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Is it?

Balancing…the joy and heartache.

There are many reasons to keep an auction alive in the “pass-out” seat. Partner certainly appreciates a double when they will love to penalise an opponent. However, there are downsides too. The three boards in question today all came from a recent Pairs session. For each of the three hands, would you bid (also what would you bid?) and what are the up and down sides of bidding?

 

             1 is 5+ spades.

 

1NT is 12-14 and 2 a transfer to hearts.

Hand 1

In our first deal, you are already a passed hand. So, you might have opened 3 but you chose not to. The vulnerability is not great and you elected to wait. So, would you now? It would seem either West or North has an opening hand, maybe both.

There would seem to be two options. Either West has something like a Weak no trump or else they are waiting with a stack of spades and hope you will double so they can pass. Of course, double is not the obvious bid from your hand.

It would be nice, too, if you could make a club partial or at least push one’s opponents up a level. East did choose to bid 3 though that did not end the bidding and you might say was unlikely to end the auction:

 

Yes, partner was waiting to penalise 2 though it is close as to who would come out on top. If declarer wins the likely J lead and gives up a club, declarer has 5 red suit winners and a low club ruff. West will be hard-pressed to stop South gaining two more trump tricks.

Possibly, 3 was not a bad choice after all. It might have been if it was passed out but West valued their K and spade holdings greatly and had a shot at 3NT. North had rather an easy high heart lead and the defence took 6 red suit tricks before West gained the lead…down 2 (-200) and a terrible score for East-West. 3 would only be down 1 though with 2 a very doubtful contract undoubled, the winning East action would seem to be no action. Several pairs made 2though only one pair made it doubled.

Hand 2

Once again, at adverse vulnerability, we could have opened at the three level, or 2 if one was playing a Weak 2 opening. West chose to pass but the bidding came quickly round to them at 1? Was this the time to bid? West’s doubleton spade lessened the possibility that East was waiting with a spade stack though, again, they could hold a flat balanced minimum opening hand. However, there was one factor which counted against West bidding:

 

  East-West were very lucky that North did not raise to game. While 5 would be a decent sacrifice against a cold 4 game at other vulnerabilities, it would be a clear bottom at this adverse vulnerability, two down, doubled, – 500. Yet, the best score East-West could achieve was in passing out 1, where average defence should hold North to 8 tricks, certainly no more than 9.

Who has the hearts?

So, what was the key factor in the West hand which indicated they might pass 1? The lack of a 4-card heart suit. West did have three small hearts but there was a reasonable possibility the opponents had a heart fit about which South was too weak to explore. If East had a minimum opening hand with 4 hearts, they could have doubled 1.

A jump to 3 would have been a better option to bidding 2 though North was strong enough to make a take-out double and the heart fit would be found. So, when considering whether to balance over 1 of a major opening, look at your holding in the other major. Bidding may only help one side and that is not the side of the player who balances. Here -110 was about a 70% board for East-West. Conceding the heart game was much much worse.

So, one “maybe” and one “no” to balancing. What about the third hand above? As per any good TV series, watch this space tomorrow!

Richard Solomon

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