Julian Pottage
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In an uncontested auction where you have agreed a minor and there are two unbid suits, bids show strength. If there is one unbid suit or the opponents have bid a suit, bidding that suit asks for help (you would bid NT yourself if you had a stopper).
Yes the bidding is a bit cramped after 1S-2D-3D. Responder has room to bid 3H on hands with a heart stopper but no club stopper but lacks a suitable bid on a hand with a club stopper but not a heart stopper. Sometimes life is not perfect. On a hand with no heart stopper, responder might have to bid 3S with a strong doubleton honour.
You seem to be agreeing with me on hands with a singleton club, so I am not sure I can add anything useful.
On hands with a singleton heart, it is indeed rare that it makes any difference whether you open 1C or 1D.
If you have opened with say 11 HCP, 5 spades and 5 diamonds and partner responds 2H to 1S, you rebid 2S rather than introducing the diamonds. Partner is still there. As it seems you have since worked out, a 3D rebid would indeed be forcing.
Even if the 1C opening may be short (‘prepared club’ or ‘short club’), I recommend playing 2C as the majors. If you have clubs, you pass first time and then you may get the chance to show the suit on the second round because often your LHO will bid 1 of a suit and RHO will rebid 1NT.
If you want to know what you should do about the fact that 1C was alerted but not explained and not announced, you need to ask David Stevenson about that. If the opponents are playing a strong club system you need to know that because your defence to a strong 1C may be very different to what you play over a prepared 1C.
A 2H rebid will not end the auction very often, so yes I would rebid 2H. You could avoid the 2H rebid by raising 2D to 3D or by bidding the 3-card diamond suit over 2C – but I prefer to keep the bidding lower and limit the hand.
I always play a jump as a splinter, though occasionally you will have a hand without a singleton and no other suitable bid. On this particular hand I would rebid 4D on the West hand but partner will be expecting a singleton. With 17 HCP and 4-card support the hand is too good for simple raise to 4H. Since the DK is as useful as a singleton, I do not mind the white lie. If you want to play that the 4D bid 100% guarantees a shortage, you would need to rebid 2NT (forcing) and support hearts later – I really do not like doing that with 4-card support.
I do not know whether you are subscriber to BRIDGE but there is an article on this matter in the penultimate issue, which is due out very soon.
On the hand in question I would open 1H, same as Bernard – I do not like the losing doubleton in clubs for a NT opening and with three good spades I am happy to raise a 1S response to 2S.
These days it has become almost universal to play that below 4NT you can bid both first and second round controls. You can then check that you have enough first round controls in total with a 4NT bid later.
The big advantage of showing first and second round controls is that you can establish whether your side as every suit controlled at a lower level than if you cue bid first round controls first and second round controls later.
If I can deal with the why first, you want to make sure you have a suitable rebid if partner responds in your singleton. I would not like to say 100% that my methods are the same as Bernard’s but they are probably very similar.
1. With a singleton spade, open 1D. You can then rebid 2C over 1S. Partner will think you have 5 diamonds but that is unlikely to be a disaster. If you have 15(+) points you can rebid in NT instead.
2. With a singleton heart, open 1D. You then have an easy 1S rebid. You could open 1C instead but I play that you open 1D on balanced hands with 4-4 in the minors so to be consistent I open 1D on 4144 hands too.
3. With a singleton diamond, open 1C. This is easy. You can rebid 1H over a 1D response, leaving maximum room for finding a fit.
4. Hands with a singleton club are the most problematic. The traditional Acol approach is to open 1H with a view to rebidding 2D over 2C. Doing this does make it sound like you have five hearts and on hands with 3-card heart support responder has to remember to use fourth suit forcing rather than jumping to game. If you have 15+ points, you can rebid in NT instead.
Bernard does quote the principle that it is better to lie about a minor than a major, though I do not think he has yet applied the principle to opening 1D on these hands (when you might have to rebid a 4-card suit) – Stewart Pye though thinks he has.
Glad others have been able to answer this. I think one point ranges are a bad idea in general and I would never agree to playing a 2S response to 1NT as precisely 11 points .
I can give you an expert opinion but if you want to find out what several other players are doing, you need to post in the Bernard Magee Bridge MEMBERS CLUB group on Facebook.
In most situations I like to play the first signal on partner’s lead and my first discard as attitude. Technically, reverse signals (low like high hate) are slightly superior to standard (high encourage low discourage).
Once you have already shown attitude (or if declarer leads the suit and you are following), you can then show count. Again reverse count is slightly superior from a technical viewpoint because sometimes you cannot afford the higher card from a doubleton.
Suit preference only comes in once you have shown attitude/count or where attitude/count are obvious.
Yes and no: splinters are still possible when partner has overcalled but you need 4-card support – you will not be able to do much ruffing if you have only three trumps and it is unlikely that your side has the values for a slam if an opponent has opened and your side has only a modest fit. Some people play that a single jump is fit showing but a double jump is a splinter. Others play that you can only splinter in opener’s suit. A splinter is more likely to be a singleton than a void but a void would be acceptable of course.
Opponents preempt because they are trying to make life difficult for you and here they seem to have succeeded. If you bid 4S, partner does not know whether you were planning to force to game anyway or whether you would have made a limit raise without the overcall but there is not much you can do about that. You would need to have a lot extra to go beyond game with either 5C (which would strongly suggest a void) or 4NT.
The usual rule is ‘eight ever nine never’ and when the opponents pass throughout this increases the chance their hands are balanced. If you were playing point a board scoring then your knowledge of what is likely to happen in the other room could affect your tactics but you say you are playing IMPs so you should simply take the best chance of making your contract. Your spot cards are such that you can afford to overtake the jack of hearts with the ace, so that is what you should do. You will make the contract any time the queen is doubleton or singleton or West is void of East covers with Q-x-x (which could be the right thing to do if you had only a doubleton heart).
Cashing the spades might help if you find West with five (which would increase the chance East has three hearts) but has too many downsides. You are going down more if the misguess and the spades and also East is more likely to work out not to cover the jack of hearts if you delay.
I play a convention known as Exclusion Blackwood, whereby a jump to 5H over 3S asks for key cards excluding the HA (hence the name exclusion). East would then show 2 key cards (the SK and CA) and West would bid 7S. There would be a slight risk of finding East with three low diamonds but even then the DQ could fall singleton or doubleton.
If you do not play the jump to the 5 level this way, West could cue bid 4D. East would bid 4H over that if holding the the HA so if East signs off in 4S and subsequently shows 2 key cards they must be the SK and the CA. East might cue bid 5C over 4D and West could reasonably infer that to take the bidding beyond game East cannot have only low trumps and must have the SK as well as the CA.
West should not have used the 4NT enquiry when holding a void. This is one of the basic rules.
Finally I should comment on the North-South bidding. With only 2HCP I can understand why South did not open a weak 2H but North seems to have a textbook takeout double – opening values, a shortage in the suit opened and four cards in the other major. While it is true that North is facing a passed hand, the vulnerability is favourable and it is usually best to be in the bidding. If North had doubled and South had then made an advance sacrifice in 5H, it would have been much more difficult to reach 7S with confidence.
