Bridge in Oz

At today's club game my partner Pauly picked up the best hand I've ever seen!

♠ AKQJ8532
♥ AK2
♦ A
♣ A

Two passes to you, what's your plan?

Pauly just opened 6NT for 86% of the matchpoints, as most were in spades.

My suggestion in the post-mortem was to open 2♣ and rebid hearts! With any luck partner will raise and you can then bid Key Card Blackwood and find out about the Queen of hearts, and bid 6NT or 7NT accordingly.

Sharyn Dilosa chose a 7NT opening, which I now think is best. After a minor suit lead declarer would run all the spades, coming down to four cards in each hand. Each defender will be hard pressed not to hold onto two or more minor suit cards, in which case the ♥2 will take the 13th trick. If you instead open 2♣ you run the risk that partner will bid notrump before you do and perfect defense is guaranteed.

Even with accurate defense and without the ♥Q in dummy, 7NT will also make if dummy has a King and either the ♠10, three or four small spades or the 9 doubleton with one defender holding the singleton 10.

Everyone took 13 tricks as dummy was:

♠ 10
♥ QJ875
♦ 1074
♣ 9754

The full deal and results are here.

Had dummy not had the HQ, a minor suit king in that hand would also have done the job, as long as the opening lead was not a spade (the S10 is needed as an entry). The discussion of this freak reminds me of a chapter in a Reese book (if I recall correctly), where he discusses what to open with 13 solid hearts! (I think he decided it might be best to open 3H, then later get to 7H doubled).

With all 13 hearts it would be amusing to win the first trick with the 2 and then table the 3.