Disappointing Outcome

18th April – Board 6: East/West Vul. Dealer East.

If you are going to use a weapon your partner must know how sharp it is…..

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

West	North	East	South
		1S	2NT
4H	End

It is easy to decide upon a new convention but you have to make sure you don’t misuse it as the featured hand bears witness. I have no objection to South bidding 2NT to show the minors but while North might consider ‘saving’ in 5C over 4H if the 2NT was weak that would not be the case in any other situation and it would be fatal on the actual hand. Disappointingly for West 4H cannot be made on best defence. Suppose North leads his singleton diamond. Declarer wins in dummy and would probably lead the singleton club but South wins and returns a diamond for North to ruff. Now a trump return would leave declarer going two down! On an initial club lead South wins and leads a trump and declarer would now lose three clubs and a spade. I have a nasty suspicion though that if I held the South hand I would overcall 1S with 2D and over 4H bid 5C. Quite wrongly of course.

Very Unusual

7th Feb – Board 19: East/West Vul. Dealer South.

I liked West’s bidding when I saw this hand being played at one table. Shame it turned out so badly.

After West elected to pass, North/South reached game in no time at all with South’s 4♥ bid being just right. But what would you do as West? ‘Take some money by doubling’ is the correct response although I think that is really hard and the chosen bid of 4NT – super unusual – was the bid chosen and the one that I would have made too. Unfortunately 5♣ is a bad contract and one that didn’t make but give East the ten of diamonds instead of the nine and it just relies on the finesse being through the opening bidder. And of course 4♥ is a couple down all the time.

Fun and Games

13th Dec – Board 3: East/West Vul. Dealer South.

Who knows what might happen on the featured hand when in fact both sides might make contracts that should really fail.

The 2NT bid by North is the so-called ‘unusual no-trump’, showing the minors, and while this would be swatted aside by East, South could and should join in the fun. 4NT continues the ‘you choose’ theme and in fact if North/South are allowed to steal the contract in 5♣ they will almost certainly make because it takes a heart lead to beat it. (If a heart is not led, declarer can eventually pitch a heart from dummy on the fifth diamond.) However if the final contract is 5♠ – and I think it should be – then again the defence have to be on their toes. North will doubtless lead the  ♦K, which South has to overtake in order to lead a club. That might seem hard but it isn’t really. After all West is known to have a singleton diamond and a doubleton club from the bidding.

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.