You Hold…

Freakish distribution.

by Tom on September 3rd, 2006

In my previous post, I described this highly unusual hand:

AQTxxx

—

—

AKT9xxx

After 3 passes to me, I chose to open 1C (natural) rather than 2C (strong).

On a different deal yesterday, I had another strong highly distributional hand:

AKQJxxx

AJTxx

—

x

This one I chose to open 2C. I’m sure that there are players who would advocate 2C on both hands, and some who wouldn’t bid 2C on either one. Why did I “mix and match”?

In terms of playing strength, both hands are incredibly strong. The key difference between the hands lies in suit quality.

In the first hand I have 2 nearly equal suits, but neither one is self sufficient. Looking at my own hand, I don’t know which black suit should be trumps. I need to solicit an opinion from partner. Further, I thought that if I constructed an unusual auction (1c-2s-3s-4s) I might be able to describe the hand at a low enough level to not get overboard if partner doesn’t fit my hand.

On the second deal, my spades are strong enough that I can play them opposite any hand, so even if I never get a chance to mention my heart suit, that’s okay. In fact, there are many times when it is advantageous to play in spades even if partner fits hearts. There can be 2 reasons for that; the first is that a distributional hand has to take a lot of ruffs, so the shorter suit may be subject to being tapped out and losing control. The second is a little more obscure, but sometimes you can avoid a key guess by playing in the stronger suit.

Partner’s hand on the second deal was:

x

Kxx

Qx

KQxxxxx

If you play in 6H, you need to guess the QH to make. In 6S, however, after drawing trumps you can lead a club towards the long suit on the board. If the AC is onside (with clubs splitting), you can discard all of your hearts before having to think about the Q. If the AC is offside, you can still try to guess the QH.

Even if partner’s hand was slightly different with a better heart fit, the same considerations apply:

x

Kxxx

Qx

KQJTxx

I’ve given partner an extra heart and a stronger club suit, but still not topped by the Ace.  Even with the stronger heart holdings, 6S is a safer contract.

Planning auctions on very distributional hands is important.  These hands don’t happen very often, but being able to handle them gracefully can help your results immensely.

Share This

POSTED IN: Bidding, Intermediate