Bidding More to Show Less
By Mike Lawrence

Every now and then you get a hand that is too enormous to open two or three notrump.

The book says that with twenty-seven balanced high card points you must open four notrump but it doesn't tell you how to respond to four notrump. In any event, I have found that opening four notrump to show a big notrump hand is just too unwieldy as well as too rare to cater to. A much better use for an opening four notrump bid is to ask for aces. Once in awhile you get a hand like this one.

8
A
KQJ108764
AKQ

I would love to know how many aces my partner has. If I open four notrump, I find out. If I open one diamond or perhaps two clubs, the opponents may get into the bidding and either deprive me of being able to ask for aces later or perhaps will find a good save against my game or slam.

Going back to the question of what to bid with the twenty-seven point hand above, a possible solution is to open two clubs and rebid a good four card suit. On this hand, rebidding two spades works well because partner has a fit and raises to game. Note that North's four spade bid is a weak bid showing four trump, a smidgen of points, but nothing useful for slam. South can pass four spades knowing there are two heart losers.

Can you imagine any other auction which gets you to four spades? I am not claiming that this bidding trick will always work, but it is a good one to consider when you have one of these monstrous hands.

Against four spades, West starts with three rounds of hearts forcing South to ruff. How should South play?

You can, if you wish to play conservatively, draw trump and take your ten sure tricks. You have four spade tricks, a heart ruff in your hand, two diamonds and three clubs. A sure ten tricks.

But if you are playing in a tournament where overtricks are worth something, you may wish to play all out to get an overtrick.

THE TWO OBVIOUS LINES

One line is to play three clubs discarding a diamond from dummy. Now you can play the ace and king of diamonds and ruff two diamonds in dummy.

Hopefully, no one can ruff any of these tricks.

Another possibility is to take a diamond finesse somewhere along the way. But that is risky because the defenders may get a diamond ruff or if you have drawn trumps, West may cash a heart when he gets in with the queen of diamonds.

THE BEST LINE

There is yet a third line which avoids 99% of the hazards. I invite you to look for it now before showing you all four hands.