A Tough Rebid

Here is your hand:

♠AJT865
♥A5
♦K3
♣AT5

Your Partner is Dealer and opens the bidding 1♦. Your RHO says Pass. I think everyone would now bid 1♠. LHO Passes. Partner bids 2♦. Your RHO Passes again.

What is your bid? You are playing match points.

The auction proceeds as follows:

Partner	RHO	You!	LHO
1♦	Pass	1♠	Pass
2♦	Pass	???

Question is: What will you bid now?

Show Answer

The problem here is that you really don't know where the contract should be placed.

3NT could be right
4♠ could be right
5♦ is not right at match points so let's rule this one out
6♦ could be right
6♠ could be right
6NT could be right
So now you need a little more information from Partner.

However you have to remember to make a FORCING bid. You've got to make Partner bid again.

If you bid:
2♠ -- Partner is supposed to PASS
3♠ -- Partner is allowed to PASS
4♠ -- Partner is probably going to PASS -- you have just placed the contract

So that rules out rebidding some number of ♠

If you bid:
2NT -- Partner is allowed to PASS
3NT -- Partner is probably going to PASS -- you have just placed the contract

So that rules out rebidding some number of NT

If you bid:
3♦ -- Partner is allowed to PASS
4♦ -- Is this a forcing bid? Does Partner know it is a forcing bid???
5♦ -- Partner is probably going to PASS -- you have just placed the contract

So that rules out rebidding some number of ♦. Besides, Partner might only have five ♦. We might not even have a fit.

So we are left with two other suits. The round suits.

2♥ is a forcing bid. That has potential.

But Partner has not yet denied having a four card ♥ suit. If they had bid 2♥ that would have been a reverse bid showing extra values. So the problem with bidding 2♥ is that Partner might not get that you were just forcing them to bid and you don't really have the suit you were bidding. They might raise you. If you then go back to ♦ or ♠ they might put you back to ♥.

So that's probably not the best bid here.

That pretty much leads us to the best bid. 3♣.

I LOVE that bid. Note that Partner COULD have bid 2♣ and choose not to. They probably won't get too excited about your ♣ bid. However if they do decide to go crazy and leap to 7♣ guess what you can do?

That's right. Bid 7♦. You can put them back to their suit.

But, again, they shouldn't go crazy.

If you decide to bid 3♣ Partner will now bid 3♠.

How many ♠ do you think Partner has?

What will you bid now?

...to be continued