Thursday Bridge Club: jump shift

8th March – Board 10: Game All. Dealer East.

The single jump response in a new suit is the forgotten bid of bridge and although it happens rarely it can be worth its weight in gold. Those who eschew it can find that bidding problems might occur later which are almost impossible to overcome.

West	North	East	South
		No	1S
No	3H	No	3S
No	4H	No	4NT
No	5S	No	6C
No	6H	End

Just imagine for a moment that you only bid 2H at your first go as North and partner rebids 2S. What now? 3H is non-forcing and 4H hardly does the hand justice and there is no semblance of another bid. Much better to make a jump shift in the first place showing a hand with a very good five-card suit or better and normally about sixteen points or more. (Here you can afford to shade those values because of the quality of the suit.) A rebid in the suit more or less dictates that that suit will be trumps so South has an easy way forward via RKCB. 6C of course is a grand slam try and only now should North back-pedal. As it happens the slam should be easy to bid even after a 2H response because opener will now reverse with 3C, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it is best to show one’s hand in one go if possible rather than by a series of convoluted manoeuvres.

When declarer discovers that there is a trump loser he will be forced to take a club finesse in order to pitch the losing spade. For the mathematically minded this equates to 68% + ½ of 32% - or 84%, well within the odds for a small slam.

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.