So there they were, in a soda shoppe in Sarasota FL back in 1933, Joseph Friedman and his 5-year-old daughter Judith. When Judith was struggling to reach the top of her straw, Joseph had one of those "Eureka!" moments. Back at home, he took a regular paper straw, put a screw into it, and wrapped dental floss around it to create those spiral grooves. Voila! The bendy straw, which we all take for granted, was born in a moment of vision.

And when we are making a decision how to bid after the opponents open No-trump, we need a moment of vision also. What does it take for us to get involved and bend that straw? We need either SHAPE or a whopper of a hand of our own.

There are a number of very good conventions to handle this situation, but today we are going to bid naturally, and over a 15-17 pt. No-trump.

We want to interfere when we can, not only because we might get a nice little partscore, but because it can foul up the No-trump Stayman and transfers. Fun.

Here are our guidelines. First, we need to be prepared to take a punch to the jaw. Our Left Hand Opponent may well double. This is a situation where vulnerability does count.

Next, we need a rock of a suit and some shape. We aren't going to prevail on strength. Let's look at some examples.