What should I bid? (July 2016)
The best submission for July came from Max Henbest. He wins a voucher of $30 funded by TBIB, toward any purchase made at the Bridge Shop or Paul Lavings Bridge Books.
You are Vulnerable, they are not.
You are second to act, RHO opens 1♥ and you hold:
♠ AKQT9xxx
♥ JT
♦ –
♣ Ax
I came down to 3 possible options.
1. 1♠ – This seemed to mask the strength of the hand, however, it does run the risk of playing in 1♠.
2. X (then 4♠/bidding spades) – This could run into some awkward auctions say (1♥) – X – (4♥) – 5♣/5♦; (P) – ??
3. 3♥ (stopper ask, followed by 4♠).
4. Maybe something else
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Hey Max,
Whilst it’s true that we have slam potential given our strong hand with a nine-card spade suit, with our RHO opening 1♥ in our J10, it is probably likely that when we declare the spades, we will have two heart losers. Based on that, I would be inclined to give up slam exploration and overcall 4♠ directly.
One other factor to consider is the vulnerability also – when we are vul and they are not, particularly on a distributional deal, I don’t want to give bidding space to the opponents to find a potential sacrifice. That is, with our diamond void, the opponents may have a big diamond fit so I want to shut them out by jumping to 4♠ now rather than going slow with a double or a 1♠ overcall.
As for bidding 3♥ as a stopper ask, I guess that option is also possible and it might be a good compromise between a low level 1♠ overcall and a jump to 4♠. Since this stopper-ask bid is traditionally used for a long running minor suit, I don’t have experience doing it with a major suit. At least it will block out a low level diamond bid by our LHO.
Cheers,
Andy
