Two quite interesting deals from a match point session this time. I polled my panel on some of the questions that came up during the bidding of these hands, and there were some interesting answers.
Hand 1. Dealer E All Vul
The bidding problem was:
| South | West | North | East |
|---|
| - | - | - | Pass |
|
1 | Pass | 1 | 2 |
|
| ? | | | |
What would you bid now and why?
Nearly all of the Open players opted for ‘an overbid’ of 4C. This is a ‘splinter’ bid that shows good trump support, a singleton club, and enough (by inference) to want to be in 4H. The intermediates who answered were less optimistic and mostly opted for 3H. Why do I think 4C is better? If you play splinters, and I strongly urge that you do, then the knowledge of what you think your hand is worth could be of great interest to partner, as it is of course in this case. And if you do put your partner in 4H with an absolute minimum response in her hand, just hope that partner is up to finding the best line of play. It is very difficult to imagine many hands that North could have that would not give 4H a play. If we are using my version of “TNT” then 8 trumps and a minimum 20 combined HCP would come to eight tricks, but allow for the singleton in opponents’ suit and possibly an extra heart (as North had here) plus a few more points in North’s hand, plus the inevitable poor defence and good declarer play, and 4H becomes a near certainty! And, with the actual hand that North had in this deal, North was indeed very interested, and after the normal Key Card ask ended up in 6H, expecting that at worst a spade finesse might be required and likely to succeed given East’s 2C bid. Bidding slams at match points is not always a good idea, but isn’t it great when you are the only ones in a field of 15 to bid and make one.
Hand 2. Dealer W NS Vul
The Bidding:
| South | West | North | East |
|---|
| - | Pass | 1 | Pass |
|
1 | Pass | 2 | Pass |
|
| ? | | | |
This one could prove to be a tricky one for two reasons. The main one being: would a bid of 2H be forcing? It would be great to be able to bid 2H as a forward move, but not everybody plays it that way, I certainly don’t with most partners. If 2H is not forcing, what else can we do? One possibility is to bid 3H and take your chances in game, whether it is partner or you who ends up playing it. At least partner will know that you have five spades and four hearts, and you’re not that far from having game values.
I had one very interesting email conversation with Gerry, which I will relate here.
Gerry: “2H. Natural and forcing, nothing else has any merit.”
Vil: “Does everyone play 2H as forcing?”
Gerry: “yep. Overseas they even play a convention called ‘Reverse Flannery’ to cover the weak 5S-4H hands – 1m-2H weak 5S+4H. Round here people just pass 2C and hope for the best”.
Vil: “I have learnt one thing over the years. Every time some impossible bidding problem comes up, the experts devise a way round it, which may not come up for another thousand hands, like the reverse Flannery that you mention here, which seems to me a great idea. With my current partner I actually play the jump shift to 2H or 2S (also to 3C and 3D over 1H or 1S) as weak 6+ cards and not enough to respond at a lower level, and that works well and comes up much more than Flannery would.”
Gerry: “Exactly! That’s why I have never tried it. I like simple general rules, and one of these, for me, is that new suits are almost always forcing. With Scott we even play that 1H-1S-2C is forcing! Of course that leaves a few weak hands unbiddable, but you pays your money and takes your chances.”
So there you have it. When this was actually played I bid 2NT with the South hand, passed all round. Take another look at the full deal and decide for yourself what could, would, or should, happen.
