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for Juniors, Intermediates, Novices and others....it's Fri   day. 

Stay low, Joe!

Sometimes, the high-card point count is not the only criteria which affects one’s bid. Take a look at the following:

 

What bid would you now make as North?

With 12-14 hcp and 4-card spade support, you would raise to 2. With 16-17, you would bid 3. What, though, with 15? It rather depends whether your hand looks good or not. Certainly, the trump holding is very good but what about the rest?

Had West bid hearts, the North hand would be better but with most of the high hearts and probably the ace with East, the K is not well-placed. Also, jacks are not always worth the point we ascribe to them. So, with two jacks and a king of dubious worth, this is not that good a 15 hcp hand. Anyone who uses Losing Trick Count would see this is a 7 loser hand, or just a minimum opening bid.

So, bid the hand down: 2. Alas, when our North bid 3, disaster was to follow:

 

 

South was minimum in hcp but with a 6-card suit decided to have a shot at game. West led the 4 to East’s Q. The defence did well. East switched to the K which South won (ducking does not help), drew trumps and exited a club to East’s Q. Back came a third club from East ruffed in dummy. Declarer had to lose two tricks in each red suit and a club to be down two vulnerable, an especially poor result (-200) playing Pairs.

While South’s raise to 4 was aggressive, they were entitled to expect better from North’s jump to 3. Had North only bid 2, East, who had a really decent overcall, would bid again, 3. Now, South would compete to 3 and that should end the bidding, one down on good defence which would be no problem as East-West should be able to make a higher score from making a part-score in either hearts or clubs.

Note that East’s best action over 1 was to bid 1 rather than double and bid hearts later. They were certainly very strong for their overcall and would have bid to game had West showed support. Yet, the prospect of West bidding spades (on a different lay-out) after a double makes calling their longer suit a better option.

Both North and East had potentially good hands. Although North found and had good trump support, the rest of their hand did not merit any strong jump bid. Aces and kings are often great cards but a king may be worth little if the overcall was to the left of the player with the king, as here. Be aggressive sometimes but equally know when to stay low.

 

Richard Solomon

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