feb2.indd

English 55 Brian Zietman One of the more dif fi cult bidding concepts for improving players to understand is 4 th Suit Forcing . It seems incongruous to bid what you do not have rather than what you do have. The best way of explaining it is by giving an example from www.bestbridge.co.il in the session of "Practice playing the hand", exercise no. 1, tournament players – section B. You hold: ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ T32 AK987 K2 K62 You were thinking of opening 1 ♥ when your partner, the dealer, bids 1 ♣ . Nice! Now you know that together you have a minimum of 25 HCP, so you want to be in game at the very least and. If partner is strong, you may be able to bid a slam. You respond naturally 1 ♥ , and partner bids 1 ♠ . This 1 ♠ bid is very revealing, and it is worth taking stock of the situation. What do we know about partner's hand? 1) He probably has only a 4-card spade suit, as he did not open 1 ♠ . 2) He probably does not have a 4-card heart suit, otherwise he would have supported us. 3) He has about 12-17 HCP. Had he been stronger, he would have jumped to 2 ♠ . 4) Partner has not bid 1NT, so his hand may not be balanced (although it could be balanced). Conclusion: Game is sure, but probably no slam. One question remains, though: Which game? Should we play in 4 ♥ , 3NT or maybe 5 ♣ ? 5 ♣ does not appear a good choice. As a rule, minor suit game contracts should be avoided whenever possible. Here we have a diamond stopper, so 3NT from our side is always playable. So what will it be: 3NT or 4 ♥ ? What we need is more information fromopener and we can get this by bidding the 4 th suit – 2 ♦ . This does not say anything about our diamonds. It is 4 th Suit Forcing and it asks our partner, the opener, to describe his hand further. We would mainly like to know two things about partner's hand: a) Does he have 3-card hearts support? b) Does he have a stopper in the 4 th suit? In the case under consideration, partner has the following hand: ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ AKJ9 JT2 765 A73 Hmm, this is more balanced than we imagined. Anyway, partner will bid 2 ♥ showing 3-card support. Knowing about the 5-3 fi t, we will raise to game with a bid of 4 ♥ . 4th Suit Forcing feb2.indd 55 2/10/2014 1:15:11 PM