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Hand played on |
12th April 2007 |
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Board number 13 |
Red Section |
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Dealer |
North |
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Vulnerability |
Both |
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Submitted by |
Alaric Cundy |
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North ♠ 652 ♥ JT3 ♦ 962 ♣ J985 |
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West ♠ T93 ♥ A ♦ A754 ♣ AKQ63 |
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East ♠ J ♥ Q987652 ♦ KJ83 ♣ 7 |
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North |
Bidding:
East |
South |
West |
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South ♠ AKQ874 ♥ K4 ♦ QT ♣ T42 |
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No No No |
No 2♥ 4♥ |
1♠ 2♠ End |
2♣ 3♠ |
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This hand comes from the Simultaneous Pairs event on April 12th.
There is a well documented theory about pre-emptive openings, which runs as follows:
When you make a pre-emptive opening, you will inconvenience other players - that's the main reason for doing it!
If you are first in hand, there are two opponents and one partner who could have good hands and who therefore might be inconvenienced - therefore you are twice as likely to 'mess up' an opponent as a partner, and therefore a pre-empt is a good idea
If you are second in hand, there is only one opponent, and one partner potentially to be 'messed up'. There is a 50% chance that you will 'mess up' partner, therefore a pre-emptive opening in that position may not be a good idea
If you are in third position, then it is very likely that the opponent sitting behind you has a good hand, so a pre-emptive opening will almost certainly have destructive effect
If you are in fourth position then there is little point in making a pre-emptive opening
So, to summarise that theory simply: third position - always, first position - usually, second position - doubtful, fourth position - don't bother.
There are always hands that illustrate exceptions to every rule / guideline, and here is one of them!
After East refrained from a second-in-hand pre-empt, South had free reign to open 1♠, and then West had a huge problem. The singleton heart made a take-out double inappropriate, yet with all those values a simple overcall of 2♣ is rather feeble. On the style adopted by EW, a jump to 3♣ shows a six-card suit and 'intermediate' values. In the end, West opted for a simple 2♣, hoping to be able to play 'catch up' later. East's bid of 2♥ should show (at least) a six-card suit, and now West was in a position to ask partner to bid 3NT if he had a spade stop, courtesy of the 3♠ cue bid. East declined, but instead bid 4♥. I note that the booklet advocates a much simpler auction of 3♥ - 4♥ (with a likely 3♠ in-between)
There is only really one way to play 4♥ after the lead of the Ace of spades. After winning trick 2 in hand, the Ace of trumps is cashed, then Declarer crosses back to hand via another spade ruff, and has no option but to play for an original Kx holding in trumps by an opponent. Declarer can deposit two diamonds on Dummy's clubs to avoid the guess in diamonds, thus assembling a total of 11 tricks. One or two North / Souths competed (painfully) in spades, and other East / Wests failed to make 11 tricks in 4♥ or 5♥, so the ensuing score of 650 proved to be near-average.