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South has a bare minimum for an opening bid - 2½ "honour" tricks. An ace counts as one honour, as does KJx, with Qx and Jx of differing suits comprising a further ½ honour trick. I can imagine many aggressive modern Souths would open with a shaded 11 point 1NT, so at least that much has remained constant. The difference is in the apparent treatment of the North hand. Today she would either use Stayman and jump to 3 over 2, or transfer to 2 and bid a forcing-for-one-round 2 - depending on the partnership style. In the Jurassic days, North was expected to jump to 3 and South would simply sign off in 3NT. Thus the best game contract of 4 would be completely overlooked as a possibility. How would you play 4 on the lead of a small trump, East playing the ten?
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