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Bidding Problem #9, Dec.2005-Jan.2006: This month's hand tests your ability to deal with those wildly distributional hands and trying to figure out if what we can make is better than what we can set them (or they can make).
From the Friday afternoon session of the closed Westchester Tournament, with both sides non-vul, you hear partner open 1 diamond and RHO overcall 1 heart. You are looking at:
 AJ98xxx
 void
 T87xx
 x
You bid 1, LHO advances to 2, partner passes and RHO continues with 3. Please state your call and continuations over partner's possible responses.
Voting:
4: 3 votes
4: 3 votes
5: 2 votes
4: 1 vote
I listed 4 ahead of 4 here because at the table I actually bid 4 and since my bid was not counted in the voting I'm calling it a tie-breaker here. Once again, different partnership agreements come into play here, but with this weird a distribution can you really have agreements on this issue? The agreement mentioned here by Bruce Rogoff(4) and Pat Callahan (5) was support doubles and both felt it was on in this situation even though we have promised at least 5 spades with our 1 call. At any rate, partner should have fewer than 3 so the 4 call here gives him a chance to show 2 card support, or else a club suit or retreat to 5. This thinking was echoed by Nancy Molesworth, Nancy Widman and Carlos Munoz, but they differed upon continuations. Nancy Widman and Carlos both make slam tries if partner can bid 4 here, with Carlos cue-bidding 5 and Nancy bidding 5. Nancy Molesworth will pass a 4 bid and all three 4 bidders will convert partner's 5 bid to 5 (to play).
Among the 4 bidders, Bruce Rogoff feels that too often this will be the best scoring contract at matchpoints, but if this were imps he would be bidding 5 or 4 instead. Peter Kalat bids 4, but will run to 5 if doubled and will let partner decide what to do if the opps bid 5. The other 4 bidder Jason Fuhrman also raises an issue brought up by Bruce Rogoff: What is the meaning of RHO's 3 bid? Is it a game try or a bar bid. If it's a game try slam is less likely by our side and game may be close where as if it's intended as a bar bid we may likely have a slam. Jason also feels partner would call after LHO's 2 bid if he had 3 spades, 6 diamonds or 4 clubs, so he expects to find partner with 2 card spade support unless partner is exactly 1-4-5-3. I think most play that a 3 call by partner cannot be made with a minimum hand and 5-4 in the minors in this sequence but that is his agreement with his partner and strengthens his logic for the 4 call.
Pat Callahan thinks 5 will play better than the spade game and if it fails it is probably a good save. Rich Laufer also bids 5 and having gotten that off his chest will sit if partner decides to double the opps continuation to 5. Cliff Nebel is starting with a gentle 4 and doesn't think this auction is over. When the opps compete to 4 and partner passes, he will continue with 4 and with so many points missing he wouldn't be surprised if both sides have slam or if partial is the limit for both sides!
At my table, after I bid 4, partner bid 5 on his x,Jxx,AKQxx,Kxxx and I corrected to 5 which got doubled by RHO who held KQ,AKQxxx,x,Qxxx. Since spades broke 3-2 and both spade honors fell quickly, partner easily made 6 for +650. So on this particular layout the spade game was superior to the diamond game, but the diamond slam was the winner.
Ed Z. |
