Overcall? Michaels?

You are in the Overcall position and your Right Hand Opponent (RHO) opens 1[club]. What should you bid?

I told several people about this hand….they couldn’t believe it!  You have two choices 1[spade] or 2[club], Michaels, showing 5+/5+ cards in spades and hearts.  At the time they gave me this hand I suggested a 1[spade] bid for a couple of reasons.

1. Your spades are much better in suit quality than your hearts. You need to emphasis the spade suit.
2. The auction will not go 1[spade] – Pass – Pass – Pass. There are too many cards in clubs and diamonds in the remaining three hands and too many points for the hand to get passed out.
3. If you bid Michaels and partner has one spade and two hearts…which suit do you want to be trumps? Spades! Let’s emphasis spades.

If you’re interested, virtually everyone I talked to opted to bid 1[spade].  By the way, partner raises spades…isn’t that nice!

See more of this technique in Patty’s “Michaels and Unusual 2 No Trump” book.