With Wild Hands, Bid One More!
When was the last time you picked up a hand with absolutely wild distribution? It happened to me a couple weeks ago when I was playing with a student:
As you can see, my partner passed and my RHO (right-hand opponent) opened 1S. I had some options here. Probably the closest I could get to describing my hand in one bid would be to make a Michaels cuebid; this would show at least 5 hearts and at least 5 in one of the minors. However, I thought that two things were extremely likely: One, given my distribution, the opponents had a spade fit, maybe a big one. And two, they likely had a game. Another factor was the vulnerability; we were not vulnerable and they were. All these combined suggested that I should go for a bid that would take up as much room from the opponents as I reasonably could. I decided to jump to 4H. But wait, you say: Shouldn’t that show an 8- or at least a 7-card suit? Normally yes. But when you have extreme distribution on the side (and check out our upcoming lessons on preempts for more on this subject), that increases your playing strength tremendously, and with more offense, you’re usually safe to preempt at a higher level than your trump suit alone would suggest.
My plan was, if I got the chance, to show my second suit. I did already start considering what I would do if I got doubled; would I run to 5C or stick it out in 4HX? Unsurprisingly, though, my LHO bid 4S. I was already getting ready to bid 5C. It’s true this would violate the rule of not bidding again once you preempt, but here my preempt was based on extremely unusual distribution, and with so few losers in my hand, I couldn’t imagine defending 4S could be right (unless partner doubled 4S; then I’d have something to think about). But partner didn’t double 4S, nor did she pass. She bid 5H! My RHO now gave this some consideration and bid 5S. So now, with a known fit, it seemed like if I bid and got doubled the penalty would be quite small, and it was not at all clear we could beat 5S; given partner’s raise, we might not take any heart tricks, although I could hope for one. It was possible partner might have a trump trick and we could add that to a club and a heart to beat 5S, but my usual philosophy with such extreme distribution is that at least one side is making their contract, and if that were true, bidding had to be right. So I bid 6H, doubled by my LHO and passed out. Dummy came down with just what I needed:
With so many trumps, I was able to ruff three clubs in dummy, setting up my last two, and eventually lose only one diamond to go +1210.
It’s true I violated some general rules on this hand. But the thing about this game is that there are almost no “never”s in this game. Hands you almost never see the likes of can come up, and they don’t often fit into a “never” basket. But a general idea is a good one to remember: In a competitive auction, if you have way more shape than anyone could expect from the earlier auction, bid one more!