TALES OF AKARANA

 LIVING IN A NEGATIVE FREE-LESS WORLD

I'm neutral with regard to whethter negative free-less is better practice but I would like to comment on Board 6.

Board 6 East deals EW vulnerable.

                               8

                               J765

                               KT9842

                                J4

 AT76432                                        QJ5

 Q4                                                  AK932

 6                                                     J5

 973                                                  K86

                                 K9

                                 T8

                                 AQ73

                                 AQT52

4 played by East (not West) appears to be the contract to be in if systemically possible to get there. Only failing if South finds an opening underlead from AQ73 with then an immediate switch to a  by North.

This is an example of a board with a systemic advantage, in this case for the very small subset of pairs that would open the East hand 1NT with a 5 card major and play systems on after a double or 2 overcall by South. Although as most pairs would not play 2 as natural over a 1NT these days or double with 15 HCP they would also have to be fortunate to be playing against the very small subset of pairs that would. Evidently, from the actual results, neither of this very small subset of players play at Akarana.  

With the weakness in  West should be trying to get East to play the contract if systemically possible so any opening lead would be up to any high cards East might hold in this suit. 

Bidding could be something like:

N        E        S       W

           1N      2    2

-          2      -        4

-           -          -

where:

1N  - 12 -14 HCP balanced may include 5M

2 - transfer to 

A possible bid that might be bid by South over the 1NT opening would be 2NT showing both minors. Provided EW had an agreement that bidding 3 was a game forcing response with , and similarly bidding 3 was game forcing with  then 4 played by East could still be reached. However, a 4 sacrificial bid over 3 from North would be more likely to occur and the  lead from South would then also be more likely. Although the temptation of a 'safe'  lead might still sway South from the killing underlead. East may well have had the K rather than the K in which case South underleading the A would have been a misfortune for NS.

I'm not advocating for or against 1NT being able to contain a 5 card major, but this board is a good example of where systemic advantage or disadvantage may give a better or poorer result on some boards for some pairs. 

Started by SEAN LYNCH on 01 Apr 2019 at 12:46PM