Do You Know?

21st January – Board 19. East/West Game. Dealer South.

The featured hand could well produce a bidding malfunction if the system had not been learnt as well as it should….

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

West	North	East	South
			No
1S	2H	4NT	No
5H	No	6S	End

I give the bidding as it occurred at my table and I luckily got our side off to a good start when I decided to open 1S rather than 1D. My reasoning, such as it was, was that I did not feel I could reverse after a 2C response and I couldn’t bear not to bid the major at some point. Also it is so much harder for the opposition to come in at the two-level. What do I know, for North waded in, partner did a double take and quite correctly wheeled out the Old Black and with South silent the easy slam was bid. The point of this hand is what should be done if South had entered the fray with 5H? It was certainly nothing I had talked about with my partner of the night – for it hardly ever comes up – but I would have known with my regular partner. A simple approach is to use DOPI which simply means you double with 3 or 0 key-cards, pass with 4 or 1 and use step responses to show two without the trump queen or two with. So over 5H here I would bid 5S to show two key-cards. If the opposition double the 4NT bid then use ROPI which means redouble with 3 or 0 etc. You can work out the rest.