BRIDGE MASTERCLASS

West

♠ Q9872 ♥A

♦ K7 ♣ AQJ63 FOR the past two days, I’ve explained the use of a bid in the fourth suit as conventional, rather than natural. Universally used in tournament play, it is not so prevalent at the rubber bridge table, though it is harmless, simple, and logical.

holding controls in the fourth suit, you would obviously bid in no Trumps; so a bid of that fourth suit can sensibly be used to get more information about partner’s hand, with particular interest in control of that suit.

When both hands are shown to be fairly minimum, the response to the FSF enquiry will normally end the auction, (See yesterday’s examples). however, there is a much less common, but more valuable role for FSF in the auction; and that is when responder has a potentially very powerful hand, and has visions even of a slam, but needs bidding space to investigate.

On the above hand, West opens 1♣, and rebids 1♠ over partner’s 1♦ response. What do you do next when partner makes the FSF bid of 2♥?

Obviously you are going to show your ten black cards by rebidding spades, and I would advocate a simple 2♠, because the suit quality is so poor — even though you have 16hCPs. (See tomorrow).