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Strong hand?

Twenty, Plenty…well, sometimes!

Today’s two deals came in the right order for me. They came fairly close together in the same tournament. They have something in common. The question here is what to open them. Pairs is the game and get out your abacus:

 

and what about this one?

 

 A third question. Was it easier to count your high card points on the second hand than the first? Surely, yes! Yes, both hands have 20. They are both good looking hands (5431 shapes) but one is that much better than the other, purer, no honours in short suit (well, one jack!). That is why I opened them at different levels.

The first hand is hard on the nerves. You open 1 (singleton A is not so flash while its two long suits are the minors) and pray that with 4 or 5 hcp partner will find a bid. They did…1. More hoping as you jump to 3. "No view taking and passing, please, partner." Remember partner had already passed in first seat. Partner does find a second bid…3, 4^th suit and you need worry no longer as you jump to 4 (perhaps you should bid 3 here, stronger than 4 since your 3 was game-forcing). No more worrying and certainly no more bidding as partner did indeed hold a 5-count!

 

Partner was always going to play in a major rather than 3NT with potential and real communication issues there. West had no real problems after a club lead. 2 hearts eventually disappeared on two high clubs and a successful ruffing heart finesse saw declarer lose just two trumps and A for a fairly comfortable 10 tricks. The worries were that partner would pass short of game. They would only do that when it was right to do so. The 1 opening bid was fully justified.

What though of our pretty pure 20 count of the second hand? There comes a time when opening at the 1-level feels wrong. 2 good suits and majors, too. Time perhaps for a slight piece of over-bidding? I would replace “over” with “value”.

The point of the second deal is that partner would know the opening bid would be rather better/ stronger than the 20 count that preceded it. With that in mind, I feel the final bid by West in the following auction would be justified:

 

2 was an extreme case of a waiting bid. West would always take control here and just wanted to be sure that the partnership held all the aces/ perhaps kings. 

5 showed 0 or 3 key cards with hearts as trumps (no second guess as which!). You could ask for the Q if you wanted but why? Partner opened 2 and you have 15 high card points. If partner cannot produce the Q (did you notice your J?), then they must have compensating values/tricks somewhere.

Rustic bidding, you may say and perhaps so but 2 openers are good/ very good hands, better than the 20 count we held in the first hand. Playing Teams, you may want to explore for a safer grand slam. Playing Pairs, you surely want to be in the highest scoring grand slam, with so many high card points between your two hands.

Those who opened 1 may well have struggled to reach grand slam. This sequence may occur:

 

 

East has an awkward bid over 4^th suit 3 with 3 seemingly the likely choice. The  key-card response (5) showed the missing key cards and 5 asked for Q, 6 showing K and Q. West would expect to take 6 heart tricks and AK in each other suit, though there would be no reason East should have any more for their reverse than 9 hcp in hearts and the top 2 spades. Enough to bid grand? Maybe not. 

That slight over-bid might be what is needed to power the bidding to the grand level.

Richard Solomon

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