What is your first thought after reading this comment by Elayne Boosler? “I never minded flying cheap. I always said to myself, ‘Taking this flight saves enough money to rescue six cats, or four dogs, or will let me make a difference to the one woman saving chimps in Cameroon.’”

Strangely, mine was that I did not realize dogs are more expensive pets than cats. But this column concerns opener’s bidding of a 6-4 hand, six in a major and four in a minor. In today’s deal, look at the South hand. You open one spade, and partner responds two clubs. Would you rebid two diamonds or two spades?

Some players advise rebidding in the six-card major with a minimum opening, but mentioning the four-card minor with extra values. This is debatable. Recently, I have seen two deals where the major-suit rebid resulted in an excellent club fit being missed. Agreed, if you do not have an eight-card fit anywhere and partner is weak, rebidding in the six-card suit will be best, but why be so pessimistic?

In this deal, South should have rebid two diamonds. Then surely North-South would have reached six diamonds, in which South would have taken one spade, three hearts, two diamonds, four clubs and a ruff in each hand.

At the table, South rebid three spades, a bad overbid with the club void. North used Roman Key Card Blackwood, then signed off in five spades when two key cards (two aces, or one ace and the spade king) were missing. West led the diamond five, after which South had to lose one diamond and two spades.