Thursday Bridge Club: Leaping Michaels

20th May - Board: 11 Love All. Dealer South

	North: S Q J 10 7 H 3 2 D Q J 7 C Q 10 3 2
West: S 4 H A 9 7 6 4 D 10 C A K 9 8 7 4		East: S 6 5 H K J 10 8 5 D A K 8 4 3 C 6
	South: S A K 9 8 3 2 H Q D 9 6 5 2 C J 5

Six hearts is an excellent contract on the E/W cards but hard to reach with minimum values, especially if South opens with a weak two bid in spades. A good convention to have in your armoury is the exotically sounding ‘Leaping Michaels’ whereby a jump to the four level in a minor after a weak two in a major shows at least five cards in the minor plus five cards in the other major. It is allied of course to the well-known ‘Michaels’ convention when a cue-bid of an opening major shows five cards in the other major plus five cards in an unknown minor. (Responder can find out the minor by relaying with 2NT.) So on the above hand the bidding might start:

W N E S

4C 4S ??

East could play safe and bid 5H or take a punt at 6H. The preemption in spades makes it likely that West has a singleton but of course there could be two aces missing. I guess it’s just too difficult.

Don’t forget to write in with any queries or suggestions, as long as they are not rude! And I hope to see you next Thursday.

6 comments:

Robin21 May 2010 at 20:12
Oy nutter,
Should East bid Blackwood 4N over West's 4C? That would find West with 2 keycards and then 6H is more interesting? If East is going to punt 5H as a minimum then maybe he would be happy to hear any response to 4N including 5S?
Dave21 May 2010 at 20:45
Good point! Of course West would be showing three key-cards because he would think that clubs was being agreed. So with a probable singleton spade East should really bid six hearts and surprise everyone. It strikes me that if North could forget the knee-jerk reaction to bid 4S it would be much more difficult. Then it would look as though there might be two spade losers. Thanks for the comment. Not sure about 'nutter.'
Anonymous22 May 2010 at 06:18
We did bid 4nt with an agreed suit of hearts but with a response of 5H, I was worried that we may go one off. South did bid spades on our table but with an intervening bid and not a weak two.

Had we found the slam then out overall total for the evening would have been 90+. We think it only right to give people a chance to earn some points off us so it's not a completley one horse race.

As to whether you wish to give RK some points for his excellent work on the website then that is your choice, although I may submit an appeal for chnaging the rules half way through. However, who would I appeal to? My mother taught me to respect people in authority and senior citizens!

SC
Dave22 May 2010 at 13:19
And people who can spell too I hope!

I think South passed at your table but if I were West and heard my partner bid 1H over 1C I would seriously think of bidding 4NT myself. After all West needs to know about key cards and nothing else. There is a slight danger of going down in 5H if partner has the wrong hand but I would have thought that would have been a risk worth taking. Once East takes charge the fortunate spade situation is hard to realise.
Anonymous23 May 2010 at 09:42
Action point to webmaster: Can automatic spellcheck be built in? SC
Robin23 May 2010 at 10:51
SC, No I cta'n provyd spoll chick on Comments, noly on teh initail psots as Dave crates thos in Wyrd.

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