Dealer North
E/W Vul

South
♠ 976
♥ AQT876
♦ T
♣ AQ2

3♦ is <10pts, 9-card fit

What should I bid now?
With my 12hcp, I elected to not rebid 3♥, as partner would think I was 16-18pts. Plus partner has at most two hearts, and could be singleton or even void.
The result here was that 3♦ was down one as expected, but we missed 3♥.
If I had rebid 3♥, partner with 10hcp and 2 hearts likely bids 4♥, going down.
It was a bottom board either way – any advice?

Hi Sid,

When it comes to competitive bidding, it’s now a fight for the partscore. It’s not really about having the “points”, but it’s more about showing your suits.

In this auction, because of the singleton diamond, this tells you that it is important to do something. Otherwise, when partner has about 8-10 points with a bit of diamond length, what else will he do besides pass when the auction gets back to him? That’s the reason why it is important to bid a competitive 3♥ here.

Partner should also know that we were bidding 3♥ under pressure. In competitive situations, quite often you have to (or should) bid one level higher than what you would normally do. So partner with 10 points, depending on the context of his HCP, can sometimes raise to 4♥, and can sometimes pass.

Basically, if you don’t bid 3♥ and pass instead, almost always you will be headed for a bad result (because partner cannot do anything especially with diamond length). However, by bidding 3♥ there are several ways to win:
1) 3♥ can make
2) 3♥ goes down but 3♦ makes
3) We push the opp’s to 4♦

Sure, the downside is that sometimes partner may have a hand that raises to 4♥, but this won’t happen that often – but if it does, who’s to say that it won’t make especially when we have a singleton diamond?

Hope that helps,
Andy