What should I Bid? - Best enquiry for April 2011

Edmund made the best submission for the month of April.

Hand: Dealer North, NS Vulnerable.

AJ87643  753  J  A7

K952  -  A1085  KJ942

Bidding:	West	North	East	South
		3	Pass	4
	Pass	Pass	Pass

Comments:    

It was an easy 13 tricks on any lead by the opponents. How should this partnership have reached 7 ?

Kieran's Reply:

I'd be a little impressed with any pair who found 7 without wild guesswork. However, I'd be unhappy not to reach six.

The beginning was poor. The gist of a preempt is that you have a poor hand (albeit one with playing strength) and with two aces, that's a poor description. For me, this is definitely good enough for a 1 opening. The seven card suit is worth a fair bit extra and the two aces constitute fair defensive strength.

Responder had it tough facing a 3 opening, which could include a lot of hands that offer very poor play for slam, or possibly no play at all if the opponents start with the right lead (probably a diamond). Without fancy systemic footwork, the 4 raise appears to be a cautious choice, but it would be difficult to elucidate better information with any other sequence.

After a 1 opening, it should be trivial to reach a small slam. The auction might go:

1 4 (splinter), 4NT 5 (two), 6

With void-showing responses, opener might be emboldened to try seven, but you'd need to locate an extra king to be sure.

Or, using an artificial forcing raise, like Jacoby:

1 2NT, 3 (0-1 ) 3 (cue), 4 (cue) 4 (cue), 4 4NT, 5 7

After opener shows a singleton diamond, club control, NO HEART CONTROL (else cue 4), responder knows that he's opposite a perfect hand with honours outside hearts, and can check on aces before bidding seven with high hopes. Opener shows two keycards with the trump queen, since he knows that his trumps are so long it's not needed.

Voidwood (aka Exclusion Keycard, or Exclusion for short) can also be used here. 1:5 is too impatient - more information is needed - but it could be used over 3 or 4 in the last auction. Most partnerships who play an exclusion keycard use a jump in a new suit higher than game as the keycard bid, so 5 here.

Without all of this whiz-bang science, you need good judgement. Playing very old-school methods, you might be able to bid something like

1 2, 2 3, 3 ?

Now responder will have to take his best guess, but it would be absurdly meek to not bid a slam when your partner has missed two chances to bid notrumps if he had hearts stopped, so it sounds like you're opposite a good-fitting hand without heart cards.

Kieran

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