Vil Gravis on 15WED
Wednesday Review 12
This week, a bit about everything: bidding, defence, and declarer play.
Board 8 Dealer W Nil Vul
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QJ972
J3
9742
Q6If you were West as first to bid, would you PASS or open with a bid of 1C?
If you follow my philosophy that you don't go to the club just to pass, you will open with 1C. Even if
you have been taught that shortages are useful and that voids are equivalent to THREE points when
you have found a suitable TRUMP fit, that will value the hand up to thirteen, so it is definitely an
opening bid. Don't worry about what might happen later, that is a problem you may face, or may not,
later.
So, West opens 1C and East responds 1D. What would you do next as West? The normal thing would
be to bid 1H but, personally, I would defy convention and bid 1S. Too many learners will not bid a poor
suit when they should, but this time it is more sensible to bid 1S because of the suit quality and ability
to later bid hearts if pushed. So, when West bids 1S, East has no problem at all, and happily bids 3NT,
which is what the combined hands are now worth. Even if West does bid 1H, there are ways for East to
investigate without just punting 3NT but we'll leave talking about 'fourth suit' until later. For now, let
me say that West SHOULD open the bidding and EW should as a consequence end up in what should
be a very easy 3NT.
Now for what happened to the Easts in No Trumps. One South led the three of diamonds, 'fourth
highest of longest and strongest', despite the fact that East must have bid diamonds AND the fact that it
was almost certain to give a cheap diamond trick away without achieving any of the goals that a
defender should set when making the opening lead. The KING would at least have set up two diamond
tricks for South if they were required later. As it was, the lead of the three gave declarer a cheap trick
with the ten and he could have actually made overtricks by losing a club and then playing on hearts, but
settled for just making what he bid and what turned out to be a top score anyway.
There were a number of quite odd contracts, like 1S, 3S, 3H and 4H, and also two Easts played in 2D! I
don't think any of those would have happened if West had opened the bidding, but I might be wrong,
your feedback would help here.
The defence against 2D was in both cases poor, when South led the JACK of diamonds in one case and
the ace of hearts in another. The jack of diamonds was certainly an odd lead, not only because you lead
the TOP of sequences but also because, did South not see that by not leading a diamond at all and
waiting for declarer to play the ace, South would make the king, queen, AND jack, sooner or later.
Losing one of South's top honours to the ace was not a good idea. What possible REASON could South
have had to lead ANY diamond against a 2D contract? You should have a REASON for everything
when you are defending.
Feedback please to villyn@xtra.co.nz
