What should I bid? - Best enquiry for March 2011
The best submission for March came from Jan Hackett.
Hand: Nil vulnerable, I was North:
| Bidding: |
West |
North |
East |
South |
| |
|
1 |
Pass |
1
|
|
Pass |
4 |
Pass |
Pass |
|
Pass |
|
|
|
Comments:
What should the opening bid be? We can use 1 or 1 but also 2 (showing a weak 6 card major) or 2 showing at least 5 hearts and 4 in another suit with less
than 10 HCP. What is the best of these alternatives? (Note I didn't even
consider Pass!). 4 was the best contract - making 10.
Kieran's Reply:
Jan,
I don't mind 1 or pass. 1 seems misdirected, and likely to prevent you from landing in
your best fit. 2 hands over captaincy without describing the hand sufficiently
- this hand is likely worth two or three tricks more than most 2 openings. 2 is worse - you have excess playing strength for hearts and a
spade suit that would never, ever be found.
With most partners, the raise to 4 is an error. It's not that 4 rates to be a bad contract...it's more that the 4 bid shows a different hand. I would bid 1:1,4 with KQxx,AQxxx,Ax,Kx - (no shortage because I didn't
splinter, so almost certainly 4522) and I don't see how your partner can know
the difference. Having opened 1, I would raise 1 to only two. I don't think we'll play there anyway - partner
probably has enough strength to keep bidding, or the opponents might balance. 2 is a mild underbid on playing strength (less of an underbid in
a weak notrump system which mandates a 1NT opening on appropriate hands with
five hearts, where the single raise can't be a minimum balanced hand) but it
will keep partner's slam ambitions in check.
Some partnerships can rebid 4 more freely. Strong clubbers might play it as a distributional
punt like this, since the big high card hand opened something else. Or you
could play some other rebid (I've used 3NT in one partnership) to describe the
high card raise). But you can't make the same bid with your example hand and my
example hand and expect partner to guess well.
Passing these hands has never been my style, but one upside is that you might
be able to describe your hand type at your next turn in one bid, with a
Michaels Cuebid.
Kieran
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