TIPS FOR IMPROVERS

Points of interest from the November 2015 duplicates

1       Unusual 4NT overcall

Board 8 Tuesday 24 November – Vulnerability White – Dealer West

West deals and passes and North should also pass because you should not open borderline 4-4-4-1 hands.

East pre-empts with 3 Hearts and South has to decide what to bid.  It is not sensible to double for takeout because having only two cards in the unbid major South cannot cope with partner bidding Spades.  Equally if South bids 3NT this would be natural showing 16+ points with a stop in Hearts.

However in the same way that a jump to 2NT over an opening bid at the one level shows 5-5 in the two lowest ranking unbid suits a jump to 4NT over an opening three level preempt shows a strong 5-5 in the two lowest ranking unbid suits.  Here South is showing a good hand with 5-5 in the minors and a maximum of five losers on the losing trick count.

How should North reply to this?  He is maximum for his original pass, he has four card support for both of South’s suits and he has two Aces.  Accordingly he should jump to straight to slam in either Clubs or Diamonds.  Even if South has six cards in one of the minors in a 1=1=6=5 or 1=1=5=6 shape it will make no difference in which minor suit North South should declare.

There are no problems in the play and a score of +920 results.  (Even if South’s Spades were say Qx instead of Kx then the contract would just require the Spade finesse through the partner of the pre-emptor).

2       The Rule of 19 or the Rule of 20 is only a guide and should be used with discretion

Board 11 Tuesday 24 November

Even if a hand qualifies as an opening bid because it satisfies the Rule of 19 or the more conservative Rule of 20 that does not necessarily mean that it should be opened.

Consider Board 11:-

AKxx

Q98xx

J

Jxx

First of all we ignore the singleton Jack when calculating whether the hand is within the R19 or R20.

Thus the above hand is 19 (ten High Card Points plus nine cards in the two longest suits).  However, if you open 1 Heart and partner responds 2 Diamonds, what on earth are you going to rebid?  You cannot rebid 2 Spades because this would be a reverse showing at least 16 points after a two level response and to rebid the moth eaten Heart suit is to most minds gruesome.  Accordingly you start off proceedings with NO BID ! ! !

However if we swop the Spades and Hearts round to give:-

Q98xx

AKxx

J

Jxx

Then you could just about open 1 Spade because if partner bids 2 Diamonds you can at least rebid 2 Hearts showing the 5-4 shape.

So the moral is make sure that you have a sensible rebid if partner responds in your short suit.  If you have no sensible rebid then do not open.

This is a theme which I first mentioned back in October 2012 Tip No 1.

3       Expensive Sacrifice

Board 14 Monday 30 November – Vulnerability White – Dealer East

Four out of eight East West pairs unwisely sacrificed in 5 Diamonds on the above hand and when this was doubled they deservedly went three down for -500 for a shared bottom.

East opens 1 Diamond which is passed round to North who bids 1 Spade.  East should then double this for takeout showing a good hand with short Spades because although partner has denied more than 5 points East West might still have a good part score available in Hearts or Clubs.  Let us assume that South raises to 4 Spades (raising to the level of the fit non-vulnerable ie bidding to the three level with nine trumps and to the four level with ten trumps).

The spotlight now shifts to West.  While he might consider sacrificing because his side also possess a likely ten card fit he does know that except in the unlikely event of East having the singleton King of Spades that his Queen Jack of Spades will be completely useless.  In other words only his Jack of Clubs might be of any value (although not on this occasion).  It is extremely unlikely that at equal vulnerability that 5 Diamonds doubled will escape for a lower penalty than 500 which at pairs is a disaster against 420 for 4 Spades making for North South.

Note that if we replace East’s 9 of Hearts with a small Heart then 5 Diamonds doubled would be even more expensive costing 800 on accurate defence losing one Spade, two Hearts and three Clubs.