Sunday 3/27/2011

No hand records for the team game.

Competition Corner:

You deal and open 1D with AQxx K10xx Kxx xx . Your left-hand opponent (LHO) preempts with 3C. Partner doubles -- a negative double, basically a takeout double of clubs. RHO passes. The correct bid is 3S -- this is not an "up the line" bidding situation, a player who doubles will not freely bid their own four card suit. Generally, bid down-the-line over doubles. Partner now bids 3NT -- that's to play, right? Wrong! Partner could've bid 3NT if that's all he wanted to play; the double was clearly aimed at finding a major suit fit. Partner does not have 4 spades, so assume he has 4 hearts. You are not increasing the level of the bidding; four of a major can often be made with somewhat less high-card strength than required for 3NT. Bid 4H.

Partner's hand might be Kxx AJxx Axxx Jxx -- if you don't have a major suit, partner is gambling you have something like Qx in clubs.


Finding a minor suit slam over 2NT:

Partner opens 2NT and you have xx xx AJxx AQ10xx . That's 31-32 hcp, plus one for each doubleton if you can find a fit, so you should be thinking of slam in a minor. 6NT is generally poor with less than 33 hcp, unless you can count 12 tricks. How can you probe for 6C or 6D? I doubt many partnerships have a specific way to bid this hand. Generally, it pays to play the same basic system over 2NT that you use over 1NT, it isn't worth the memory burden of having a different system (though many do play Puppet Stayman.) A common use of 2S over 1NT is to ask opener to bid 3C, after which responder passses or corrects to 3D with 6+ in a minor and a weak hand. Over 2NT, it would be silly to try and stop in 4C or 4D, so 3S must be some sort of slam try. However, I would use that with a single minor six cards or longer.

With both minors, I think the best approach is to bid Stayman, then bid your longer minor over opener's reply. (Puppet bidders will have to make sure that doesn't show some other hand. I'm not a fan of Puppet because it puts too much focus on showing opener's five card major at the expense of bidding some common hands for responder.) To go back to the 1NT case, 1NT-2C-2H-3C is forcing, shows some doubt about playing 3NT (so an unblanced hand) and suggests a second suit if the partneship has an agreed way to make a forcing bid with a single-minor-suited hand. The second suit may or may not be the other major; opener can try the other major and if responder actually has both minors he'll go back to notrump.

Over 2NT, responder bids 3C, opener replies normally, and responder bids 4C suggesting clubs, a second suit, an unbalanced hand, and slam interest. Opener can then bid a second four-card suit if he has one, rebid a five card major, or retreat to 4NT (natural when we're just looking for a fit.) With the given responding hand, raising to six should be a good bet if opener bids diamonds or raises clubs. If not, 4NT should be safe. Note that 4NT is not Blackwood when the search for a fit continues beyond 3NT.