The Two “Young” Teams to the Final … opening light

As Diamond and Bathurst move on to the final I think we shall see some interesting and innovative bidding from these two teams.  Diamond who has been storming along these last few years has a new threat from an even younger team.

Geoff Hampson made a case for opening light on this deal.  You are not vulnerable against vulnerable and in first chair.  Do you or don’t you open this hand?

Generally when I look at a balanced hand I have a philosophy, if I wouldn’t even open it a weak notrump than I don’t open it.  This hand falls in that category.  True the high cards you do have are nice and at least your not 4-3-3-3.  But still I wouldn’t generally open this hand with any of my partners.  Would you?  Schermer agreed with me and passed.  But Hampson opened 1♦ which shows two plus diamonds.

Let’s look at Bramley’s hand now.

He was in fourth.  North doubled and East redoubled.  The redoubled showed hearts.  (I like this treatment and then using other suits as transfers.  I can’t remember the last time I redoubled for penalty or any other useful purpose in this type of auction).  What do you bid?  You do have 15 high card points.  Bramley bid 2♦ .  It must have been meant as a cuebid since he would not have bid a passable 2♦ natural with this hand.  He was on his way to a spade game most likely.

Hampson doubled which showed three hearts and Welland passed.  East bid 2♥ and it was Bramley’s turn again.  What would you do?  If you are certain that 2♠ is forcing it seems reasonable to bid that now.  But maybe it isn’t.  By this point you are pretty certain that Welland has a light weight takeout double.Are you clear about this with your partner?  I think it should be.  In a normal auction a cuebid over a double should be forcing to at least the three level.  Bramley did get passed out.  Can you get to the only game contract that has a chance?  3NT.   This is the whole deal.

Dealer: Vul:	Welland ♠ K53 ♥ A1097 ♦ 4 ♣ K7532
Hampson ♠10984 ♥ KJ2 ♦ K976 ♣ A10		Greco ♠ 72 ♥ Q8543 ♦ Q10 ♣ 9864
	Bramley ♠ AQJ6 ♥ 6 ♦ AJ8532 ♣ QJ

Let’s assume that you have agreed that 2♦ is a cuebid.  I think you need to start out that way even with the possibility of a short diamond in opener’s hand because you need a cuebid over a takeout double and I would like to keep hearts as natural after partner doubles diamonds.  After that I think that 2♠ should be forcing to game.  Now Welland would probably bid 3♣ and you could bid 3♥ getting 3NT from Welland.  But even then, the defense should be easier with Bramley’s hand coming down.  Suppose you get the likely heart lead.  The trick is that Hampson must win the first club.  Now there are just not enough entries to set up clubs and then cash them.

The opening bid helped the defense in two ways.  It would make it easy for Greco to lead a heart (although pretty well any lead will beat 3NT) and it puts the wrong hand down in dummy.

So at Hampson’s table the table result of 2♠ was probably as good as it gets.  While at the other table Moss and Gitelman had no problem getting to 3NT.  They got a spade lead and when Gitelman led the ♣ J from hand it was not obvious to rise to block the suit.

I admit that this doesn’t prove that opening light works better but it can make it a lot harder on the other side when it is their hand.