Degrade to 1NT?

I have been a bit lazy with this blog in the last time. It probably does not matter because this page has only very little traffic, mostly one-digit numbers for each posting.

The board is interesting in various ways. I was considering to degrade the 18 points to 1NT. But this is not a good idea. You should only do it if you fear that your minor opening could be passed away. In this case, you have a chance to survive 1♣ or 1♦ even if partner has zero points, and that might be the best contract.

If you open 1NT nevertheless, you will end in 3NT. With only two stoppers in ♥, how can you establish more than 8 tricks? Your only chance is in spades. In double dummy mode, you see that a small spade below the ace does the trick. The logic is that two figures must drop at one trick. This is surprisingly frequent. One player must hold two of them blank. In fact you make two overtricks this way.

Players opened 1♣ or 1♦ all the time. The bidding above is typical. But all players made only 10 tricks, conceding two trumps. In this strong field of aces, I'd have expected more to make the overtrick.