Tactical Opening

20th June – Board 8: Love All. Dealer West.

You might wonder why I bother to blog about a hand that was almost certainly passed out at every table…

	North: S A K 4 H J 3 D Q 9 6 4 C 10 6 3 2
West: S J 10 5 H Q 5 4 D A 5 2 C K J 9 5		East: S 8 3 2 H A K 8 7 6 D K 8 3 C 7 4
	South: S Q 9 7 6 H 10 9 2 D J 10 7 C A Q 8

West	North	East	South
No	No	1H	No
2C	No	2H	No
3H	End

I imagine most people passed that East hand after two passes but that is wrong. Tactically speaking it makes sense to open third in hand on any excuse because partner – who has already passed remember – is unlikely to get carried away. Here you should open 1H because that is the suit you want partner to lead if South becomes declarer, particularly in a no-trump contract. However in this case West will most likely not be silenced until he has had a couple of goes and although 3H looks to be a little high it is most likely to make because of the well-placed club honours in the South hand. In fact the only way I can see the defence prevailing is if they start with four rounds of spades when North can ruff that fourth round with the jack of trumps and in so doing promote a trump trick for his partner. The Americans and indeed many Europeans play a convention called Drury. After a third in hand major suit opening a bid of 2C by partner asks if the opening was ‘light’ or not. 2D says it was, anything else says it wasn’t.