Self-Harm

25^th April – Board 5: North/South Vul. Dealer North.

It’s amazing how often the mere presence of a seven card suit so inflames the holder that he feels honour bound to adopt a gung-ho approach. That’s just what happened on the hand shown below.

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

West	North	East	South
	No	No	1D
No	1S	No	2C
No	2S	End

I give the auction as I think it should have gone. When responder rebids his suit at a minimum level after hearing his partner bid two suits he is really begging to be left alone. Here, despite holding a seventeen count, South should respects his partner’s decision and leave well alone. 2S will probably make despite the bad break and par bridge has been obtained. However at more than one table North felt impelled to open 3S, a truly horrible and desperately wrong bid. South raised to game – quite correctly – and a grizzly result ensued. There are so many things wrong with opening 3S; the suit is meagre in the extreme and the vulnerability is the worst it could be and while I might be tempted to open 2S at favourable vulnerability I wouldn’t here. In the old days you were supposed to be able to ‘see’ about seven tricks for a vulnerable three-level preempt. Now it seems anything goes

Opening Dilemma

15^th September – Board 11: Love All. Dealer South.

There were many varied results on the hand shown below and what happened at the table was to a large extent determined by what South chose to open. My own personal choice would be to go all the way and kick things off with 5C, which I guess East would double. That would beat par in that 5C is only two down while 5D is a make, but a slower approach by South might reap dividends (although in fact it wouldn’t.)

West	North	East	South
			1C
1H	No	4H	5C
No	No	Dbl	End

South is likely to ‘save’ over 4H by bidding 5C but just suppose he didn’t. It would be superhuman of North not to lead his singleton club and then a successful trump finesse allows West to make an easy twelve tricks. But just imagine North leads a diamond instead. Now the defence can take the first four tricks, which goes to show I suppose just how difficult the game can be.

Fire With Fire

25th August – Board 10: Game All. Dealer East.

There is certainly nothing predictable about bridge as the hand shown below will give testament to, where a contract of 6S can be made – easily – even with a 5 - 0 trump break, while the equally obvious 6H might be defeated by four tricks although here the trumps break 3 - 2!

West	North	East	South
		1S	2NT
3C	5C	5S	No
6S	End

The bidding might well require some explanation but most of it can be explained away by South’s 2NT, the so-called unusual no-trump showing both minors in a limited hand. In such circumstances it is good policy to fight fire with fire because West, in this example, can use both cue-bids in the minors to have a special meaning. So 3D shows a high card raise to 3S or more with at least four card support, 3C shows a good hand with three card support and at least four cards in the other major, while 3S is a weak raise. (If, after the 3C bid the opener wishes to know how many hearts partner has he bids 3D to enquire.) I know it’s complicated but it’s beautiful at the same time. Anyway here North should barrage with 5C and from then on it’s all a bit of a guessing game but I think none of the bids shown are unreasonable. If mistakenly East chose to double 5C he would have to lead a trump to defeat it and that would be the right thing to do because when the opposition have bid to a high-level with scarce values they can only make loads of tricks by cross-ruffing, and that is the case here. As an aside then the par contract is 7C doubled! For a loss of 800.

Matters of Judgement

2nd June – Board 17: Love All. Dealer North.

There were all sorts of strange results on the featured deal but in fact none of them came close to achieving par – that is to say the very best result from both sides point of view. Of course those hands where the points are fairly evenly divided and yet high-level contracts can be obtained are notoriously difficult to bid and that is where not only judgement but experience too come into play. A little sophistication in the bidding helps too……

West	North	East	South
	No	No	1H
2NT	3D	4D	4H
5D	No	No	??

West’s 2NT is the Unusual No-Trump – part of Michaels – and shows both minors and an agreed point count range with partner. (This sadly is often lacking, but should be on the weakish side when not vulnerable and about an opening bid if vulnerable. But it is open to partnership discussion.) However the very use of that convention does give the opposition more ‘free’ bids and a generally accepted method is to raise to the three-level in partner’s suit on a weak but distributional hand and to bid 3D with a sound raise with some high card defensive points. South should therefore have no qualms about bidding game and West would clearly bid 5D as a two-way bet – it might make or failing that be a very cheap sacrifice. What happens after that is hard to say. Too hard for me anyway. So what is the par contract? Well N/S can make 5H and E/W should only be one down in 6D, so 6D doubled minus one is par. Some people lost their way playing in a diamond contract, but all that is required is to set up a long club in the West hand by ruffing out the suit. Then all that will be lost are the ace of spades and a club.

Guessing Games

3rd February – Board 14: Love All. Dealer East.

A lot of bidding sequences are delicate affairs but every now and again a hand comes along where to some extent everyone is guessing. On the featured hand I suspect few of the protagonists really knew if what they were doing was the right thing, but as usual it was the side that held the spade suit that should have come out on top.

West	North	East	South
		No	4S
5D	5S	6D	No
No	6S	No	No
Dbl	End

You may not agree with the 4S opening but it looks about right to me. West has an easy bid of 5D and similarly North is charmed to raise spades but after that nothing is too clear. East should bid 6D, not because he necessarily thinks it is likely to make but because it is to some extent an insurance policy against a possible making game the other way. It would be quite wrong now for South to bid on, on the grounds that he has already said what he has got by his opening bid, and any further action should be left to his partner. As 6S is not going to cost a fortune North should bid just that, again as a sort of insurance policy against losing a possible slam swing. And so par is obtained, with 6S costing 300, but a cheap save against the laydown slam. As a curiosity I see that 7C by East would make unless South leads a heart.