ABF Members: Ask an expert What to Bid

Bidding:	WEST	NORTH	EAST	SOUTH
		Pass	1	2
	3	4	?

Comments: Given West's 3 bid is a decent raise to 4, what should East do?

(a) PASS
(b) DOUBLE
(c) 5

There is more to this question though.

At the table, East chose to PASS, which is clearly a forcing pass situation. This seems a reasonable option to me. Now the auction continues: Pass Pass to West, who holds:

7
KJ86
KQ43
K986

So the next question is what should West bid if East has passed 4 ?
(a) 5
(b) 4NT

(I do not consider DOUBLE to be an option.)

At the table I was West and Lauren was East - applying 'Andy Hung' principles about the 3 bid... So East's pass of 4 was encouraging - and I wasn't sure just how good the West hand was. I was always bidding 5, but is it good enough to bid 4NT on the way through to 5. I had determined that if Lauren bid 5 herself, I was raising to 6 - because she must have aces galore. 6 relies on the diamond fit - invert either hand's minors and 6 is a poor contract.

We played in the 5 contract that I bid (as West) over 4, but were wondering whether 6 is biddable with all the interference bidding?

Thanks,
Barbara

As East, after 4

I would consider 2 options - Double or Pass. The form of scoring matters too. In IMPs, getting a penalty of 500 vs. you making 650 is not a big deal (in fact, it is highly encouraged because you might not even be sure if 5

is making), but at matchpoints (MP) it is a disaster. As a result, if this was MP's I would definitely pass to get partner's opinion.

At IMPs it is not as clearcut as I am assuming 3

can contain hands with 3 card support. Having only 3 card support would be quite undesirable to play at the 5-level because for example you might run into a bad trump break or maybe you have a deep diamond loser etc. which are all entirely possible given the opponent's preemption. Given that I have the ace of spades (trump control) I can envision the defence getting

A, 1-2 heart tricks, both minor Aces, a minor suit king and quite possibly a club ruff too. As a result, I would again pass over 4

with the East's hand to get partner's opinion and I am confident that if partner only has 3 card support then they would most likely double.

This is a toughie - Partner has made a forcing pass so either partner will have unbalanced with no extras, or semi-balanced with 3 aces so slam is definitely not out of the picture. I think 4NT, 5

), and 5

are all reasonable bids. I will outline the pros and cons for each bid and you can decide which one you like best :)

- This bid is the middle of the road. This bid conveys to partner that we prefer to declare than defend so essentially it shows a spade shortage. Given that we only have 1 keycard (KC), 5

feels like it is a "value bid" showing what we have (note that we don't really have a good hand - obviously a 5 card minor suit is preferable to two 4 card suits, as 4 card suits require partner to have more HCP's for the suit to be helpful than a 5 card suit).

- This bid expresses slam interest and it gives partner a chance to last train with 5

. This bid is the more scientific bid if you like accuracy. You should be able to stop in 5

when partner only has 2KC (they can last train and we sign off), however, I think that if we cuebid instead of bidding 4NT we shouldn't have 2 or more KC's as this is just putting pressure on our slam bidding, so I think if we cuebid we only have just 1 KC. It is the times where partner has 3KC that we might be able to stop in 5

sometimes, but usually we will end up just bidding slam anyway. The downside to this 5

bid is that it allows the next opponent to double if a club lead happens to be the right lead to take slam off. You might think maybe you should cuebid 5

where you have KQxx but this also directs a potential lead of a club. Maybe 5

is actually better because you might prefer to stay in 5

when partner has xx in clubs.

4NT - This is the practical bid. Partner has made a forcing pass so it feels like any time partner has 3 Aces then slam should have good play, and if partner has 2KC then we want to play in 5H. It's true that partner might have the worst hand such as

AQTxxx

xxx but sometimes you can win the slam if you have an extra

J with a non-club lead, or if the minor suits were instead

Axx and you have chance of

A onside or a minor suit squeeze. We can be here making up hands for a while, but at the end of the day you need to compare if a 5m or a 5

bid will get you to stop at 5

or 6

when it's right opposite 3KC, when bidding 4NT will always get you to 6

, VERSUS the times that your cuebid might get doubled.

One side note I would like to add is that in competitive auctions, slams are (and should be) a low priority. Once in a while you might miss a good slam but more often than not, it is much more important to diagnose whether you should be defending, or competing 5 over 4, or even 5 over 5. These decisions are so cruicial to get right so you shouldn't be worried or disappointed if you happen to miss a slam with limited bidding space that was hindered by competitive bidding. I'm not saying you shouldn't bid 4NT with responder's hand - actually, my point is based on your comment below:

You mentioned: "I had determined that if Lauren bid 5

herself, I was raising to 6

- because she must have aces galore." Based on my note above I'm not even sure if it's right to 'hang partner' and bid slam. She certainly doesn't promise 3 aces because with enough shape such as 6-4 or 7-4 (e.g. x AQxxxx xx AQJx) she could certainly have bid 5

with those hands. Additionally, if partner has 3 aces then it is more than likely that partner will make a forcing pass than to bid 5

And one last thing. Over 1

-(1

) or 1

-(2

) I think it is very important to have bids to distinguish 3 or 4+ support because when you're faced with a 5-level decision, knowing the minimum number of trumps is crucial information. You could use 2NT/cuebid to distinguish them, for example.

What should I bid? - Best enquiry for September 2012