BRIDGE MASTERCLASS

South ♠ A95 ♥ J9854 ♦ 762 ♣ A 10 PlaYiNG Pairs, your partner opens 1 ♦ and rebids 2 ♣ after your 1 ♥ response. What next? UNLeSS you have some special understanding with partner about his minimum strength when bidding both minors, your obvious next bid is 2 ♦ — simple preference to his first-bid suit.

the heart suit isn’t good enough to rebid, and the hand isn’t strong enough to consider anything more than a simple preference bid.

Your more difficult decision is going to come when partner bids again.

a further bid by partner after you have limited your hand is a game try; it tells you that he had extra values for his previous bidding and wants to be in game if you are better than minimum.

You would have bid the same way on the above hand without ♠ a, so you have also got extra values and will therefore certainly want to bid again, if partner invites you to do so.

as we’ll see tomorrow, this can be extremely difficult to judge.