W has 19 HCP, 6 diamonds and a void in Clubs. Opens 1 D with
the thought of doing a jump shift into H. But…partner only has 5 pts and
passes. Is there any way to bid this hand that gets it to slam or is this just
a “Ho-Chunk” hand?
Glenna:
I think a Ho-Chunk bid is a gamble and some bids are truly that. But, this is a
case of people not being aware of how we count points today. Because of how we
do hand evaluation, when partner opens the bidding, we give value to the honor
cards AND we add 1 point for every card over 4 in a suit! So with a 5-card
A9765 suit, we have 4 points for the A and 1 point for the 5th ♥️. The hand with 6 points should respond 1 ♥️ and partner should bid 4 ♥️. It’s very important for responder know that 4 ♥️ is NOT a shutout bid—it shows a hand that can make game
opposite a 6-point hand. So, if responder should happen to have 12 or 13
points, he should look for slam!!! The only shutout bid in bridge is 1NT
P 3NT—no slam here partner!
Hand evaluation has changed over the years and today we give value to hands
that have high cards in the long suits. I will give you an example which also
shows the difference between a good 10 pt hand and a bad 10 pt hand or of any
hand:
Good Bad
Axxxx
xx. KQJx xx xxxxx Ax Kxx
QJx
Ok Not
so Great
AKQJTxxxx
x xx x AKQx AKQx AKQx x Both hands
can take 9 tricks BUT look at the difference in points!!!!
Hope
this helps,
Glenna
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