Major Battle

19^th May – Board 1: Love All. Dealer North.

In days gone by East would have no problem at all at his first turn. He would make a ‘strong jump overcall’ of 2S, describing his hand pretty accurately and let the rest decide what they wanted to do after that. Nowadays of course most people play weak jump overcalls, especially when not vulnerable, so East is left with a dilemma as to what to do. A simple overcall of 1S runs the risk of playing there when game might be available, so standard technique is to double first and then bid 2S over whatever partner bids. This shows the equivalent of the long forgotten SJO. However when that bid comes back round to North it would be feeble to give in so easily and a take-out double is a stand out. 3H should probably be defeated by a trick, but so should 3S if East/West decide to push on.

West	North	East	South
	1H	Dbl	No
1NT	No	2S	No
No	Dbl	No	3H
End

The Forgotten Bid

The Forgotten Bid

19th May – Board 11: Love All. Dealer South.

It is imperative that as a player you should not only think about the bid you are about to make but any follow up bids as well. People who ignored that precept came unstuck on the featured hand as they were left trying to make a number of ‘catch up’ bids.

West	North	East	South
			1C
No	2H	No	2S
No	3H	No	4H
End

The jump shift is the forgotten bid of bridge but used in the right place it has the merit of making subsequent bids so much easier to find. So 2H in the above sequence shows at least a good five card suit and usually upwards of 16 points. And when the suit is rebid it more or less demands that that suit is going to be trumps. After South bids 4H North might make another try by bidding 5D I guess but South will surely rebuff any thoughts of a slam. Can you see that if North had started by simply bidding 1H he would have an impossible rebid, as any bid he makes would have to be forcing. A jump rebid of 3H is not forcing so the only alternative would be to employ the ‘pitiful crutch’ of 2D, Fourth Suit Forcing, but then of course the quality of the main suit never comes across.

Two-Pronged Approach

12th May – Board 7: Game All. Dealer South.

It is often difficult to decide between a softly-softly approach in an effort to discover more about the nature of partner’s opening bid, or a full-bloodied gung-ho launch into suit agreement albeit at the expense of taking up bidding space.

West	North	East	South
			No
1D	No	2C	No
2NT	No	3D	No
3H	No	3S	No
4C	No	4S	No
5H	No	7D	End

7NT is of course laydown but I think any pair would be happy to reach any grand slam. There are several things to note in the sequence given above. The first is that it is important to make a 2NT rebid after partner has bid at the two-level as game-forcing, if for no other reason than that it gives the partnership more room for exploring bigger things. So 3D becomes forcing initiating a sequence of cue-bids. Note that it would be entirely inappropriate for East to ever bid 4NT as there could easily be a grand slam available without the ace of spades. I suppose the other approach might be to bid 3S over 1D. This has the merit of setting diamonds as the trump suit immediately but at the loss of bidding space. Keen readers can work out a realistic sequence after that start! Also if E/W happen to be playing a strong no-trump then they must be up to speed with their minor-suit transfer bids.

More Lebensohl

12^th May – Board 16: East/West Game. Dealer West.

Lebensohl can be used in a variety of different places but perhaps the least well-known situation might be as in the deal shown below.

West	North	East	South
1S	No	2S	Dbl
No	3C	No	3NT
End

1S might seem a little frisky on the West hand but with support for three suits I think it is worth the risk if only for the pre-emptive nature of the bid. East has an easy raise to 2S and likewise South has a fairly obvious take-out double, but when West passes North is forced to bid – even if he has very few points. For this reason most top pairs play Lebensohl in this situation, whereby with a really weak hand you bid 2NT forcing the doubler to bid 3C which you either pass with clubs, or convert without. So on the actual hand a bid of 3C shows some positive values and South would be happy to convert to 3NT. Not that 3NT should make of course, even on a spade lead, but it requires little more than the opener to hold the ace of clubs. Those pairs who found the heart game can consider themselves unlucky, as with just about everything about as bad as it could be this would prove to be a losing enterprise.