South's rebid is of some interest. Should South bid 2♥? 3♠? 3♥? The general question was posed in 2005 by Steve Robinson (three world championships and twenty-four ACBL national championships to his credit) posed the question to a panel of select and top level experts: What should opener rebid with 6 spades and 4 hearts after 1♠ - 1NT? Read it here: http://www.districtsixbridge.org/Articles/Article%202005-12.aspx

Several would "always" bid 2♥ with four hearts, even on ♥5432. Others, probably more sensibly, require some heart values. Others would rebid hearts if the suit quality equals or exceeds the quality of the spade suit, including comments on the interior quality of the spades as crucial.

One aspect of the panel's discussion was the comment that after 1♠ - 1NT; 2♥ - 2NT; 3♠ would be forcing, which suggests that the 2♥ bid might be made on a quite good hand, expecting partner to pass only with a very poor hand and a strong preference for hearts over spades. (See the present hand!) This South hand is pretty darned good. Could it be right to bid just 2♥, with 3♠ in reserve showing a good hand? EUREKA! The panel wins, having almost all taken a strong interest in bidding 2♥ rather than spades. General principles would suggest bidding 2♠ by responder with two spades and only three hearts. All well and good for minimum opening bids. Granted, the panel did not mention a hand as good as South's, specifically, but a bidding issue good enough to obtain varying opinions from world champions and national champions is well worth study.

2♥ obtains nine tricks, while spades are limited to eight, although good defense appears necessary to achieve that good result -- heart lead from west, east withholding the king, suit preference ♠2 when declarer leads trump, leading to West's underleading his ♣A to east, a heart return, ruffed, and preventing an entry to dummy for the heart finesse. How routine! Ho-hum.

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If EW wind up playing a heart contract, perhaps doubled, the best defense consists in leading the ♣K, else eight tricks are makeable. Of course, since NS can make 3♠, EW might wind up in 4♥, not a good idea, but it will happen. Doubled, it behooves NS to better + 140, and only by leading he ♣K can that be achieved. Not likely, so the tumultuous competitive bidding must be punished by a most unlikely -- nay, impossible -- lead, and those who bid 4♥ will escape their due.

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West has a flat hand and a weak long suit, so it would not at all be unreasonable for a downgrade and a 1NT opening bid, but most will open 1♣, wanting desperately to show the 18-count. When East bids 3NT, showing 13-15, West can dream of slam, but should be content with a quantitative 4NT, inviting slam opposite the maximum 15 point hand in East's range. East will decline.

Off two aces.

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Nice catch, South!

South, vulnerable, ought not venture out into the jungle, of course, but if he were to do so, Lebensohl is the method of choice, distinguishing a game forcing hand (not!) from a weak hand desiring only to play a part score (Boy, Howdy!).

So 2♠ is likely to be the final contract against a sensible, law-abiding South, and the opening lead will likely be the ♥T, setting up a heart trick for a diamond discard. A diamond lead is possible, and better for the defense.

At such time as East deems it appropriate to lead trumps, North should be played for the strength, and thus run the ♠T or ♠8, as preferred.

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5♦ is lucky, lucky, lucky, and takes more than mere skill to make.

I would be leery of opening a weak 2♦ in first seat, vulnerable, but there is one thing to be said for it -- it's now or never for the diamond suit! Further, it might take the opponents out. However, there is the risk that partner might get overly excited, and only good methods will allow the contract to rest below the high risk level.

Of course, the bridge gods have set this hand as making 5♦, contrarily, and if North does not open the bidding 2♦, West will have an easy time bidding over South's 1♣ opening bid, while North is now shut out, having lost his one reasonable opportunity. Now EW will play a spade contract, but game seems out of reach.

It's the fortuitous positioning of the heart and club honors that permits 4♠ to make, but along with that are the good heart intermediates held by East. Instead, ♥9542 Would prevent 4♠ from making.

So it's a crap shoot, and to the valiant will go the spoils of conquest. West has some inking of the beneficial positioning of his round honors and should be a bit aggressive.

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West will offer to contest, East will not quite jump with his hand, but South will opine that he has a good hand with a good suit. Agreed!

North, holding the ♥A in the opponents' suit along with surprising support for a suit jump-rebid, can do no less than compete to 4♦.

Perfectimento!

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Thoughtfully bid, but perhaps timid. EW found out that they are missing two key cards -- Either two aces or the ♠K and an ace. If you will look closely at the auction, it is clear to West that the ♣A and the ♠K are missing. Now the hand is rather much reduced to whether the ♠K is onside or not, and that is a 50-50 proposition. Since we are told by the mathematicians that a 50-50 slam is worth bidding on average, it would not be a bad prospect to bid the slam! (See Hugh Kelsey, "Slam Bidding" -- "a small slam is a reasonable proposition if it is as likely to succeed as to fail. Any slam offering better than a 50-50 chance of success . . . should be bid." On that basis, this slam is reasonable to bid -- a tossup. With ten trumps and many entries to the board from which to choose, lead and run the ♠8, succeeding any time the ♠K is in the South hand. When it is, plus 1430 . If the ♣A is not led, declarer can take all thirteen tricks by setting up the diamond suit for the discard of one club. There are no other issues, it would seem.

Well, yes, there are, but they are system dependent. If the partnership is playing Serious 3NT, then East could bid 3NT over the 3♥ bid, after which West would bid 4♦, simultaneously denying a club void and showing the ♦K. Then East, with the crucial third round control of hearts, would be fully justified in being the key-card inquirer with 4NT. A better auction, but East will not know for sure about the quality six card spade suit.

Another concept: For those playing the variation of Jacoby Transfers in which 3♣ in response to 2NT is any minimum, 3♦ a maximum without shortness, 3♥/3♠/3NT show extras and ♣/♦/other major shortness. Here the bid would be 3♥, when East would have to start control bidding at the four level, and valuable space has been consumed in return for West's generalized opinion about holding a non-minimum. This system, lovingly called Yacoby (The method has Swedish origins) gains space for singletons, but loses space when neither player has shortness.

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Oh, certainly there are other ways to bid the North hand -- a conventionally game forcing 2NT over 1NT forcing comes to mind, followed by rebidding 3♠, but that will serve little purpose other than to challenge the partnership and risk an accident. North cannot seriously entertain the possibility of slam with all of the holes in his hand. Make a practical 4♠ bid!

Basically, when the club finesse works, all is well. Perhaps some defensive slip will provide an avenue to eleven tricks, but that would be painful to watch.

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Is the North hand worth an opening bid of 1♠? There are those who extoll the Rule of 20 who would have to be consistent with their rule and pass [The hand only counts to nineteen in points and longest two suit lengths] -- or be hypocritical. Either the Rule works or it doesn't. Don't give me guidance and then not follow it! Can you guess that I don't use the Rule of Twenty? It's only benefit is to help inexperienced players appreciate the value of long suits. Otherwise, standard evaluation suffices. The Rule of Twenty was created to help push toward making a proper decision whether to open the bidding or not to do so when there is a close decision, but only for the dealer and second seat, not for third or fourth seats. Other than being unnecessary as a decision making tool for experienced players who understand the principles of hand evaluation, properly evaluating long suits, the RULE fails in several aspects:

1) You should tend to open marginal hands with length in both major suits
2) You should tend to open marginal hands when the suit to be opened has lead-directional value
3) You should tend to open marginal hands when you have adequate defensive values (2QT)
4) You should tend to open marginal hands when holding length in the spade suit

I like Frank Stewart's philosophy of opening the bidding: "(You) have some potential tricks (that's the bottom line), good defense, and an easy second bid. What more could you ask for? So
you're short a couple of Jacks. Big deal." "Better Bridge For the Advancing Player." p. 4. While you have Stewart's book open, flip over to page 38, where he evaluates ♠T753 ♥AQ954 ♦Q5 ♣KJ in fourth position. Focus on this aspect of his thinking: "If you had the minor suits instead [of the majors], you might toss the hand in, but not so here. ONE HEART, you open."

How does "traditional" evaluation evaluate this hand? Edgar Kaplan may be used as a guide here -- and there is a handy-dandy internet-accessible computerized version of his thinking at http://www.jeff-goldsmith.org/cgi-bin/knr.cgi. You won't have access to a computer or the Internet at the table, but you can do approximately as well -- the KR Evaluator just properly evaluates long suits, honors in long suits, devalues short suit honors, and considers honors working together rather than apart and suit solidity faster and more consistently. KR gives this hand 11.75, and not quite an opening bid. It also fails to consider the advantages of holding both major suits for competitive and constructive purposes.

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It's the strong jump shift and the two control bids == 4♣ and 4♥ -- that make this slam biddable. No one was in position to ask for aces, and who needs that, anyway? Control bidding is an art in need of cultivation, and this is just the hand to begin the study.

Oh -- the slam is roughly 60%! 40% that the suit is 2-2, 12% that the queen is singleton, plus 5% that the suit is 4-0 with the Queen onside. Well worth bidding.

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