Bridge Tip No.14 (no.15 below)

This time I would like to talk about opening the bidding with just 10 points.

                                      ♠   Q J 10 7 3 2                    Dealer West

                 ♡   A                                     No-one vulnerable

                 ♢   K 8 7 6

♠  9 8 5                         ♣   7 3                        ♠    -

♡  J 10                                                            ♡   Q 9 6 5 3 2

♢  A J 10 9 2                                                   ♢   Q 5 4 3

♣  6 5 4                         ♠    A K 6 4                ♣   Q J 2

                 ♡   K 8 7 4

                 ♢   -

                 ♣   A K 10 9 8

This hand was played in a swiss pairs competition where I was the tournament director.  It was played by 23 different tables and only 11 pairs bid to 6S.  West deals and Passes.  Should North open?  If N-S are playing Benjaminised Acol the answer is easy because a 2S opening usually shows 6-10 points and a good 6-card spade suit.  If, however, you are playing Basic Acol or Standard English with strong twos, it is a little harder.  With fewer than 12 points to open the bidding at the 1-level they should all be ‘good‘ points and these are.  Most of them are in your long suits and a singleton ace is always good.  You could justify your opening by using the Rule of 20.  For this, add the number of high card points (10) to the quantity of cards in your longest two suits (6 + 4).  This totals 20, which means the 1S opening is sound.  Another method is to use Losing Trick Count and count losers.  Ask yourself how many of the top three cards in each suit are missing and count thus:  spades, A + King missing (2 losers); hearts K + Q missing but you can trump them if spades are trumps so 0 losers; diamonds, A + Q missing (2 losers); clubs A + K + Q missing but you can trump the Q so only 2 losers.  This is a total of 6 losers.  If your hand contains 7 or fewer losers then it is considered a hand worthy of opening at the 1-level. 

Once you have opened, how should partner continue in order to find the slam?  I will cover this in detail next time but for now, suffice to say that if you have South’s hand and no clever bidding tools in your armoury then just bid 6S immediately.  Whether partner has opened 1S or 2S this should make nine times out of ten, and you do not want to be accused of being pusillanimous!

Contact June Booty on 07846 397875 or junetaplin@live.co.uk for information about Bridge classes and gentle duplicate.  A beginners’ class will be starting soon on Thursday mornings.  Website www.leisurelandbridge.co.uk. 

Bridge tip no.15

If E-W are silent and North opens 1S playing Acol (12-19 and 4 or more spades) or 2S playing Benjaminised Acol (6-10 and a good 6-card suit), how should the auction continue?  A good initial action would be 4D, which is a splinter bid showing a good raise to at least 4S with a singleton or void in the diamond suit.  North should respond by bidding 4H which shows a first round control in hearts, either an ace or a void.  South can bid 4NT, which is Blackwood and asks about aces.  The best form of this is Roman Key Card Blackwood which asks about the four aces as well as the king and queen of trumps.  With RKCB North should reply 5D showing 1 or 4 of the 5 key cards (4 aces and king of trumps).  This will be sufficient for South to bid 6S and so he can use the next stage of RKCB which is to bid 5H asking whether North has the ♠Q. The reply of 6D shows both the ♠Q and ♡K.  South might now try 7S which makes.  On a non-diamond lead, take out three rounds of trumps, cash the ♡A and then establish the clubs by ruffing the third round.  Now cross to dummy by ruffing a diamond and discard remaining diamonds on dummy’s winners.  If a diamond is led the timing is much more difficult as clubs must be established and the ♡A cashed before playing three rounds of trumps ending in dummy.