Top Heavy

24th October – Board 10: Game All. Dealer East.

You won’t find hands like the one featured below in many textbooks because they only crop up once in a gazillion years. And the people who held the West hand probably wished they hadn’t, so top heavy as it was.

	North: S J 4 2 H J 6 4 D Q 10 7 4 3 2 C 4
West: S A K H A Q 8 D A K J 6 5 C A K 5		East: S 9 8 7 5 3 H 10 9 5 3 D none C 10 8 7 3
	South: S Q 10 6 H K 7 2 D 9 8 C Q J 9 6 2

West	North	East	South
	No	No	No
2C/2D	No	2D/2H	No
4NT	No	No

Whether you play Benji Acol or not the correct way of dealing with such a rock-crusher is to open with your strongest bid and over the negative reply bid 4NT showing a balanced hand of 27/28 points. But do you know how to act as responder? If you feel inclined to bid a good scheme is to play 5C as asking for opener to bid four card suits upwards while 5D and 5H are transfers. So here East might bid 5H and pass the 5S response and if so he would be doing the right thing as the cards lay. However my instinct would be to pass, wrong again, for on best defence you can’t even make 3NT. Still, it won’t happen again for an awfully long time.