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Overcalling with a good hand - Bidding Decision (from Monday 8th May 2006).

ª	A K Q J x
©	A K x x
¨	J x x
§	J x x

The opponent on your right is dealer and opens 1¨. What are you going to bid?

From the traveller it appears that some players bid (Stop) 2ª - showing a good hand and this was ‘Passed’ out.
2ª is NOT a good choice. Why? There are two reasons:

1. You have a 21 count and the player on your right has opened - so your partner is going to have very little and will most likely ‘Pass’.

2. Although the spade suit looks very tempting, we also have a 4-card heart suit. So, if you 'X', you give partner the opportunity to show 4/5 hearts and we have a good fit. If partner does not bid then you can bid spades at the next opportunity.

Equally it is not a good idea to overcall 1ª with the objective of bidding the heart suit later since it is quite likely that you will not get the opportunity, (1¨ - 1ª - P - P); and the hand is too good for a simple overcall anyway.

The most common way to bid a hand like this is to 'X' (double) after the opening bid.

This may seem a little strange since 'X' after an opening bid normally means, 'Please bid any of the other suits, partner.' And, usually if you have a hand with a 5-card major then you should overcall in that suit. But in this situation we actually have a good hand that has 7 quick tricks in it, (that is important - the 21 count is not really worth that much since a singleton King has little value).

So this hand helps illustrates two bidding principles -

'X' followed by the bid of a suit (even if partner has not bid), shows a good hand with quick tricks and a 5 card (or longer) suit. (You expect to get close to the contract even if partner has ‘Passed’)

And -

A simple overcall shows a 5 card suit with (general rule of thumb) 7 - 17 points.

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