What should I bid? - Best enquiry for November 2012

The best submission for November came from Sartaj Hans.

Hand:     South dealer, EW Vulnerable, the West hand is:

64  875  A4  A98642

Bidding:	WEST	NORTH	EAST	SOUTH
				1
	Pass	1	Dbl	3
	?

Comments:      What should I bid, Andy?

Andy's Reply:

G'day Sartaj,

Good problem. It's certainly not an everyday thing that I am faced with a bidding problem where three players have acted with the opener making a jump rebid!

First thing's first, whenever I am faced with unfavourable vulnerability and everyone has taken a bid/call except me, I am more inclined to think that it is my partner who has the full values (certainly that may not always be the case, but it often is). Players these days (myself included, and I'm sure you are too) like to take advantage of favourable vulnerability and as a result, they would tend to respond(bid) on (very) light hands. Even the 3 rebid here could have been made on a lighter hand such as a 12 or 13 count with a seven card suit (though I am a tad curious about their hand since I'm the one staring at the A).

Having said that, it still doesn't help my situation any better. Two things that I really like about my hand is that I have 2 aces (A for tempo control, A for suit establishment) and that I have a sixth club. These are strong enough reasons for me to act, and if I could, I would bid 3 asking for a spade stopper. I only have a doubleton spade and given that opener didn't mention anything about the degree of their spade length (i.e. didn't support spades or they didn't make a support redouble if they play that), partner is very likely to have one so I prefer my partner to play in NT. I don't really want to bid 4 with this (semi)balanced hand as a 5 contract seems like a high target, so I prefer to go for the 9-trick game.

Cheers,
Andy

Sartaj: Thanks Andy, I bid 3 at the table but partner was unwilling to bid 3NT with xx in diamonds. From his point of view, this was the only cue-bid available so did not necessarily constitute a spade stopper ask. Perhaps I should have manned-up and bid 3NT myself ? :)

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