Using Fourth Suit Forcing For Slam Bidding

Too Strong For Game, Not Strong Enough For Slam

North has opened the bidding 1♣ and I'm going to go wild here and bid 1♦. 1♠ from North and I'm too strong to support the spades.

If I bid 2♠ I'd be showing six to nine points, 3♠ ten to twelve. I could bid 4♠ but I feel like I'm even too strong for that, so how can I let North know that I've got a strong hand, enough for game, maybe a slam? The solution is to bid the fourth suit. Bid 2♥.

You may be familiar with bidding fourth suit when you are looking for a stopper and no trumps. You can also use it to force the bidding and then return or set the spade suit as trumps or set whatever suit we want as trumps.

Now North knows that we have a spade fit, we're maybe going for a slam so 4♣ here is a cue bid showing first or second round control of clubs.

I bid 4♦ to show my first or second round control of diamonds. North bids 4♠, interesting, so there's an implication here that North does not have first or second round control in hearts. If he did he would either bid 4♥ or 4NT or 6♠ or do something. But 4♠ highlights the fact that we've got a problem in the heart suit and so we get to stop in four spades and that's high enough.

You can see we're missing the ♥A and ♥K so cue bidding kept us out of danger.