| Board 18 East Deals N-S Vul |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Question:
My partner and I held the above North-South hands and would like to know how you would bid them.
Answer:
Misfit hands do come up occasionally and can be very hard to handle. I tend to become very cautious when I think we have a misfit. Since East is the dealer, I would pass the south hand and not open it. It is very close to an opener but it may be easier to compete later. So, North would open 1 Heart. South, now bids 1 Spade and North rebids 2 Diamonds. Here is where South should start to think about it being a misfit, especially with a void in diamonds and no pre-emptive bid from either East or West. So, North likely has a lot of diamonds to go with the hearts. So, I am going to tread lightly and just bid 2 Spades with my 6 spades and 11 HCP. This is a bit of an underbid, but I don’t want to get too high with a possible misfit. Once in a blue moon, I might miss game by being conservative, but I also stay out of trouble if it is a misfit. Now, North, with some extra values and singleton spade should bid 3 Diamonds. South should view the 3 Diamond bid as showing some extra values but less than enough to jump to 3 Diamonds over my 1 Spade. Now, South should jump to 4 Hearts since they have already underbid their hand and do have limit raise values plus a diamond void for partner. Not sure how much the AK of clubs will help but it will be 2 tricks in any event.
So my advice is, tread slowly when confronted with a likely misfit.