a perfect (well, semi-perfect) bid here. Yes, it’s none of the aforementioned, it’s actually a Splinter jump to 3♥, showing shortness in Hearts and presumably 4-card support for Diamonds. We think that this is the best bid in the circumstances, but as we said, it’s only “semi-perfect”, we’d be wondering what to do if Partner bid 3NT next, given our magnificent Clubs and the fact that our shortness is actually a void.
Feeling exotic? Well, if 3♥ is a Splinter, then it follows (at least to some people) that 4♥ must be Exclusion Key Card Blackwood. Food for thought.
Board 23 Dealer South Both Vul
Is the South hand good enough for a 2♥ bid here? Here are some reasons why we might be tempted: - We are a passed hand, so Partner knows not to expect the World’s Fair. - We have a big Diamond fit which provides us with a degree of safety. - We are afraid that if we don’t bid 2♥ we’ll miss our 5-3 Heart fit.
Nonetheless, we’d make a Negative Double here. If we bid 2♥ and then, in the absence of a Heart raise, support Diamonds, Partner will expect a better hand from us, it’s easy to see how she might push on to a hopeless 5♦, for example.
Either 2♥ or Double could work, we are placing our bets on the Double.
Board 24 Dealer West None Vul
Perhaps Bridge is not important enough to “try men’s souls”, but, if it were, we can be pretty sure that this one would be considered most trying indeed. What does Partner’s 3NT bid show? We’d say that it fits precisely into that neat little 16-23 range. But, we would hate to tie ourselves down to such narrow confines, so, as usual, there’s some scope for upward and downward evaluation, we always like to make room for judgment.
16-23, give or take a point or two? Yes, really! In the circumstances, who can possibly say what West should do here? We have the values to at least think about slam, but so much of our hand is in Spades, how much nicer if those high Spades were actually Diamond honors, then we would like our hand much more. In the circumstances, we would advise caution. Our guess would be to pass.
Systems Note Do you have any methods over Partner’s 3NT bid. We’d suggest Stayman and Transfers, with 4♠ as some vaguely defined minor suit slam try. As for 4NT, we’d suggest that this is a general slam try.
Stop The Presses! We’ve just received some mail and it appears that we misspoke. Bridge really can try men’s souls, apparently it’s now official, you read it here first.
Board 25 Dealer North E-W Vul
We would say that, given all the enemy activity in Diamonds, our hand is starting to look pretty good. We would want to be bidding here, but the question is what? On this hand, it’s helpful to be playing Responsive Doubles, without that little gadget we would be completely up the creek. Please follow the link.
And without Responsive Doubles? We confess that we have no good advice to offer, your guess is as good as ours. Board 26 Dealer East Both Vul
This problem gets us into Maximal Doubles, so by way of introduction, let’s consider this auction: East South West North 1♥ 2♣ 2♥ 3♣ ?? If we want to compete in Hearts we’ll just bid 3♥ here. But, if we want to make a game try in this situation we can bid 3♦. Obviously, we don’t want to play in Diamonds, we have already agreed Hearts, our 3♦ is simply the only available way of inviting game and says nothing whatsoever about Diamonds.
OK, back to the actual auction. Here, we can bid 3♥ competitively (usually showing an extra trump but not extra values), or we can … er, yes, what can we do? The general treatment in the tournament world is for Double here to me “Maximal”, which is to say “invitational to game”. We use the Double whenever we don’t have an intervening game try suit available.
Having said all that, is the East hand even worth a game try? Maybe, maybe not, it’s somewhat marginal at matchpoints. Board 30 Dealer East None Vul
The “Cansino Count” says that, in fourth hand, we should pass whenever the sum of our HCP’s and our Spades is less that 15. It’s a useful rule of thumb which gives the Spade suit the respect that it deserves in low-level competitive auctions. The North hand does not pass the Cansino test, in fact it’s not even close, but this hand has way too much distribution and playing strength to tamely pass.
OK, let’s say that we feel constrained to take a call here. What’s our choice? More to the point, what does 2♦ mean here? There’s no point in playing this as preemptive, who are we trying to preempt, if that was how we felt about our hand we would just pass it out.
A common treatment here is to play 2♦ as a top-end Weak Two bid, or perhaps something even a little stronger. It’s a preempt in the sense that we would like to make it difficult for our opponents to get into the auction, but it’s also constructive because we actually promise a pretty decent hand. Board 31 Dealer South N-S Vul
After South’s 1NT opening, North is close to inviting and surely would if she had been playing in an IMP game. After our Pass, East jumps into the auction with a Double, which, as E-W were playing DONT, shows an unspecified one-suiter. South’s Redouble said “I have a good hand” and encourages punitive action from North.
Hopefully there is not much doubt about this one. When we double their low-level contracts we like to have a trump trick or two, but here surely three small trumps will be enough. Our side obviously has 24 or 25 points collectively, they have a maximum of 8 trumps, it would be most surprising if they can bring this one home. We’d rate the odds as 20-1 against, so the Double is certainly worth the occasional hideous disaster!
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