Australia-Wide Open Pairs 2023

[rod]

Doug and I played in this on Monday and did pretty well. Results are not final as of this writing but it appears we'll be in the top 2% nationwide.

The following deal demonstrates my penchant for 1NT openings that are a bit off-shape and how that sometimes works out well. Doug is not a fan of this but accepts my idiosyncrasies.

Board 21, NS vulnerable, North deals.

Screenshot from 2023-09-02 10-13-18.png (16.95 KiB) Viewed 7485 times

Rod     East    Doug    West
1NT     Pass    2♣      3♣
3♥      Pass    3NT     Pass
Pass    Pass

A spade lead would have beaten this, but East was understandably deterred by the auction's implication that South had four spades and chose a diamond instead. I managed to set up hearts for a total of 10 tricks and 98% of the matchpoints.

[rod]

Here's another one where a notrump-style auction made the strong hand declarer with a good outcome.

Board 10, both vulnerable, East deals.

Screenshot from 2023-09-02 14-29-05.png (16.85 KiB) Viewed 7480 times

East    Doug    West    Rod
Pass    Pass    Pass    2♣
Pass    2♦      Pass    2NT
Pass    3♥      Pass    3♠
Pass    3NT     Pass    4♠ 
All Pass

North's sequence showed 18-19 balanced, and 3♥ was a transfer. I might have super-accepted with 4♠ directly, but decided that the KJ tight in clubs made the hand not quite good enough.

East could have beaten it by leading the ♥J, but nobody underleads an ace against a suit contract.

That was worth 77%.