Aceless wonders

Here's a tip that I have found to be worthy. When you open an aceless hand, don't take any strong action later in the auction – your hand is going to be a disappointment to partner. Here's an example of the kind of thing I mean from BBO. I was playing with my favorite Canadian, E/W at favorable vulnerability. My hand (E) was ♠T8653 ♥A82 ♦AK ♣K65. Partner opened 1♥ (limited to 15 hcp) and the auction continued as follows:

West	North	East	South
1♥ 1	p	1♠	p
4♦ 2	p	4NT	p
5♦ 3	p	5♠	all pass

1) 11-15 hcp
2) splinter
3) 1 or 4 keycards

Probably, I was over-optimistic and didn't devalue my AK of diamonds sufficiently, but I've learned that it's easy to devalue such holdings too much, especially opposite the more typical singleton (admittedly, opposite a void, AK should be devalued somewhat).

There was nothing I could do to avoid the loss of two black aces and a heart ruff. This was expensive, in that most pairs were in only 4♠. This was the complete layout:

	♠ 94 ♥ T653 ♦ QT75 ♣ A82
♠ KQ72 ♥ KQ974 ♦ – ♣ QJ97		♠ T8653 ♥ A82 ♦ AK ♣ K65
	♠ AJ ♥ J ♦ J986432 ♣ T43

The point is that however good the West hand appears to be in support of spades, it is aceless and should probably not jump rebid, splinter or make any other strong rebid. Trade South's ♠A for partner's ♠K, on the other hand, and even slam rolls home. Equally clearly, if North has the guarded ♠K, only 5♠ can be made (but that still would be a game score).

As another example, I recall from several years ago a hand where my partner opened 1♥ and after my 1♠ response, rebid 3♥. Later, a key-card enquiry showed that we had two or five key cards (I had two myself). Not being able to imagine how partner could make a jump rebid with an aceless hand, I bid 7♥ with a fair degree of confidence (I had a good hand myself). Unfortunately, we were off three tricks, doubled. We had every honor card in the deck, save for two aces and the trump K!