Brian Davies
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I would guess that East/West are inexperienced players and the 2H bid was a beginner’s error because they hadn’t yet learned that this us not usual. Looking at the hands, I would expect East/West to win seven tricks in a heart contract, so 2H by East/West probably fails and 1H by North/South probably fails. A more usual Acol auction might be 1H-1S-1NT and I would expect that 1NT might drift off after a heart lead.
The full hand was:
As Stewart observed, the heart suit is blocked. The successful line on this deal is to win the second round of hearts, play the ace of diamonds and when the ten doesn’t appear, play a second diamond, to extract a possible exit card, but retain the ♦9 for communications. Declarer can then exit in hearts and when South wins, he will have to play a black suit giving the entry to dummy.
North might (should) choose instead to win the king of hearts when you play the third round of the suit. Declarer should play low from dummy on a club switch and South will also be forced to play low. Declarer wins the ♣J cashes the ♥9 and crosses to dummy with the ♦9 to run all of the spades.
A fiendishly difficult hand and I have a lot of sympathy for declarer, who took an unfortunate line: he held up in hearts and won the third round, then led up towards the club king, playing for North to hold the ace. This line could never succeed because North would be able to hop up with the ♣A and cash the ♥K. But with the cards lying as they did, he lost three hearts and five clubs for -500!
Yes, South is marked with ♥QJ10 and North has ♥ K732.
In your five-card ending, dummy has maybe reduced to: ♠AKQ ♣K9. If you exit with a heart, you will have to discard the ♠Q from dummy (you can’t afford a club). South will play another heart and you now need to discard the ♠K. South can simply exit in spades now and you will have to lead away from the king of clubs.
Running the diamonds won’t work if the defenders discard correctly (maybe an unwarranted assumption since we were defending!).
Hi Julian, this is an interesting gadget. We play 1C/D-1S-3NT as a suggestion to play 3NT based on a long running suit. Do you also play this method if the opening bid was a minor? I can see that bidding 3NT based on a long running heart suit might be less useful.
Without your gadget, I would tend to open 1C with Charles’s 20-count, but there comes a point where you can’t afford the risk of a one-level opening and simply have to open with a stronger bid. With a 22-count I would open 2NT even with the singleton. Is that sensible?
I don’t know, but I suspect that if you buy BBO Dollars and play in tournaments etc. using you BBO Dollars you avoid the adverts. I suspect that the adverts appear if you only play at casual tables and free-to-enter tournaments.
This is not for less experienced players, but one possibility if 2S is only a one-round force is to play 2NT by responder as a Lebensohl bid on weaker hands and 3C is game-forcing.
Thanks Bernard. I had always assumed it to be forcing to game, but will be more careful to check with a new partner in future. Interestingly, the EBU’s Really Easy Modern Acol describes a jump change of suit as forcing to game and doesn’t make any distinction about the level – but the example that it gives is a jump to the three level.
The analogy with Fourth Suit Forcing is interesting and I do play it as always a game-force in each of my partnerships.
Hi Tim, I think that this is the example which shows that the “Fast Arrival Denies Stop” version of Lebensohl is theoretically better. Under that version, your partner bids 3♠ directly. If your partner instead had a stop then she can still bid 3NT over the 3♠ raise. This is even more clear if she bids 3NT (directly, or through Lebensohl).
Hi Julian, for us the sequence 1NT-2C-2D-3C is game forcing and shows five clubs and a four-card major. Is this a reasonable approach to this hand? I note your comment about not being interested in 6C at match-points – but maybe IMPs?
Julian will give his expert opinion, but I think that Angela undervalues the South hand and Alan overvalues it! Those KQ10(9) combinations in our long suits are definitely worth an upgrade and I would open 1♦. But I think that the leap to 3♠ on the second round, suggested by Alan, is a bit much and 2♠ would be enough for me. My auction would be:
1♦-1♠-2♠-3♥-3♠., where three hearts is a trial bid.
