[Photo provided to China Daily]

Few pairs outside North America use a weak two-diamond opening. The so-called Multi enjoys widespread popularity. Then, two diamonds indicates a weak two-bid in either major. This makes life tougher for the opponents because initially they do not know the opener's suit, and it frees the two-of-a-major openings for alternative meanings.

Nowadays, though, quite a few pairs, especially Europeans, open two diamonds with a weak major two-suiter. So my wife and I decided to give it a whirl. We agreed that nonvulnerable 4-4 was okay, but vulnerable we had to be at least 5-4. Later, we learned that the 4-4 version is illegal in events overseen by the American Contract Bridge League; and that we would have to give our opponents a suggested defense. But we have been practicing only against the robots (computer opponents) at Bridge Base Online.

In this deal, 11 East-West pairs made three no-trump, and only two failed, the defenders taking three hearts and two clubs.

In our auction, I responded two spades because I was happy to compete with three hearts if necessary (despite the vulnerability). West led the heart five, which East interestingly ducked to my seven. When I led a trump, West rose with the queen and continued with the heart two. I won with dummy's ace and took my top clubs to discard a diamond from dummy. Now I lost three spades, one heart and two diamonds to escape for down one, a fair result since East-West could have scored plus 130 in diamonds.