This week, my Junior coaching is going to focus on game tries. When partner raises your major suit, a game try is a bid made in an attempt to get to game. You are asking partner if he is minimum or maximum for his raise. When a game try is a suit, you are asking partner to look at his holding in that suit to help him decide whether he likes his hand or not. In standard bidding, the third bid in the following auctions are game tries.

1      2

3                   

AQ742 AT7 AJ74 6

If partner has as little as the K and the K, you have play. If he has strength in hearts, he can make a counter try of 3 , which you will be happy to accept. If he has secondary club strength, game will probably not have a good play.

1      2

2 NT

AQ742 QJ4 AJ7 K6

If you are playing a raise as 6 to 9, you might make a game try of 2NT to ask partner if he has 8 or 9 points.

1      2

3

Q7642 AQJ4 AK7 6

3 would ask partner about his trump quality. Some partnerships play 3 as a preempt to stop the opponents from balancing, although that is more useful when your suit is hearts.

In general I am not a big fan of game tries for two reasons.

1) It helps the opponents with their opening leads. The more they know about your hand, the better they can defend.

2) I hate to make a game try and then go down at the 3 level.

In general my philosophy is two-fold. If partner will need the perfect maximum, don’t play him for those cards. Partners almost never have the perfect hand.

If there is a perfect minimum that will give you play for game, just go ahead and bid game. You don’t always get perfect defense, and the less the opponents know, the more likely they are to make a mistake.

So here are examples of hands that I would just bid a game on after partner raised:

1      2

KJTxx x xx AQJxx

QJxxx x xx AKQxx

KQJxxx x xx AJTx

One last thought, when partner makes a limit raise of your major suit, how often should you go to game. My belief is that you should always bid a game unless you have a balanced minimum. Any time you have a queen above a minimum or a singleton, bid the game.

With Jxx AKxxx x QJxx I would bid game after partner made a limit raise.