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Hand Analyses 17th May , 2006
South might well have bid 1NT over the 1♦ opening, notwithstanding the doubleton Diamond. Both 1NT and Double are flawed in different ways, but either one is a better choice than a 2♣ overcall. Our own preference is for Double, but 1NT is not that far behind.
If South chooses to Double, as in the featured auction, she’ll get the chance to Double again on the next round of bidding. This will get her side to 3♣ making 3, for +110 and an above-average result.
If, instead, South chooses to overcall 1♦ with 1NT, she will probably play it there, making +90 and losing to the 3♣ bidders. Or, after 1NT, West might dredge up a 2♦ raise … when this gets passed around back to South a lot of matchpoints will be riding on her decision … if she passes, that’s +50 and a bad board indeed … if she guesses to bid 3♣, then she recovers the +110 which almost got lost when she chose to overcall 1NT.
That East 2♥ bid is not exactly straight out of the text-book on preempts. Some might scoff at the bid, deriding the feeble suit and the outside strength … but, white against red, it pays to mix it up. Yes, we like a 2♥ bid here, but if it’s not your style, then that’s fine too.
There are numerous methods opposite a Weak Two opening, and, perhaps not surprisingly, the auction above uses the method that works best on this particular deal! 2NT asks for a feature (see Link), and Partner is supposed to show a side-suit Ace or King in this situation. When Opener shows a high Club (clearly the Ace in the circumstances), West can smell slam and just leaps to 6♥.
That 6♥ bid may seem somewhat arbitrary, but it’s actually based on sound logic. West can count 6 trumps and 3 minor suit winners … provided that Partner has 3 or more Spades (quite likely in the circumstances), 6♥ will be cold. And if Partner is thoughtless enough to have been dealt just 2 Spades? Well, then the 12th trick will just have to come from some help or some luck in the minors. All in all, a reasonable proposition, and if you got to slam you got a great board.
What if E-W are not playing 2NT as asking for a feature? Getting to slam will be highly unlikely in that case, and E-W will no doubt languish in 4♥. Different methods excel in different situations, and on this particular deal it turns out that the Feature method works best.
North’s 2♥ was DONT, showing both majors, and putting East in an interesting situation. 6NT looks like the most likely spot, at least it would be if Partner were kind enough to hold the A♥ or K♥. We are not especially big fans of the Gerber convention, the opportunities to use it seem so rare. But, perhaps this is such an opportunity. Actually, it’s the perfect opportunity, if you are prepared to chance that your side is not missing AK♥.
What are your responses to Gerber? One simple style, used in the featured auction, is simply 4♦ for 0 (or 4), 4♥ for 1, and so on. So, North’s 4NT shows 3 Aces, pretty much assuring that 6NT is worth a shot. But why stop there? If Partner also has the K♠, then we can almost count to 13 … 5 Spades (yes, we may need to finesse the 9), a Heart, 6 top minor tricks, surely with a 13th minor suit trick available one way or the other. Gerber comes up so rarely that you may not have good agreements on the responses to the King-asking 5♣ … we’d suggest that you show a specific King (with 5NT saying “no Kings”) rather than the number of Kings, and that is certainly the winning approach here.
In the play of 7NT, 13 tricks are especially easy when the T♠ turns out to be singleton.
Back to the bidding. Do you think that 4♣ was rather cavalier given the possibility of 2 fast Heart losers? Maybe so, but bear in mind that two missing Aces is also possible, which is an argument in favor of Gerber … and also consider that there is no credible route to 7 (at least not one that we know of) if we start by bidding 2♠. As they are bidding two suits, we’d presume that 2♠ says “I’ve got the Spades stopped, how about the Hearts?”
On a theoretical note, those responses that we outlined above are generally considered to be old hat in the world of tournament bridge … if your partnership would prefer not to be considered unfashionable, you may want to try these responses to that 4♣ Gerber bid: 4♦: 1 or 4 Aces 4♥: 0 or 3 Aces (yes, 1430 responses, just for the sake of consistency) 4♠: 2 Aces and a minimum 4NT: 2 Aces and a maximum.
South has a decision to make after Partner doubles. Should she bid 1NT? No, the hand is not good enough, we’d suggest a range of 7-10 for this bid. Should she pass for penalties? No, again the hand is not good enough, and nor are the Club spots (you might well say “What Club spots?”). That leaves 1♦ or 1♥, and we’d choose 1♦, if only because it’s less likely to get Partner as excited as a major fit might … this is not a hand where we want an excited Partner!
Give North credit for passing 1♦ with that 17-count … she judges that game is unlikely and it would be a bit much to bid 1NT here … doubling and bidding 1NT shows a better hand, 18-19. East chirps in with 1♠ and now North can bid 1NT, which is no doubt where she will play it. 1NT will be tough sledding by Declarer, it’s hard to see how she will escape down one on normal play.
Back to the bidding. You may assert that South should have made a penalty pass of Partner’s take-out Double, and you may further wish to point out that 1♣ does indeed go down a couple of tricks. Indeed it would, but that won’t happen if West is half-awake … with his pathetic Clubs he’ll suspect that he is in trouble and he should redouble! That is an SOS Redouble, saying “Get me outta here!”, and Partner will scoot to the safety of 1♠.
After Opener rebids 2♣, that 2♦ bid is best played as artificial, analogous to New Minor Forcing auctions, and often looking for a 5-3 major fit. If you were playing IMPs, after that 2NT bid, you’d probably bid 6♣, it’s a contract which may have some additional chances compared to 6NT. But this is matchpoints, and most red-blooded pairs players will take a shot at the higher-scoring 6NT.
It turns out that 6♣ is indeed the better contract … ruffing out the K♠ has better odds than finessing … 71% against 50% in case you are counting. Even so, as South, we think that we would take a shot at 6NT anyway (although we wish that it were played from our side) … Partner may have the J♥ or the K♠, for example.
The aggressive 6NT makes on a Spade finesse, the theoretically more sound 6♣ makes when the K♠ is ruffed out.
That 1♠ by West, vulnerable, opposite a passed hand is what might be politely termed “a bold effort”. North’s Double of the bold effort is a Support Double, showing 3-card Heart support. East bids 2♠, and must then decide whether or not to bid 3♠ when 3♥ is passed back to him. In these 3-level part-score situations, some players resort to Total Tricks analysis, which would go something like this: (a) We appear to have 9 trumps; (b) They probably have 8 trumps (North with 3 for the Support Double, South probably with 5, though 6 is certainly possible); (c) If there are 17 total trumps, then there are probably 17 total tricks; (d) If they are down one in 3♥ then we can make 3♠ for a better score; (e) If they can make 3♥ then we are down one, also for a better score, provided that they don’t double us.
Of course, all this science merely confirms what we already know … that the more trumps we have the more we bid. Anyway, we would try 3♠ in the East seat, bidding it with immense sangfroid in order to minimize the chances of a speculative matchpoint Double by the opponents.
Even if the sangfroid works and East escapes the Double, he must now avoid going down two. At first glance, it looks as if Declarer might lose 2 Hearts, 2 Diamonds, and a Club ... now it’s on the trump guess to avoid the dreaded minus 200.
Fortunately for Declarer, the defense may have trouble untangling its minor suit tricks. For example, if AQ♥ are cashed before the J♦ shift, Declarer can duck a Diamond, win the second round, then play A♣ and a Club towards the Queen, setting up a Club winner for a Diamond pitch. In fact, on this line of defense, Declarer should actually make the contract … he’ll place North with 3-2 in the minors, and so further place her with 3 Spades, picking up the trump suit. The J♦ is the best start for the defense, resulting in 5 tricks … the defense gets its 5 side-suit tricks, but Declarer picks up enough information along the way to guess the trump suit correctly.
Here, of course, 4NT is invitational to 6NT, it’s not Ace-asking (for that use Gerber, see Board 3). The final contract is rather poor … it needs a 3-2 Diamond break and a Heart finesse, so around a 34% prospect. Of course, when we get to a sub-par but successful slam, it’s tempting to attribute our success to superior bidding methods, conveniently overlooking the fact that we were just plain lucky. So, congratulations if you bid the successful 6NT, your auction wasn’t really terrible, just a tad optimistic … North was just about OK for her 4NT, South might have passed with her 16 HCP’s including that dubious J♠.
Yes, you’ve noticed that 6♦ is a much better contract than 6NT, requiring no more than breaking Diamonds, a favorite to make at 68%. Any way to get there? Actually, yes! There is a gadget in these 1NT-4NT auctions that would work well on this particular deal. After 1NT-4NT, if Opener has an accepting hand (especially if it’s marginal, as here), the players bid 4-card suits at the 5-level, and 5-card suits at the 6-level, in an attempt to seek out an 8-card fit. With that agreement, the auction would be: Opener Responder 1NT 4NT 5♣ 6♦ Pass
Opener’s 5♣ bid says “I accept and I have a 4-card Club suit”. Responder’s 6♦ says “I have 5 Diamonds”. A nice auction to the right spot … too bad that the Heart finesse works and that those Neanderthals who bludgeoned their way into 6NT will score better.
The most interesting and controversial bid in this auction is North’s opening 1♣. Would that be your choice? Those 6-5 hands, where the 6 is in the lower ranking suit, and where the hand is below reverse strength, are the subject of some debate. Here are the schools of thought: (a) Open 1♥, pretending that the hand is 5-5; (b) Open 1♣, and take the chance that the 5-3 Heart fit may be lost; (c) Open 1♥ if the Clubs are relatively weak, and 1♣ otherwise … being moderates at heart, this approach is our own choice.
As it happens, North is not from that first school of thought, but the Heart fit gets found anyway, and game is easily reached. 11 tricks can be made if the trump Queen is guessed successfully, but there is no compelling reason to play for West to have 3 trumps to the Queen, so we would predict just 10 tricks at most tables.
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