Choices on What to Open

Here's a hand that came up the other day.

You hold this hand:
♠A9
♥Q8
♦AK763
♣K974

You are the Dealer. What is your bid?

Think about it.

What would you bid and what does that show?

Here you have a couple of choices. You can open the bidding 1NT. This should show 15-17 HCP with a balanced hand.

The problem is you do not have a balanced hand. You have two doubletons.

You can also open the bidding 1♦. If you choose to open 1♦ you must now decide what to do after Partner makes a 1 level response. So say 1♥. What will you bid if Partner responds 1♥?

If you rebid 1NT that would show a balanced hand with 13 or 14 HCP. You have too much to do that. If you are going to rebid 1NT you should just open the bidding 1NT.

If you instead rebid 2♣ that would show a hand with 5♦, 4♣ and a hand with about 13 to about 18 points. Not quite enough to game force opposite a minimum from Partner.

I would tend to recommend opening the bidding 1♦ for newer Players.

If you choose to open 1♦ Partner will respond 1NT.

Now you should choose to rebid 2♣. Partner will Pass and you are in the best contract.

Partner had the hand from yesterday!

They held this hand:
♠T76
♥973
♦54
♣AQJ86

If you open 1NT, Partner will Pass and the opponents will take the first 5 ♥ tricks.

If you open 1♦ and rebid 2♣ you will play it there and take 10 tricks.

1NT taking 8 tricks is worth 120 points.
2♣ taking 10 tricks is worth 130 points.

Plus more new Players tend to dislike NT. Things can get out of control very easily.