12 de Julio 2013
Bridgewinners is a recognized American bridge forum that allows its Associates (its free for everyone) to post notes or make inquiries to experts. A few hours ago one of its users published a question that must haunt many of the not so expert bridge players that inhabit our planet:
Do You Open “all 12s?”
As an introduction to the topic he presents this hand:
Kxx
Kxx
Kxxx
Kxx
Do you open this?
I held this hand at a Regional and there was a great debate about it later.
It was in a MP game, and I was the dealer. Nobody vul.
Here some of the answers from known northamerican bridge players:
Henry Bethe: It mostly depends on partnership expectations. In mine, playing ‘standard’ or 2/1, I would not.
Bob Heitzman: At matchpoints, yes, because I assume the majority of the field will open and there is no overwhelming reason to go anti-field with your first bid. If not opening doesn’t work well, you will get a zero. If opening doesn’t work well, you will have company. At imps, there is a little more reason to use judgment with 12, especially in a head-to-head match where there is only one comparison. Nevertheless, I open almost all 12s at imps. There are some 12s I would pass, but this isn’t one of them.
Jim Olson: This hand is why I play weak NTs.
Another one talking about WNT: I play a weak NT so many (but not all) 12 points are in my ambit. My rules are: If opening a WNT I must have an expectation of winning 4 tricks and have strength in 3+ suits if the cards lie favourably – this means that hands with QX, JXX automatically get ditched. So the hand quoted is a minimum WNT. (Why do I need 4 tricks? If I hold 3 then someone will hold 4 – if it is my partner then he’ll bid anyway, if it is not my partner then we would be going down in a contract). In 1st or 2nd I must have a sensible rebid over any response by partner. (I realise Strong NT players will have a response of 1NT in these occasions – but do you really want to rebid 2NT on 12 points balanced after a 2-level response?). In third I would much rather have a major if bidding on a weak distributional hand and the weaker the hand the better the suit has to be. In 4th I apply the rule of 15.
Joshua Donn: There could be a debate about minimum opening standards if you want, but passing this particular hand w/w at mps is completely ridiculous in my opinion.
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