What should I bid? - Best enquiry for April 2012
The best submission for April came from Geoffrey Hart.
Hand: Not vulnerable, playing MP
pairs I was West.
| Bidding:
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West
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North
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East |
South |
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Pass |
Pass
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1 |
Pass |
1 |
Pass |
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? |
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Comments: How should I continue?
Andy's Reply:
Hi Geoffrey
After partner responds 1 to your 1 opening you should rebid 3 - it's not wise to be thinking about rebidding 2 because that shows less than 15 points and there's nothing to
be ashamed about with that hand to be downgrading. Even your club suit is
filled with the T9 - compare a suit of KQT987 and KQ5432 - obviously the former
is much better than the latter.
It's true that partner responded in our short suit and is a bit of a turn-off,
but it is our duty to be showing partner our hand as that is what bidding is
all about - a dialogue and not a monologue.
Hope that helps,
Andy
Thanks Andy I think the "standard" reply of 3 is a gross underbid with this hand - the great texture of the
club suit and the great holdings in the red suits. Game in NT or clubs needs
very little help from partner. How does partner find out about your great red
cards after your 3 response? I'm inclined to make a second bid of 2 , giving partner more room to show his stuff. E.g. the
opportunity to bid an invitational 4th suit. Any thoughts?
Geoff
G'day Geoff,
I don't think 3 is an underbid at all. Yes it's true that the great texture
along with the good red suit holdings make our hand good but we must not
overstate our hand to partner. Our hand fits in perfectly within the 3 rebid range and you should (well I would!) trust partner to
bid a game if we have one. If partner passes 3 and we miss a game I would be very surprised if the fault was
mine because I personally do not see any fault with 3 (for example, if partner has the A that should not be "just 4 points" but more like 6 or
7).
"How does partner find out about your great red cards after your 3 response?"
Partner can't find out about our great red cards, but he knows the playing
strength of my hand with 3. If partner is, say, Kxx xxx in hearts and diamonds,
respectively, then assuming partner has enough playing strength to look for a
game partner can bid 3 showing us values in hearts but lacking diamond "stuff" for
3NT. It might seem like a 'disadvantage' for you to not being able to tell
partner about our great red cards but I think this is a red herring. Imagine a
constructive auction of 1-1-3. Now I can basically ask the same question: "how do you find
out about the great spade+club or diamond+club or spade+diamond cards with the
3 bidder?" The point is that you can't show *everything* to
partner about your hand but you can give a good definition of your hand to
partner and still work out which game to play in if there is one. Remember,
bidding in bridge (probably not rubber bridge) is about "telling partner what
you have", not about "bidding what you think you can make".
"I'm inclined to make a second bid of 2, giving partner more room to show his stuff. E.g. the
opportunity to bid an invitational 4th suit."
I personally do not like 2 (sorry!), I would only do this type of distortion is if...
(a) I had the same hand but my spades+hearts were reversed as I intend to show
partner my spades later to depict a hand shape of something like 3-1-4-5 or
3-1-3-6, or
(b) A hand too good to rebid 3 (so about 18+HCP) - yes it's true that you can agree to rebid
3NT with this hand type but sometimes you have 3-card M support for partner, or
you have a really strong hand and a rebid of 3NT would prevent any bidding
space for bidding scientifically.
(c) I have discussed with partner that this 2 bid does not promise diamonds.
However with our current hand there is nothing special to it so I will show my
playing strength with a 3 rebid. If you choose to distort your hand by bidding 2 with this hand then you are opening another can of worms and
you will no doubt encounter other different types of problems (as is often the
case when you bid a 3 card suit when you intend it as 4!).
Cheers,
Andy
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