[Kaitlyn S]

Hi - these problems should be very easy for experienced players but an I/N player needs to think about the right things in an auction. If you get them wrong, don't feel too bad as long as you understand the rationale for the answers. I'll provide the answers later but I'll put a hint as a spoiler. Try to solve the problem without the spoiler. Also, let me know if you would be interested in seeing more of these from time to time.

Assume you are playing Standard American (a natural system with 15-17 1NT openings and 5-card majors), IMPS, and nobody is vulnerable.

1.

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Spoiler

How will you handle a spade bid by partner?

2. You are the dealer. Your call?

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Spoiler

How will you handle a spade bid by partner?

3. You are the dealer. Your call?

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Spoiler

How will you handle a spade bid by partner after West bids hearts?

4.

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Spoiler

How will you handle a spade bid by partner?

[Kaitlyn S]

Answers: (Material in blue is more advanced.)

The purpose of this set of problems is to instill a habit of planning ahead. If you make what you consider the "normal" bid, you may have problems on your next bid - whereas if you foresee the problem, you can avoid it by choosing a different call.


1.

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Hint: How will you handle a spade bid by partner?

Answer: You might consider passing. However, bidding hearts has the effect of getting a desired heart lead, and perhaps making their bidding more difficult, especially if partner gets active. However, it is your side's bidding that will be more difficult if you open 1H and partner responds the expected 1S. If you bid again, partner will think you have an opening hand - some partnerships say you should have a chance at game opposite a passed hand. Also, 1H-1S-2D could have 18 points, and partner may get too high catering to that hand, and a 1NT rebid encourages partner to rebid a 5-card spade suit. Even a 2H rebid (showing 6) could have as much as a bad 16 points so partner may invite.

Once you see the problem, you can avoid it. Rather than opening 1H, open 2H (weak.) You steal a lot of room, and get your desired heart lead. It is fairly commonplace for a third seat weak two bid to have only five cards, so partner shouldn't take you too high trying to further the preempt.

The recommended opening bid is 2H. The 2H opening bid pays off big when partner has a weak hand with five spades and would have led a spade against notrump without your bid.


2. You are the dealer. Your call?

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Hint: How will you handle a spade bid by partner?

Answer: If you open 1H and partner responds 1S as expected, you have no good call. You have about 16 counting your heart length. 1NT, showing 12-14 is a significant underbid. 2NT showing 18-19 is a significant overbid. 2H showing hearts shows a minimum hand and six hearts while 3H shows six or more good hearts. 2 of a minor would show an unbalanced hand and partner could easily pass leaving you in a 3-3 fit.

The problem is that you have a balanced hand in the range of your opening 1NT bid. The way to show that hand is to open 1NT. Yes, it is true that occasionally you will miss a 5-3 heart fit. Frequently those hands will play as well in 3NT, but occasionally you'll get to show the five hearts (for example, 1NT-2C Stayman-2H (shows 4) - 2NT (invite; my 4-card major was spades) - 3H (I'm accepting and showing a fifth heart.) The upside for opening 1NT is that you shouldn't have an awkward hand to bid.

There have been several times I've opened 1NT on this type of hand and ended up getting a heart lead against notrump - another bonus for opening notrump instead of hearts.

The recommended opening bid is 1NT.


3. You are the dealer. Your call?

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Hint: How will you handle a spade bid by partner after West bids hearts?

Answer: This one was harder to foresee; you think you can handle a 1H response or a 1S response by rebidding 1NT. This doesn't work out so well when the opponents bid hearts, and partner will expect you to have hearts stopped when he raises your 1NT rebid to game.

If you opened 1C, you now have no good call over partner's forcing 1S bid. You must bid as partner could be quite strong; 2C on a 4-card suit is awful; 2D is a reverse (a bid that forces your partner to go back to the three level if he likes your first suit better), and should show at least a medium opening hand; raising spades on a doubleton isn't likely to work, nor is bidding 1NT with three small cards in the opponents' suit.

However, if you opened 1D, you have an easy 2C bid now. 2C is no longer a reverse since your partner, with a minimum hand and liking diamonds better, can go back to your first suit at the two level.

The recommended opening bid is 1D.


4.

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Hint: How will you handle a spade bid by partner?

Answer: Your partner's 1S response, while not his most likely response, is within the scope of responses that you should have prepared a rebid over.

Since partner's spade bid could be made on four small spades, any spade raise is out of the question; indeed any jump in spades by you guarantees four-card support.

Nor does any diamond bid work. A jump to 3D shows 16-18 points; you have 21 if you count length (personally I would add 1 point for the diamond length because it might be valuable but the suit isn't that good - giving me 20.) If you don't belong in spades, you might belong in 3NT and any diamond jump higher than 3 not only bypasses 3NT, your likely final contract, but also overstates the diamond suit.

What about notrump? A jump to 2NT shows 18-19; I believe this hand is stronger than that. A jump to 3NT will shut out a spade fit if one exists.

You don't have a balanced hand, However, you probably want to play in notrump unless partner has five spades (which he can show over any notrump opening bid) or six hearts that weren't good enough to open a weak 2 bid. You have the approximate strength for a 2NT opening bid, and rather that deal with the rebid problem that comes over 1D-1S, I recommend that you open this hand 2NT.

[smerriman]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-December-17, 21:41, said:

Assume you are playing Standard American

If you make what you consider the "normal" bid, you may have problems on your next bid..

Re 3 - while some play Better Minor, in Standard American the normal bid is always to open 1D with 4-4 in the minors (primarily due to the reverse issue), so this doesn't seem like a great example.

[Kaitlyn S]

smerriman, on 2016-December-18, 18:20, said:

Re 3 - while some play Better Minor, in Standard American the normal bid is always to open 1D with 4-4 in the minors (primarily due to the reverse issue), so this doesn't seem like a great example.

Perhaps some will learn nothing except why they are following a rule of opening 1D with 4-4

[mycroft]

Nice question, and definitely one to think about.

However, when I have hand #1, I have no concerns whatever that partner has the spades. p-p and I have 10 high? Partner isn't going to get to bid 1♠ very often... I make the same call you recommend, because I want the opponents (who may have game in spades if one of them is short in hearts) to have as much trouble as possible. The fact that it says "hey partner, I can't play in spades" (theoretically, "hey partner, I can't play in anything but hearts" which isn't quite true) is just that extra benefit.

[Kaitlyn S]

mycroft, on 2016-December-19, 10:37, said:

However, when I have hand #1, I have no concerns whatever that partner has the spades. p-p and I have 10 high? Partner isn't going to get to bid 1♠ very often...

No, but he might bid TWO spades over 1H overcalled by 2 of a minor *gulp*

[mycroft]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-December-20, 21:26, said:

No, but he might bid TWO spades over 1H overcalled by 2 of a minor *gulp*

Partner didn't open 2♠ in first, and didn't double. Partner has 10-and-5, or 10-and-6 and the wrong hand (too weak spades? too much defence?) to open 2♠. We have half the deck, and tops and a decent fit (even if 5-1) if they pass this out; if they bid again, we'll just take our plus.

Also, the hand that goes p-p-1♥-2♣; 2♠-p-p-p in that auction is going to go p-p-2♥-p; p-p in ours, and you're going to *gulp* when dummy hits; it's not going to play any better in the 5-1 heart fit than the 5-1 spade fit.

Here I thought *I* was the Last Bridge Pessimist.

But the number of times partner has the spades (and didn't preempt, remember) over the number of times the opponents do, well, yeah. That still doesn't mean you don't slam 2♥ in third, even with the potential misfit and other horrors.

[deftist]

Nice problems.

I am a bit confused about the problem 2 though. At the beginning you said SAYC with 15-17 1NT is assumed for all problems, yet in the answer you said "1NT, showing 12-14 points would be a significant underbid" -- am I missing something here?

Also, in question 4, how many more HCPs would we need to open strong 2c with these sort of hands? With highly unbalanced hands like this I was thinking we could open with 20 or 21 HCP, especially when we are in the 3rd seat, but maybe that's too loose..

[Tramticket]

deftist, on 2016-December-24, 07:14, said:

Nice problems.

I am a bit confused about the problem 2 though. At the beginning you said SAYC with 15-17 1NT is assumed for all problems, yet in the answer you said "1NT, showing 12-14 points would be a significant underbid" -- am I missing something here?

Also, in question 4, how many more HCPs would we need to open strong 2c with these sort of hands? With highly unbalanced hands like this I was thinking we could open with 20 or 21 HCP, especially when we are in the 3rd seat, but maybe that's too loose..

Kaitlyn was suggesting that a 1NT rebid (after 1H-1S) would show 12-14 (not the opening bid). Actually, this a hand type which works well if your opening 1NT is weak (12-14) because you can open 1H and rebid 1NT (now 15-17) - showing both features of your hand, the five-card hearts and the balanced shape.

On hand 4, 2C isn't the worst bid in the world. You do have defensive strength as well as playing tricks. But if you play 2C as game forcing (as I do) it falls a bit short - particularly since your long suit is a minor.

[apollo1201]

Just a small question on sequence 3. Is it standard to play that the 1NT "forced" rebid in contested auctions guarantees a stopper?

I thought it did not promise anything other than 12-14 bal. I bet bidding 1D then 2C with this flat balanced 4432 hand will lead quite often to play 4-3 if not 4-2 fits when 1NT (even losing the first 5 tricks) is better, not mentioning spades are burried unless partner had 5 very good ones or 6 and repeats them. If you give partner a possible hand such as KJXxx xxx Qx xxx, good luck!

[Kaitlyn S]

deftist, on 2016-December-24, 07:14, said:

I am a bit confused about the problem 2 though. At the beginning you said SAYC with 15-17 1NT is assumed for all problems, yet in the answer you said "1NT, showing 12-14 points would be a significant underbid" -- am I missing something here?

As Tramticket said, I was showing the problem with a 1NT rebid after opening 1H.

deftist, on 2016-December-24, 07:14, said:

Also, in question 4, how many more HCPs would we need to open strong 2c with these sort of hands? With highly unbalanced hands like this I was thinking we could open with 20 or 21 HCP, especially when we are in the 3rd seat, but maybe that's too loose..

When people discuss the requirements to open 2C and then rebid in a suit, you often hear 22 points (above the "maximum" for the one level) or 8 1/2 tricks (yes, I realize those are two different things, but it's different experts talking). Because your rebid likely forces you to the three level, and perhaps higher if you don't rebid your own suit, many experts will rebid 2NT on a balanced or semi-balanced hand rather than rebid a suit. For example:

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This hand has 23 points counting a point for spade length but has nowhere near 8 1/2 tricks. If you rebid 2S here, it's forcing and you'll get at least to the three level. If partner has a very poor hand, you might prefer to play 2NT than any 3-level contract and I would suggest a 2NT rebid here.

Note that I was talking about an alternative of 2S, a bid that would let you get out at the 3 level. When the experts give their advice, they warn you that if your rebid is 3 of a minor, which will usually get your side to 3NT or at least the 4 level, you need even more strength. Consider that you could be playing 3NT or 4 of a minor opposite nothing, and that is only if your partnership has methods that will let you get out in 4 of the minor. Many partnerships play 2C-2D-3D-3H-4D as forcing so you're playing 5D opposite what could be nothing.

So, let's say you're dealt the following:

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You have about 22 points (I can't count both diamond length AND the ♠Q.) If you open 2C and rebid 3D, you may play in game opposite nothing, but even if you can stop in 4D, it's no bargain. Without a diamond fit and opposite nothing, this hand might produce 7 tricks with diamonds as trump. I believe most experts would open 1D and try to catch up later. If everyone passes, you probably not missed a game. If you can't stomach only opening 1D, then you can open 2C and rebid 2NT - I assume the new ACBL guidelines allowing notrump openings with singleton A, K, or Q applies.

It's even worse with 4-4-4-1 with a small singleton.

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If you open 2C, then what? A rebid of 2 of a major shows five and will likely get you to 4-3 fit with the opponents making you trump clubs early. 2C-2D-3D is just awful, partner will play you for lots of diamonds and you might end up playing 5D on a 4-2 fit! You might survive a 2NT rebid if partner rebids Stayman but if you rebid 2NT raised to 3, your club singleton may be a problem.

Many experts will open 1D. If partner responds a major, they will get very active. If you play no conventions, it would not be unreasonable to open 1D and raise a major suit response to slam, counting 3 points for the singleton club.

My point is that most experts take their 2C opening bids very seriously. You should probably do the same.

[Kaitlyn S]

apollo1201, on 2016-December-25, 17:34, said:

Just a small question on sequence 3. Is it standard to play that the 1NT "forced" rebid in contested auctions guarantees a stopper?

I thought it did not promise anything other than 12-14 bal. I bet bidding 1D then 2C with this flat balanced 4432 hand will lead quite often to play 4-3 if not 4-2 fits when 1NT (even losing the first 5 tricks) is better, not mentioning spades are burried unless partner had 5 very good ones or 6 and repeats them. If you give partner a possible hand such as KJXxx xxx Qx xxx, good luck!

I haven't heard that but this treatment is playable - you rebid 1NT and then partner can cuebid the opponent's suit to see if you were serious. As I am writing this for newer players, this is unlikely to be in their arsenal, and if one of my target audience rebids 1NT without a stopper, his partner is likely just to raise to 3NT with game values, possibly even with a singleton heart and a long minor.

Your fear of losing a spade fit with a 5-card suit isn't going to apply to many partnerships which employ Negative Doubles. I open 1D, LHO opens 1H, partner bids 1S. If partner had four sp1s, he makes a negative double, so he should have five spades when he bids 1S. I can raise on three and the fit won't be missed.

I realize that this treatment isn't universal - I believe it's the most common in the USA but there are other possible treatments that allow responder to bid 1S after a 1H overcall sometimes with four trump. However, for the majority of pairs that play Negative Doubles will find a 5-3 spade fit.

However, my actual example only had 2 spades. Let's pair my hand with your example hand.

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What are you suggesting? I am suggesting a 1D opener and a 2C rebid (because I think a 1NT rebid shows a heart stopper after the overcall.) North would pass. 2C isn't a great contract, probably down one or two.

But what is better? You want to rebid 1NT without your stopper. If partner passes, you might have some chance if queen third of spades is onside but otherwise it's likely to be a debacle. Would you rather have partner rebid the five-card spade suit he has already shown? You're losing three hearts and a diamond off the top and have an almost certain club loser. If you find queen-third of spades in West and can only lose two tricks in the minors, you'll make 2S, And yes, 2S is a better contract than 2C (but not much) but you have to admit that your example was chosen carefully. I could just as easily choose S-xxxxx H-xxx D-Q C-KJxx and say "Look how awesome 2C is!" but that would hardly be fair.

[apollo1201]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-December-26, 13:22, said:

Your fear of losing a spade fit with a 5-card suit isn't going to apply to many partnerships which employ Negative Doubles. I open 1D, LHO opens 1H, partner bids 1S. If partner had four sp1s, he makes a negative double, so he should have five spades when he bids 1S. I can raise on three and the fit won't be missed.

Thanks Kaitlyn for answering.

Since it wasn't specified in the bidding that 1S showed 5+, I thought it was 4+ only so indeed no 5-3 fit will be missed.

This treatment is not standard where I live, I would say 50% of ppl only play the "sticky" how we call it (bidding the suit "stuck" to the intervention is 5+ while X is 4). The other half refuses because it obliges you to pass most 8-10 hands w/o stopper and w/o the "stuck" major. Actually some pairs even swapped the meaning of 1S (the bid of 1NT w/o stop) and X (4+ spades) in that sequence to ensure the overcaller will be on lead!

So all fine but a last question (again maybe sth standard in NA but not here, I apologize in advance), in the example responder passes 2C with 2-3 in minors but should he not get back to 2D to keep the bidding open just in case and to offer the (supposed) 5-2 rather than 4-3 fit?

Finally, those examples prove that even "beginner's" material can be tricky. In all cases I always read them very interestingly.

[Kaitlyn S]

apollo1201, on 2016-December-26, 14:31, said:

So all fine but a last question (again maybe sth standard in NA but not here, I apologize in advance), in the example responder passes 2C with 2-3 in minors but should he not get back to 2D to keep the bidding open just in case and to offer the (supposed) 5-2 rather than 4-3 fit?

WARNING: This entire response is advanced material.


2C isn't forcing in the auction 1D (1H) 1S (P) 2C. With the 6HCP hand you gave, I would have no problem passing.

Make your hand KJxxx xxx Qx Kxx, and now I may bid 2D to cater to partner having 17 or 18 points (he shouldn't have more; he didn't jump shift.)

I'm fully aware that partner might have had to bid 2C on 4-4 with no heart stopper; but I feel like I need to keep the auction open in case partner wants to try for game, and most of the time partner will have five.

Yes, with this hand opposite the original hand I gave, I am playing in a 4-2 fit, and would have been better off bidding 1NT without a stopper. However, I feel that in the long run I'm going to lose more IMPs by bidding 1NT with an unstopped suit when partner raises 1NT to 3NT and they run hearts than I will gain when the 2C bidders play in a 4-2 fit.

As I said earlier, a more experienced pair can avoid this by playing as you suggested and using the cuebid to make sure the suit is stopped. A newer player shouldn't try this with his friends and I wouldn't try it undiscussed.

i play in a partnership that is strong enough to have the cuebid available. However, I still like to have the stopper to bid notrump, and the cuebid will say, "Do you have the suit stopped enough"?

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1S shows 5
1NT shows a heart stopper
2H still shows doubt about notrump (it could show some other good hand also)
3D yeah, I have doubt too, and probably 5 diamonds
5D cool! we might have found one of those rare times 5 of a minor is right

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1S shows 5
1NT shows a heart stopper, denies 3 spades
2H still shows doubt about notrump (it could show some other good hand also)
2S don't have 3, might have a doubleton honor but I have doubt about notrump with only one stopper
4S looks like the 5-2 will play better than notrump

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1S shows 5
1NT shows a heart stopper, denies 3 spades
2H still shows doubt about notrump (it could show some other good hand also)
2NT says well stopped
3NT (East could bid 3D here to show even more doubt but West would bid 3NT anyway)

How would these go when your 1NT doesn't show a stopper?

[apollo1201]

Great examples! I'll try with my p but after a cue and 2NT to confirm a stop, she wouldn't bid 3NT w/ a singleton and I would not persist in 3NT with a single stopper. The natural furter descriptions (D fit, Hx support...) would drive us to the right strain and level I would say.

I'm sorry we deviated *a lot* from the original thread. It just proves:
- you need to be on the same page as partner
- there is not a single method to reach some accuracy in bidding
- good judgment helps a lot

And all that somehow is what you try others to achieve with this series, don't u?

Eager to see post 18!