| Friday 7th October - Hand 11 |
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| Not Stayman - 13th March, Hand 4 |
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West and North will both pass and East with a balanced hand of 12-14 points will open 1NT, which will get passed back to West. West doesn't have an ideal shape to play in NT, but if he takes the bidding into another suit he should have 5+ cards in that suit, so he cannot consider that. His only other option he can consider is if he plays Stayman.
You can use Stayman on some weak hands. However, West can cope with East replying 2♥ or 2♠ as he can happily pass either of these bids. However, what happens if East replies 2♦ ? He will more often than not - mainly because you don't want him to! What will you do if he does reply 2♦ ? You could now bid 2♥ , but this will show a weak hand with 5 ♥ and 4 ♠. You could bid 2NT, but that will show 11 points. You have no ideal option, so rather than bid Stayman you should pass. Sometimes passing 1NT i the only sensible option, even if your partner dislikes 1NT contracts!!
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| How to get to the right game, hand 7 (5th December) |
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I thought this was quite an interesting one when I was watching on Friday. I'm sure all West's started off by opening 1♠ . East should respond 2♣ to show 9+ points and at least 4 cards in clubs, giving partner as much room as possible to describe their hand. While West doesn't have the offical 16+points to jump at his second turn, the hand has a large amount of playing strength. All the points are in the long suit and it would be very disappointing not to end in game, particularly given partner has now shown 9+ points. For these reasons you can jump to 3♥ . At this point East cannot support the spades, because East only know West has 5 and cannot support the hearts because East only knows that West has 4, so East will bid 3NT. It's at this point I saw many a West choose 4♠ , which is not unreasonable and indeed a making game. However, now if West bids 4♥ , he has shown the 5th heart, so East will know that West is at least 5-5 or 6-5. Now East can pass 4♥ and play in the 5-3 fit, knowing that the spades might be able to be set up without any losers by trumping in dummy, which is exactly what will happen. 4♥ makes that vital extra trick at duplicate pairs.
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| Stayman or Pass? |
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West should open 1NT with balanced hand between 12-14 points. East might try and look for a 4-4 major suit fit by using Stayman. On this occasion it will work out ok because West happens to have 4 spades, however, if West doesn't have 4 spades then East/West will end up playing in 3NT, which may be too high with a maximum on 24 points between the two hands. So rather than bidding Stayman East should pass the 1NT. East/West have between 22 and 24 points between the two hands so 1NT should be able to make and is a much safer option.
Against 1NT North will lead a heart (probably the 4th highest given he holds the 10 (treated as an honour)). West should play low from dummy and now South should play the Queen (3rd player plays high) to force out the highest card from West, the Ace. West now has 4 top tricks, (♥A ,♥K ,♥J and ♦A ) and he needs 3 more for his contract. He can guarantee this by knocking out the ♠ A, so should play a low spade towards the Queen, if North plays low (which he should, as in general 2nd player plays low) then West will play the Queen from dummy and then continue spades until the Ace gets taken. Now North will probably switch to a low ♣ , given the original ♥ lead didn't work so well. Now West can playing the ♣ Q, South will win with the Ace and return a ♣ , but this will set up a ♣ trick for West. When West gets the lead he can cash his spades and play a diamond from dummy to the 10, which forces out the King, so now West has a diamond trick also. North/South will just make ♠ A, ♣ A,♣ K and ♦ K, so West will make 9 tricks for plus 150 to East/West.
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