Source: Cue-bid your Opponent’s Suit to Show a Fit July 15, 2010
Unless specifically agreed, bidding your opponent’s suit is not Natural. In almost every single auction, when we make the cheapest bid in our opponent’s suit, we are describing a good hand in support of partner’s suit…
In some cases, your cue-bid will show more than a limit raise.
Here, a 4
bid (the cheapest raise) would be game. The cue-bid shows a hand that is too strong to bid 4 directly, however it isn’t quite defined as a slam try. Sometimes we need to make the bid as a courtesy for partner in case they have a very strong hand.
What happens when partner’s suit is a minor?
Minor suit auctions have a different objective than major suits. When we do not have a major suit fit, our most likely game contract is 3NT. Sometimes when we have a good fit for partner’s minor and nice stoppers in our opponents suit, we will neglect to show our partner our fit and rather go directly to notrump. Typically we cue-bid to show our partner a fit for a minor when we lack a stopper in the opponents suit, or if we have some interest in slam.
The 1
bidder should be aware that partner might be using this bid because they lack a heart stopper. Thererefore the priority of the 1 bidder is to bid NT when they have hearts stopped. Initially we treat a cue-bid in support of partner’s minor as “asking for a stopper”.
Jump raise is now weak!
Now that we have learned to cue-bid our opponent’s suit with a good hand, we can use our jump raise to obstruct the auction.
By jumping to 3, you are preventing your opponents from introducing a minor below the four level and leaving them only one option for showing a fit in spades below game. 3 in this auction shows four card support and less than seven points. Be careful not to do it with very weak balanced hands… going down two or three vulnerable isn’t much fun.