rmnka447

A simple question -- What best describes my hand? -- often works well in these situations. Your hand has 15 HCP, 2 1/2 QTs and a diamond stopper. So 2 NT stands out as your bid. Double is out because of the doubleton heart. If partner bids 2 ♥ over your double, you just won't know what to do. Better to avoid that trap and you did. The other option is pass, but your side may never recover if you do, especially if South raises to 3 ♦. At the table, I'd certainly squim a little before making the 2 NT call, but still make it. Anyhow, partner easily has a 4 ♥ call once you make the 2 NT bid. If partner had other hands, the 2 NT call would probably help most in making the right decisions whatever the opponents do.

West has a 5 loser hand, that's too much to invite. West's choices for a rebid should have been between 3 ♥, 4 ♥, or 4 ♠. Of those, I like the 4 ♥ splinter the best. It's the most descriptive and possibly opens the way to slam if the opponent's have very aggressive with their overcall and raise.

Not absolutely forcing because opener just can't tell who has what. I'd expect the 4 S bidder to double with good values, bid on with distribution, and just pass with anything else.

Look at the hands, folks! 4 S on a total on 17 HCP is a little much. In all auctions, at some point, someone has to limit the value of their hand. I don't have a problem with South opening 1 H on the hand. It does have 2 1/2 QTs, both majors, and intermediates in both suits. It's a VERY light opening. It's also OK to pass it if that's your style. After the 2 C bid, the negative double is OK too because of the long Diamond suit. Normally, with a balanced hand, you'd need 10+ HCP to double at the 2 level. But here, if the opponents compete further to 3 Clubs, you'll bid Diamonds showing long diamonds and not enough values to bid 2 D directly. After the 3 C bid, opener has a clear pass. Yes, he does know there is a 4-4 spade fit. However, a direct 3 S bid would shows at least 13-14 HCP and 4 Spades. The pass at this point limits his hand to a minimum opener. His partner will still have another chance to speak and allow his side to compete. If his partner, in pass out seat reopens with a Double, he will know his partner has the 10+ point hand and now a competitive bid of 3 S becomes OK. Doubler will then be in position to make the right decision should the opponents bid on. As it happens, the negative doubler will bid 3 D when 3 C is passed back to him. Opener now knows that the doubler doesn't have a hand strong enough (11-12+ HCP and 5+ Ds) to make a direct free bid. When the opponents compete to 4 C,the negative doubler has a tough decision to make. At IMPs, the decision is easy -- just pass and take your positive. At Matchpoints, the decision is more difficult. But looking at a stiff in partner's suit and the S A, prospects are good that 4 C can be defeated. Therefore, he should Double. They'll be times that 4C doubled will make, but that the nature of Matchpoints. But the issue is that 4 C undoubled down 2 is less than any partscore that you could make. The defense should go singleton Heart to opener's A or K. Cash the second H honor on which doubler makes a discouraging signal in Ds. A third heart is led showing a suit preference for Spades. Doubler ruffs, cashes the S A, and continues Spades. The result 4 C doubled down 2 for a +300 and a good score.

Bidding is an imperfect science, at best. Just because game or slam makes doesn't mean you can always get there as good bidders. As the previous commentors have pointed out, it's just the inherent inability to convey perfect pictures of your hands with the limited bids available that causes this. Interesting, though, if the suits were reversed (i.e. the clubs were hearts and vice versa), you would be in game as the bidding would go 1 H - 4 H.

The hand is worth an opening bid. You have 3 Quick Tricks and 12 HCP so the hand is worth a 1 H bid. But the hand is a bear minimum. Why? There are a number of reasons. Let's say your hand instead of what you held, the hand was S x H AKxxxx D AJxx C xx. This is a much stronger hand because the As are in your long suits making them stronger. The minor honor, in this case, the J, is working in association with a higher honor. The "same" 12 points -- 2 As, a K and a J, but a much better hand. Let me carry this example one step further and change the example hand even further -- say the hand was S x H AK109xx D AJ10x C xx. The difference this time is that you have intermediate cards working in conjunction with your honors in your long suits. They have created tenace positions in those suits that can reduce the number of loser in those suits. As you can see, there are a number of factors that increase or decrease the trick taking power of any hand given a particular "set" of points -- honors, especially high honors in long suits, minor honors (i.e. Qs and Js) working in conjunction with As and Ks, and having good intermediates with your honors. Now let's look at the actual hand you held -- S A H AKxxxx D xxxx C Jx. One of your As is a singleton rather than in a long suit. Your second suit has no high honor. The J is not working with any other honor (often referred to as a dangling J) and, in fact, is in a doubleton making it virtually worthless. So although you have the values for an opening bid, there are several negative factors to the hand. Top tournament players go through the process of mentally evaluating these factors when looking at their hands. If the positives and negatives off set each other, they'll treat the point count at about where it is. If there are more negatives, then they'll tend to treat the hand as if it were less in value. Conversely, if there are more positives, they'll treat as if were slightly higher in value. Most of them don't necessarily quantify this difference -- but you will hear them refer to a point count as "good", "great", "bad", etc. Your hand would probably be called a "terrible" 12 and at every opportunity they would take the minimum action available. So after partner bids 1 Spade, you take the minimum action of rebidding your heart suit. 1 H 1 S 2 H and after partner invites with 2 NT, you simply rebid your hearts again -- bringing home the message that you have an opener with a H suit and that's about it. 1 H 1 S 2 H 2 NT 3 H If partner wants to go further he is on his own. BTW, Marty Bergin wrote a short, fairly cheap (7 or 8 bucks) book on Hand Evaluation that goes into the concepts introduced above in more detail and is an excellent introduction to this facet of bidding. I think it's still available.

Assume you are playing 2 C Strong, 2 D waiting, Cheapest suit second negative. This may that rare hand where even though South has a very positive response hand he should make waiting bid of 2 D. North is advertising a big hand -- either NT type hand or a big black hand with 3 or 4 losers. So, 2 C 2 D 2 S 3 D 4 C 4 D 5 C ? North has a guess as to the best place to play. He knows that there is no more than a 7 card fit in either black suit. So I'd probably opt for 5 D at this point realizing that the D fit is no worse than the other suits and may be more than 7 cards. After which, I think North should pass. 6 C is actually the best contract, but if North held C AQJxx instead it wouldn't be. No way for South to know. If the strong 1 C ers have the tools to get to the C slam on this hand more power to them.

Partner has no less than an 8 loser hand. You have an 8 loser hand. So you rate to take no more than 8 tricks on most hands. A clear pass.

Opener is marked for being at least 5-5. Responder didn't support either so has no more than 4 cards in the majors. The auction shows no known suit fit, but the 2 D (4th suit forcing to game?) shows values. It all leads me to a D lead -- the 3.

Using a variant of Drury/Reverse Drury or not is more a matter of bidding style. Some players may choose to opt for sound openers in all positions. Then Drury variants are redundant. Well, you might ask, what do these players do these players do with hands that Drury would normally be used on? Most likely they are opening most of these hands with a major suit weak 2 bid in third seat often with only 5 cards in the suit.

Several key pieces of information exist. The 1st is East's lead directing double. The second is the lead of the C 3. The third is the play of East's C 8 to the first trick. The Diamond discards and Heart follow suit also give some information. Assuming Standard leads and signals -- the C 3 pretty much marks West with at least 5 Clubs. If West held only 4 Cs, even AKx3, a good player would likely honor the request for a D lead by East. The C 8 from East can't be the top of a doubleton if the C 3 is an honest 4th best lead. It can only be from 3 to an honor. It might be from 8x or from K8 doubleton if East has made a deceptive lead. The Diamond and Heart cards played tell you West started with 3 Hs and 2 Ds, East with 3 Hs and 4 D AQJ8. So West's hand is 5 Cs, a known 3 Hs, 2 Ds and therefore 3 S. The discard of the 2nd D by west is also significant -- it confirms 5+ Cs in the West hand. For if only 4 C were held, West would have 4 Ss along with 3 Hs and 2 Ds. In which case, West could pitch a Spade and retain the 2nd D to get to partner. Finally, East Diamond discards and especially the D J is significant. East holds 4 Ds, 3 Hs and 2 or 3 Cs and either 4 Ss (when holding 2 Cs) or 3 S (when holding 3 Cs). Wouldn't East discard a Spade from xxx, xxxx or even Qxxx rather than discard the important D J when South is known to hold the D K. So the evidence strongly suggests East holds Qxx of Spades. So finesse. Even if it loses, you might still have a chance if East started with C K8.

I would pass partner's rebid of 3 NT. 2 C is fine for your original response. Typically, that shows 0-7 HCP, but sometimes it's easier to add value to a hand if partner makes another call, then overstate your values originally. The only reason to bid on, is if you think slam is likely. Even with the D AK, there's just no way for you to know if that's a possibility. If opener has psyched and slam is cold, so be it. Better to stay fixed and take your sure positive. Partner is extremely lucky to find you with the diamond pieces and a partial H stopper. You could be on zero points. I think partner's correct call after your 2 C bid is 3 S. Partner does have 20 HCP, but the H KQ are in front of the 1 H opener and probably not worth their full value. I would have expected partner to have a solid spade suit maybe AKQJxx for his 3 NT bid. With 2 QTs, I'd raise partner's 3 S bid to 4 S. 4 S would be a reasonable contract, all else being equal. The 5-0 spade break is normally only a 4% probability, but with the H opening bid it's a little more likely -- but still well below 10%.

2 H is right with this hand so long as partner undertstands that a 2 H bid can be made on a minimum. There are several reasons why this should be done. First, it allows the partnership to identify that a 4-4 heart fit exists when a 5-3 spade fit also exists. In that case, playing in the 4-4 fit allows you to potentially use the long spades for discarding losers. So, it is normally preferable to do so. It also prevents you from losing the heart suit altogether. Give partner a fairly flat 13 with 3 Spades and 4 Hearts -- the likely rebid after a 2 S minimum rebid is 4 S. Second, it makes responder's rebids and subsequent bids cleaner, clearer. If you are forced to bid 2 S with the hand you gave, then what would the following sequence (opponents passing throughout) show -- 1 S - 2 D - 2 S - 3 H - 3 S - 4 S? Could partner just be checking for a 4-4 H fit? Or, is partner showing a hand with extras, a spade fit, and C shortness? Allowing opener to rebid 2 H with your example hand limits this sequence to the latter. It also allows responder to adhere to a basic tenet of 2/1 bidding that responder adds value to his hand anytime he bids a new suit after opener's rebid. Third, it may make opener's subsequent rebids easier. After the following sequence -- 1 S - 2 D - 2 S - 2 NT - ? -- what do you bid with your example hand? Either 3 H or 3 S might be right depending on what responder holds. But after 1 S - 2 D - 2 H - 2 NT, you have an easy 3 S bid and have fully described your hand.

Hand 1 - Assuming the 2 D bid presumably shows the majors, then the bid of a major shows a hand with values. Lacking any specific agreement to the contrary, 4 NT must be an ace asking bid. If opener really wanted responder to pick a minor a simple rebid of 5 C would suffice. This would also insure that the strong hand would be declarer. Responder could then pass or correct. Hand 2 - The standard agreement is that in non competitive auctions (i.e. 1H - P - 4 H - P - 5 H, etc.), a raise to 5 asks about trump quality. But in competitive auctions where the opponents have bid a suit, a direct raise to 5 asks about a control in the opponents suit. If you want to vary from that interpretation, then you need to have a specific agreement about it with your partner. Responder has the option to make a cue of 3 D followed by a later jump to 5 H to ask about trump quality. Unless you have a specific agreement to the contrary, the culprit is the rebid of 2 H by opener. Since it is a higher ranking suit, it forces responder with a minimal hand to preference back to Clubs at the 3 level. Therefore, it should show a very strong hand (17+ value). From responder's viewpoint, slam is almost assuredly a make opposite such a hand provided a D control is present to prevent the opponents taking 2 quick Diamond tricks. That's because if the overcaller has made an overcall on any reasonable Diamond holding opener must hold the right values in the remaining suits for slam.