Thought I’d give Jock, the usual opening bidder, a breather. My comments will be much less sensible than his, but they’ll provide easy targets.
A. 2
. We’re close to slam territory. I’m not keen on 3
as it takes up space and that’s partner’s bid, not mine. I’d bid 2
as control to leave 3
available to partner to show/deny diamond control. If partner bids 3
over 2
I can bid 3
to deny diamond control. Either way we know at a low level if slam is possible.
B. 3
. 3
is GF and I have a K extra for my reverse. Should I just bid 6
? I’d like to know about partner’s kings. With 8 HCP+, partner could have heart and club Kings and diamond Queen. I can ruff one of my two spade losers if partner is 2443/2434. If partner has the spade king too, would she/he have bid any differently? A control bid of 3
allows partner to show spade or club control. Cueing a suit holding of Kx(x..x) as dummy-in-waiting can be risky, but opposite a powerful hand (reverse, 2!C opener, 2N etc.) ought to be safe.
C. 2
. I’m near the top of the range for my pass and East’s 2
may be good news for my K. We have 3
as a fall-back, should partner do something other than raising spades.
D. c5. 1N risks missing a 5-3 heart fit. 1
followed by 2
gives the wrong picture, but with this hand 2
in a Moysian doesn’t look too bad (said he with almost no experience of declaring successfully in Moysians). I might be able to get the hearts going while partner’s clubs prevent me from getting tapped? Or a spot of cross-ruffing may be in order. According to
BWS, 1
– 1N is semi-forcing and at most game-invitational and 1
– 1N – 2N is invitational. That looks ok to me: partner will raise to 3N with invite hand and pass otherwise. Partner has a minimum of 7 minor suit cards, and we could well get a spade lead.
E. 3
. Very tempting to bid 3N: all of partner’s high cards are outside spades, so I can rely on him/her for some club cover. However, partner must be short in spades, making a heart fit probable. In hearts I can ruff a couple of spades safely across West. Of course, when partner continues with 4
or 4
, I’ll be cursing not bidding 3N.
F. 1
/xx. The hint seems odd. The perfectly natural bid of 1
to me naturally would be forcing. After that if partner bids 2
, 2
or raises spades we’re ok, but what do I bid over partner’s 2
? A preference bid of 2
would be made on two small spots and 5/6 HCP, but partner would take 3
as 3c heart support and 10/11? Perhaps redouble is a better start than 1
? I have a couple of tens to make up the deficit and a heart bid later will show only two card support, and complete a pretty accurate picture of the hand.
G. 3
. This looks good to me. Where are the spades? Partner has at most four, so EW have a spade fit. Do we want them to find it? No, if partner has only three spades and they are 5(W)4(E) or 63. A 3
bid may well deter West bidding 3
with a 5c suit. There’s also the possibility that EW have a double spade/diamond fit. But our heart fit is at best 43. So let’s just get in the way for now.
H. Q
. I’m supposed to help partner’s major here. He/she’s going to have 6 HCP at most, and more likely to have longer spades than hearts. A low spade will kill one of partner’s honours (possibly the only one in the suit) to not much use. I’m also keen to create an entry into partner’s hand so diamonds can be led across declarer. A spade lead burning one of her/his honours ain’t gonna help. So why not bang down the heart Q?
