Breathless
By Mark Horton In 46th World Bridge Teams Championships On 22nd August 2023
In this morning’s opening round the players had no time to draw breath, as the first two deals had slam potential:
6
is eminently playable but after the auction starts 1
-2 what should North rebid?
I found players rebidding 2, raising to 3 and jumping to 4. I could use up a lot of space discussing the merits of all those, but rebidding spades with such a poor suit would not be my first choice. Were the auction to go 1-2-2-3
should North bid 3 or 4? If North opts for 3 should South settle for game or make one last try with 4
? If North jumps to 4 should South keep going, assuming that North is likely to have useful cards in both red suits?
If North raises to 3/4 how should South proceed? (Here too you can decide, assuming 2 is game forcing, which bid you would prefer to make with North’s cards.)
33 pairs got to 6, 9 of them in the Venice Cup and 8 in each of the other events.
As a general rule, deals where one hand holds all the aces can be awkward. You would also like to be in 6 on these cards, but only 28 pairs across the four events managed it.
Helgemo and Grude had an excellent auction:
Having responded 2 East was happy to splinter, after which it was easy for West to go on to 6.
It looks easy, but in the other room EW bid 1-3-3*-4-4*-4-Pass. I’ll leave you to ponder East’s final pass – poor trumps but a potentially useful K. Perhaps one more effort with 5 would be in order?
