Thursday Bridge Club: Understanding The Problem

24th February – Board 13: Game All. Dealer North.

There were far too many kangaroo type auctions on the featured hand with South leaping towards what he considered to be the optimum contract without really understanding the heart of the problem. So after North has shown a big balanced hand by whatever methods are used South needs to know a) if all the major players are present, and b) is the queen of spades amongst them. And to do the latter South has to make North think that spades is going to be the trump suit. I think it might go, assuming N/S are playing Benji whereby a 2C bid shows a balanced 19/20 points inter alia:

West	North	East	South
	2C	No	2S
No	2NT	No	3S
No	4C	No	4NT
No	5C	No	5D
No	6C	No	7NT
End

I can see no reason why South should not bid 2S at his first turn and repeat the suit after his partner has shown a balanced hand. 4C then becomes a cue-bid in support of spades and 4NT is RKCB. 5C shows three key-cards and 5D enquires about the queen of spades. 6C shows that card together with the king of clubs and now South can count thirteen tricks. Not so difficult after all.

3 comments:

Old Bill27 February 2011 at 14:22
I'm trying to get a feel for when North should forgo the 3NT contract and start cue-bidding. So with a Benji 2C showing 19-20 points, what is the minimum length and strength that North should be taking South for, first with his 2S response, and then with his 3S response?
Old Bill27 February 2011 at 14:42
Also, this has got us thinking ... if a Benji 2C showing 19-20 points is used, what point range should a 2NT opening then show, and how would the remaining point range for a balanced hand upto 25 points be bid?
Dave27 February 2011 at 16:08
South is clearly looking for a slam and must have a six card suit at least because the initial response showed five+ and he has rebid the suit. Also if he wasn't slam interested he would just bid 4S over 2NT. The initial response has no actual point count associated with it but would have a good suit, so say 9+ points. I think 2NT should be 21/22 points and 23/24 shown by rebidding 2NT after your strongest opening bid, be that 2C, or 2D if playing Benji. (25/26 points can be shown by rebidding 3NT, but a better idea is to play something called Kokish.)

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