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Being a nuisance!

                                                Weak Bids do Work.

Well, they do but this particular one should not have worked as well as it did in many cases. Ironically, the wrong bid by North could have worked out better than the bid they should have made.

 

Neither side is vulnerable and 2 was a standard Weak 2. What is your choice?

The bid chosen by many was simply to bid game in hearts. North would feel aggrieved if this game was defeated. Yet, would your partner necessarily expect you to be that strong?

That was the problem when South filled all the gaps in that North hand.

 

That would have been the bidding at many tables as 4 was the final contract. South might have wondered how useful their hand could be at a higher level. There would surely be no spade loser and the Q would be a handy filler. Yet, 4 could be bid on a king and queen less than actually held. Surely the 5-level would be safe?

It would also be unlikely that North did not hold one of the top club controls. Even if Key Card Blackwood produced a 0 or 3 response, slam would still be rather a guess, small slam that is. An alternative bid by South over 4 could be a 4 cue followed by 5 over 5 cue from North. That would certainly interest North a lot. If they can then determine that South holds Q, perhaps implied by the 4 cue-bid, then North can bid grand.

Yet, perhaps, North is just too strong to jump to 4. Q and A opposite and nothing else would guarantee small slam. With nothing else, the bidding would probably die at the 4 level. There is just one practical alternative, fine in theory but one which is likely to end the bidding…double of 2. North’s intention would be to bid 4 over anything their partner said though with the actual South hand, South would likely elect to defend the doubled opening bid. From their point of view, they could not underwrite game opposite a minimum reopening double. “Take the money” and there should be plenty of it though not to compensate for the missed small or grand slam.

South would start with Q, overtaken in case it was singleton. East ruffs the heart continuation and plays a spade to the J in dummy. If they continue with a second spade, South wins and likely switches to the requested club. A heart continuation, ruff and overruff and a second club should see the defence take 3 trump tricks, a heart, three diamonds and AK, 9 tricks in total, or + 800 in total.

East might escape for one trick less if having discovered the expected bad trump break when they play a spade to the jack, they lead a low club from dummy and North, as they probably will, rises with K, or if not, East guesses to play J. That 2 left in dummy might just be a threat if North carries on with hearts, though they should be able to cash the defence’s minor winners before a fourth heart is played. -500 is a significant improvement on -800 when a significant proportion of the North-South field were conceding -510.

The same choice of doubling or bidding 4 should occur if East starts with a Multi 2 and South restrains any initial thought of overcalling. We can see that the grand is biddable if North jumps prematurely to 4 and South cue-bids while perhaps the better start with a double ends in penalising East. This time, the penalty does not compensate for the missed slam, small or grand, but it should beat all those left to play in 4 and make an oh too quick claim for all the tricks.

To emphasise the problem, in a field of varying standard, one pair bid to grand slam, 18 to small slam while 5 exacted the 800 penalty from 2x and 103 played in game, making the lot. Weak Two and pre-emptive bids do work. (Thanks to XClub for providing this information.) 

Richard Solomon

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