February 2020 - 66

Special Contributors

Lessons Learned
BY MICHAEL BERKOWITZ

Planning ahead
"It's easy," my grandmother explained as I watched. "You put oil in a
pan on the fire, then you use a food processor to shred potatoes and onions,
add a few things, and by the time the oil
is hot, you're ready to fry up latkes."
Going to school in North Carolina,
I was eager to introduce my friends to
this Jewish treat. I invited a dozen or
so people over. I got all the ingredients,
put some oil in a pan on the stove, and
then looked around my dorm kitchen
for a food processor. Then, I calmly
said, "Oh, crap."
In cooking, and in bridge, it's important to look to the next step before you
commit to a course of action, otherwise
you may find yourself with hungry
friends and a flaming pan of vegetable
oil.
If we'll have no clue what to rebid
after a particular opening, we should
consider a different starting point.
Notrump
Consider this hand:
♠K J 4 ♥A Q 10 9 4 ♦A Q ♣8 7 6.
If you are one of those people who
doesn't open 1NT with five-card majors, the important question is: What
is your next bid going to be? With this
hand, if you open 1♥ instead of 1NT,
it's hard to know what to do after partner's bid. If partner bids 1♠ or 1NT,
do you bid 2NT? Do you raise spades?
What if partner raises to 2♥: Do you
invite? That's one reason it's better to
open 1NT.

66 Bridge Bulletin February 2020

michael@larryco.com

Opening 1NT with somewhat unusual hands can resolve lots of problems.
For example:
♠Q 8 ♥A Q 7 6 ♦A K 7 4 3 ♣J 6.
You have two doubletons, so would
you describe your hand as balanced?
Absolutely! 15-17 points? Yup. Those
are our requirements for a 1NT opening. 1NT will save us an awkward rebid.
Imagine 1♦-Pass-1♠-Pass. Then
what?
Similarly, there's this:
♠K 7 ♥A Q ♦J 10 9 7 6 5 ♣A J 5.
Opening 1NT here avoids having
to bid a junky-looking diamond suit
twice. Having a six-card minor doesn't
disqualify our hand from being (semi-)
balanced, although a six-card major
or seven-card minor would prevent us
from opening 1NT.
Aside from saving us rebidding problems and conveying our hand nicely to
partner in one go, opening 1NT allows
partner to place the contract most of
the time. We have lots of good tools
available: Stayman, transfers, etc.
Opening hands with extreme shape
Sometimes we're dealt weird hands,
ones that are 5-5, 6-5 or 7-5. (These
mean five cards in one suit and five/
six/seven in another.) With these
types of hands, it's important that we
consider that our hands may be much
stronger than our point count would
indicate and that we may not be able to
show both suits naturally. Some tools
such as Michaels and the unusual 2NT
allow us to show two-suited hands if

our opponents bid the right suits, but
sometimes we might worry that our
opponents will get so high that we can't
compete.
If we are worried that our opponents
will crowd out the bidding, get started
early. With:
♠5 ♥A K 9 5 3 ♦K 10 9 8 6 ♣7 6,
open 1♥, then bid diamonds when possible. This will show your shape nicely.
If you wait, you may never get a chance.
With two five-card suits, you will
always start with the higher-ranking
suit. If you have a six-card minor and a
five-card major, make your plan before
your first bid. With:
♠5 ♥K 10 8 4 3 ♦A Q 9 8 5 4 ♣7,
you might open 1♥ to allow yourself a
diamond rebid. If you open 1♦, it will
be awkward if partner bids 1♠: You
might get stuck repeating diamonds
rather than showing your five-card
major (which would be a reverse; your
hand is not strong enough to do that).
If you have a 6-4 hand such as:
♠K Q J 9 5 4 ♥5 ♦Q 10 8 7 ♣6 2,
and you'd like to preempt, you might
consider preempting one level higher
than you would normally. So with this
hand, consider opening 3♠, not 2♠.
You should only do this if your fourcard suit is a minor (or a really uglylooking major). If you open just 2♠,
you will be tempted to bid again later
on, giving your opponents too much
free rein. Try to preempt as high as
possible the first time.
◾

February 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of February 2020