N-S vul, at IMPs, you hold as south: ♠A ♥J5432 ♦AKQ76 ♣A7

W      N       E       S

-        P       P       1♥

P       2NT¹ P       ?

¹A heart raise that upgraded North’s hand to an opener.

What do you bid?

This is the 1^st in a series of articles on the Canadian Bridge Championships that was held two weeks ago in Montreal. After this I will change the focus, to  a series of columns for intermediate players.

At the other table the South bid diamonds, then key-carded and had to guess how high to bid.

At this table our own Doug Fisher found the winning call, 5♥. This bid says, “I have a hand good enough for slam, but my hearts are weak. Bob Todd had an easy 6♥ bid, making easily. The full deal:

Lessons to Learn

1)    When deciding what to bid you sometimes need a strategy. In order to determine the strategy you need to ask yourself,

·        ‘What do I need to know in order to (eventually) set the contract?’

And then ask ,

·        ‘How can I elicit partner’s help to get this information?’

2)    Without opposition bidding a jump or raise to 5 of the trump suit asks for good trumps. However the meaning changes, if the opponents bid exactly one suit, to ‘Bid slam if you have 1^st or 2^nd round control of their suit.

NEXT PROBLEMS:For the near future all bidding problems will come from the recent Canadian Bridge Championships.

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