Monday, January 26, 2009

All the Aces

Early on in my bridge-playing career I gained an appreciation for the power of aces. Four of them in the same hand is "worth" a lot more than 16 points, so when I have that hand and balanced shape, I try my best not to open 1NT. I got a chance to test out the theory this weekend--3rd in hand both white I held:
Axx
Ax
Axx
AT9xx
After two passes I opened 1 Club, not certain what I would do on the next round but knowing that i didn't want to open a strong notrump. Sure enough, I hit the jackpot on this one--LHO doubled and partner bid 4 diamonds, a fit-showing jump. Now I had an easy drive to at least 6 clubs. Partner's hand was:
xxx
void
KQJxxx
QJxx
After a heart lead I banged down the ace of clubs, dropping the stiff king for +940. Though I would likely have gone down on a spade lead, this was a great slam. Maybe we could have reached it after a notrump opening, but this made things much easier.

2 comments:

Kenny Z said...

Obviously, I liked this auction very much :) I do agree with your 1C opening, and would have planned to reverse into diamonds on my next turn, unless I could make a support X in spades.

Memphis MOJO said...

On a related note, I just saw this on a blog:

S-A 9 8
H-A K 10 6
D-A 4 2
C-A Q 8

The player who held this hand (a many-time NABC champion) opened 2NT!

That's surely a terrible bid. I don't claim to be a great bidder, but I would never make a baby mistake like this.