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Ten vital points.

What are your ambitions with the following hand?

 

 It has 8 playing tricks on all bar “a rainy day” but no way would you open a strong 2, let alone 2. It is a 4-loser, normally though there is the whereabouts of the A and Q to consider. You are going to start off with 1, though the pre-emptive value of 4 might make that your opening choice.

After 1, it is your partner who makes a positive bid of their own. If that is not game-forcing (as in " 2 over 1"), you really ought to bid 4 now, showing not a strong opening bid but one with plenty of spades. You do not have enough high card strength for 3 and cannot risk 2 being passed out.

By jumping to 4, the decision to bid on rests with partner. Your only requirements may be to answer a Key Card question and then presumably to be declarer.

Game was the limit of expectations at 9 of the 14 tables and 5 drove on to slam. The game was Matchpoint Pairs. These were the North-South hands:

 

North would not know they were facing 8 reasonably solid spades. They should expect 7. Those aces are good cards but there is not really a big enough source of tricks outside spades.

How good is slam? On a club lead, it requires a club finesse, assuming South is declarer. A diamond lead gives a second finesse if you wish to choose it, though a successful heart play would save any minor suit finesse. Of course, were the A to be led or appear over the jack, then all your worries would be over.

Well, nearly all as this was a rather “rainy day”:

 A failing club finesse and an unfortunate spade break. With the Q an almost universal lead, most South declarers made 11 tricks, including those in slam. A club lead from West holds South to 10 tricks.

However, one North-South pair finished in a different contract by a different declarer:

Remember that Pairs is the game and that was very significant here. 2 was natural and Game Forcing with 3 almost insisting that spades would be trumps…except with that 3NT bid. There was no safe lead from the East hand. East’s choice was a low club. Jack did not mind at all when the bad spade break appeared. That meant a complete top when he scored 10 extra points..460, instead of the row of 450’s.

That is one of the key parts of Pairs’ bridge.

Richard Solomon

 

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