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Hand Analyses 17th May , 2006
South might well have bid 1NT over the 1♦ opening, notwithstanding the doubleton Diamond. Both 1NT and Double are flawed in different ways, but either one is a better choice than a 2♣ overcall. Our own preference is for Double, but 1NT is not that far behind.
If South chooses to Double, as in the featured auction, she’ll get the chance to Double again on the next round of bidding. This will get her side to 3♣ making 3, for +110 and an above-average result.
If, instead, South chooses to overcall 1♦ with 1NT, she will probably play it there, making +90 and losing to the 3♣ bidders. Or, after 1NT, West might dredge up a 2♦ raise … when this gets passed around back to South a lot of matchpoints will be riding on her decision … if she passes, that’s +50 and a bad board indeed … if she guesses to bid 3♣, then she recovers the +110 which almost got lost when she chose to overcall 1NT.
That East 2♥ bid is not exactly straight out of the text-book on preempts. Some might scoff at the bid, deriding the feeble suit and the outside strength … but, white against red, it pays to mix it up. Yes, we like a 2♥ bid here, but if it’s not your style, then that’s fine too.
There are numerous methods opposite a Weak Two opening, and, perhaps not surprisingly, the auction above uses the method that works best on this particular deal! 2NT asks for a feature (see Link), and Partner is supposed to show a side-suit Ace or King in this situation. When Opener shows a high Club (clearly the Ace in the circumstances), West can smell slam and just leaps to 6♥.
That 6♥ bid may seem somewhat arbitrary, but it’s actually based on sound logic. West can count 6 trumps and 3 minor suit winners … provided that Partner has 3 or more Spades (quite likely in the circumstances), 6♥ will be cold. And if Partner is thoughtless enough to have been dealt just 2 Spades? Well, then the 12th trick will just have to come from some help or some luck in the minors. All in all, a reasonable proposition, and if you got to slam you got a great board.
What if E-W are not playing 2NT as asking for a feature? Getting to slam will be highly unlikely in that case, and E-W will no doubt languish in 4♥. Different methods excel in different situations, and on this particular deal it turns out that the Feature method works best.
North’s 2♥ was DONT, showing both majors, and putting East in an interesting situation. 6NT looks like the most likely spot, at least it would be if Partner were kind enough to hold the A♥ or K♥. We are not especially big fans of the Gerber convention, the opportunities to use it seem so rare. But, perhaps this is such an opportunity. Actually, it’s the perfect opportunity, if you are prepared to chance that your side is not missing AK♥.
What are your responses to Gerber? One simple style, used in the featured auction, is simply 4♦ for 0 (or 4), 4♥ for 1, and so on. So, North’s 4NT shows 3 Aces, pretty much assuring that 6NT is worth a shot. But why stop there? If Partner also has the K♠, then we can almost count to 13 … 5 Spades (yes, we may need to finesse the 9), a Heart, 6 top minor tricks, surely with a 13th minor suit trick available one way or the other. Gerber comes up so rarely that you may not have good agreements on the responses to the King-asking 5♣ … we’d suggest that you show a specific King (with 5NT saying “no Kings”) rather than the number of Kings, and that is certainly the winning approach here.
In the play of 7NT, 13 tricks are especially easy when the T♠ turns out to be singleton.
Back to the bidding. Do you think that 4♣ was rather cavalier given the possibility of 2 fast Heart losers? Maybe so, but bear in mind that two missing Aces is also possible, which is an argument in favor of Gerber … and also consider that there is no credible route to 7 (at least not one that we know of) if we start by bidding 2♠. As they are bidding two suits, we’d presume that 2♠ says “I’ve got the Spades stopped, how about the Hearts?”
On a theoretical note, those responses that we outlined above are generally considered to be old hat in the world of tournament bridge … if your partnership would prefer not to be considered unfashionable, you may want to try these responses to that 4♣ Gerber bid: 4♦: 1 or 4 Aces 4♥: 0 or 3 Aces (yes, 1430 responses, just for the sake of consistency) 4♠: 2 Aces and a minimum 4NT: 2 Aces and a maximum.
South has a decision to make after Partner doubles. Should she bid 1NT? No, the hand is not good enough, we’d suggest a range of 7-10 for this bid. Should she pass for penalties? No, again the hand is not good enough, and nor are the Club spots (you might well say “What Club spots?”). That leaves 1♦ or 1♥, and we’d choose 1♦, if only because it’s less likely to get Partner as excited as a major fit might … this is not a hand where we want an excited Partner!
Give North credit for passing 1♦ with that 17-count … she judges that game is unlikely and it would be a bit much to bid 1NT here … doubling and bidding 1NT shows a better hand, 18-19. East chirps in with 1♠ and now North can bid 1NT, which is no doubt where she will play it. 1NT will be tough sledding by Declarer, it’s hard to see how she will escape down one on normal play.
Back to the bidding. You may assert that South should have made a penalty pass of Partner’s take-out Double, and you may further wish to point out that 1♣ does indeed go down a couple of tricks. Indeed it would, but that won’t happen if West is half-awake … with his pathetic Clubs he’ll suspect that he is in trouble and he should redouble! That is an SOS Redouble, saying “Get me outta here!”, and Partner will scoot to the safety of 1♠.
After Opener rebids 2♣, that 2♦ bid is best played as artificial, analogous to New Minor Forcing auctions, and often looking for a 5-3 major fit. If you were playing IMPs, after that 2NT bid, you’d probably bid 6♣, it’s a contract which may have some additional chances compared to 6NT. But this is matchpoints, and most red-blooded pairs players will take a shot at the higher-scoring 6NT.
It turns out that 6♣ is indeed the better contract … ruffing out the K♠ has better odds than finessing … 71% against 50% in case you are counting. Even so, as South, we think that we would take a shot at 6NT anyway (although we wish that it were played from our side) … Partner may have the J♥ or the K♠, for example.
The aggressive 6NT makes on a Spade finesse, the theoretically more sound 6♣ makes when the K♠ is ruffed out.
That 1♠ by West, vulnerable, opposite a passed hand is what might be politely termed “a bold effort”. North’s Double of the bold effort is a Support Double, showing 3-card Heart support. East bids 2♠, and must then decide whether or not to bid 3♠ when 3♥ is passed back to him. In these 3-level part-score situations, some players resort to Total Tricks analysis, which would go something like this: (a) We appear to have 9 trumps; (b) They probably have 8 trumps (North with 3 for the Support Double, South probably with 5, though 6 is certainly possible); (c) If there are 17 total trumps, then there are probably 17 total tricks; (d) If they are down one in 3♥ then we can make 3♠ for a better score; (e) If they can make 3♥ then we are down one, also for a better score, provided that they don’t double us.
Of course, all this science merely confirms what we already know … that the more trumps we have the more we bid. Anyway, we would try 3♠ in the East seat, bidding it with immense sangfroid in order to minimize the chances of a speculative matchpoint Double by the opponents.
Even if the sangfroid works and East escapes the Double, he must now avoid going down two. At first glance, it looks as if Declarer might lose 2 Hearts, 2 Diamonds, and a Club ... now it’s on the trump guess to avoid the dreaded minus 200.
Fortunately for Declarer, the defense may have trouble untangling its minor suit tricks. For example, if AQ♥ are cashed before the J♦ shift, Declarer can duck a Diamond, win the second round, then play A♣ and a Club towards the Queen, setting up a Club winner for a Diamond pitch. In fact, on this line of defense, Declarer should actually make the contract … he’ll place North with 3-2 in the minors, and so further place her with 3 Spades, picking up the trump suit. The J♦ is the best start for the defense, resulting in 5 tricks … the defense gets its 5 side-suit tricks, but Declarer picks up enough information along the way to guess the trump suit correctly.
Here, of course, 4NT is invitational to 6NT, it’s not Ace-asking (for that use Gerber, see Board 3). The final contract is rather poor … it needs a 3-2 Diamond break and a Heart finesse, so around a 34% prospect. Of course, when we get to a sub-par but successful slam, it’s tempting to attribute our success to superior bidding methods, conveniently overlooking the fact that we were just plain lucky. So, congratulations if you bid the successful 6NT, your auction wasn’t really terrible, just a tad optimistic … North was just about OK for her 4NT, South might have passed with her 16 HCP’s including that dubious J♠.
Yes, you’ve noticed that 6♦ is a much better contract than 6NT, requiring no more than breaking Diamonds, a favorite to make at 68%. Any way to get there? Actually, yes! There is a gadget in these 1NT-4NT auctions that would work well on this particular deal. After 1NT-4NT, if Opener has an accepting hand (especially if it’s marginal, as here), the players bid 4-card suits at the 5-level, and 5-card suits at the 6-level, in an attempt to seek out an 8-card fit. With that agreement, the auction would be: Opener Responder 1NT 4NT 5♣ 6♦ Pass
Opener’s 5♣ bid says “I accept and I have a 4-card Club suit”. Responder’s 6♦ says “I have 5 Diamonds”. A nice auction to the right spot … too bad that the Heart finesse works and that those Neanderthals who bludgeoned their way into 6NT will score better.
The most interesting and controversial bid in this auction is North’s opening 1♣. Would that be your choice? Those 6-5 hands, where the 6 is in the lower ranking suit, and where the hand is below reverse strength, are the subject of some debate. Here are the schools of thought: (a) Open 1♥, pretending that the hand is 5-5; (b) Open 1♣, and take the chance that the 5-3 Heart fit may be lost; (c) Open 1♥ if the Clubs are relatively weak, and 1♣ otherwise … being moderates at heart, this approach is our own choice.
As it happens, North is not from that first school of thought, but the Heart fit gets found anyway, and game is easily reached. 11 tricks can be made if the trump Queen is guessed successfully, but there is no compelling reason to play for West to have 3 trumps to the Queen, so we would predict just 10 tricks at most tables.
What a frustrating situation for East! Such a lovely hand and then North has to go and bid 1♥ in front of him! After that East must pass, of course, and South cannot resist introducing his so-called Spade suit into the auction, silencing West. After that 1♠ bid, we don’t think that North is good enough to make a jump shift to 3♣, and we’d suggest a rebid of 2NT here, which will end the auction.
2NT will end up down one … any N-S pair that somehow found their way to 3♣, making +110, will have done very well indeed … and we wonder how on earth they did it!
2NT showed the minors, after which many partnerships play some flavor of “Unusual vs Unusual” … in other words, they have precise meanings for the cue-bids in the opponent’s 2 minor suits. Please see our link for one of the (several) methods that are available. 3♦ in the featured auction showed at least a limit raise in Spades. Now, East’s 4♠ shows a bit extra, enough for game … maybe not a bit extra in the HCP’s department, but certainly in terms of playing strength. West’s 5♣ was a cue-bid in search of slam, and 5♥ was all West needed to know before bidding slam.
And what a splendid slam it is! But there is a little wrinkle in the play … please see Play Problem # 10.
When you are playing a 2/1 style of system, part of which is the Forcing NT, of course, Opener is sometimes obliged to rebid a 3-card minor … on this particular occasion, Opener is obliged to rebid a 2-card minor! West’s hand is just not good enough to reverse into 2♠, so an improvisation of 2♣ is required. East then shows invitational values and Clubs, and 3NT is reached.
It’s hard to imagine a more friendly hand, and 11 tricks will be the end-result.
What do you make of that 4♣ bid? Could it actually be an attempt to play in Partner’s first suit? Absolutely not! Once you’ve agreed a major, you can forget about playing in a minor, at least unless you get to the six-level. Yes, 4♣ is a Splinter, showing a Spade fit, game-going values, and shortness in Clubs. After the 4♣ Splinter, West could hardly have a less slam-suitable hand … minimum values … too much stuff in Partner’s short suit … all those Queens.
As it happens, the slam is not such a terrible spot, requiring no more than the A♦ onside. How can that be, you may wonder? How can West have such an utterly hopeless slam hand, all the more so opposite a Club splinter, and yet 6♠ turns out to be a 50% contract? Well, if the truth be told, that 4♣ Splinter is beyond the top of the range.
If not a splinter, then what? We would try that 3344 gadget described in Board 23, at least that will tell us if Partner likes his hand … if he does like his hand, we’ll make a cue-bid of 4♥, after which we will have done full justice to our hand.
The bottom line is that it’s a 50% slam … and it doesn’t make!
It’s hard to quarrel with this auction, and when Spades turn out to be 3-3, Declarer manages 8 tricks.
This innocent-looking auction has some hidden depths, please see the Bidding Quiz. In the play to 4♥, South has sequences in both the unbid suits … we’d lead the J♠ but, either way, it is surely correct for Declarer to win the A♠, draw trumps, finesse the Q♣, cash A♣ pitching a Diamond, ruff a Club (hoping the King will drop), and then play for the 3-3 Spade break, making 12 tricks.
Yes, you could play the Clubs the other way, taking the ruffing finesse, but you would be giving up on the chance of a 12th trick if it turns out that North has Kxx of Clubs and Spades are 4-2.
If West had not bid 2♠, you (as North) would rebid 2♥, there would be no second choice. But, with that 2♠, you are placed in a common dilemma … you want to let Partner in on the Heart fit, but you don’t have the values to go to the 3-level. Yes, we’ve discussed this one previously, the solution is the “Good-Bad 2NT”, a convention that we keep promising to add to the System Library, and no doubt shall one day soon.
Using the Good-Bad 2NT, North has two ways to get to 3♥ … she can bid it directly, which says that she has a “real” 3♥ bid, as in some extras … or she can go via the Good-Bad Lebensohl-style relay of 2NT, then, after Partner’s 3♣, she can bid 3♥ saying “Yes, I have 4 Hearts but not a hand with extras”.
How many tricks can be made in Hearts? In real life, probably just 9, although double dummy it’s possible to make 10 tricks, even of repeated trump leads by the defense … for example, trump lead, Diamond to the Queen, Spade won by the Ace, trump lead, K♠, A♣, ruff a Spade, exit a Club … now East is end-played! A pretty line of play, but not one that is likely to occur at the table.
We predict that the Good-Bad players will stop in 3♥, making +140, and that the rest of the field will stumble into 4♥, down one. So, a good commercial for the convention!
Any thoughts on that 2♥ bid? It seems about right to us, a tad heavy perhaps, but that Q♣ does not look that useful. The vulnerable Mr West steps back into the auction with 3♣ and we surely know what to do next … yes, we Double! We’ve limited our hand with that 2♥ bid, so when Partner debates to herself whether to Pass the Double or pull it, she’ll be in a good position to make the right choice. As it happens, North’s choice is quite clear … with only 3 Hearts, white versus red, she’ll pass and hope for the best.
The best is exactly what happens … down two for +500, beating the +420 for the 4♥ game which N-S were probably not bidding (they shouldn’t), and might well not make if they do. We’d bet that even beating 3♣ for just one, and +200, would be a fine matchpoint result.
South shows sensible restraint in this auction … she has a really nice hand opposite an opener with extras, but that void opposite Partner’s long suit is a serious minus, so she declines to go slam-hunting.
As it happens, making even 4♠ could be something of a challenge. West will no doubt lead a Diamond, won by Dummy’s Ace. It’s a complex hand, and there are trump control issues … we’d suggest winning the A♦, cashing KQ♥, ruffing a Club, cashing A♥ (pitching a Diamond) … if this holds up, we can ruff a Diamond, cash A♣, pitching a (good!) Heart, ruff a Club, ruff a Diamond, and now 11 tricks are ours.
What if the Hearts are not 3-3? Well, if the doubleton is in the hand with 3 Spades (or with 4 Spades in the West hand), then Declarer can still prevail. But if West has 4 Hearts, and East has 4 Spades, it looks like curtains!
The good news is that the suggested line of play works like a charm on the actual hand, and 11 tricks materialize, even though West holds AT84 of trumps.
East does not have a particularly robust 2♥ bid, but white versus red, who could resist? We certainly couldn’t, that much we know. West had a choice between 3NT and 4♥, each of them quite reasonable, and chose to protect his Diamond holding from the opening lead. Also, if East is at the top end of his bid (for once), there’s a good chance that 11 tricks will be made in either 3NT or 4♥ … no prizes for guessing which we prefer at matchpoints.
A Diamond lead from North is likely anyway, and East tables a disappointing Dummy. Dummy’s Q♦ wins the opening lead, and a Club is led to the King, hoping to drive out the Ace and set up an entry to the board for the Hearts. North must duck, of course, and now Declarer is doomed unless he bizarrely plays North for the singleton K♠. More likely, after the K♣ wins trick 2, the play will continue with A♥, Heart to the King, Diamond through Declarer to the Jack, A♦, another Diamond … now a Club is led towards the board, and North grabs the setting tricks for down one.
West may be vulnerable, and may have a mere 11 HCPs, but we’d double 3♣ anyway, with that almost perfect shape … as always when the opponents preempt, the partner with the shortness in their suit should stretch to get into the auction. After the Double, East’s 4♣ says “pick a major”. When Spades have been agreed, East bulls into slam via Roman Key Card Blackwood.
The resulting slam is rather poor, to say the least. But it makes! Spades are 2-2 and the Diamonds can be ruffed out, so a very lucky +1430 is the final result.
South has one of those in-between hands where we recommend that Michaels not be used. With this strength of hand we prefer to bid our suits separately, reserving our use of Michaels for when we are either weak or strong. The problem with using Michaels when we are in-between is that neither North nor South will know whether they should be competing over 3 of a minor.
When 1♠ gets passed back to East, he must choose between 2♣ and a stopperless 1NT (showing 18-19 in this situation) … clearly Double is out holding only 2 Hearts. East chooses 2♣ (1NT would be OK, too, in our opinion), and, when 2♥ gets back to him, now he can Double, and ends up in 3♦.
In 3♦, Declarer has 7 top tricks, with the possibility of two Club ruffs on the board to make the total up to 9. However, the defense will not be so accommodating as to let Dummy get those ruffs. South will probably lead the A♠, followed by a trump shift. Declarer leads the Q♠, which South must duck, ruffed by North, who returns her last trump. The defense has stopped the second ruff on the board, but Declarer can make up the shortfall in the Spade suit … he wins the second trump return on the board, leads a Spade, pitching a Club (or a Heart), and scores 9 tricks that way.
South’s 2NT was the Jacoby 2NT, showing a game-forcing Spade raise. In standard methods, North’s 3♥ here says nothing about her overall strength, merely that she is short in Hearts. With her massive Heart wastage, South quickly signs off in game.
If East finds a Diamond lead, the hand will be over in a flash, with 11 tricks made. But the J♣ lead might seem a reasonable alternative, temporarily raising Declarer’s hopes for 12. She’ll draw trumps, cash AK♥ and ruff a Heart … when the Q♥ does not come down, it’s 11 tricks after all. This board looks like it should be completely flat.
We wouldn’t fault South’s 4♣ preempt … after all, she is white versus red, and has 8 Clubs, so why not apply maximum pressure? But, when East balances with a Double, and West converts this to a penalty Double, a large number is on the horizon.
Against 4♣ doubled, West leads a Diamond to Partner’s Ace. Now, it’s clear to shift to Hearts … Declarer ruffs the second round and a game of ping-pong commences. After ruffing the second Heart, Declarer loses a Club, ruffs a Heart, loses a Club, ruffs a Heart, cashes a Club and loses a Club to East’s Nine. At this point all the Hearts have gone, so West is end-played, and must open up the Spades. Notwithstanding the end-play, it’s still down 4 for -800. So much for applying “maximum pressure”!
North can hear the slam sirens going off, but the first priority is to establish the trump suit. If Partner has raised Hearts on a 4-card suit, as is usually but not always the case, then the higher-scoring Hearts is where she’ll want to play it. There’s a little gadget to help you out here, which is 2NT as an artificial bid, asking Opener to describe her hand further … we call it 3344 because the responses are: 3♣: 3-card raise, bad hand; 3♦: 3-card raise, good hand; 3♥: 4-card raise, bad hand; 3♠: 4-card raise, good hand.
After 2NT, on the actual deal, South bids 3♠, and North might get really exotic and try 5♣ … yes, Exclusion Key Card Blackwood! … a bit over the top, perhaps? … yes, maybe, but so much fun! It’s less fun when you discover that there are two missing Key Cards, and when the bidding screeches to a halt in 5♥.
But 6 may make anyway … the trump finesse works, trumps are drawn, and then Declarer must decide which high Diamond to lay down first … please see Play Problem # 11
We’ve talked about Super-Accepts before, and the benefits of not revealing information unnecessarily. 2NT in the featured auction shows 4-card support, and a maximum hand. East is not impressed, however, and her 3♥ is a re-transfer to Spades.
The Super-Accept has got E-W a tad high, as 3♠ needs either a little luck in Spades or a lot of luck in Diamonds. South wins the opening lead, lays down the A♠ (the percentage play with this holding), and is assured of 9 tricks when the Jack appears … she’ll later try for an overtrick with the double Diamond hook, but that does not work, and N-S score +140.
What do you think of South’s 3♦ rebid? Overly boisterous? Perhaps so, but it is a very nice hand. Then again, perhaps the storm flags were flying … the opponents don’t have a Heart fit (so Partner has 5 or more) … Partner did not raise Spades … is there a misfit in the air? Maybe so, but on a good day Partner has something like ♠ Qx, ♥ xxxxx, ♦ Qxx, ♣ xxx, in which case 4♠ is a strong favorite to make 10, or even 11, tricks.
On the actual deal, North is less obliging, and South has to scramble for 8 tricks and down one. So, if East found that Double, E-W will score close to a top board with their +200.
It seems fairly normal for East to butt in with a passed hand Double, and South’s Redouble shows 3-card Heart support. When 2♣ gets back to South, who must decide how to keep the bidding alive … 2♦ or 3♦ are both possibilities with that 6-card suit, but in the featured auction South was clever (lucky?) enough to find the Double … this exhorts Partner to “do something sensible”, and North’s conversion to a 500 or 800 penalty seems pretty sensible to us.
We doubt whether this penalty will be a common result, far more likely that N-S will play in a Diamond part-score for +110, or 3NT going down one or two.
Fairly aggressive bidding by South on this one, we would say, she might have down-graded her hand a tad for that unsupported Q♦. But, the final contract is not a bad one, it has two ways to succeed. Perhaps West will get aggressive and make an opening lead of a low Diamond … and then there is the trump finesse. With the trump finesse working, it’ll be 12 or 13 tricks, depending on that opening lead.
Yes, we certainly approve of that 1NT opening with just 14 HCP’s … it’s worth upgrading, with that 5-card Diamond suit and all those lovely fillers. But, perhaps we should not approve too wholeheartedly, because that 1NT opening propels N-S into a pretty awful 3NT contract!
On a normal day, the defense will help itself to 3 Spade tricks and two red Aces and that will be down one. But not today! With the Spade suit blocked, and both defensive Aces in the short Spade hand, there is no sudden death on the hand, it’ll be more a lingering demise, and Declarer will likely be down one eventually.
Yes, there is a double dummy line to make 9 tricks, but it’s somewhat obscure … win the Diamond lead, Heart to the King and Ace, win the K♠ return, guess the Clubs and cash them, cash the Heart winners, and throw East in with a Heart (or a Spade) … he’s endplayed.
West might well have bid with his A, AK … then again the hand is square, and he only has 14 Cansino points (HCPs plus Spades), less than the rule-of-thumb 15 which is often used as a benchmark for 4th seat openings.
Considering that this is a hand which will get passed out at several tables, there are a surprising number of tricks available … 9 for N-S in Spades, 10 for E-W in Diamonds.
What are your agreements for East’s rebid here? More specifically, is East allowed to rebid 3♣ with such a weak hand? Some partnerships prefer a better hand for the 3♣ rebid (or else 5-5 distribution), preferring a 2NT rebid, or, when that is inappropriate, as here, they will rebid their major, even though it is only a 5-card suit.
On the actual deal, this method gets E-W to 3NT played by West, and it’s another contract which has no practical real-life chances on the actual lie of the cards. In fact, down one will probably be quite a reasonable matchpoint result.
Here’s what some of the bids mean in the featured auction: 2♣: Played as game-forcing here. 2♥: Natural, of course … nowadays, this bid does not show (nor deny) extras, and some would play that it tends to deny a fifth Diamond. 3♦: East has the luxury of supporting Diamonds in a forcing auction. 4♦: This partnership uses Minorwood, so 4♦ is Roman Key Card Blackwood. 4♠: This shows 2 Key Cards without the Q♦. However, East does have 5 Diamonds, and sometimes we use extra length in the trump suit as a surrogate for the trump Queen … here East expects no more than a 9-card fit, so probably not a good idea to show that trump Queen (but tempting, it’ll certainly be useful information for Partner if he has the Q♦). 5♣: The King Ask, confirming that there are no missing Key Cards. 7♦: Clearly there are no losers in the majors, nor in Diamonds, so 7♦ looks like a reasonable shot. Worst case scenario would be that West has 3 small Clubs, but that seems unlikely, and not even necessarily fatal.
It’s true that 7NT also makes, but it’s hard, in the bidding, to diagnose that Club fit as being worth 5 tricks. Getting to 7♦ should be adequate for close to a top.
In third seat, some players habitually open on any old trash. But, there should always be a reason for a light 3rd hand opening bid. Here, for example, there is absolutely no reason for East to open 1♦ with such a bad hand and bad suit. Now, opening 1♥ is a different story, there’s a bid with a purpose! True, 1♥ is supposed to show a 5-card suit, but the lead-directing benefit of the bid outweighs that deficiency.
3♦ by South is the likely final contract, and West sensibly spurns East’s lead-directing 1♥ opener and leads the A♠, K♠, and shifts to a Club … eventually, the defense will be forced to give Declarer an entry to the board or else lead Hearts, and Declarer will scramble 8 tricks.
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