Nothing much new at the club as the players prepare for the Men’s and Ladies’ Pairs on Monday and Friday.

The event is somewhat anachronistic in this day and age, with the need to separate the genders in a mind sport, but it endures and is a popular fixture on the calendar.

So, straight to this week’s hand, which is mainly about declarer play but has its roots in the bidding.

Most players play a variety of bids to show weak distributional hands after their opponents open the bidding, and here are some of the more popular ones:

• Unusual 2NT — a jump to 2NT after RHO opens, shows a non-opening hand with 5-5 in the two remaining lower ranking suits

• Michaels Cue Bids — When RHO opens a minor, a bid of 2 of that minor shows hearts and spades — usually 5-5. When RHO opens a major, a bid of 2 of that major shows a hand containing the other major and one of the minors

• Weak Jump Overcalls — when RHO opens the bidding, a jump in a new suit (eg 1D-2S or 1S-3D) shows a hand of 6-10hcp and a six-card suit

These bids are often useful in disrupting the opponents bidding or finding a cheap sacrifice, but I actually hesitated before tackling this subject because these bids are, more often than not, badly misused. Players feel that since they know the convention they have to use it no matter where their points are or the vulnerability, and that leads to trouble.

Also, once you make a bid like this you give the opponents a lot of information and that can be costly. So, a few rules:

• You should be 5-5 at a minimum for the two suited hands

• Most of your points should be in your suits so that partner can judge whether to bid or defend ... if RHO opens a Spade and your hand is Kx, A, Jxxxx, Jxxxx it is NOT an unusual 2NT bid !!

• Once you make one of these bids, partner now controls the bidding

• You would usually employ these at favourable vulnerability (not vul against vul opponents), sometimes at equal vulnerability, but rarely at unfavourable vulnerability (vul against non vul opponents). Now back to the information you give when you make these bids. West on the hand below had a legitimate 2NT overcall but in the end that gave declarer a road map on how to play the hand.

Dealer South N/S Vulnerable

North

? A5

? KJ983

? K63

? 643

West

? 62

? 2

? QJ1042

? KQJ105

East

? 873

? Q10765

? 95

? 987

South

? KQJ1094

? A4

? A87

? A2

The bidding was excellent:

South West North East

1? 2NT(1) DBL(2) 3 ?

3?(3) Pass 3?(4) Pass

3? Pass 4? Pass

4NT(5) Pass 5?(6) Pass

6? Pass Pass Pass

(1) Unusual NT for the Minors

(2) Shows values

(3) Cue bid showing a good hand

(4) Cue bid

(5) Roman Key Card Blackwood

(6) One Key Card

West led the Club King and declarer won the Ace and played the King and Ace of Spades — when West followed it was clear he had a 2-1-5-5 shape.

So placing East with the Heart Queen (he is five times more likely than West to hold it) declarer played the Heart Jack from dummy.

East had to cover and it was now over.

Declarer drew the last trump, played a Heart to the King, ruffed out East’s ten of Hearts and crossed to the Diamond to discard a minor suit loser on the Heart 8.

Declarer made the hand with 6 Spades, 3 Hearts, 2 Diamonds and a Club — 12 tricks!

Notice that without the intervening bid, declarer is pretty much guaranteed to go down.

After winning the Club, he will probably draw trumps and then attack Hearts by playing the Ace first after which there is no recovery as dummy does not have enough entries. So be warned.