Evil ACOL on FRIDs
Since I will be playing quite few of the Friday sessions at our club, I thought I'd do a “Friday Review” now and again. In the current event I have been playing ACOL, but with what have earlier been termed “Evil Twos”, which can basically be described as weak two suited openings at the two level, including a 2C opening. The “Evil Twos” go as follows: 2C is a weak two suited hand at least four cards in each of clubs and hearts, 2D diamonds and hearts, 2H both majors, and 2S spades and a minor, with the stipulation that we have five spades.
You will say: but what do you do if you have a really big hand and would have opened 2C playing Acol? Well, we just haven't had a hand like that, and if we do, we just either improvise somehow or look forward to a bad board. It's only one board after all, but we'll worry about that if and when it happens. So in the meantime, Acol with “Evil Twos”, or, to put a proper name to the system, “Evil Acol”.
This series will follow a few of the more interesting and educational hands. Anyone interested in following the series should let me know at villyn@xtra.co.nz so I can put them on the mailing list. It is not for the faint hearted, but even so may be of interest to newer players who want to learn and maybe practise something different.
From Friday 10th Feb
Board 6 Dealer E EW Vul
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K752
K86
843
T85I was sitting East, my partner was “Legal Eagle”, henceforth referred to as L.E. While our “Evil Twos” have been specified as being much better in point count than my hand was (it should be, at adverse vulnerability, 8-10 HCP with a concentration of points in the two specified suits) this WAS a match point session and my spade void encouraged me to misrepresent the hand somewhat, and I opened it with a bid of 2D. South passed and L.E. looked at his monster, with the two singleton aces in my suits.
He first made an inquiry with 2NT and when I showed him 5-5 but nothing specific in the other suits, he should, I suggest, have bid 4S, but chose 3NT, not unreasonably, though one might wonder how he would ever be able to make any use of the East hand if it contained what it should.But 3NT it was and North led the spade two. South played the ten, which won, and followed with the queen, which won again. It is second nature for most bridge players to do the obvious and carry on when partner has started a set line of attack, and most defenders don't bother to think any further. The lead of the TWO should have told South that declarer had SIX spades, so whatever happened next the third lead of spades was almost certain to set up the rest of declarer's suit; and so it transpired.
L.E. won his ace and then removed the king from North, claiming the rest of the tricks, with the assistance of the one useful card in dummy, the queen of CLUBS, which should not have been there if I had adhered to the strictures of the system. The defence clearly erred, but it is easy to get lulled into a sense of complacency, routine, habit, or whatever one may call it, without thinking more about what is going on.
South should certainly have shifted to a heart, maybe even after winning the first trick. Then declarer would not have made 3NT and would have regretted not having bid 4S, which of course was cold despite East's void. But making 4NT was a clear top for our side, perhaps not deserved. The Deep Finesse analysis of the deal tells us that West can make ONLY 2NT, but what if after a spade lead declarer wins immediately, cashes DA and finesses the C9 in dummy, thus gaining an extra much needed entry. Then the DQ is led and after losing to the king and then three more spade tricks, dummy can be entered with the CQ and the DJ provides the ninth trick. So how can 3NT be defeated? No, Deep Finesse is never wrong, so the reader may try and work out how, and why, that is the case.
The readers are asked to send me their solutions to villyn@xtra.co.nz before the next article.
NB - Vil and L.E came top with 72.38% cross-scored over 178 pairs in this session - Ed
