| Deal Of The Week |
Bravery
The modern mantra seams to be “First we bid the game, then we make it”. On this weeks serving we have such a hand a 23 hcp 3 NT, something I tend to see more and more often in high level games.
Board: 7
Dealer: South
Vul: All
Pairs
North
♠ AQJ64
♥ A1084
♦ 65
♣ 86
West East
♠ K9873 ♠ 102
♥ KQ62 ♥ J7
♦ Q ♦ A1098732
♣ Q103 ♣ 94
South
♠ 5
♥ 953
♦ KJ4
♣ AKJ752
South West North East
1♣ 1♠ pass 2♦
3♣ pass 3♦ dbl
3NT All pass
George Balon was the only player in North who managed to pass over Wests 1 ♠. Back in the days I used to play that a second seat overcall passed round to opener should always be doubled, so we had to alert the third seat pass as 13 cards. That said, with Norths holding in spades, what are your objections to playing in spades?
Only two East players had the courage to bid 2 ♦ with Easts 5 hcp hand with a 7 card suit.
Just as Norths pass is a key bid so is Gerry Cohen’s 3 ♣ in South. Many of us would look at the 12 hcp and keep stum.
Ron Klinger has a concept called Quit Quality where the number of cards in a suit + the number of honours in that suit tells your how high you can bid (for all of the ins and outs go to Ron Klinger to get it from the horses mouth). South’s ♣ suit has a SQ of 9 so a 3♣ rebid is fine - the ♦ honours has improved as well. North now comes back into life and askes for stopper(s) in ♦ and 3 NT is reached.
West lead his 4th highest ♠ won by the Jack in Dummy. A Club to the Jack and Queen and West now made the slightly imprecise shift to the ♦ Queen won in South with the King. South now run all his clubs and took for dummies two major suit Aces for 9 tricks. The fact that it is possible in the ending to get one more trick is neither here nor there as it is hard to improve on 100%
Espen Gisvold
PS
If you see a hand you think is worth mentioning please leave me a note at: Espen
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