By Phillip Alder

Today's deal arose during a small duplicate in Florida earlier this year. Look at the South hand. It goes three passes to you. What would be your bidding plan?

Suppose you open one diamond. What would you rebid after partner responds one heart?

Your hand-type is not easy for Standard American. You have the tricks for a two-club opening, but you would have to rebid three diamonds and be left with little space to discuss where to head. Ending in three no-trump, often a desirable contract in a pair event, would be guesswork.

And if you open one diamond, then, after a one-over-one response, you do not have a low-level, natural, forcing rebid. Here, over one heart, your hand is too strong for a three-diamond rebid. Jumping to five diamonds describes your power better, but might make it hard for partner to bid six when that is makable, and takes you straight past three no-trump.

The alternative is to rebid three no-trump. This in principle shows a hand too strong for a three-diamond rebid, usually 17-19 high-card points with stoppers in the two unbid suits (and often a singleton in partner's suit). Here, you would be gambling that the opponents could not run the club suit. But that would have gained a top in the Florida event, making 10 or 11 tricks.

Most pairs bid and made five diamonds, although one went down. Even after an opening heart lead to East's ace and a spade shift, declarer should have won with his ace, drawn two rounds of trumps ending in the dummy, and discarded two losers on the king-queen of hearts.

Copyright 2011, United Feature Syndicate