Michaels Cue Bid – Hilo Bridge Club

Tag Archives: Michaels Cue Bid

Fun Freak Hand

Posted on February 4, 2022 by Harry • 0 comment

I saw this on BBO. Put yourself in 4th seat (both sides vulnerable). Your right hand opponent opens with a weak two spades in 3rd seat. What is your thinking holding this nice hand?

Some Considerations:

How many tricks can your side take and what is the likely outcome?
What do you think is your best tactic in anticpation of a competitive auction?

What’s your call? See below for my recommendation and postmortem on the hand.

You count a probable 11 tricks in hearts and clubs. All partner has to have is one ace. The only ace that might not be helpful is the ace of spades. I recommend bidding 3 spades, a michaels cuebid describing a big hand containing hearts and an unknown minor.

That’s the good bid made by the player I observed on BBO. Unfortunately, it was partner who held the unlikely ace of spades. Misfortune was compounded when opening lead wasn’t a spade. Instead it was the ace of diamonds, and opponents quickly took the other two aces for down one. Sadly it was the only table at which a spade was not led. A future post will discuss the opening lead.

Category: Exercises: It's Your Call | Tags: Bidding Exercise, Counting Losers in a suit contract, Michaels Cue Bid, Overcalls, Preempts, Takeout Double

Unbalanced Hands

Posted on January 15, 2020 by Harry • 0 comment

Category: Exercises: It's Your Call | Tags: Michaels Cue Bid, Rule of 20

It’s your call with a freak hand

Posted on November 3, 2019 by Harry • 0 comment

Here is a fun, freak hand I held the other day. I am in 1^st seat facing favorable vulnerability:

I can’t open a preemptive 2 hearts when holding four or more spades. Instead, how about opening one heart? Okay, I do like holding the K 10 9 in each major, but that’s not enough to justify opening one heart with only six high card points. However, with 11 cards in the majors I don’t plan to go quietly into the night as the auction progresses (unless it becomes clear there is no fit with partner for either major).

Here’s how the auction proceeded until it got back to me:

At that point it looks like there is high likelihood of major suit fit with partner, so I overcalled three diamonds (Michaels cue bid for the majors). West bid four diamonds passed back to me. Having better hearts than spades I competed to four hearts ending the auction. When play ended I had made four hearts for plus 420!

Bottom line: Points Schmoints — this kind of a freak hand is much better than its high card holding suggests. It’s loaded with tricks. Those low cards in the majors are going to take tricks even though they don’t contribute to your high card count.

Category: Exercises: It's Your Call | Tags: Inverted Minors, Michaels Cue Bid, Points Schmoints

Standard Use of a Cue Bid

Posted on September 24, 2019 by Harry • 0 comment

Your partner opens the bidding with one spade in 2^nd seat. Right hand opponent interferes with a Michaels cue bid of two spades (showing at least 5-5 in hearts and an unknown minor). You hold:

You have a nice spade raise, but the overcall has robbed you of bidding space (a nice feature of Michaels). How are you going to cope? You could bid three spades or three diamonds.

Instead I suggest you cue bid three hearts (hearts is RHO’s known suit). By doing that, you convey to opener that you have trump support and at least the values for a limit raise.

Bottom line: Cue bid of an opponent’s overcalled suit promises an invitational raise or better in your partner’s opened suit (usually a major). Since it has become standard practice for most players, the cue bid is not alertable in this situation. Notice also that it reserves the direct raise to three of partner’s major to show eight to a bad 10 points — very helpful to partner in deciding whether to press on to game.

Category: Exercises: It's Your Call, Interesting Hands | Tags: Cue Bids, limit raise, Michaels Cue Bid

Defense yesterday

Posted on September 16, 2019 by Harry • 0 comment

Hi, all:

I have three posts based on yesterday’s game. The first one is on defensive strategy.

I was South declaring 3 spades on board 2 after the following bidding:

Here is the entire hand:

I chose to overcall two spades rather than using the Michaels cue bid of two clubs, since my hand was in the intermediate range of 12 to 15 HCP. I was in the top of that range, so decided to raise to three spades to head off competition in the minors.

West made the good lead of the club king. How do you think East should defend?

East should be delighted with her trump stack, and should encourage continuation of clubs by playing the club six. The idea is to pump declarer (shorten his trump suit so that he loses control). That way it’s difficult to make three spades without looking at the hands. From the bidding declarer can “see” the missing high cards in East’s hand, in particular the ace of hearts and king of spades. What declarer cannot see, however, is the four-zero trump break.

BTW, notice that I could have made three spades by ducking the first three club leads. Dummy can ruff the 4th club, and careful play holds the opponents to three club tricks plus the ace of hearts.

Board 9 provides another lesson in defensive strategy.

North arrives in 3NT on this bidding:

East leads the four of hearts from this crummy holding and observes this dummy:

It’s a good lead from the unbid suit, hoping to find your partner (who is not as broke as you are) with length and an entry after it’s set up. Partner plays the queen and North wins the ace of hearts. Next he finesses the queen of clubs which loses to the king. Back come the seven of hearts from partner which loses to North’s king. Dummy now runs the remaining five clubs. What do you discard from your hand on the last three clubs?

Do you remember the bidding? Hold on to those diamonds for dear life! Discard two hearts and a spade. Don’t give away overtricks at matchpoints by letting declarer set up his diamonds. This is known as maintaining parity with declarer.

Category: Exercises: Defensive Play | Tags: Michaels Cue Bid