This week's post mortem - board 3
I chose this to illustrate the advantages of opening 1NT on 6-3-2-2 hands where the 6-card suit is a minor.
The bidding could be P-1NT-P-P-P. Theoretically, this contract should make 8 tricks for a score of +120. In practice, most Norths led a club, and South failed to find a spade switch after gaining the lead with AH. Several EW pairs made 10 tricks for a score of +180 and 13 match points. Those who pushed to 3NT did even better, scoring 18MP - but would not have done so had a spade lead been found.
Wests who opened 1D usually played in 2D (presumably the sequence was P-1D-P-1H-P-2D-P-P-P) making 9 tricks for a score of +110 and only 5MP.
I won't go into detail about what happened at our table - it is too embarrassing; but it was our worst board of the evening!
Andy Conway
NV
North
| ||
V
West
|
Board3
|
V
East
|
D
NV
South
|
9
9
14
8
|
The alignment of North is out, but I suspect that is easy to correct. We should have had a bad board here. I think the West hand is slightly too good for 1NT, a 14 count with a six-card suit, and would open 1D as my partner did, but I would rebid 1NT at match points. East should just invite with 2NT and West should pass. The defence can take five tricks, but South may need to fly with the ace of hearts on the first round, whether or not they start with four rounds of spades.
ReplyDeleteI copied the hand records from Pianola, and this is how it came out. North seems to have moved to North-West, and the dealer is not shown. I do not know how to correct this. Any IT experts who can help out?
DeleteOn this one I also opened 1NT (14-16) and Colin invited via stayman so we played in 2NT. On the club lead I won with the queen in hand, crossed to the diamond king and led a heart towards my hand. It is difficult for South to rise with the heart ace and switch to a spade in this position.
ReplyDeleteAs North I may have chosen to lead a top spade which is in line with the findings in "Winning Notrump leads" by Bird and Anthias. Now the defense may well take 5 tricks.
Another point - at these colours I would advocate bidding on the North cards over 1NT if you have a way of showing a two suiter. This would make it difficult for EW to play in NT and NS may even be able to get to 4C (although as Andy pointed out this can be beaten by two on perfect defense).
If west opens 1nt and east passes we have a neat gadget not for the feint hearted which allows us to protect with 2 clubs and north can barrage bid with 3 clubs down one possibly. We actually made. 4 clubs doubled on the north south hands but that was a bit lucky.
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