|
Hand played on |
19th July 2007 |
|
Board number 13 |
Red Section |
|
Dealer |
North |
|
Vulnerability |
Both |
|
Submitted by |
Alaric Cundy |
|
|
North ♠ T75 ♥ K5 ♦ Q97 ♣ K9532 |
|
|
|
|||
|
West ♠ KJ32 ♥ 2 ♦ KT52 ♣AQT6 |
|
East ♠ AQ64 ♥ 9763 ♦ 863 ♣ J7 |
|
North |
Bidding:
East |
South |
West |
|
|
South ♠ 98 ♥ AQJT84 ♦ AJ4 ♣ 84 |
|
|
No 2♣ 4♥ |
No 2♠ End |
1♥ 3♥ |
x 3♠ |
|
|
|||||||
I promised colleagues at the table that I'd start these notes with a confession. This board should have been an 'Arrow Switch' - but 30 seconds after asking everyone else in the room to do so I kind of forgot... It's a question of 'do as I say, not as I do.'
The spotlight on this hand falls on North, who as it turned out faced a few difficult compromises in the bidding. Partner and I play that a 2NT rebid after a '2 over 1' change of suit is game forcing, and a consequence of that is that our minimum requirement for a '2 over 1' is 9 HCPs with a 5-card suit or 10 HCPs otherwise. With hands that do not quite reach those standards, 1NT is the standard response to a one-level opener, with or without interference bidding. On this hand, West's double implied a holding in spades, and now North could not respond 1NT holding only three small cards in that suit. Our strictly correct system bid on the hand is to pass - confident that partner will re-open the bidding if it comes to it. However, on this particular day, North made a slight over-bid of 2♣. Over 2♠, South has the option of a competitive double - which would show 'extra values' in this situation - or 3♥, to show extra length in hearts. For the second time in the auction North took an optimistic view and bid on to 4♥. One thing about bidding confidently is that the opponents are less likely to double...
As an alternative, 3♠ by East / West looks a bit difficult, but in practice those pairs who were allowed to try that slot generally assembled nine - and in one case, ten, tricks. 4♥ looks like a fairly certain one off, losing two spades, a diamond, and a club. As a forlorn hope I tried to make use of Dummy's length in clubs, but the 4-2 break in that suit thwarted attempts to establish a parking place for some of the diamonds, and after the defenders started by cashing 2 top spades, no end-play could be engineered either.
There is a school of thought that says that most Bridge players do not double opponent's contracts often enough - the great Zia Mahmood says that if your opponents do not sometimes make a doubled contract then you are not using the 'x' card as often as you should. On this particular board, Zia's comment is pertinent: the +100 that East / West actually achieved left honours marginally in favour of North / South, whereas had the contract been doubled they would have enjoyed a complete top on the board. Mind you, if we had remembered the Arrow Switch and I had held the East or West hand, would I have found a double? Probably not!