Your opponents won’t always leave you in peace to have a nice, comfortable auction.  Sometimes they get in the way by overcalling after partner has opened the bidding. It’s useful in these situations to distinguish between situations where we do, or don’t, have fit with partner’s suit, whether we are happy to play in NT or not, given that the opponents have shown strength in a particular suit, and whether we are just competing or interested in going to game.

The panel will help you to choose the right bid and there are a couple of concepts shown that you might not have encountered before.

Firstly, the idea of bidding the opponents’ suit to show a good (invitational or better) raise in partner’s suit. This is an artificial bid, with the alert shown by the little ‘A’ in the blue square to identify it as such. It’s called an unassuming cue bid, or UCB, which is a fairly strange name, and we talk about it more in the section on bidding the opponents’ suit.

Secondly, the use of double to show a hand that has enough points to bid but no natural bid available. You can read more about this in the sections on regular takeout doubles and special takeout doubles.