This hand showed up in an online lesson (what’s that? You give online lessons, Paulo? Yes, sirree. Contact me for more info if interested). It was so interesting, in the bidding and in the play, that I decided to bring it over to the Substack.
You are the dealer, all vulnerable, with this nice collection of honors:
♠️ A1082 / ♥️ AJ5 / ♦️ AKQ72 / ♣️ A
This is a difficult hand to bid. The first branch in the road: should we open 1♦️ or 2♣️?
There is a school of bidding that strives to open 2♣️ whenever you have an unbalanced hand with at least 21 hcp. I am sympathetic to that approach. The question that looms in most players’ minds when choosing to open 2♣️ is “will I miss game if I don’t?” — that is an important question, but not the only one, and not the only reason to open 2♣️. You don’t want to just “bid a game”, you want to bid the best game.
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