Michaels Cue-Bid
 

Michaels is used to show various two-suited hands after the opponents have opened one of a suit.  How weak or how strong can the Michaels Cue-Bid be?  And what are your follow-up methods?

 

 

26th April, 2006                Board 21       Dealer North        N-S Vul

 

 

As East, would you use a Michaels Cue-Bid (showing both majors) instead of a 1♠ overcall?  Some partnerships use Michaels in this situation whenever they are 5-5 in the majors, almost regardless of strength.  Another approach, and our own preference, is to use Michaels with weak hands or strong hands, but not with middling hands.  If you adopt the same style, then East’s hand is on the cusp, borderline between a weak Michaels and a 1♠ overcall, we'd go for the overcall ourselves.

 

 

28th June, 2006                Board 19      Dealer South       E-W Vul

 

 

With 5-5 in the majors, after they open 1♣ or 1♦, many players use the “weak-strong” style of the Michaels cue-bid:

            Weak:              They bid Michaels, and then (usually) leave it up to Partner to do

                                    the rest of the bidding.

            Intermediate: They overcall 1♠, planning to compete in Hearts later.

            Strong:            They bid Michaels, planning to bid again later.

“Intermediate” is an imprecise term, but we’d say something in the 10-15 range is about right … needless to say, this is a guideline, not a rule, there’s always scope for hand evaluation.

 

On the above basis, East, with a lovely 16 HCP’s, decides he is worth a Michaels bid and another call later in the auction, in other words the “strong” variety.  As it happens N-S start competing in Diamonds and East must decide what to do over 3♦.  3♥ here would be purely competitive, showing a weak Michaels, presumably with extra distribution.  The way for East to show strength here is to double.

 

 

6th December, 2006             Boards 13 and 22

 

Two boards with the same dilemma:

 

     Board 13                                                              Board 22

     ♠ AK53                                                                ♠ A932

     ♥ T6542                                                               ♥ AJT52

     ♦                                                                           ♦ 92

     ♣ A752                                                                ♣ K9

 

     West    North   East     South                               North   East     South   West 

                 Pass    Pass    1♣                                                 Pass    Pass    1♦   

     ??                                                                         ??

 

Hands with 4 Spades and 5 Hearts are difficult to handle once our RHO has opened 1♣ or 1♦.  If we double we may lose our 5-3 Heart fit … and if we overcall 1♥ we may lose our 4-4 Spade fit.  For these hands we like to use Michaels … well, maybe “like” is overstating things somewhat, let’s just say that it seems less bad than the alternatives.  So, on both these hands Michaels would be our choice.  Of course, when the major suit holdings are reversed, we don’t have the same problem … we can bid the Spades and later, all being well, we can show the Hearts.

 

Do you play that Michaels shows a Weak or Strong hand, but not something in the middle?  It’s a very common treatment, and using this method we’d say that both of the hands are in the in-between category, being neither one thing nor the other.  Does that mean that we wouldn’t use Michaels after all?  No, we would anyway, reckoning that the importance of getting both majors into auction outweighs the misdescription of strength.  Consider this slight variation of one of the hands above:

     ♠ A9432

     ♥ AJT52

     ♦ 9

     ♣ K9

Here we are 5-5, the ideal Michaels shape, but, paradoxically, we would bid 1♠!  The reason is simple enough … with this middling hand and 5 Spades we can bid our suits separately, and we don’t need to lie about our strength to solve our distribution problem.

 

 

19th July, 2006                  Board 9      Dealer North      E-W Vul

 

 

We can see four choices here, none of them totally unreasonable:

   Pass:       Our least favorite choice ... we are already a passed hand, we have some playing strength, and we

                   are white versus red, surely action is indicated!  Perhaps we misspoke, Pass does seem somewhat

                   unreasonable, altogether too wimpy!

   1♥:          The trouble with this bid is that it risks losing the Spade suit ... we certainly wouldn't want to bid

                   2♠ on the next round of bidding.  But make our 5-4-3-1 and 1♠ is preferable ... the rationale here

                   is that we may get a chance to introduce Hearts at the two-level.

   Double:  This keeps all our irons in the fire, even Diamonds, and is preferable to 1♥.

   2♣:          There's nothing much wrong with the aforementioned Double, but our real favorite is a Michaels

                   Cue-Bid.  True, it's not the perfect 5-5 shape, but the favorable vulnerability is more than

                   adequate compensation.  The major benefit that we see to using Michaels is it's preemptive

                   value ... we are white versus red, after all, a good time to bid more and bid it quickly.

 

On the actual layout, Michaels works very well indeed ... Partner bids 2♠, and now East, with a good hand is obliged to compete further with a Double ... this gets his side into trouble and -500 (in 3♣ doubled) will likely result.  However, if North decides to double 1♣, Partner bids 1♠, giving West an easier time ... he can rebid 1NT and escape the misery of 3♣ doubled.

 

 

26th July, 2006                  Board 20      Dealer West     Both Vul

 

 

We are too good to overcall 1♠, so how about Double?  That might work, at least it keeps all of the unbid suits in the picture … but the 5-card Spade suit is a negative.  Our own choice would be 2♥, a Michaels Cue-Bid, showing Spades and a minor.  If North then bids 2♠, we’ll try 3♠, inviting game.  If North bids 3♣ (which is “Pass-or-Correct”, indicating a moderate hand with a preference for our minor) we’ll try 3♥, showing a good hand, and giving Partner the chance to bid 3NT with a Heart stop.

 

System Note:  After that Michaels 2♥ bid, showing Spades and a minor, there are two common methods in use for asking which minor the Michaels bidder holds.

A.  Bid 2NT, after which the Michaels hand simply bids his minor.

B.  Bid 3♣, after which the Michaels hand passes with Clubs, or bids 3♦.

Method A is the "traditional" approach, is there any benefit to Method B?  Yes, we think so, it makes 2NT available for constructive purposes, the most useful of which is to show a decent hand with support for (in this case) Spades.  True, it means that 3♣ is no longer available as a natural bid, but that seems a small price to pay.

 

21st November, 2007        Board 11      Dealer South       None Vul

 

 

Partner has bid Michaels, showing the major suits, a bid that covers a wide range of possible strengths.  But even opposite the most humble of Michaels bids we would want to be in at least game.  That’s no reason to bid the game directly, though, we’d like to tell Partner, along the way, that we have a real 4♠ bid, not some preemptive weak hand with a big fit.  So, our choice would be to bid 4♦ here.  Partner won’t know whether we have Hearts or Spades (or both) in mind, but, knowing that we have a good hand, he will be able to act accordingly.

 

Boards 8, 14, 19 and 26    (5th December, 2007)

 

The common theme on these boards is that in each case one or other of the protagonists had the chance to make a two-suited overcall.

 

 Board 8 (None Vul)                                      

♠ J

♥ J6543

♦ AT983

♣ T5

South   West    North   East

            Pass    Pass    1♠

??

Anyone for a 2♠ Michaels call, showing Hearts and a minor?  Not a good idea, it seems highly unlikely that such a bid will achieve anything.  Partner is a passed hand, the opponents are probably headed for 4♠, and, at equal vulnerability, it seems unlikely that we have a worthwhile save at the 5-level.  We wouldn’t bother to bid here, why help out the opponents by giving them free information?

 

Board 14 (None Vul)

♠ K9532

♥ J8543

♦ 3

♣ 96

West    North   East     South

                        Pass    1♦

??

Again, Partner is a passed hand and the opponents clearly have the values for game.  If that game is 3NT we may have a profitable sacrifice in 4♥ or 4♠, and even if that is not the case, Partner may well be able to crowd their auction with a 3♥ or 3♦ bid.  Note that, on Board 8, one of the reasons a Michaels bid was likely to be futile was that West probably already knew that his side belonged in 4♠, so interfering in their auction would not achieve much.  But here, on Board 14, the opponents probably need to investigate whether the best game (or slam) is No Trump or a minor suit, and getting in there could be obstructive to those efforts.

 

Board 19 (E-W Vul)

♠ 8

♥ AQ543

♦ AT876

♣ 63

West    North   East     South

                                    1♣

??

2NT here would show Hearts and Diamonds (the two lower unbid suits), but it would not be a good idea:

-         West has no reason to think that his side should be competing to the 3-level

-         2NT is primarily a destructive bid, where as this West hand should be bidding constructively (all the more so as Partner is an unpassed hand)

-         The vulnerability is unfavorable

All in all, to bid 2NT here just because we happen to have the right distribution would be poor indeed, and a simple 1♥ is called for.

 

Board 26 (Both Vul)

♠ K5

♥ AKT98

♦ J

♣ 98532

North   East     South   West

            1♠        Pass    1NT

??

Yes, 2♠ here would still be Michaels, in this case showing Hearts and a minor.  It would also be misguided, and here’s why:

-         North has an intermediate hand, and most partnerships prefer that their Michaels bids are weak or strong, not somewhere in between

-         Bidding 2♠ would commit N-S to the 3-level, somewhat dangerous at this vulnerability.

-         Above all else, North wants a Heart opening lead from Partner and the best way to get that is to bid Hearts directly.

So we’d simply bid 2♥ here, giving up on competing for the part-score in Clubs.

 

 

 

© BES, Inc

All Rights Reserved