With 4-5, do you bid four or five?

Steve Spurri er, a He is man Trophy winner and football guru, said ,“I don’ t want to coach too far into my60s.Byt hen, I’ ll be playing golf four or five times a week .” At the bridge table, you might have the choice of bidding a four-card or a five-card suit. Look at today’ s North hand. After partner opens one club, would you respond one diamond or one spa de? In the old days, respond er always bid the longest suit first. If partner had a four-card major, he would showitanda4-4fitwouldnotbe missed. These days, showing the major first is in vogue. A columnistrecommended bidding one spa de, not one diamond, with that North hand. As you can guess, I disagree. I think bidding the major first is right if two criteria are satisfied: The respond er hasbelowgame-invitational valuesandagood-qualitymajor. This hand, with 10 points, two acesandafive-cardsuit,isworth a game-invitation. And that is notsuchagreatspadesuit.In this admitted ly constructed deal, if North responds one spa de, South will raise to two spa des( which might be with onlythree-cardsupportand a single ton somewhere ), and what would North do then? Probably three diamonds, butitisn’tclear-cutwithonly four spa des. If North bids one diamond, South will re bid one spa de, and four spades will be reached. Note that four spa des by North fails after East leads the heart queen. The defenders take one spa de, two heart san done club. But four spa des by South is makable. West’ s best lead is the club queen. Declarer wins with dummy’ s ace, takes the two top trumps, then play son diamonds, discarding a heart on the fourth round. He loses only one spa de, one heart and one club.

—PhillipAlder