A Clever Rebid

I think this hand is super interesting in the auction. South at all vul may be worried about bidding 2♠ because of the quality of the spade suit, but our hand quality certainly makes up for the lack of spade honors.

Now, once we do that, North’s hand would be in great shape if we were playing feature ask, however, let’s assume we are not.

They bid their club suit.

Now what does South do?

Well, there’s a few options here — 3♦ or 3NT.

3♦ has the benefit of continuing to show our shape.

3NT however is likely where we want to end up. Partner may not have a heart control and if they have neither a heart nor diamond control, then they probably shouldn’t have bid 3♣. We have enough diamonds that we aren’t too concerned about that suit, and partner has already shown that they have clubs covered.

So, we bid 3NT.

We could end up with a heart or a diamond lead on the lay of the cards, but let’s say we get a diamond lead. Something interesting happens at T1 — after the ♦J opening lead, we fly with the A, and then the Q comes crashing down. It’s unlikely they lead a doubleton, so here, the assumption is that East has no more diamonds. This means, should we get on lead in the South, we should double hook the diamonds.

Additionally, in terms of setting up the clubs — we may want to do something a little creative. At T2, We should play a low club to the ♣J. We know we’re losing at least one club — even if the Q would fall doubleton, we’ll end up losing to the 9 or 8 still. So we should just play a low club and see if we can inspire our opponents to play the ♣Q. If not, we’ve now gained an entry to the South hand, and we can finesse the diamonds.

How would you tackle this hand?