Hand 33  Tuesday 29^th June 2010

      Love All … dealer North

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In the uncontested auction, an important principle is that one of the partners assumes the rôle of “Captain of the bidding”. The other partner then attempts to describe and limit his hand as accurately as possible and the ‘Captain’ is able to judge the best denomination and level of the contract. Here, we have an interesting sequence where both players reverse: North’s 2♦ bid shows around 16 – 19 points without primary heart support and clubs longer than diamonds. When South makes a responder’s reverse with 2♠, which is 4^th-suit forcing, she becomes the Captain and asks for further clarification … North would then show three-card heart support if he held it or some help in stopping spades so that the hand can be played in NT (North’s first rebid indicated that he cannot have four spades). The 2NT answer suggests the denomination and shows the bottom of the range of strength (16/17 points); with more, he would jump to 3NT. This could be useful information if South were contemplating a slam.

East has an unenviable choice of leads against 3NT. As it happens, everything helps declarer somehow or other. A club would be the least damaging, but I think many would agree with the choice of a spade, which occurred at Table 5. Capturing the ♠Q, North tested clubs with ♣K and ♣A. When they broke even, eleven tricks were assured but declarer had the chance of a twelfth. He could set up the second spade trick (when West would likely play a third round) and then play for a red suit squeeze; after 3 rounds of spades and 5 more of clubs, declarer would have:-

                                      ♥ A9

♦ A95   

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♥ KJ10

♦ K8                     

and neither defender who started with the ♥Q and four diamonds could keep both suits covered. This type is called an Automatic Squeeze because it works against either defender and in this case it’s quite easy to play because there is no need even to count cards – just cash the top hearts first to see if the ♥Q falls … if it doesn’t, see if you have three diamond tricks.

                                                Norman Stephenson (30/06/10)

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Hand 24  Tuesday 15^th June 2010

        Love All … dealer West

There were several instructive points of approach-forcing bidding theory on this hand as it was bid at Table 5 last Tuesday:

(1)    Two of the down-sides to overcalling are the risk of penalties and the possibility, if one is outbid, of having helped declarer place the enemy high cards/suit lengths and so play the hand better. Here, the former risk is lessened because East, knowing that West could not open the bidding in the first place, would be more moderate if he were to take any action. Three of the up-sides are the chance of buying the contract (for a better score, plus or minus), interfering with the opponents’ bidding or indicating a good lead for partner. All of these might well be present in this hand and I would say that this is a good overcall at the vulnerability.

(2)    Without the interference 1NT would look to be a preferable bid, but now North has to introduce this awful diamond suit; the 2-over-1 might be correct in a technical sense but it could lead to South misjudging the value of any diamond honours she held - e.g.  ♦ Qxx might look attractive but would be useless.

(3)    This is a reverse, which is primarily shape-showing (hearts are longer than spades) but since it forces preference at the three-level it needs to have the extra strength (3 or 4 points) for that additional trick. Most players need 16/17+ points before they reverse so after an initial 2-level response it becomes virtually a game-forcing bid. Here, a 6-loser hand, with a semi-fit for partner in diamonds, justifies the 2♠ bid.

(4)    Had there been no overcall from West, this would have been “4^th-suit-forcing” asking mainly that partner describe her hand further … it could be showing a club suit - but not necessarily. There is no question that North wants to play in a club contract here and 3♣ is what is called a “directional asking-bid”. It asks partner to bid NT with ‘an adequate holding in clubs’. Also, as in this case, the ‘directional’ element can come to the fore - it is important that North play the NT contract if she held ♣ Qx 

(5)    With no help in clubs and minimum strength, North cannot make any positive move. Perhaps, having the 3-card support, raising to 3♦ might have shown the shape better (4-5-3-1); that would have ended the auction because North could not contemplate making 11 tricks in diamonds – only 9 tricks are available.

(6)    With a minimum hand for his bidding up to now, no support for partner’s suits and hearing minimum bids opposite, North now decides to ‘play it safe’ and pass … it is very rare to stay out of game after a 2-over-1 plus a reverse and at rubber or  teams scoring it would have been a tougher decision to make. Sure, if hearts had split  3:3  ten tricks would then have been possible (4♥+4♠+♣A+♦A) but that would happen only about a third of the time … which makes it a bad bet at any form of scoring. 

           Norman Stephenson (16/06/10)

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