Gentle Approach

4th December – Board 7. Game All. Dealer South.

All sorts of strange things happened on the hand shown below when invariably both halves of the partnership adopted a gung-ho rather than a gentle approach.

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

West	North	East	South
			1D
No	2C	No	2H
No	3S	No	4D
No	4H	No	4S
No	5C	No	5S
No	6C	No	6H
End

I think it is right to open 1D on that South hand because if you don’t the bidding gets too high too quickly. After a two-level response a reverse is game forcing so 3S is a splinter agreeing hearts. After that a barrage of cue-bids identifies most of the key players except for the king of diamonds – a card North would certainly want to tell his partner about if he had it. That brings about an important point – never cue bid first round control with a void or second round control with a singleton in partner’s main suit because he might be deceived into thinking that the suit is solid.