LHO Partner RHO You
1D 2NT* DBL** ?
* (Clubs and hearts) **(10+ points)
At matchpoints, neither side vulnerable, what’s your call holding ♠8754 ♥J108 ♦J63 ♣A42 ?
If you’re focused on telling partner which suit you prefer as trumps, 3H is the obvious choice. The major is the higher-scoring fit and this is a good trump holding.
The most successful players will look beyond the immediate decision and consider how the rest of the auction and the play might develop. That’s what my partner, Bill Doroshow of Skokie IL, was doing when he decided to bid 3C with this hand. He claims he would have made the same bid even with four hearts and two clubs.
Bill knew we had no realistic expectation of buying the contract. The opponents had the clear majority of the high-card strength and were likely to have the values for game. His hand didn’t have enough trumps or playing strength to make a sacrifice attractive, so he turned his attention to how to defend, not which suit to declare.
The only element of the defense that Bill could control at this point was the first trick, and he wanted it to start with a club if I was on lead. As anticipated, opener became declarer in 3NT and Bill’s strategic bid paid off. I dutifully led a club to his ace and he switched to the ♥J through declarer’s king, which set the contract two tricks. With any other lead, declarer would have taken nine or ten tricks.
Used wisely, lead-directing bids can give you a big edge on defense. Not all are as low-risk as Bill’s 3C, but you can find relatively safe opportunities in many types of auctions. To take best advantage of them, you need to make good predictions about what the final contract might be, who will declare and whether the suit you’re showing really rates to be the best lead.
Helpful gadgets
There are also a number of conventions designed for this purpose, including transfer advances after partner’s overcall or takeout double and complex schemes for lead-directing passes of cuebids. One popular convention offers flexibility when you face this type of problem:
Partner opens 2H and your RHO makes a takeout double. What’s your call holding ♠62 ♥J75 ♦AQJ ♣108543 ?
If you’re predicting the final contract, your best guess is that your LHO will declare some number of spades. You’d like for partner to lead a diamond, but you don’t want to mislead him about your heart support. One solution is the McCabe convention, which defines a new-suit bid in this auction as lead-directing with support for partner’s suit. If your LHO passes, partner will always rebid his suit.
With that agreement, you can bid 3D with this hand, but you’re silenced when you hold ♠862 ♥Void ♦AQJ1087 ♣J854. That’s a potential disaster if LHO passes the double of 2H.
A worthwhile addition is the “parking-lot redouble”, which allows you to describe either hand. As with McCabe, your 3D over the takeout double is a heart raise with diamond values. The added option is the redouble, which starts a runout to your long suit.
If your LHO passes your redouble, partner must bid the cheapest available suit (2S in the above auction). Your new-suit bid (or pass of 2S) will then show a long suit and no support for partner’s suit.
In other versions of this convention, redouble
shows a penalty-oriented hand and 2NT starts the escape to your suit. If you and
partner agree to play McCabe, be sure to discuss the exact meanings of 2NT and
redouble.
© 2015 Karen Walker