Cutting Right to the Chase
From Monday AM, 3 February 2020 – Board 19 Dealer S EW Vul
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Reader's question:
The bidding was:
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | - | 2 | 2 |
| Pass | Pass | 5 | Pass |
| Pass | Pass |
It's a very strong and distributional hand. We played basic ACOL. No typo, the final contract was '5D'. If I were sitting North, considering there is only one loser, my first bid will be either '6D' small slam; or '4C' to find out the missing Aces in order to explore the Grand slam. What is the proper ACOL bidding should be? Do we need to go through the strong 2C opening? Please comment.
I’m glad you asked about this one. You MUST NOT open 4C thinking it is asking for aces. 4C, the same as 4D, 4H and 4S are preemptive opening bids of 8 or more cards. An opening of 4NT is generally accepted as asking for SPECIFIC aces, but there is no need for any system or any science with this particular hand if you have an appreciation of losers, and you certainly have if you think there is only one LIKELY loser, as indeed there is given anything but totally freak distribution.
The sensible opening bid by North is 6D. South will raise to seven if South has the ace. Simple and effective! Let’s forget about anything else. But by the way, this is also a good reason to play the old fashioned STRONG twos: North opens 2D which is 100% forcing and whatever happens next North bids 6C. That is actually the better slam when South has four small clubs and a singleton or void in diamonds, but given that such a hand cannot be bid scientifically, the opening of 6D is a standout.
Astonishingly, not only did most pairs fail to bid a slam, many also failed to bid GAME. Clearly their bidding was based on POINTS as well as pessimism and failure to count potential losers.
