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Which Way Next?

Your partner opens the bidding with one of a suit and you can see 18 or 19 high card points in front of you. You have no particular fit for partner’s first bid suit but immediately you are focused on slam possibilities. Yet, even without taking into account the 9/10 hcp openers that partner justifies as opening 1-level bids, one important aim maybe not to get too high:

 

The game is Pairs. 

You take things slowly and partner limits their hand by not jumping, though the range of 2 could be 11 hcp, (or even less!) to a poor 17. Slam must still be on our agenda. So, we try 2, 4^th suit, maybe artificial, and forcing for one round or even to game, depending on your agreement. Our answer is both not unexpected and not very helpful. So, where to from here?

We asked our Panel this as well as whether they agreed with 2 as the initial best way forward. There was unanimous agreement about that, with this summing up everyone’s feelings:

Peter Newell “ agree with 2. I want to find out more about partner’s shape. Has partner got 5 Clubs? 6 Diamonds or a heart fragment? It is also hard to gauge at this point in the auction whether you belong in 3NT or slam (does partner open pretty aggressively?).”  

How forcing is 2?

Stephen Blackstock “For me, 2 is a one round force only, as a game force it makes many invitational hands very difficult to bid, as is commonly observed in the Bridge World Bidding Forum. I don't mind 2 here as it gives East a chance to describe his hand further before a more decisive action takes his space away.”

Nothing’s perfect and many do play 4^th suit forcing as forcing to game which does make some hands like the above easier (but not “easy”, or else there would be no problem!) to bid but creates difficulties when responder is in the 10-11 hcp range.

It is impossible here in our auction that East will show a spade hold. Indeed, where that is the case, a raise of 4^th suit below 3NT can say “I have nothing extra to say: please choose the best game.” That must be tempered if 4^th suit is just a one-round force. That use of 3 might then be why Leon makes his comment about the length of East’s diamonds:

Leon Meier “4: 3 should strictly promise 6 here. So let's imagine partner has
xx  x   AQxxxx  AKxx and we make grand slam.  This hand is entirely within range. This is therefore definitely worth a 4 slam try.”

There can be different meanings attributed now to 4 though the Panel generally see it as a slam try. Firstly, though, one less enthusiastic response concerning our outcome:

Bruce Anderson “3NT: given we are not playing a relay system, I cannot find out whether partner has gold like a 6 card diamond suit head by AQJ and the A. That being so and we are playing Pairs, I am not bidding a slam and getting a shared bottom if the slam goes down.”

Well, an uninterrupted relay would certainly help here but let’s see if we can match the relay bidders and find the best spot….somewhere between Leon’s 7NT and Bruce’s conservative 3NT.

While one says this is a tough problem and the other implies it is no problem, these next two panellists came up with the same very useful suggestion:

Michael Cornell “4NT: 2 is fine, which  I play as Game Forcing. I now bid 4NT which is quantitative.

If partner is near minimum this is plenty high enough.

I would have liked to continue with 4 but partner does not have to have 6 ( what else can he do with just 5 and no spade stop ?) Maybe 3, Michael?

This hand is tricky. Give partner   AQJxxx  and AKxx, we will normally have 13 top tricks but opposite something like xxx Q A9xxx AJxx I do not what to be in slam at all. 4NT is not even cold!”

One hand above is as per Leon!

Stephen Blackstock “4NT: This must be natural and invitational, as we do not have a suit agreed either explicitly or impliedly. If I wanted to set another suit, I would raise clubs/diamonds or rebid hearts. To me, this looks rather straightforward....”

I used to believe that in such an auction, 4NT was Key Card with the last bid suit implied as trumps. There is no need for that to be the case where 4 can either be suit set or Minorwood and if suit set, a subsequent 4NT can ask for Key Cards. So says:

Nigel Kearney “4NT: 2 is fine and I bid 4NT now. It depends on agreements but a quantitative 4NT is more useful. Overall I think our hand is safe in 4NT and good enough to be a favourite in 6NT if partner accepts. Something like xx xx AQxxx AKxx is probably going to need 3-3 diamonds if we get a heart lead but has better chances if not. A major suit jack would be very nice of course.

I never play Minorwood. 4 would agree diamonds and initiate cue bidding. If partner then goes past 4NT and I do not get to use Blackwood, I can live with that.”

Lysandra Zheng “4NT: I agree with 2. 3 unfortunately does not help us much, given that partner bids the same with 54 or 64 in the minors. I'll bid 4NT now, quantitative. We might play slam in diamonds if partner offers the suit. 4 would just be agreeing diamonds, slam interested, looking for cues. If Minorwood were on the card, I would expect it to apply here. Or at least I think both players in the partnership would take it as such.”

Peter Newell “4NT: Partner’s 3 helps a bit though partner may not have 6 diamonds with some hands. Now I would like to bid a quantitative 4NT. I think 4NT should be quantitative as I could suit set a minor or use Minorwood if that is part of our methods.  While my hand is good, and 6NT looks like it could be easily good particularly as a heart lead (I'm expecting partner not to have much in hearts) looks unlikely given I have bid them at the 1 level.  While 6 is probably better than 6NT, I'll aim for NT at Pairs.”

A nice use of 4NT and would have saved the disaster about to unfold. Did I say “disaster?” Take a look.

Had West bid 4NT quantitative, there safely he would have been left. East’s hand was on a different planet from Leon and Michael’s grand slam! I am sure most players would have opened that East hand.

This is a tale of two declarers who had two things in common, optimism being one. Neither used 4^th suit forcing and both bid very quickly to 6NT. Peter Newell (not one of them) was wrong in just one aspect. At both tables, the K hit the table very quickly. Both declarers realised they could not duck this lead..fine in 3NT, even 4NT, but not where they were.

They won the opening lead but then their paths diverged, both practically and mentally. The contract was fair on a non-heart lead, pretty solid on a low club lead to the ace but its success chances dropped to about 3.5% (remembering that for the 6-1 break to occur, the ace cannot be in the hand with the hearts).

One declarer looked for a miracle by cashing their diamond winners (they squeezed their own hand with 3 discards), then spades and finally the inevitable club lead. There was no way to avoid a second loser whether a spade in their hand or a heart in dummy. They were not optimistic about their chances and played like they were going down. The theoretical best slam, 6, would fail quickly to A lead and continuation.

The other declarer knew their fate and awaited it by playing clubs at trick 2. When 10 appeared and no heart was played at trick 3, they eased their way to 12 tricks using diamonds to communicate and take a necessary  finesse of 8. They survived! Very very lucky but we all are, sometimes. Yes, even you!

No recommendation for the way the slam was bid at either table. 2 followed by 4NT quantitative sums up the West hand well. Oh why did not either North open the bidding? 2 “well brought up players” who saw 4 spades along with 6 hearts. One probably wished their bridge education had not been so good!

Richard Solomon

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