BRIDGE MASTERCLASS
Partner has opened 1 ♦ , and reversed with 2 ♥ after your 1 ♠ response. What do you bid next? Following on from yesterday’s analysis, it’s your responsibility to make the most constructive and helpful response to partner, who is in control of the auction at this point.
with only 8 HCPs and no first-round control, your hand is fairly weak. However, you do have three-card support for partner’s longest suit and, more importantly, a singleton in his second bid suit. So you must bid 3 ♦ . A rebid of your spades at this stage would deny support for either of partner’s suits and imply a six-card suit of your own — 2nT would be more legitimate because you do at least have a club stopper, but again, this is a negative option.