Choose your poison ...

Some more questions resulting from board 5 this week:

Board 5 from Thursday 7/03/2019
Dealer N NS Vul

943
K9543
43
752
KT52
Q2
92
AT983
Q
AJT76
AQ85
KQ6
AJ876
8
KJT76
J4

East opens 1H. What would you do as South?
If South overcalls 1S, what would you do as West?
Do you play “Michaels”? If you do and are South, would you bid 2H?
If South bids 2H (Michaels, spades and a minor) what would you do as West?
These are just some questions that might come up in this deal. Have a think about them before reading on.

Most Souths would overcall 1S. Most Wests would, I guess, now bid 1NT and then East would bid 3NT. An easy path to 3NT, yet many Easts were in 4H, which was not a happy place. I cannot imagine any South not overcalling but if South chooses to pass, West should bid 1S (not enough HCP to introduce the longer clubs) and East would then jump shift to 3D and, again, an easy path to 3NT, this time by West.

But what could happen if South bids 2H as a Michaels cue bid. That might interfere sufficiently with the EW bidding to steer them into the wrong game (4H). Is it worth the risk of bidding Michaels with such a poor hand? Despite only 10 HCP, South’s 2H bid is justified, but only IF EW don’t know how to handle it and IF North does not get carried away in the belief that South actually has a GOOD hand for the vulnerable against non vulnerable bid.

If EW allow North to bid 2S and pass it out, the result will probably be something like down three or four, not good enough when there is a cold game on for EW, Too many people get away scot free with such bidding, there should be a way to extract a penalty when there is one. What I suggest is this; West can DOUBLE the 2H cue bid, not because West has heart support but because West is prepared to double NS in either 2S or their minor. Now, when North bids 2S and this is passed back to West, West has the obvious PENALTY double and 2S doubled is a disaster for NS. Of course in practice, with an inexperienced EW pair, the end result may well be a disaster for EW in 4H! Would YOU risk a Michaels on the South hand? The motto might well be: Choose your poison.

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