Tag Info

As ruds has looked closely at Declarer's hand, let's now consider that of responder: Qxx-Axxx-Axx-xxx. Start at 10 HCP 4333 distribution is worth -1 pt, leaving it as a 9 pt hand. None of the honours support each other, or are supported by a 10: -0.5 pt taking it down to 8.5 points. Ace-heavy: good for suits, bad for notrump; no ruffing values, bad for ...

In the hand given, you can sometimes make 3NT and never make 4H without misdefense. But change South's hand slightly to AKx JTxx Kxxx Ax and 4H has more chances than 3NT: You have 7 top tricks (3 spades, 1 heart, 2 diamonds, 1 club). At 3NT, you must develop two more tricks, and hearts seems like your best shot at that. You must hope for honor-doubleton on ...

A non-jump rebid by opener of 1NT or 2NT shows a balanced 12-14 HCP hand (sometimes with a singleton in responder's suit). A single-jump rebid of 2NT or 3NT by opener shows the 18-19 HCP balanced hand. Partner's jump-shift in spades shows a very good hand, and a very good suit; you should always reveal 3-card support promptly, when you have it, by raising ...

If the diamond quality is vastly better than the clubs, then open 1D planning on rebidding clubs; otherwise open 1C. If the club quality is vastly better than the diamonds, then open 1C and plan on rebidding 1NT if partner responds 1H; the club suit can be expected to run in such a situation, and so how much trouble can you get into in 1NT. Remember that ...

I'm aware of 3 general approaches to this problem. Each of these approaches has its adherents, and most people seem to think that their own answer is obviously the best approach. I'll list the 3 approaches and their major weaknesses (assuming opener has 3 spades, 1 heart, 4 diamonds, 5 clubs). Open 1C, plan to raise diamonds or spades, and rebid 1NT after ...

The SAYC card specifies strong jump shifts by responder after a 1H opener, further explaining that it invites a slam. This suggests a 17-19 HCP range with 5+ cards and a good honor holding in the bid suit (though I warn you that point-count is insufficient to evaluate many slam invitational hands, and e.g. AKJxxxx Axx Kx x is a 15-count that suggests a ...

The ACBL booklet (quick reference) on SAYC can be found here: http://www.acbl.org/documentlibrary/play/sayc_book.pdf. According to that (page 3), NT rebids by opener at the lowest available level show a minimum hand. (Of course, that probably does not apply when responder initially bids 1NT). Based on your edit, it looks like you have some confusion ...

There's a few reasons to take a bid here. The bidding has gone 1C-1S-P. This indicates that RHO likely has fewer than 6 HCP. Let's consider a few different scenarios. If partner has only 8 HCP, LHO has an extremely strong hand. You would like to force LHO to take a second bid at 2NT or above, rather than at the one level. 2SX is likely to be fairly ...

Lesson 5 of the ACBL website's Teachers' manuals give a comprehensive explanation of Gerber and Blackwood conventions with lots of examples.

The unusual types of hands require "judgment," and an intuitive feel for what is right. Those are things that beginning players lack, by definition. The only way of teaching such hands to beginners is by "rote," because the logic will not be obvious. That will only confuse a beginner, who is being taught things for which the logic is obvious. If teaching ...