Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Jennbridge: A Good Bidding Sequence

Our expert opponents graciously complimented us on this bidding sequence at the recent San Francisco regional. (Bd. 4,  session 1, Thursday stratified open pairs)

Q J 9 2
K Q 5 2
K Q 9 6 3

Sitting North and playing with Mary Omodt as my partner, RHO passed and my first decision was what  to open. As I expected spades to be bid by either my partner or the opponents, I thought that the bidding would be likely to proceed more smoothly by opening 1, then rebidding clubs. According, I opened 1

Partner responded 2, an inverted minor bid, showing a limit raise or better in diamonds.  RHO now came to life with a bid of 2.  Although I only had 13 HCP, once we had found a fit and the opponents bid spades, my hand kept improving.  I now was pleased to bid 3 which I hoped would convey some useful information to partner.

LHO bid 3 and partner now made a key bid:  4

Wow. This hand may be going somewhere as I held a powerful, though aceless, 4-loser hand. Accordingly, I made what I expected to be a very descriptive bid:  4.  Partner now had the information she needed to jump to 6.

Board 4
West Deals
Both Vul
Q J 9 2
K Q 5 2
K Q 9 6 3
Q J 10 5 4 3
8 5 3
3
7 5 4

N
W
E
S

A K 8 2
10 6 4
J 8 6 4
8 2

9 7 6
A K 7
A 10 9 7
A J 10

The bidding :         P, 1D, P, 2D*, 
                               2S, 3C, 3S, 4H,
                               P, 4S, P, 6D

I ruffed the spade lead and took all of the tricks.  Plus 1390 was worth 17 out of 20 matchpoints.

See you at the table!

4 comments:

Slar said...

Interesting, I have been instructed not to open 1D with 4-5 in the minors because of the risk of ending up in a 4-3 or even 4-2 fit (not good in matchpoints). I had the same hand pattern in Dallas and opened 1♣. That was also wrong - I had no good rebid after partner's inevitable 1♠ response and we ended up in an awful 1NT contract because I was too weak to reverse. My partner and I concluded it was better to pass and wait for someone else to bid.

If you had done that in this case, I assume your partner would have opened 1NT and a Stayman sequence would have come up empty. From there could you have shown your clubs then used the same forcing/control bid approach to get to slam?

Anonymous said...

As the opps said, nice bidding by your side, by I am at a loss why it did not start with 2S by your RHO, (DBL by u) and 4S by LHO. Now your pard may picture the possible perfecto in your hand, but it is a little harder to bid slam.

Jennifer Jones said...

Thanks Slar,
There is no consensus as to which is best – opening one club or one diamond. Pass with a 13 count is out of the question. With the void in spades I like the one diamond opening; with other distribution 1 club would work.

Jennifer Jones said...

Dear anonymous,
I agree – an opening bid of two spades followed by a raise would have made the bidding more difficult!