Bridge with Colin – always fun, always aggressive but not always perfect

Colin and I had a lot of fun last night.  No surprise.  Here is a hand to bid.   We are playing standard with weak notrump. 

Linda.

♠ AK864

♥ K9

◊107

♣ K984

 

I opened 1♠ and Colin bid 2◊ which here shows 10+.  I am now pretty well forced to bid 2♠ because 2NT would show 15-19 HCP.  Colin bid 3♣.  This usually shows four clubs but it might be less sometimes if he needs to create a game force.

Linda	Colin
1♠	2◊
2♠ (NF)	3♣
?

 

Colin’s clubs will be real unless he has extra values or he has a problem in hearts but wants to play notrump.   Colin has also denied three spades in this auction.  Here are the choices that I was considering.  Try to pick the best bid and the one I made!

1. 3♥

2. 3NT

3. 4♣

……………………………………………………………………………..

3♥ has the advantage that it still keeps but clubs and 3NT in play.  Does it show something in hearts?  I think so.  It could be a weak stopper or an advanced cue bid. I could still support clubs later. If Colin wants to play 3NT now from my side he could bid 3♠ I suppose. 

3NT is the natural bid on my hand.  I have a heart stopper and a more or less balanced hand.  I am on the strong side of my bidding to date and this doesn’t show either the club fit or the full strength of my hand

4♣ shows the club support and suggests a maximum for the bidding.  However it takes us passed 3NT.

I don’t really know what the right bid is.  I think each of the bids has some pluses and minuses.  Anyway if you guessed that I bid 4♣ you are right.

Now Colin cuebid 4♥.  This makes me feel better about playing in clubs from his side but I still think he is the captain on this hand and I cue bid 4♠.  Colin asks keycards and we end in 6♣

Linda.

♠ AK864

♥ K9

◊107

♣ K984

Colin

♠ Q3

♥ A4

◊ A9642

♣ AJ106

You are pretty well going to need to pickup the ♣Q to make it but Colin had no problem with that.  Clubs are 3-2 and spades were 4-2 so the slam came home.  It is a bit aggressive but less so if you have a good record with trump queens.  Not surprisingly we were the only ones to bid the slam.

A couple of interesting things occurred to me about bidding this hand in standard or in 2/1.  In our version of standard my 2♠ bid limited my hand.  This gave me the freedom to be aggressive later in the auction.  It also does mean that there are more hands where Colin will bid 3♣ without real clubs (although he will always have extra values in those cases).  So sometimes playing standard this way has some advantages whatever you think about my bidding on this hand.

Here is another interesting hand.  It shows the plus of having some ambiguity in bidding over a strong notrump.  West opened 1NT and I held

♠ A109763

♥ 76

◊75

♣A87

I bid 2◊ which showed a major.  As it turned out the opponents had 25 high card points and ended up bidding 3NT without a spade stopper.  If I had overcalled 2♠ as happened at any other tables they would not end there and we would not get a plus.  Of course I could have kept my mouth shut and they would have ended in 3NT too.