Bidding Is Hard

Questions and talk about interesting deals and situations.
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rod
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Bidding Is Hard

Post by rod »

I'm presenting this hand as food for thought. Many will disagree with my approach here, and that's fine, you may have better methods. The point is to think ahead about the bidding and card play.

You pick up this hand at IMPs, all vulnerable, three passes to you.

♠ AK
AQ8
K98642
♣ AK

Not bad! You pretty much have to open 2♣. And of course your robot partner responds 2.

If you treat this as an unbalanced hand with diamonds, you're effectively starting constructive bidding at the 3-level. If partner doesn't have a fit then they'll likely end up as declarer in 3NT or whatever their suit is. Even if they have a diamond fit they'll be declarer. Not pretty. This is why I like Big Club systems, but alas we're not playing that.

So I rebid 2NT. Partner bid 3 (transfer), I dutifully said 3♠ and pard bid 3NT.

I think most would now pass. But the problem with playing in notrump is that dummy may never get the lead nor take any tricks. If dummy has poor diamond support and no heart King you'll be in big trouble.

By the way the thinking we're discussing here needs to be done before opening the bidding, as the situation is entirely foreseeable and you don't want to put partner in the position of appearing to act on unauthorized information.

So I bid 4♠ and partner surprised me with a 6♠ call!

Partner's hand was:

♠ QJ852
976
--
♣ QJ753

The slam made easily after a heart lead. At the other table 4NT was down a trick (I have no idea what happened there).

How would you and your partner bid this?
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