Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Ruffed out

Playing a 25c IMPS robot tourney on BBO, I picked up:


The bidding went:

Partner opened it 1C, RHO overcalled 1D and I bid 1H (forcing).  Partner now bid 1S and I bid 2D (fourth suit forcing).

At this point, North bid 2H showing 3 hearts.  What is your bid?  Essentially, I have diamonds well stopped and the danger is that if North has several diamonds, West will get a few ruffs.

At the table, I could not think of a way to get North to tell me how many diamonds he had, so I shrugged and bid 4H.  It went down because this was the full deal:


As anticipated, West got two ruffs to scupper 4H.  3NT was the right spot to be in.  How could I could have gotten there?  By bidding 3D over the 2H.  Now, North with 3 diamonds and the queen would have bid 3NT.