BRIDGE MASTERCLASS

PLAYinG Pairs and using Astro, how do you compete after RHO opens 1nT (12-14)? ASTrO, for me, has always been the most effective and simplest means of competing against the opponents’ No Trump opening; it is versatile and easy to handle. The convention is used on hands that have at least nine cards in a major and a lower suit (including possibly both majors).

There is no upper or lower limit requirement for honour points, except that the hand will be unsuitable for making a penalty double. your initial cue bid in a minor over the NT pinpoints which major you hold; the lower minor (clubs) shows hearts and the higher minor (diamonds) shows spades — not necessarily, but generally promising a 5-card suit.

So, on the above hand, you would bid 2 ♣ and, if the suits were interchanged (i.e. spades and clubs) you’d bid 2 ♦ . Note that the bids say nothing about which your ‘lower’ second suit is at this stage. you could have hearts and clubs but not hearts and spades. The nice feature about this little ‘gadget’ is that you don’t have a minimum honour points requirement. you are countering the opponent’s known balanced honour strength (12-14) with unlimited distributional strength of a least 5-4.

Tomorrow, I will deal with the basic responses to the Astro bid.