Waiting Game

17th Jan – Board 11: Love all. Dealer South. Extreme hands are difficult to bid at the best of times, even more so when the bidding has to start at a high level. In those situations it is as well to go as slowly as possible because there is so little room left for manouevre.

When West kicks off with a perfectly acceptable preempt North mustn’t be panicked into a rash approach and I can see nothing much wrong with starting with a take-out double. If partner leaps to 4♠   you can always retaliate by bidding 6♣ but remember that South has passed to start with. South might consider passing the double for penalties but at the prevailing vulnerability should bid 3NT giving his partner an easy route forward with 4♣, forcing of course and looking for a slam. An exchange of cue-bids will take place leaving North with an easy call of 6♣. In fact if South’s Q♦ was the Q♥ then you would want to be in the grand but sometimes you have to be content with the best result possible, not the best possible result. 6♣ is a stroll in the park of course as all declarer has to do is ruff a heart in dummy.