Bidding Quiz                                                    11th July, 2007

 

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                                                    Board 2       Dealer East       N-S Vul

 

 

What would a Redouble show here?  Values, of course, the real question is just how much.  We’d say that this hand just about qualifies, though it’s certainly minimum.  Redouble here says “We have more points than they do, unless you have made one of your infamous wafer-thin openings”.

 

Don’t like the Redouble?  We are iffy about it ourselves to be honest.  Another thought is to bid 2♣, and then to double a 2♦ or 2♥ bid.  This says “I have Club support, and a pretty good defensive hand, please feel free to make the winning call”.  A difficult hand!

 

 

                                                    Board 5      Dealer North       N-S Vul

 

 

Do you open this hand 2♣?  We certainly do.  Not quite enough for game opposite a broke Partner, but we would force to game anyway, starting with 2♣ is the best way to get things started.  The problem with opening 1♥ is that we’ll be stuck if Partner now bids 1♠ or 1NT.  Now, bidding 4♥ seems like an underbid, and making a fake jump shift to 3♣ risks a confusing auction.

 

 

                                                    Board 8      Dealer West       None Vul

 

 

What are the choices here?  Just two, we would say:

-         5♦, the buccaneering make-‘em-guess bid

-         3♠, the studious “let’s not give up on 4♠” bid.

 

We would go the buccaneering route, for these reasons:

-         If we bid 3♠, Partner may expect a better suit, we’d hate to get raised with Qx and end up in a fragile 5-2 fit instead of that robust 11-card Diamond fit.

-         If we bid 3♠, we might let South in with her Heart suit, how much nicer if we could put her on the spot at the 5-level!

-         The chances of a viable Spade contract are somewhat remote, how much more fun to be a buccaneer!

 

Which bid works in practice?  Actually they both do, as it happens either will shut out the opponents’ Heart fit, and 5♦ doubled down one will be down just one when the opponents have 11 tricks in Clubs or Hearts.

 

 

                                                    Board 9      Dealer North       E-W Vul

 

 

West makes a DONT 2♥ bid, showing the majors.  How do you evaluate your hand, and what are your methods?

 

Let’s start with the hand evaluation.  We have a 9-count, which when opposite a 15-17 1NT is on the cusp between inviting to game and forcing to game.  We think that this hand is worth forcing to game, primarily based on those two lovely Aces, cards which are not fully recognized in the HCP scheme of things.

 

OK, let’s assume, rightly or wrongly, that this hand is worth forcing to game.  What are our options?  Here are some of them:

-         Generally speaking, when the opponents show two suits and we are angling for 3NT, we bid the one that we have.  This is contrary to the approach that we use when they have shown only one suit … in that case we bid their suit if we need help in the suit, and bid No Trump if we don’t.  So, here, 2♠ would say “I’ve got the Spades”, and, by inference, would ask “Do you have the Hearts?”

-         By the same token, 3♥ would announce something in Hearts and ask about Spades.

-         What is Double here?  You can play it for penalty, that’s fine, our own preference is for the Double to be value-showing, typically a hand which is invitational.

-         How about 2NT?  We’d prefer to play this as Lebensohl, but if you are not of that persuasion then it should no doubt be natural, hopefully showing at least something in the majors.

 

We managed to omit the bid that we prefer!  Yes, our choice would be 3NT!  Isn’t that supposed to show stops in both majors?  Well, yes and no!  But there’s a lot to be said for just zipping into 3NT directly and giving the opponents the minimum of information.  Why burden West’s brain with useful data when we can make him guess.  It’s not as if we have aspirations for an alternative contract.  So, forget about those torpedoes, it’s full steam ahead to 3NT.

 

How does this work in practice?  West is on lead and his hand is:

            ♠ KJ932

            ♥ QT875

            ♦ 9

            ♣ T6

Yes, a pretty raunchy vulnerable 2♥ bid, but that’s not the issue here.  If North shows Spades along the way to 3NT, would you not lead a Heart?  And if North just boots out 3NT would you not have a guess?  Indeed you would!  And if you guess to lead a Spade, then you will hand the bad guys their 9^th trick.

 

 

                                                    Board 10      Dealer East       Both Vul

 

 

Playing a 15-17 1NT, do you open this hand 1NT?  We like to upgrade our good 14-counts which is why we announce our range as “a good 14 to 17”.  Is this a good 14?  That’s in the eye of the beholder, and in our eye it’s a 1NT bid, based on the good 5-card suit and those useful fillers.

 

 

                                                    Board 11      Dealer South       None Vul

 

 

 Let’s look at two cases here.

-         Case 1:  We are playing Support Doubles, so Partner’s Pass of 1♠ denies 3-card support of our hearts.  In this case, we can make a pretty good guess at Partner’s distribution.  The opponents appear to have a 4-4 Spade fit which gives Partner 3 in the suit … she has a maximum of 2 Hearts … she has 8 minor suit cards … if she habitually opens 1♦ with 4-4 in the minors she surely has at least 5 Clubs … even if she doesn’t, the odds are in favor of that.

-         Case 2:  If we are not playing Support Doubles the logic is less compelling, but only slightly, we’d still be inclined to guess that Partner had 5 Clubs.

 

Yes, the preamble is over, our choice here would be to compete to 3♣.  It won’t always work, but at least Partner will have to play this one.

 

                                                    Board 12      Dealer West       N-S Vul

 

 

We have an 8-card Spade fit and we are always taught to “support with support”, should we bid 2♠?  Absolutely not!  RHO has announced Spade values, we have no helpful Spade honors, and we have dynamite Heart fillers and a 7-card suit.  Our plan is to bid two non-forcing Hearts, and a third Heart if the opponents bid over that.

 

                                                    Board 14      Dealer East       None Vul

 

 

This one is simply about your partnership agreements.  Do you play Drury?  If so, is Drury still on in this situation?  We like it to be, but every partnership must choose for itself.  If Drury is not on, then we would have to bid 2♠ here, showing “limit raise or better”, and risking getting too high if Partner’s third-seat opening is less than might be desired.

 

                                                    Board 14      Dealer East       None Vul

 

 

 Do you want to defend 4♥?  We don’t think that you should, that 6-4 hand has far more offense than defense.  So, we’d suggest anticipating events here and bidding 4♠ directly, exerting maximum pressure.  Let’s face it, Partner is a passed hand, we have but 8 HCP’s, we have an extra trump, shortness in their suit, more than likely we’ll have to bid 4♠ eventually, might as well do it right away.

 

 

                                                    Board 25      Dealer North       E-W Vul

 

 

What is your plan on this hand?  It seems that the choices are:

-         Open 2NT (let’s assume that this shows 20-21 HCP’s)

-         Open 2♣ and rebid 2♥

-         Open 2♣ and rebid 2NT

 

Let’s start by eliminating that 2NT opening.  True, we have the right number of points, but this 21-count is just too good, with all those Aces, Tens, and that 5-card suit.  In fact, we would say that it is way too good.

 

Of the remaining two choices, we prefer 2NT, it’s the more descriptive bid.  And we’d be even happier with the 2NT rebid if we were playing Puppet Stayman, allowing Partner to find our 5-card major.

 

Now, let’s suppose that, after we open 2♣, Partner crosses our plan by giving us a positive response of 3♣.  Do we still rebid No Trump?  No, now we would show our Hearts.  That positive response has put us very much in the slam zone, we have a partial fit with Partner’s Clubs, so we’d take our time and make the cheap, descriptive bid of 3♥.  Of course, 3NT is also descriptive, but we’d hate to hear Partner pass this.

 

 

                                                    Board 25      Dealer North       E-W Vul

 

 

Some players have strict requirements concerning the suit quality of a positive response.  Two of the top three or three of the top five are common yardsticks.  Our own preference is to be slightly less rigid, all the more so if the rest of the hand is good.  So, here, we’d bid 3♣, we have a good hand to compensate for deficiencies of the suit.  Perhaps the most compelling reason to make a positive response is to consider how we’d feel if the auction starts 2♣ 2♦, 2NT.  Not very happy is the answer!

 

 

                                                    Board 26      Dealer East       Both Vul

 

 

Do you think that this hand is too good for a 15-17 1NT opening bid?  17 HCP’s and a good 5-card suit is certainly too much for some players.  On the other hand, we do have the majority of our points lurking in our short suits, so we’d have no objection to a 1NT opening bid.  Let’s just say that it’s a close decision either way.

 

But, suppose that, for better or worse, you decide that this hand really is too good for 1NT.  What is your rebid after you open 1♣ and Partner bids one of a major?  You could reverse to 2♦, but we’d rebid 2NT, it seems the more descriptive choice to us.  After all, if we thought our hand was too good for a 1NT opening bid, then surely it must fit snugly into that 18-19 range.

 

 

                                                    Board 28      Dealer West       N-S Vul

 

 

Here are the possibilities:

-         Double?  No, at this vulnerability and with all this offense, we’d hate to end up defending 2♦ doubled.

-         3♠?   A jump bid below game, over their preempt, shows a very good hand as well as a good suit, ideally just a trick away from game.  Typically, Partner would raise to game with an Ace or a King or a side-suit singleton.  This hand is almost too good, just the Q♦ would be enough.

-         4♠?  It looks like we are worth a shot at game, though it’s not guaranteed to make.

-         3NT!!   Now there’s a thought, all the more intriguing as we are playing matchpoints.  There’s quite a good chance that No Trump will score the same number of tricks as Spades, what a great result that would be!  There is also the possibility that West will lead a Heart to East’s Ace, then a Diamond will come through, and after the opponents have taken 11 tricks in the red suits they will graciously concede the rest.  Because of this, only try 3NT here with a Partner who is renowned for her sense of humor.

 

On the actual hand, 3NT is the winner making 11 tricks, when 4♠ makes only 10 tricks (the opponents get a Diamond ruff).

 

                                                    Board 31      Dealer South       N-S Vul

 

 

Anyone for Exclusion Key Card Blackwood here?  Devotees of this convention would say that 5♦ here is Roman Key Card, but with a difference … it asks that the A♦ be excluded from the response.  We like Exclusion on the rare occasions that it is called for, but this is not such a hand, it would not help us to resolve the Spade situation.  By the same token, with that void it is also not a good hand for regular 4NT Roman Key Card.  So we would just cue-bid 4♣ and see what happens.

 

Next, let’s say that Partner comes back with a 4♦ cue-bid.  We still don’t want to use Blackwood, we are way too good to settle for 4♥, and if we just charge into 6♥ we run the risk of missing a grand slam (Partner is still unlimited at this point).  So, we’d hedge our bets with another cue-bid, this time 4♠, again hoping that Partner can take charge.

 

                                                    Board 31      Dealer South       N-S Vul

 

 

Partner has made two cue-bids, surely 6♥ will be a reasonable contract.  Maybe, but Partner is unlimited and a grand slam is still possible.  So, even though we don’t have a lot of extras, we’d bid 4NT here.  It’s vaguely possible that we are missing two Key Cards, but that’s unlikely.  If we are missing one Key Card, we can settle for 6♥.  And, if we have all the Key Cards we won’t be able to bid 7, but at least we can bid 5NT, letting Partner in on the Key Card situation, maybe she can bid 7 in that case.

 

If Partner just needs to know about the Key Cards, why doesn’t she bid Roman Key Card herself?  The most likely explanation is that she has a void in one of the minor suits, probably Diamonds, and/or she needs Spade help.

 

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