The Value of a Trump Suit

The bidding by NS on this hand should be so simple that I am quite shocked to see that only FOUR of TWELVE pairs at my Hutt club ended up in 4H, the others playing the hand in either 3NT or 2NT.

Board 16 from Wednesday 7/08/2019
Dealer W EW Vul

	T5 KQT9653 9 943
K32 J87 T875 Q82		Q976 42 KQ4 AT75
	AJ84 A AJ632 KJ6

Even the learners should be taught why they choose a suit to be trumps. It should be a very simple lesson. You choose a suit to be trumps so that you can take tricks with as many of the trump cards as possible. Taking tricks is the very basis of our game of bridge, as it indeed is in many other card games.

If no suit has been designated as trumps, or one of the other suits is trumps, how many tricks can North seriously expect to make from the heart suit? NONE! But if hearts are TRUMPS, North will make at least FIVE tricks in the suit. If there are no trumps, how can North expect to make ANY tricks from the heart suit unless South has the ace and another heart. No other way will the North hand be allowed to take the heart tricks UNLESS hearts are TRUMPS, a totally different story; there will be LOTS of tricks from North’s trump suit to go with any tricks outside the trump suit that South can contribute. Try it yourself
by clicking here.

There is another matter that I should mention. Learners are taught that they should have SIX high card points in order to respond to partner’s opening bid of one of a suit. Should North, then, PASS when partner opens 1D? That would be almost as ludicrous as allowing partner to play in No Trumps, you must agree. North’s hand is so good in hearts that North should not only respond with 1H but then be prepared to keep bidding hearts until the four level if necessary. Once North can see that, the bidding should then proceed to the inevitable conclusion: 4H.

If South rebids 1S, North bids 2H and if South then jumps to 3NT, North of course bids 4H. Or, South might jump shift to 2S when North responds 1H, and the same end result should follow.

To summarise: North’s hand becomes huge when South opens the bidding, whatever South’s opening bid may be. 4H should be the obvious end result no matter what South does next or how the bidding proceeds after North’s 1H response. That should not be too difficult for most players to understand.