Bidding The Big Hands

Newcastle Herald

Friday December 7, 2001

Paul McGrath

MIKE Parfait, Julie Gleeson, Chris Dibley, Mike Seldon, Louis Woo and Paul McGrath have won the 2001 Newcastle Bridge Club Teams Championship.

They played Margaret Ingold, Chris van Wyck, Bill Spinks and Bruce Dyson in the final.

Neither team was able to accurately bid to the top contract on the deal shown. How would you fare with your regular partner?

It is not very often that a hand as strong as North's comes along but the slam potential makes it important to have clear understandings about the auction.

For example, a positive response opposite a game forcing opening bid should mean that slam is in the picture, and that the partnership has the values to fully investigate slam and yet expect to be able to bail out at the five level if necessary with relative safety.

Here is a possible auction.

WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH ???Pass Pass2C*Pass3D** Pass3NTPass4H Pass4SPass5D Pass6NTAll pass

* = game force

** = positive, five or more diamonds

Of course, the greatest uncertainty comes with the 3NT bid. If you allow opener to show a four-card suit here then you need to be confident about this in your partnership.

Should South push on? Yes, the bid of 3NT does not exclude slam even though there is a small risk of going past the last makeable contract.

In fact, neither partnership got to the best contract, namely, 6NT. One partnership stopped at 3NT and the other overbid to 7H.

C'est la guerre!

NORTH ; AK54 k AJT l K6 ' AKQJ WEST ; J832 k Q743 l 72 ' 963 EAST ; QT7 k 98 l QT95 ' T542 SOUTH ; 96 k K652 l AJ843 ' 87