Nice day for bridge

On a family holiday in Nice I made contact with a couple of local Bridge Clubs, but we never quite made it. Instead we played a few hands in the villa. Our opponents had just been taught overcalls, and this was one of the demonstration hands from their lessons:

No one vul S deal ♠ x x x ♥ J T x x ♦ x x ♣ A J x x ♠ A K J x x ♥ x x ♦ K T x ♣ T x x 6 11 11 12 ♠ Q x x x ♥ Q x ♦ Q 9 x x ♣ K Q x ♠ x ♥ A K x x x ♦ A J x x ♣ x x x

Anna Danny W N E S 1♥ 1♠ 2♥ 2♠ 3♥ - -

I opened the South hand 1♥, West overcalled 1♠ and North raised to 2♥, just as the teaching notes suggest. Now East has a decision. In the beginner course in Norwich Bridge School the responses to overcalls are more or less the same as responses to opening bids, so with 11 points East should bid 3♠.

I don't think this is a particularly good system, as when responding to overcalls playing strength and number of trumps are much more important than High Card Points, but it keeps things simple. Here, East only bid 2♠, not unreasonable.

I then bid 3♥ as South, just competing the hand with a known nine card trump fit. This bid is not invitational, and Anna passed anyway with a minimum.

With trumps behaving there are an easy five trump tricks, two Aces and two ruffs in dummy so 3♥ made easily.

Despite having more High Card points if East-West get to 3♠ they will do well to make it. They need this lucky layout in Clubs with the Ace onside, and also to find the Jack of Diamonds.