BRIDGE MASTERCLASS

YESTERDAY, North forced with 2 ♠ in response to partner’s 1 ♣ opening and then jumped to 4 ♠ after South’s 3 ♣ rebid. What went wrong with this auction? BY MAKING a forcing-to-game jump response on the first round, north has announced he has slam interest and a fair idea of where the contract will be played.

Certainly, this is an excellent hand facing an opening bid, but the quality of the long suit is not good. It is therefore wiser to preserve bidding space until you have found out more about partner’s hand.

south will rebid 2 ♣ in response to 1 ♠ , and it would now be correct to jump to 3 ♠ . By forcing with 2 ♠ and then jumping to 4 ♠ , north has conventionally shown a solid selfsupporting suit with no loser in it (at least A k Q J x x or A k Q x x x x). This helps partner to know he can bid a slam with a singleton or even a void in the trump suit. At the table, south held: ♠ x ♥ kJx ♦ k Q J 10 ♣ Q J 10 x x and after a heart lead, 4 ♠ went down, with 3nT making at least one overtrick.