Contract Bridge

Bidding quiz

You have the following hand:

♠ A10 ♥ K983 ♦ K75

♣ A972

1. Partner bids One Spade, and you respond Two Notrump (13 to 15 points, balanced distribution). Partner bids Three Spades. What would you bid now?

2. Partner bids One Spade, and you respond Two Notrump. Partner bids Three Hearts. What would you bid now?

3. Partner bids One Diamond, and you respond One Heart. Partner bids Three Notrump. What would you bid now?

1. Four Spades. Partner seems unhappy with notrump, and there is no good reason to override him by insisting on notrump. He has at least six spades, which makes the A-10 adequate support, and he could easily have a singleton (or void) in one of the side suits, which strongly militates against notrump play.

It is also possible — in fact, quite likely — that partner is angling for a slam, since he did not jump immediately to four spades to close out the bidding. Denying his suit for a second time might cause him to give up on a hand that would offer an excellent chance for slam.

2. Four Clubs. Here also a slam looms on the horizon, and the best way of alerting partner to this possibility is by bidding four clubs. This doesn’t mean you’ve suddenly found a long club suit you previously overlooked; on the contrary, it announces a fit for partner’s hearts and firstround control of clubs and suggests a slam if partner has more than a minimum opening bid.

Partner might have any of the following hands and be encouraged to try for slam over the four- club cuebid:

♠ KJ872 ♥ AQ764 ♦ AJ

♣ 10

♠ KQ743 ♥ QJ754 ♦ —

♣ KQ8

♠ QJ854 ♥ AQJ2 ♦ A8

♣ K5

and each of these offers an excellent chance for slam opposite your hand.

3. Six notrump. In theory, your partner needs 20 points — or a very good 19 — to bid three notrump, since your one- heart response might have been based on a bare six points. Partner cannot count on more than that except at his own peril.

Since you have 14 points rather than six, you are entitled to raise him to six notrump on the assumption that the combined hands contain 34 points — one more than the number ordinarily needed for a small slam.