This deal is from a
duplicate at Bramhall Bridge Club on 11th May.
Love All Pairs Dealer South
(1) three clubs is
constructive game forcing, two hearts would have been weak
What do you bid now?
Solution Do you agree with three clubs? Bidding problems like this are subjective, this is why bridge magazines have a popular feature with a bidding competition to choose the next call on a hand. There are two ways of determining the best bid, the first is to poll a set of experts, the second is to try to run a simulation of the deal. Here I did
both. Manchester's finest all bid on, Gary Hyett and
John Holland would both have bid four clubs on the previous
round. Michael Byrne suggested that South was likely to be 1345
distribution as with a 2245 he may well have rebid two notrump rather
than two diamonds. Michael Newman also bid on. Alan Mould
gave the most detailed analysis.
"OK
- very
tricky at pairs I think. At IMPs 4C is
clear (indeed I would have bid it over 2H). The problem
here of course is that I pretty much have to bid 6C if I move over 3NT,
particularly in a weak pairs field where no one will lead spades
against 3NT (as you frequently should do). Given that x,
Axx, AKxx, KQxxx is a stiff slam (well close!) I feel I have to bid but
I don't like it at all! I think it is
a toss up. Maybe in a weak pairs field you should pass and rely
on your
superior declarer play - no one else will move!" A
quick simulation suggested that slam would make about 60 percent of the
time. |