WHEN TO GET JUMPY

Tigger was jumping up and down. He was VERY excited. The other three players - Owl, Rabbit and Pooh held down the table to stop it being thrown over. All that had happened so far was that Tigger's partner, Rabbit, had opened 1C. This was not normally something to get quite so excited about but Tigger was prone to such emotional outbursts due to over attentive parenting in early life. When the tumult subsided, Pooh passed with the superior insouciance he reserved for really really bad hands. Then an over-excited Tigger bid STOP 2S! Owl peered over his half-moon spectacles and said: "Good hand, eh?" Tigger was about to start jumping up and down again when Rabbit curtly interrupted: "Unauthorised question. Unnecessary information. Disregard." Owl passed with a barely concealed smile playing round his pointy little beak. The auction progressed in haphazard fashion until it became clear to all that Rabbit was void in Spades, who tried to salvage the situation by bidding 6NT. Owl Doubled rather too quickly, but the contract was 3 down Doubled for -800.

"You see," said Owl, "about all Tigger and Rabbit can actually make is 3NT. Your response of 2S was a strong hand (17+) with slam interest. Yet as you can see, the partnership was nowhere near the slam zone."

"But, but, but," stammered a much quieter Tigger,  "I had 15 points and 5 spades. Game was on and, well, maybe slam, but I had to tell partner I was strong straight away, didn't I?"

"No, not really, not at all. If you had had a VERY good six card suit and 17+ HCP then maybe, but even then that may not be the best way for the auction to proceed. As it was Rabbit had no Spades while I - your respectful opponent - had SIX of them."

"But I didn't know that!" wailed Tigger.

"Precisely." said Rabbit. "You had no idea what my hand was. You careered off into the unknown before finding out what my hand was like from my natural re-bid. You cut out an entire two levels of bidding, so it was almost impossible for us to have a constructive auction. What's wrong with 1S? It's forcing - I can't pass - and you also then get to hear my rebid before judging which game - or possible slam - to aim for. There really is no need to go jumping about just because Game is on!"