What should I Bid? - Best enquiry for February 2008

The best submission for February came from Geoffrey Hart.

 Hand: NS vulnerable, dealer South, you are North and hold:

Q  AKJ762  AKQ53  K

Bidding:	West	North	East	South
				2
	3	?

Comments:    The 2 opening by South is part of standard multi, weak two in a major or 21-22 balanced. West's overcall is natural. How should North plan the bidding?

Sartaj's Reply:

Hi Geoffrey,

This hand is a nightmare !

I started discussing this with my partner Tony and he was equally clueless.

As you probably appreciate, both 3 and 4 are likely to be construed as "pass or correct" although there is a pretty good case for the latter to be natural (use 4 for the hands where we want to find out about partner's major).

I would try 3 as pass/correct and when partner bids the expected 3 bid, then I'd try 4 and hope partner gets the gag. And if he happens to bid 4 over that, we are committed to passing this and hoping his spades are something like KJ10xxx.

A good hand for a partnership to sort out its competitive methods after the multi.

A treatment that is very popular in other parts of the world, but not so much in Australia, is that after 2 multi we use
4 = partner please bid one under your major (i.e. bid 4 with hearts and 4 with spades)
4 = partner, please bid your major
4/4 = natural, this is my suit.

This agreement helps to right-side the contract when relevant and also addresses the issue of responder having their own self-sufficient major suit.

Enjoy bridging
Sartaj Hans

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