Trial Bids



11th July – Board 14: Love All. Dealer East.
When one of a major is raised to two you have to know what the introduction of a second suit by opener means. It cannot be a cue-bid because they only become operational when you are in a game-forcing situation and that certainly isn’t the case. No, they are called Trial Bids and essentially are saying to responder, ‘I still think we might have game here. If you are maximum for your raise bid four, if minimum bid three, and if you are in doubt look at your holding in the trial bid suit and if you can help there, bid game.’


North:
S 7
H 10 7 4
D Q J 10 8 7
C Q J 6 5

West:
S A K Q 5 4 2
H 9 5
D K 9
C K 7 3

East:
S J 8 3
H A 8 3
D 5 4
C A 10 9 4 2

South:
S 10 9 6
H K Q J 6 2
D A 6 3 2
C 8


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

When East decides to raise the opening 1S to 2S West cannot rule out game but equally there could easily be four top losers so he enlists partner’s help by making a Trial Bid of 3C. Here East is maximum on all counts and has an easy raise to game but imagine he held something like SJxxx HQJx DQxxx Cxx. Now he would just bid 3S and hope for the best.

2 comments:

  1. Could you not equally bid 2C on East's hand? Then with West's holding he might bd 3S (not forcing presumably), followed by 4S by East as he 'knows' they have 9 spades?

    PORGP

    ReplyDelete
  2. Indeed you could and well might. I have no strong feelings either way. But one thing you should be aware of is that after a two-level response a jump rebid by opener in his original suit is game forcing. The reason being that if responder is strong enough to go to the two-level and opener is strong enough to make a jump rebid then there must be the values for game somewhere.

    ReplyDelete

If using the 'Anonymous' option for adding a comment please write your name in the comment box so we all know who has commented. You will also need to copy the word shown before you can publish your comment (to reduce spam.) Thanks, Dave.