Nine-Card Fits Abound
Much of match point bridge is about competing. Sitting back and doing nothing when you could actually be doing something will not normally get you the match points. The following board is a fine example.
Board 19 from 20/03/2019
Dealer S EW Vul
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AK6
98732
AJT3
7When West opens 1C, North should overcall 1H. Why worry that the suit is so awful. North does have five of them. The days of following the advice that you should have a good suit to overcall are long gone, or at least should be. Both East and South would pass. West has such a great hand that passing North’s 1H out should not be an option, West doesn’t know that NS have a much better spot. So, West bids 1S. North, at the favourable vulnerability conditions, can now push on with a bid of 2D. East has such good spade support that a raise to 2S is automatic but South will now compete to 3D and West should certainly now bid 3S. Yes, it seems that there are a lot of points in this pack of cards, but that is what can happen when both sides find a fit in a suit.
The NS and the EW hands are such that the bidding should reach the three level at least, yet 1C, 2C, and 1D and 2D all featured on the score cards. The only West in 3S actually made an overtrick, but I also noted that there were a number of Wests in 2NT and 3NT, not good contracts that must have been the result of West bidding NT because of their nineteen points rather bidding spades and looking for a trump suit. In any competitive auction, No Trumps should be avoided unless you have VERY good reason not to look for a trump suit.
The defence against 3S by West must have been pretty awful to allow more than eight tricks to be made, because North has a number of chances to switch to the singleton club and obtain a ruff unless South does not want to cooperate. How can South know that North wants to ruff a club? Because West opened 1C and then bid spades, that should be sufficient evidence that North’s club seven is a singleton.
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