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The new “boss suit”!

You heard perhaps that spades is the “boss suit”. That is so because whoever holds the spade suit should be able to outbid their opponents, even sometimes outbid their partner. It’s a major suit, too, and thus outscores minor suit contracts. Who wants to play in a minor suit anyway, especially clubs?!

 

There are perhaps three choices West could make, 1NT, 2 or 5. The textbook says you need 10hcp to call a new suit at the 2-level, with 1NT available for most 6-9hcp hands without heart support. Hence, here that is an option. So, too is the unusual but descriptive jump to 5, with the number of clubs exceeding the number of high-card points. 5 is a gamble but seems one worth taking.

Yet, the hand is worth a 2 call, with a lot of potential if partner is strong as the lack of opposition bidding might suggest. Certainly, partner will expect more high card points but they cannot deny the trick-taking potential of this hand...with one condition!

Lowest but best!

Yet, whichever approach you take, the final contract needs to be in clubs. That is why even offering 1NT as an option feels wrong. While it is very unlikely to be passed out, imagine if partner had a 15 count with Ax. Even then, 1NT is the wrong place to be, either too low or the wrong denomination.

It is against the odds that partner has 2 clubs, let alone the ace and if partner has 0 or 1 club, then you will not be scoring any club tricks in no trumps. Watch this space.

Here, had you chosen 1NT, partner’s next bid would be 2, showing a strong hand with both majors. The same would apply had you started with 2. Now, in both cases, you must describe your hand to your partner by jumping to 5, from your point of view a sign-off.

Whether partner does “sign off” is up to them but they should have got the message that clubs needs to be trumps and that no-trumps is not an option. The only time they would move (and the same would apply had you bid 5 over 1) would be if your partner had lots of aces, quick tricks opposite your super-long club suit. If they did that here, they would complete a short, efficient and very successful auction:

 

Notice that the big problem in no-trumps even if East’s singleton was A. The chances of reaching the West hand would be very slim. Here, of course, no trumps is a disaster, at any level.  

Against 6, North will surely lead K. Yet, even if North chose a small spade, declarer would never contemplate a finesse. Whatever the lead, West must draw trumps immediately and will eventually discard a spade on A to make 12 very comfortable tricks.

In a field where the vast majority of players were Intermediates and Juniors (about evenly split), some East players found that no-trumps did not play too well. 6 pairs returned huge minus scores like 6 and 7 down in 5NT, 5 down in 6NT while at one table, even 3NT was three down. Meanwhile 2 pairs bid and made 6 and three more recorded an above average score for making 12 tricks in 5.

    

Temporarily, the “master" or "boss suit” had changed. It had become clubs. West should insist on that. It was all about communication between the two hands and that was impossible in no-trumps.

Richard Solomon

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