[firmit]

This may be trivial to some - but for me a question arised.

---

Had myself a new partner at the club today. And I want to give him credit with this hand, helping us as the only pair reaching slam. I suspect the other pairs sitting South with this hand opened 2♣ - but then again, I don't know.

The bidding starts with:
1♣ - 1♠
3♠!

Which I found excellent with my

---

The road towards 6♠ was now easy. 6NT however is a better contract, even with the clubs 5-0 (as was the case). Both Q♥ and K♥ sat at declarers left, thus the spade finesse failed.

A couple of questions, though, needs answering:
What is the normal opening on this hand ( the first with long clubs )? Why not open 2♣? Should you not have 4 to jump-support responder? Other similare situations would be...?

[awm]

Why would one open 2♣? Generally it is not a good idea to open 2♣ unless you believe you are likely to miss game on a hand where partner would pass a one-level opening. On this hand that doesn't seem all that likely. Give partner even a hand like xxxx Axxx xxx xx and any game you can bid is quite poor (of course partner will force game opposite a 2♣ open with that).

The 1♣ opening is really pretty clear-cut, it would surprise me if many people would open 2♣ on this hand (and I'm almost certain no strong players would open 2♣ in a standard system).

Of course if you're playing precision 2♣ then it's a totally different situation.

After 1♣-1♠, this is what's known as a "bridge-world death hand." You are too strong to bid 2♠, and bidding 3♠ shows four, and bidding 3♣ might miss the spades. There is no easy answer to this. Some people play artificial methods of some sort which allow them to show this hand. Absent those, the 3♠ call is creative but not unreasonable with such strong trumps (3♣ would probably get more votes).

[pbleighton]

I would open 1C. This is a great hand... sometimes. That's not good enough.

I've never jump raised on 3, but I would do so on this hand.

Peter

[pclayton]

3♠ is out of the question. We have a side 7 bagger. I shy away from a jump raise with 3 trump just about always.

There's a good chance we don't even want spades as trumps, since dummy may get tapped early and cut us off from these beautiful clubs.

6N is nice, and even 7N is reasonable. I think the most sensible start is:

1♣ - 1♠
3♣ - 3♦
3♠ - 4♣

[mike777]

1) yes the death hand
2) yes to one club
3) no to 3s
4) no to fake suit reverse.
5) that leaves 2s or 3clubs.
6) am stuck with 3clubs...2s could be so much much less.

[jdonn]

I think the right auction is

1♣ 1♠
3♣ 4♣
4♠
then blackwood your way to 6NT.

For people for whom 4NT over 3♣ is blackwood, even better. Why mess around?

If I HAD to rebid something besides 3♣ it would be 2♦. Don't get me wrong I'm not advocating that bid, but it's way better than 3♠.

[kenrexford]

Yet another good hand for the gadget. I keep seeing this in practice. 1minor-P-1major-jump reverse for a strong swan with fragmentary support. With two jump reverses, bid the shortness.

Here, 1♣-P-1♠-P-3♥ (expected 3136/3127), with good values. Sort of like a flawed walsh fragment bid.

Without that tool, 3♣ seems automatic.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

1C followed by 3C, you have a strong hand,
but unless partner can bid again, you wont
miss anything.

1C - 1S
3C - 3D (1)
3S - 4NT (2
... - 6S

(1) values
(2) RKCB for spades, you can bid different, but
you will get all information via RKCB

With kind regards
Marlowe

[skjaeran]

I see no reason to bid anything else than 1♣ followed by a 3♣ rebid with this hand, unless you have some special conventional bid(s) available.

This is a perfectly normal rebid.

[Fluffy]

firmit, on Apr 26 2007, 10:02 PM, said:

Why not open 2♣?

Because you are 2 aces short for that bid. Or do you play string 1♣? Then I guess 2♣ is better than 1.

[pclayton]

jdonn, on Apr 26 2007, 03:17 PM, said:

I think the right auction is

1♣ 1♠
3♣ 4♣
4♠
then blackwood your way to 6NT.

For people for whom 4NT over 3♣ is blackwood, even better. Why mess around?

If I HAD to rebid something besides 3♣ it would be 2♦. Don't get me wrong I'm not advocating that bid, but it's way better than 3♠.

I considered this sequence too, but 4♣ looks a little rich with only Qx. Its reasonable, but I think we can find out a lot about the hand with 3♦ first.

I think 4N over 3♣ in a established partnership should clearly be quantitative.

[jdonn]

pclayton, on Apr 27 2007, 12:39 PM, said:

jdonn, on Apr 26 2007, 03:17 PM, said:

I think the right auction is

1♣ 1♠
3♣ 4♣
4♠
then blackwood your way to 6NT.

For people for whom 4NT over 3♣ is blackwood, even better. Why mess around?

If I HAD to rebid something besides 3♣ it would be 2♦. Don't get me wrong I'm not advocating that bid, but it's way better than 3♠.

I considered this sequence too, but 4♣ looks a little rich with only Qx. Its reasonable, but I think we can find out a lot about the hand with 3♦ first.

I think 4N over 3♣ in a established partnership should clearly be quantitative.

I have no real problem with 3♦, I just don't see the point since I have such bad spades and it makes the auction more confusing. Anyway it's fine as long as you aren't planning on putting the hand in spades, after all even after blackwood how will you know partner doesn't have AQx, or worse AQ alone? Any hand that will play well in spades will play at least as well in notrump.