ark@rabbit.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (03/05/84)
I started teaching some friends to play bridge this evening. Here was the first hand that came up. Dealer is south, no one vul: xxxxxx AK10x Kx x J10x -- 9xxx x AJ Q10xxxx xxxx AKQJ10x AKQx QJxx xxx xx I was sitting North. The first problem is South's opening bid. We play weak notrumps and four-card majors, so South decided to open 1S. West passed, and I was faced with the second problem: what to respond. My hand is worth a bunch in support of spades, and doesn't need much for slam. I bid 2H. East now has the third problem. With the East cards, I would be strongly inclined to buy the contract no matter what happened. Plausible bids include 2NT, 4NT, double, and 2S. East actually doubled. South now bid 3H, because (1) failure to redouble denies a good hand, (2) failure to bid 4H denies a shapely, pre-emptive type of hand, and (3) she would have bid 3H without the double. This got West off the hook, so she passed. I faced the fourth problem: which game to bid. I decided hearts might play for a trick more than spades, so I bid 4H. East probably should not sell out at this point, since the N-S fit virtually guarantees one for E-W, but the right action is not clear. At the table, East doubled again, West bid 5C, and I bid 5S. This was passed around to West, who decided that her hitherto undisclosed diamond honors made her hand worth a 6C bid. I passed, considering it forcing, and North doubled. This ended the auction. Play was straightforward: I cashed the K of hearts, and they still had to lose a diamond trick. Down one. Five spades would have made on the same diamond finesse that broke the club slam. You might enjoy thinking about the many other ways the auction could have gone. What if Eest had bid 4NT at his first turn?