Six-four bid some more

More Ditties BridgeCast this week from Level 3. BridgeCast is Andrew's monthly subscription service, join him as he presents a daily deal. To find out more click here. Taken from  Andrew's "Rules, Acronyms and Ditties" book which is, providing the inspiration, for his current series of Level 3 daily videos on BridgeCast.

Six-four shapes are potentially powerful. By being both one-suited and two-suited, you have options in the bidding. Naturally you will open your six-card suit; but will you repeat it, or will you introduce your four-card suit? Provided it is cheaper, you should introduce your second suit -– that way you are showing nine of your 13 cards. However that word “cheaper” is key.

You hold:

Change your hand to:

and you would open 1 ♥ and rebid 2 ♥ over even a 1 ♠ response, because of the relative suit quality of the hearts and the clubs. It would be relatively exceptional to bypass a four-card suit though. Your default setting with a 6-4 shape should be to bid the six – then the four – then (if able) bid the six again.

Take our featured deal. Had South rebid 2 ♠ over 2 ♣, North would have passed. West led ♥ K v the excellent 5 ♦, declarer winning ♥ A and immediately starting on spades.

Declarer crossed to ♠ A and ruffed ♠ 3. He cashed ♦ K, crossed to ♦ A and, leaving the master trump outstanding, ruffed ♠ 5. East discarded to reveal the 4-2 spade split – but declarer would not have minded if East had overtrumped. Declarer crossed to ♣ A and led a fourth spade, giving West his ♠ K. West could cash ♦ J but declarer ruffed his next play of ♥ Q. He then cashed his two long spades and took the last trick with dummy’s ♣ K. 11 tricks and game made.