Convention Conundrum

Most experienced bridge players will tell you to keep it simple.  There are more poor contracts caused by someone forgetting a convention than good contracts generated through the application of an obscure one.  Unless you are in the money game, keep the agreement simple, and even then - a simple card is more suitable than a complex one if you don’t play very often. 

 

We play a simple card with only a handful of conventions, which we review each time before we play.  And as with every decent partnership agreement, our bidding captures the vast majority of hands while leaving a few uncommon ones without a suitable bidding sequence– the ones on which you scramble. 

 

In the NAP President’s Cup from 2021, we ran into one of those uncommon hands.  Because of COVID, we had not played very often, this being only the third session we had played in 2021 (and this event was in March!).  I picked up a very nice hand as South :

                                                                                                                    ♠  K 9 8 2

                                                                                                                    ♡ 2 

                                                                                                                    ♢ A K Q J 6 3

                                                                                                                    ♣ A J 

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My partner opened 1♣ and I was immediately thinking slam.  After a pass in East, I bid 1♠ - our agreement is to skip the other minor to show a 4-card major.  Partner then bid 1NT leaving me with a difficult second bid. 

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Now some players may say this is a problem of my own making, and that I should have bid the diamonds so that I could have reversed into spades, perhaps with a jump bid if partner bid hearts, which is likely.  With our style, that method does not work.  I would be promising five spades.  My spade suit isn’t good enough reverse into.  And a spade bid at the lowest level after a likely 1♡ rebid would have been Fourth-Suit Force, not a real spade bid.  Starting with diamonds makes the rebid problem worse - at least for us. 

 

After starting with 1♠, some players would advance to 2♢ - but after partner’s 1NT bid we play this as New Minor Force - promising five spades and asking partner to bid spades with three card support.  I was tempted to do that anyhow with only my four spades, but the last thing I wanted was for partner to correct back into spades at the last minute. 

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Not wanting to give up on slam quite yet, I temporized into 3♢.  This is essentially off card for us, and so should be interpreted as natural, strong and forcing.  If I was weak with long diamonds, I would have bid three immediately instead of starting with spades.  My other choices were 3NT, which would close out the bidding, or 4NT as a mild slam try with no obvious way for us to check keycards – we don’t have a convention for this.  I guess Gerber was on the table with a 4♣ bid, but I like to have a more balanced hand for that and there would be no obvious way for me to run to diamonds.  

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Partner bid 3♠, secondary support for my spades, and then I was set.  Partner thought we had agreed upon spades as a trump suit and I could safely bid 4NT asking for key cards with a 1430 response.  No matter what partner responded I could place the contract – even if that meant passing and stopping in 5♢ if partner had no aces (a subpar contract as 3NT must be cold, but it makes).  Partner bid 5♠ - promising the missing two aces and the queen of spades.  I jumped to 6NT which set the final contract.  Here was the layout -  

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                                                                                                                   ♠  A Q 4

                                                                                                                   ♡ A K 6 3 

                                                                                                                   ♢ 9           

                                                                                                                   ♣ 9 7 6 5 2 

                                                               ♠ J 6 5                                                                                              ♠ T 7 3                                                                                               

                                                              ♡ J 8 5                                                                                              ♡ Q T 9 7 4

                                                              ♢ T 8 5                                                                                              ♢ 7 4 2

                                                              ♣ K T 4 3                                                                                           ♣ Q 8

                                                                                                                    ♠  K 9 8 2

                                                                                                                    ♡ 2 

                                                                                                                    ♢ A K Q J 6 3

                                                                                                                    ♣ A J 

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 We got to a decent contract, mostly by avoiding conventions instead of using them, except obviously for the 1430 keycard ask.  I had to deceive partner to do so, not always a wise decision.  And I heard about it too once Partner realized she was playing it.  It turned out taking 7 was cold because of the 3-3 spade split, but that was not probable.  However, the odds of getting a 3-3 or 4-2 split in diamonds are pretty high, so 6NT was an odds-on favorite to make.