If There’s a Good Chance Partner Won’t Understand Your Bid, Find Another Bid

West				East
♠	AKxxxxxx			♠	Jxx
♥	Axx			♥	KQx
♦	–			♦	AKxxx
♣	xx			♣	Qx

A good rule of thumb to follow is to not make a bid if you think partner might misinterpret it, even if you think it is the best bid for your hand. Just do something else for the time being that won’t get you guys into trouble and then talk about what you wanted to do instead after the session.

Most established partnerships have some understanding of what this bidding sequence means, if only because someone tried it once and got lost. When I made this 4♦ bid, I knew we hadn’t talked about it but I thought surely partner wouldn’t grossly misinterpret it. I mean, I could bid 3♦ natural and forcing to show a two-suiter, so surely 4♦ would be shortness with extra spade length. As it happened, this new partner of mine was unable to decipher what I was trying to show in a reasonable amount of time so she thought I had a distributional 2 suited hand and eventually bid 6♠ off two cashing clubs.

In retrospect, I should have Texas transferred and then bid 5♦ . That could not be confused for a two-suited hand. That auction has to be a hand with really long spades and first round control of diamonds but not clubs. Then my partner, holding a worthless AK of diamonds and no club control could sign off in 5♠.

So, while we’re at it, you and your partner should come to an understanding of what other jumps to 4 are after a Jacoby transfer mean.

My simple suggestion:

4♣ /♦/♥ = splinters, based on a slamming hand with a long suit and a singleton or void in this suit.

4NT = quantitative invite to slam with a 5 card major.

If you want to bid RKC for your major suit, Texas transfer and then bid 4NT.