Amour Propre

15th January – Board 17. Love All. Dealer South.

I wouldn’t mind betting that the bidding on the hand shown below never went as recommended. Nevertheless I think it should!

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

West	North	East	South
			1S
Dbl	2D	2H	2S
End

Just because you have a seven-card suit and less than an opening bid does not mean you have to preempt and to do so on the hand shown below is truly grotesque. The hand is far too good anyway but the danger of missing a heart game is what should make you back away from such gung-ho tactics. (Give partner something like Sx H KQxxx D xxx C Axxx and now six hearts is a reasonable contract while you would be left to languish in 3S.) West would be right to double initially but should not be tempted to continue over 2S if he remembers that he has already shown his hand by his initial double. I know several pairs did open 3S causing West to enter the auction with a double, but why? Opposite a passed partner there can be little chance of game and suits are likely to break badly. The reason one bids in these circumstances is, I have to say, because enemy preempts are an affront to one’s amour propre. It becomes a machismo sort of thing. Any pair who somehow bid to 4S would find somewhat luckily that it couldn’t be beaten! Best defence is for West to take his ace of clubs and switch to a trump, but declarer wins, takes a diamond finesse and throws a heart. Another diamond is ruffed, setting up the suit in dummy, and a heart ruffed back to the table. Now a winning diamond allows declarer to throw his last heart while the defenders can only ruff with a winning trump. In all declarer loses just the ace of clubs and two trumps but uses up most of his luck.