Unlikely hands can cause mayhem

Have you ever held a hand with two voids? The odds of this are happening have been calculated at more than 10,000 to 1.

Today’s hand was dealt at the under 26 World Championships held in Croatia last year. As you might imagine, it caused mayhem. Two North/South pairs played in spades going minus 2000 while at least two East/ West pairs went for sticks and circles (1100) in minor suit contracts.

The above bidding by one of the pairs was not particularly elegant. West’s one spade opener was unusual to say the least. However by good luck rather than good management this pair managed to avoid too much trouble by stopping in a very ugly three no trump for three light.

The commentator who reported the hand wondered if South should have doubled the 3NT contract. He might also have posed the question as to why South didn’t bid two hearts at the first opportunity.

So what would you call with West’s hand? There’s something to be said for starting off with a very conservative three clubs then bidding spades the next time around. For those few inclined to open at the one level one club must be a better choice than one spade.

Your correspondent has a weakness for passing extreme hands such as this to await developments. Unfortunately the success rate of this approach has not been high. Frequently the opponents will also hold wildly distributional hands so the bidding can very quickly reach a high level and the opportunity to enter the bidding is lost.