Bridge with David

Ignoring those 4-4 Major Fits

2012-02-03T18:13:00.000-06:00

Had a very interesting hand in the Swiss Teams at our recent Sectional. All Vul, I picked up T74 KJ86 AKQ K98. Playing a 12-14 1NT, I opened 1C in first seat, and with the opponents silent throughout, bid 1N (15-17) over partners 1H bid. If I had a doubleton on the hand, I would raise partner first, but with the 4333 shape, wanted to emphasize the flat shape. Partner now raised this directly to 3N, not bothering to do any of our Stayman auctions. This tends to imply a very flat hand, so after some thought, I decided I would accept partners rath for never supporting her suit with this holding, and play the hand in 3N.

The opening lead was the 3 of Spades (3rd and 5th), and partner put down AK5 AT74 654 T62. That was certainly a flat hand, and it looked like there were going to be enough problems taking 9 tricks, no matter 10, unless I could locate the Q of Hearts. Here are the 2 hands with the lead of the 3 of Spades.

AK5 AT74 654 T62

T74 KJ86 AKQ K98

Basically, if you can pick up the Q of Hearts, you have 9 tricks, with backup possibilities in Spades and Clubs for a 9th trick. From the lead, LHO could have 5 Spades, but it is slightly more likely that this is 3rd best since the 2 is missing. Also, the Spade honours are likely to be split, since LHO did not lead the Q or J. Ducking this with the AK on board will almost certainly lose to one of the missing Q or J on your right, and expose your K of Clubs to immediate danger, so it looks like you have to win this on board. And as stated before, picking up the Q of Hearts means 9 tricks, wherever the A of Clubs is.

After winning the A of Spades, with RHO signaling encouragement, I played the A of Hearts off board, RHO following with the 3 and LHO with the 9. When I led the 7 of Hearts off board, RHO now echo’d with the 2 of Hearts. They play upside down count signals, so if these are honest cards, it shows 3 Hearts, tending to leave LHO with the Q9 of Hearts (with 9x, it is a standard false card, but not sure LHO would make that play). Is there any reason for RHO to give honest count? First, he does not know I have 4 Hearts, I never did raise partner, so if he is playing his partner for 3 or 4, especially 4, then giving an honest count is more important. But if I have only 2 Hearts, why would I start with the A, and if I have 3, then there is no way for his partner to get the Hearts wrong. A clear case of Spy vs Spy. After some though, I played the K of Hearts, dropping the Q9 offside, and when the A of Clubs was onside, made 4.

I had actually been hoping for the A of Clubs to be offside when I dropped the Q of Hearts, as that effectively made it impossible to make 4H. Turns out, they bid 4H at the other table, but did not get the Hearts correct. When something else went wrong for them, not sure what. they went down 2, for a 13 IMP pickup for us.

Less than Optimal Slam Bidding

2012-02-02T18:11:00.000-06:00

Playing in our weekly IMPS League the other night, we had a couple of slam hands that we brought back less than optimal results on.

On the first hand, I held 83 9873 AJ65 AQ4 with All VUL, and passed in first seat. Partner opened 1S in third seat, with the opponents silent throughout. I bid 1N forcing, and partner now jumped to 3S. This is where I made a very lazy bid, with an absolute maximum for my original pass, I should make a forward going cue-bid of 4C here. That gives us a good shot at getting to the cold slam in Spades. Instead I just raised to 4S, end playing partner into being forced to Pass with Jxx of Clubs in her hand. 4S can be made on a lot worse holding, and partner can not really go on over it. Partner held AKQJxx Ax K Jxx, and the entry to the A of Diamonds for the Heart pitch can never really be attacked early enough. The only thing that can beat 6S is the lead of a singleton Club.

The opponents at the other table opened a weak NT with my hand, and now the other hand had no trouble driving to a slam for a 12 IMP loss.

The next hand, my partner held this nice hand, Vul vs Not, --- A72 AKJ75 QT876 and heard it go 1D by partner, 1H on her right. She had the options of bidding 3C, fit showing, or 2C, natural and forcing, and chose the latter, which I do like. There is going to be time to get the Diamonds in later, but you want to know how partner feels about Clubs. LHO now jumped to 3H (Pre-emptive) and partner bid 4C freely. RHO passed, and she now bid 4H, which went Pass, 5C by partner, Pass back to her. This is actually good news, since partner was not able to make a Spade cue-bid of any type, and is marked with Heart shortness, her hand has improved on the auction. At this point, she bid 6C, missing the best bid available of 5N (Grand Slam Force). Her LHO now bid 6H, which was doubled by partner and passed back to her. She sat this, and we collected +1100 on the board when I could not read her for having a void in Spades on the hand. I wound up with 1 Spade trick instead of 2 ruffs.

Turns out her RHO had overcalled 1H with also having AJxx in Spades, so it was not easy to get right. My hand was QT73 4 QT62 AKJ4. I have a minimum, but after 2C by partner and 3H weak on my right, my Clubs and singleton Heart make my hand too good not to bid freely to 4C. 7C is pretty easy on the board, and if they take the sack in 7H, it is now easier to picture first round Spade control of some type in partners hand, and lead Spades when in with the Clubs, getting us up to a possible +1700 score. At the other table, our partner did not overcall 1D with 1H, so the auction was a quick 1D-6D, making 7, for a 7 IMP loss.

Interesting Play Problem

2012-01-30T23:00:00.000-06:00

Playing in the Swiss Teams at our recent local Sectional, had this hand come up. No one Vul, you hold JT7 4 K9643 J973 and hear it go 2H on your right, you Pass, 4H on your left, Double by partner, and then Pass on your right. I finally decided that this was not a double to leave in, and since partner did not bid 4S himself, I was not that interested in the bad Moysian, even with the stiff Heart in my hand, so I bid 5D, ending the auction.

The opening lead was the A of Hearts, and this is the dummy I got, AK97 6 AJT8 AT62. All I had to do was bring Diamonds in for no losers and compress 3 possible black suit losers into 1, nothing to it. LHO won the Heart while RHO contributed the 8 of Hearts (std count and attitude), and then switched to the 8 of Spades. How do you plan the play?

AK97 6 AJT8 AT62

JT8 4 K9643 J973

First thing to decide is how the Spades are sitting such that you can bring that suit in for no losers. Since you must lose at least 1 Club, you can not afford any Spade losers. If the 8 of Spades is to be believed, then the Q is on your right with the 2H bid, but a little local knowledge tells you that LHO is quite willing to play a dishonest card to try and get to you. And since a Spade was almost a required shift, the actual card means little.

What do we know about the hand so far, Hearts are probably 5-6, as indicated by the bidding and play to trick 1. If Diamonds are 3-1, then you can pick them up, but that might leave RHO too many Black cards to be safe. 1 nice thing about the spot cards in Spades, if you can pick up the Q, you can pitch a Club on the 4th Spade, then split honours in Clubs will allow you to get a forced ruff and sluff to make the hand.

Due to the Spade spots, I think the best line of play is to take the Spade hook at trick 2, and assuming it wins, plan to pull trumps, and run the Spades pitching a Club, before going A and out a Club. This will work any time the Spade Q is onside, and the Clubs are 3-2 with split honours. There are also a few variations available as the play develops, or if Clubs go 4-1 with a stiff honour.

The problem is I decided to delay my Spade decision on the hand, and won the first round with the A. I now played a Diamond to the K and a Diamond back to the A, with the Q appearing on my left on the 2nd round, Diamonds being 2-2. But that left me on board with only 1 hand entry in Diamonds. If I was playing Clubs off board, I now needed Hx on my right, and that coupled with the 6 Hearts and 2 Diamonds he was (mostly) known to hold, meant he held 3 Spades, and I needed the Spade hook now. So hoping for the best, I led a little Club off board, losing to the K on my left. A Spade came back, and I played low, getting some good and bad news. The good news was that the Q was not on my right, the bad news was that RHO showed out on the Spade, meaning he held 4 Clubs to the Q to start, and I was going down on the hand, whereas my first line of play would have worked if I had hooked the Spade at trick 2. So much for delaying decisions, but it was a nice return of the 8 of Spades by LHO that made me think the hand out too deeply. Here is the full hand, turns out with all the singletons, we can beat 4H 1 trick, only because 2 Diamonds cash, but we have to get to them early.

	♠ AK97 ♥ 6 ♦ AJT8 ♣ AT62
♠ Q8532 ♥ AJ973 ♦ Q2 ♣ K		♠ 4 ♥ KQT852 ♦ 75 ♣ Q854
	♠ JT6 ♥ 4 ♦ K9643 ♣ J973

At the other table, they started with the same auction, except my hand decided to pull to 4S with the singleton Heart. The bad Spade split meant they could not pull trump and retain control, so wound up down 2 on the hand, we won 1 IMP, but had a chance for a lot more.

Nice Hand

2012-01-25T22:24:00.000-06:00

Playing in a practice match on BBO with a regular partner, you pick up the following nice hand with everyone Vul, K42 AKQJ632 --- AQ7. The auction also gets very exciting before it gets near you, LHO opens 1D, partner chimes in with 3S, and RHO passes. So now what?

First off, I think you have to bid a slam on this hand, you are not sure of anything, but your hand is way too powerful to only bid game. The biggest question is, how do you get there, and what is the right slam? 6S allows your Clubs to possibly be led through, but 6H relies on not having a Heart loser with a possible Spade loser. And you do not want to write off a grand on this hand. 7 Spades to the A and out with partner gives very good play for that.

If you play exclusion key card with something like 5D, you could bid that, but that will really increase the possibility of a Club lead on the hand in Spades. You can still play in Hearts then, but will partner be able to pass that, when 5D should imply Spade support. And what will bidding 4D do for you, you pretty well know partner is going to bid 4S over that.

At the first table, this hand bid 6S over 3S, ending the auction. The hand on lead held the A of Diamonds and tried that, enabling 12 tricks to be taken when partners hand was QJT9653 4 QJ J43. An opening Club lead will defeat 6S, since Hearts are 4-1, so there are not enough quick pitches of Clubs. At the other table, the auction started the same, except the good hand only bid 4H, also ending the auction. This made 6 fairly quickly, but for a 12 IMP loss. I just strongly feel the other hand is too strong in playing strength not too insist on some kind of slam.

How to Complete a Match

2012-01-05T18:44:00.000-06:00

Playing in our weekly IMPS League, against the best team there, had these 3 interesting hands come up to end the match. We did not know it till later, but going into the last 3 boards, the match was deadlocked at 0-0.

On the first, you pick up, All Vul, J --- AT975 QJ98632 and hear partner open 1H in first seat, P to you. We play a 2/1 system, and the void in partners suit does not help, so I get to bid the wonderfully descriptive 1N forcing on my 7-5 hand. It now goes 4S on my left, and a very surprising but interesting 5D by partner! While I am thinking about what to do over that, RHO joins the action with 5S, sounds like everyone has some fun distribution. The general rule on IMPS is that you bid 1 more on distributional hands, since you are not sure who can make what. But then there is the other rule that the 5 level belongs to the opps, and I do have the wrong major suit holding. But I am almost always a bidder on these type of hands, so 6D, ended the auction. On a side note, RHO thought for quite some time before passing.

The opening lead was the 3 of Spades, and it turns out partner had made a very aggressive call, but now held the perfect hand for us. The 2 hands were

J --- AT975 QJ98632

6 QT975 KJ863 AK

Partner won the shift to Clubs at trick 2, and when he played the K of Diamonds, his RHO showed out, so it was a simple matter to pick up the Q of Diamonds and claim 6.

I had decided when I heard 4S that if partner had passed, I was bidding 4N, so we would have got to Diamonds anyways, but perhaps not to the slam. At the other table, they played in 5C making, so we picked up a somewhat lucky 13 IMPS.

On Hand 2, NV vs Vul, I held KJ AK853 752 J83 and opened a 12-14 HCP 1NT in 1st seat. We have a rule on opening 5 card majors in our weak NT system, if you would make a game try over a constructive raise, then you can not open 1N, you must open the major, since that was not the case on this hand, we open it 1N. The reason for this is that with a constructive raise of a major, partner is going to pass 1N, and you have the potential to miss a lot of major suit games.

Over 1N, LHO bid 2N, alerted and explained as showing 1 of Clubs or Diamonds. Partner now bid 3N, to play since we did not have 2N available for Lebensohl. To make the hand just a little more interesting, LHO doubled when it came back to him. I briefly regretted not opening 1H on this hand, but partner had not asked me about a suit here, so I sat the double, and LHO led the K of Diamonds. These were the 2 hands.

Q64 J76 QJ6 AQT2

KJ AK853 752 J83

Decide how you will play the hand before reading on. LHO plays the KA and 10 of Diamonds, RHO pitches 2 spades on the 2nd and 3rd Diamonds.

I perforce won the 3rd Diamond on board, and needed to find some tricks outside of Spades, since LHO was not being subtle about his probable entry. I decided there was 1 hope on the hand, since the Heart spots were very interesting. If I could find LHO with a stiff 9 or 10, the hand actually had some possibilities. Playing for this, I led the J of Hearts off dummy, covered by the Q and K, and was very happy to see the 9 of Hearts fall on my left. I now led the J of Clubs back, and LHO covered this (?) with the K, the A winning on board. So now I was at the moment of truth. Did I play LHO for a doubleton, either 10 9 or 9x protecting partners supposed 10, or play the 9 for an honest card. Deciding that it looked like a fun board, I played the 6 of Hearts off board, and both RHO and I played low as LHO pitched a small Spade. It was now a simple matter to claim 10 tricks with the Hearts and Clubs running (Clubs were 3-3), for a nice +650.

This was another 13 IMPS our way when the opponents at the other table played in 4H, down 2. The opening Diamond lead and ruff, followed by the A of Spades, meant that the person with my hand was down in 4H before they got in, and when they did not pick up the Hearts, went down 2.

The third hand of the 3, I picked up, Vul vs Not, 983 --- 9654 AQ9763 and passed in 1st seat. It then went P on my left, 2C (Strong) by partner, Double (Clubs) on my right. I redoubled this (too suggest a place to play) and it went 2H on my left, 2S by partner, 4H on my right. Sounds like RHO has an interesting hand. I bid the easy 4S, and LHO now went 5H. Partner thought for a minute over this, but did not give me a problem on what to do when he emerged with 6S, which ended the auction.

The opening lead was the 5 of Hearts, and these were the 2 hands.

983 --- 9654 AQ9763

AKQ75 KT AKJT8 6

Partner ruffed the opening lead, played a Diamond to the A, ruffed another Heart, and played the AK of Spades, LHO showing out and pitching a small Club. Partner then played the Q of Spades, went to board with the A of Clubs, and when RHO popped with the Q of Diamonds on the 2nd Diamond off board, claimed 6. Turns out 6D is a better contract, but the opps can counter that with 6H, which goes down 4 for +800.

I do not know the auction at the other table, but they stopped in 4S, making 6. so we had another 13 IMPS to the good, satisfying the laws of symmetry with +13 on each of the last 3 boards. Winning 36-0 was enough to propel us to the win for the week, since they had been a little in front of us going into the set.

Interesting Jump Shift

2011-12-31T12:57:00.000-06:00

Playing in a pick up game on BBO, I picked up the following hand with everyone Vul, at IMPS. T54 QT74 KJT K75, and heard it go P, 1C, P to me. I bid the normal 1H, and with the opps silent, pard now jumped to 3D.

I thought my hand was suddenly quite good, with all the values in the minors, where it looked like they were working. I thought 4C did not do justice (and might get passed), and 5C did not state my values, so I decided to make up a cue bid and bid 3S, 4SF. Over this, partner made a quite unexpected, but nice bid, 5H. Now it looked like my hand was really working, I expected partner to have some kind of good 1345 type hand, so it looked like everything was fitting well. I bid 6C ending the auction. The opening lead was the K of Spades, and this was the hand I saw partner playing.

Partner started immediately asking what 3S was and why I would make such an insane bid! At least he guessed the J of Hearts to hold it to down 1. For some reason, no one else found this auction and most stopped in 4H, making 4 or 5, depending on if they found the J of Hearts or not. We lost 9 IMPS on the board, which seemed fairly generous, but BBO results can be quite random at times.

Oh well, such are the fun parts of playing on BBO, at least it generates stories to tell :)

Happy New Year to All

Playing High Stakes Poker at Bridge

2011-12-25T12:47:00.000-06:00

I was playing some bridge on BBO in a pick up team game on Christmas Day after breakfast and opening some presents. Our partners at the other table showed they were into the Christmas Spirit, or that could be said Spirit's. Someone on this board was going to get a great result.

Here is the hand at our partners table

As can be seen, there are a lot of IMPS available both directions on this. The opening lead was the J of Hearts, and after thinking about this a min, W played low. N now proceeded to take all 13 tricks in 3N XX, for +2600. If W goes up with the A of Hearts and plays the Q of Spades, then the result is -2200, so a swing of 4800 on the play to the first 2 tricks.

This did not totally decide the match, there were lots of other fun swings, but this was the largest :)

Happy holidays to all

Crazy Opps

2011-12-16T19:45:00.002-06:00

Playing MP’s in a local game, you run into some opps that decide high level tough decisions will work in their favour. You pick up AKJ8764 K4 A AKJ with no one Vul, playing MP’s. Your RHO deals and Passes, and you open 2C. Your LHO bids 3H (Pre-Emptive), partner bids 4D, natural positive, and RHO bids 5H. What now?

There are several options and problems on this hand. First, a Pass should be forcing, since you are in a completely Game Forcing auction and partner showed values, but you do not have Diamonds. 5S is quite an underbid, but might be the last place you can make if partner only has Diamonds. 6D might be right, but your K Hearts will be led through, and it is MP’s, not IMPS, giving up on Spades is quite a position to take. Perhaps the best effort to get the strength of your hand across, is to Pass, and then over whatever partner bids, trot out a Spade bid, on the theory that a Pass and Pull is the strongest action you can take. But will partner bid 7 of something expecting you to have all the first round controls later? Don’t you just hate when the pre-emptors pick the right time to play with your auction.

At the table, the person holding this hand bid 5S, and their partner raised that to 6S. I really think that their partner should have bid 6H, looking for 7, which this hand would accept, since the other hand was Q9532 --- KQJ8752 6.

I was the person that bid 5H, and I guess that 6H would have been more effective, since that makes it really difficult to get to 7S. I think over 5H, they should have gotten there at our table. Although the pass and pull strategy over 6H might get you to 7S, it is tough for the 4D hand to want to bid 7 as a guess at this point, and what do you do if partner bids 6S, which they might do on this hand? Finally, 6H only goes for sticks and wheels (-1100) if they decide to stop and double it, so we would get to find out who was able to get to the grand.

A Slip of the Wrist

2011-12-11T23:37:00.000-06:00

Playing in the A/X Swiss on the last day of the Seattle NABC, you pick up this nice assortment with All Vul. AQ63 Q854 6 AK62. You are actually playing an 11-15 HCP Roman 2D, so this hand, while at the top end, does qualify.

Partner bids 2N asking for your shortness, and you bid 3C, showing Diamond shortness. Partner now bids 4D over that, not something you have talked about. You bid 4H, and partner now bids 4N, RKC. You bid 5S, 2 with the Q, and partner signs off in 6H, which you pass. The opening lead is the 5 of Clubs (3^rd and 5^th) and you see this hand.

K854 AKJT A73 Q8

AQ63 Q854 6 AK62

Looks like a pretty nice Grand to be in, oh well. Not paying a lot of attention to the board, you win the Q of Clubs in dummy, and lead the A and K of Hearts out. Everyone follows to the first round, and RHO pitches a high Diamond on the 2^nd. You cash the third Heart on Dummy, cross to the A of Clubs, and ruff a Club on dummy, while LHO sheds a small Spade. Now you cross to the A of Spades to pull the last trump and claim, except that LHO goes and ruffs the A of Spades with the last trump, and you realize too late that there is a real problem. You still have a Spade loser to go with the ruff, and you are going down in 6, when you were cold for 7 Spades if you ruffed Diamonds.

This happened to our opponent on Sunday, he had to apologize to his partner for the hand. When our partners bid 7H on the hand, and played for the 2 Diamond ruffs, we wound up getting to the 20 IMP area of the scale, something you do not see too often.

Some Seattle Hands

2011-12-08T23:56:00.002-06:00

Have some interesting and sometimes amusing hands to report from Seattle and the Wonderful NABC’s there. It was my first time in Seattle, and the city, hospitality, and bridge were absolutely great.

My partners favorite hand did not really start out that way, in fact, it started out looking like the biggest disaster of the week. Playing IMPS, Vul vs Not, in the A/X Swiss on the final day, she picked up 63 875 8642 Q983 and decided to pass in first seat for some reason. Her LHO, one of the higher MP holders in the ACBL, opened 1D and of course I was in there with a Double, just what she wanted to hear. Her RHO came to the rescue with 1S, so she passed again and LHO went 1N. Not being done, I Doubled again, and over RHO’s Pass, she admitted to her Clubs with 2C. This now went P, P to a Double on her right, and that ended the auction. The opening lead was the K of Clubs, not something she wanted to see with her balanced nothing, until dummy came down with A42 AKT6 A3 AT54. Her LHO had made a good lead based on the auction and the expected trump holding in his partners hand, but his partner had made a very speculative Double based on expecting my hand to be far weaker. The hand now played out very well and partner made 4 for a nice +580. Since we are not shy on bidding, and partner had passed over the first Double, I think I need a really good hand to take the unilateral action of a second Double like I did. Perhaps not quite this nice, but pretty close.

The next hand was another high level blink first auction. Vul vs Not, I held Q98 KJ873 A62 J8 and heard the auction go Pass by me, 3N (65 in the minors) on my left, Double (Cards, not majors) by partner, and 5D on my right. We have a method of showing 1 or both majors of varying lengths over a 3N bid like this, so the Double was just values, but it still left me with a problem. I finally decided to bid 5H here, and that ended the auction.

The opening lead was the 6 of Diamonds, and this dummy came down, creating an interesting play problem, KT43 AQT --- AT9765. So of course the minors are now known to a card, but the majors are still up in the air. At least LHO did not lead a black card, which probably kills this before it starts. It looks like I need the AJ of Spades on my right, with the 5/6 card holding, and Hearts no worse than 4-1. And actually, the 4-1 is better than the 3-2, since that would leave LHO 0265, something I am not sure I can handle. So playing LHO for the 1165 hand, I ruffed the Diamond with the 10 of Hearts, cashed the A of Hearts, all following low, and led a little Spade off board, putting in the 9 when RHO played low. When LHO played a low Spade on this, the hand was counted out. I now ruffed a small Diamond with the Q of Hearts, and led another Spade off board, RHO winning with the A as LHO pitched a Diamond. RHO now led a Diamond to my A and I was in. RHO is known to be 5440, and has a Heart trick coming.

I now have to admit to a complete blind spot on the hand. I had done all the heavy lifting already and the hand had gotten easy, so I decided to outthink it. The easy play that I decided to miss at the table for some reason, is to cash the Q of Spades, play 3 rounds of Hearts, throwing RHO in with her Heart winner, then claim, as the A of Clubs and K of Spades take care of my Club loser. I decided to fixate on the Club suit, and that I had to sneak a Club by LHO for some reason, so I led a little Club right now, planning to play low if LHO did. This was of course punished with the Q of Clubs, like it should be, and I wound up 1 down on a hand that I had gotten right, sigh. Fortunately, we had done a lot right on this round, so it only cost 1 VP in the match, but it was extremely annoying to get an ending like that wrong by watching cows drift by in the air.

The next hand was from the final day of the Mini-Blue Ribbons. Playing in Western Canada, it is easy to not have many MP’s, so we can sneak into these restricted events for quite a while. My partner picked up T3 A2 Q654 AKQ86 and bid 2C over a 1H bid on her right. This bought the auction, since LHO had been looking for a TO Double that he could pass. The opening lead was a Heart, cutting losses in that suit to 0 when I held QJxx in an entry less dummy, the defense slipped another couple of tricks, and partner wound up making 2C even though there were 5 to the JT behind her. This was against the eventual event winners, and at the time, we chalked it up as a good score, since 2C goes down all the time on any reasonable defense. When we looked after the round, it was one of the results that changed what we thought had been a good round into something below average, we scored 8 on a 25 top. Turns out that opener did reopen with a Double at most tables, and my hand ran to 2S. We had not looked at that, and how well 2S plays with the Club pitches (I had a Club Void and 6 little Spades), so most people were scoring +110 or +140 against our +90.

The last hand to report on is more because of an ethical dilemma I wound up with. All Vul, IMPS, I held 86 AK4 AK987 J63 and overcalled a 1C opener by RHO with 1D. This went Pass on my left, and partner bid 2D. We play transfers at the 2 level in a competitive auction, so this should show Hearts, which I alerted and explained to the opps. RHO now went 2H TO, and I Doubled this to show Hearts. This went around to partner who bid 3D, showing a relatively weak hand. It also worried me that she had forgotten the transfer, and made an automatic Diamond raise. When 3D was passed to me, I was not sure I could pass, so I wound up bidding 3H. When partner had forgotten the transfer, we were down 2 in 3H, where 3D would have made. Talking about it with 2 directors after, 1 said I should bid 3H, the other thought it was OK to Pass. I was not sure if my Double of 2H showed enough or not, and if I can Pass 3D or not? I was pretty sure that 3D was where we should play this, but it did not take that much from partner to have play for game in Hearts, xxx Qxxxx Qxxx x for example, and that is sub-min for the 2D bid, since it is above my suit.

A Tough Couple of Play Problems From Seattle

2011-12-08T19:09:00.000-06:00

Have a couple of very nasty play problems from Seattle. Both are IMPS and both occurred on the 2^nd day of the NA Swiss.

The first, everyone is Vul, You are South, the 2 hands are

4 --- AQJ865 J98643

AKT53 J65 4 KQT7

The Auction:

N E S W

-           1H       1S       2D(1)
DBL    4H       P         P
4N       P         5C       P
P         5H       P         P
6C       DBL    P         P
P

1 – Constructive or better raise of Hearts

The opening lead is the 10 of Hearts, plan the play

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The second hand, No One VUL, You are South, the 2 hands are

KT73 AQT --- AT9842

Q98 KJ873 A62 J6

The Auction:

N E S W

-           -           P         3N(1)
DBL(2) 5D     5H       P
P         P

1 – 65 in Minors, 5-8 HCP

2 – Values, not majors, more penalty oriented

The opening lead is the Q of Diamonds, plan the play

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hand 1

           4
           ---
           AQJ865
           J98643

Q87 J962

T742                           AKQ983
KT973                         2
5                                  A2

AKT53

           J65
           4
           KQT7

This hand is fairly complex on a Heart lead, tapping dummy. There are 2 major lines, the first is to ruff out the Diamonds from board, and the 2^nd is to come to hand, and start with the Diamond hook. A third variation on this is to plan to ruff 3 Hearts and 2 Spades on Dummy, but hand entries are a little thin for this.

The first line is clearly better, since it works anytime the Diamonds are no worse than 4-2, or if the Diamond K is on your right. It just happens to fail on this hand, since the 12^th trick is hard to come to.

Declarer at the table took line 1, but got some help when the East hand tried to ruff the 2^nd Diamond, and the hand became simple. If East pitches on the 2^nd Diamond, it is hard to imagine where trick 12 can come from, due to the small Club in Easts hand.

Hand 2

KT73

           AQT
           ---
          T9842

6 AJ542

4                                  9652
QJ9854                       KT73
KQ753                         ---

Q98

          KJ873
          A62
         J6

This hand revolves around getting the majors in the 2 hands correct. The opening lead was friendly, as on a Black suit lead, the hand can not be made, it sets up a 3^rd loser immediately. On the actual Diamond lead, you need to ruff on dummy, cash 1 Heart, then lead a Spade to the 9. When this holds, you can now ruff a 2^nd small Diamond with the Q of Hearts, and lead a 2^nd small Spade off board. This allows you to set up the K of Spades for the discard for the small Club. The last part that you have to watch for, is to protect the A of Clubs by giving up the Heart trick to East after winning you’re A of Diamonds.

On this hand, with AKQJT of Hearts, the best way to make the hand is to set up a Heart Loser.

Won’t be Back at Nashville to Defend our District 2 NAP Spot

2011-11-27T23:29:00.000-06:00

I usually avoid anything to do with politics in Bridge and the ACBL with as much space as I can, and this blog also reflects that, so far, it has been all Bridge. Not because I do not help out our unit and district, I do, but because it always tends to become vocal and unpleasant in a hurry. And this is no exception.

I live in District 2 of the ACBL, an extremely large district comprising most of Ontario, Canada and Manitoba, Canada. For as long as I can remember, due to the large size of the district (over 3000 KMS from end to end, not counting Bermuda, also part of District 2), the NAP (formerly GNP) district final has been held as a split site event with duplicated boards and scores matchpointed across the district. When I started playing in it, there would be 4 - 5 sites that held games, but in the last few years, this has dropped to 2 sites, Toronto and Winnipeg.

Last year, my partner and I played very well in the district final, and won the event. This awarded us right to play in Louisville and a small subsidy from the ACBL, nothing from the district. We went, played, had fun, but did not play well in Louisville, as our scores testified. But that was our fault, with no complaints.

However, there was discontent in the District seat of power in Toronto. They felt that the game played in Winnipeg was not up to the standards of the game in Toronto, and that the top pairs in Winnipeg were able to inflate their scores against ‘lesser’ pairs, thus ensuring higher scores. I heard this complaint from more than 1 person that played in the Toronto area while we were in Louisville.

The district came up with a new plan for the NAP event. Unknown even to the district coordinator (A Volunteer from Winnipeg), the district executive came up with a motion to change the conditions of contest for the NAP event starting in 2012. This was presented at the spring board meeting in Toronto, and voted in at that point. The consequences were not discussed or explained, so the 2 representatives from Winnipeg did not realize what this meant until much later. They were actually caught by surprise when it was announced. Not that it would have mattered, they were out-numbered by a full quorum, 14-2, this was a slam dunk.

The NAP district final would now be held as a single site event, permanently in Toronto. Any pairs from any of the remote units that qualified and wanted to play in the district final, would be able to travel to Toronto at their own expense to compete. Since this would be held as a 2 day event, for most of us in the district, it meant a 4 day trip to Toronto to play. Since I live most of the 3000 KMS from Toronto, flying there for the 4 days would be the only conceivable method.

As a unit, we found out about the new conditions of contest while we were gathering for the first qualifying game of the year. Needless to say, it caused quite a controversy among our members, including the immediate resignation of the then District Coordinator, citing irreconcilable differences with the Board. Since the game had been scheduled and the sanction awarded, the members there were forced to hold and play in the game that day. But the unit immediately cancelled all future NAP games, cancelled all Unit Finals, and sent several strongly worded protests to the District and ACBL Headquarters. If we could have found a method, we wanted to withhold all sanction fees from the district for the event as well. These measures were all done with the unanimous support of the Unit executive and all players that were at the game that day.

We heard back from the ACBL that the district is in charge of setting conditions, take it up with them. And the district responded that it had been voted on and was set, enjoy it.

For this reason, I will most definitely not be representing District 2 in the upcoming spring nationals in the NAP’s. At least I got 1 in before any future wins from members of our unit were stopped and legislated out of existence. The real tragedy is the newer players in our Unit, and other remote Units in the district, that will never have the chance to play in this event, represent their district at an NABC, and everything else involved in the NAP’s. So much for a grassroots competition.

There is 1 good point to this from our Unit’s point of view. We are learning what we are thought of by other districts around, and what is involved in changing districts. It is not like we will be missed by District 2 if it does happen.

But enough of that, I am leaving tomorrow for Seattle to play in the Blue Ribbon and the NA Swiss, and whatever else depending on how long we are in the main events. And that will be my NABC time for the next year. So I promise no more politics and back with some interesting hands from Seattle next week.

How to get booted from a game for getting a good result

2011-11-21T18:21:00.000-06:00

Had a funny hand occur last week in a pickup game on BBO. Logged into BBO with no plans, and saw a message someone needed one for a game, so went to the table, and was accepted to play. My partner was a BBO Expert, and there was an ‘Actual’ World Class player on my left (as opposed to the normal BBO WC players) and a pretty decent player on my right, based on how I observed him play. We played along for a while, things going back and forth, before the hand came up.

With everyone Vul, playing IMPS, I picked up J A96 A973 AKJT7 in last chair, and heard it go 3S by Mr. WC, P, P to me. Now I know the proper bid here is probably (almost certainly) double, but for some reason at the time, I did not like that, so I bid 4C and that bought the hand. The opening lead was the K of Spades, and when dummy came down, it became apparent partner might not be too happy with me.

T4 KJ732 KT6 983

J A96 A973 AKJT7

LHO led the K of Spades against my 4C contract and continued the Q of Spades when his partner encouraged. 4H looks like a pretty decent game here, so I need RHO to have good Hearts to give some hope it is going to fail. I thought about pitching my (hoped) Heart loser on the Q of Spades, but decided that might be too much of a position. So I ruffed the Spade, cashed the A of Clubs, both following low, and led the A of Hearts, hoping if I later led up to the K of Hearts, LHO might wind up ruffing air.

This kind of went out the window when LHO ruffed the A of Hearts. Oh well, at least 4H had little chance now, that was the good news, the bad news was I might be down just as far in 4C as anyone in 4H. LHO now exited the 8 of Diamonds, to the 6, J, and my A. But now the question becomes, is LHO 7033, 7042, or 7024, or something else. If he is any of the 7024 hands, I think I am going down, but if he is the 7033, there is a nice ending coming up. I didnt want to think about 7015, so ignored it, I would take my lumps later if that was the hand.

So playing for the hoped for distribution, I cashed the K of Clubs, dropping the Q on my left while RHO also followed, played a Diamond to the K, and exited the last Diamond to RHO. When they were the expected 3-3, I could then claim on the forced endplay with the Hobson’s choice of a ruff/sluff or a lead into the KJ of Hearts. Making 4C when all the 4H contracts were going down 1-2 and 3S was mostly making was worth +5 IMPS for us.

However, I was promptly removed from the table by my partner, with no explanation or comment. Gotta love BBO at times J

How High to Bid

2011-11-16T23:09:00.000-06:00

Playing IMPS, Vul vs Not, you pick up 97 63 JT842 A763 and Pass in first seat. It goes Pass on your left, and Partner opens 2C, semi-std. This goes 2D on your right (alerted as showing the majors), so you pass, showing some values and no clear bid, and it goes 2H on your left. Partner now bids 3H, P to you. 4D seems about right on the hand, and partner now bids 4S. Hoping the opps know what they are doing, you bid 5C, and now LHO comes in with 5H. This goes P, P so you double. It finally goes P, 6D by partner, P back to you.

N   E   S   W
-    -     P    P
2C 2D P   2H
3H P   4D P
4S P   5C 5H
P    P   DBL P
6D P    ?

Do you bid again on this hand?

Not sure what the right bid is, with the probable wierd distribution walking around the table. Partners hand is AK8 A AK653 KQ82. It looks like a pretty good grand until Clubs go 4-1 with the unavoidable loser. No squeeze works. We played in 6D when the S hand passed the 6D bid, but it is a very tough hand to bid.

And I have no idea why E-W did not bid more Hearts early and jam the auction. Seeing the hand after, would have expected that.

Back from the Summer

2011-11-14T18:03:00.000-06:00

Well, after taking the summer (plus a little bit) off from blogging about bridge, figured with the snow starting to show up, it was time to talk about some of the interesting hands I have had lately, starting with our recent sectional.

First hand is more of a funny-tragic story. I picked up perhaps the strongest hand I have had in a very long time, A653 AKQJ74 A AK, IMPS, Vul vs Not in last chair. Of course it went 4D on my left, P, P to me. I finally decided I did not want to start with a double, since I did not want partner to pass it and even if partner showed Spades, was not sure that would really play any better than Hearts. So decided to make the ‘practical’ bid of 6H. This went all Pass and the opening lead of a Club allowed me to see dummy in all it’s glory, 8742 --- 75 JT97642. I perforce won the opening lead in hand, and led out the AK of Hearts, it got even better when LHO pitched a Diamond on the K of Hearts. Such a nice hand to go down 3 Vul on a freely bid slam. Turns out you can make 6C if you get there, due to the spots in dummy, but it is a thoughtfull play problem, win any lead, cash 1 round of Clubs, run the top Hearts pitching Spades, ruff something to hand, ruff the last Diamond, ruff back to hand, and play the J of Clubs to RHO’s Qxx. It was a push board, since the auction at the other table was essentially duplicated, (Our partner opened 5D instead of 4D). And the person holding my hand at the other table felt the same way about the result.

The next hand is more of a philosophy question. You hold J4 A9753 AKQ KJ2 IMPS, No one VUL. The opening bid on your left is 2S, and this goes P, P to you. You start with a TO Double, and partner jumps to 3N, opps passing. 2N by partner would have been a Lebensohl treatment. Do you bid over 3N and if so, what?

At the table, the person holding this hand bid 4N, quantitative, and the 3N bidder accepted, bidding 6N to end the auction. The problem was, due to the poor Hearts, there is no chance for a 12^th trick, and 6N went down 1. The other hand that accepted the invite is K4 J84 75 AQT953. Looking at the 6^th Club and second round Spade stopper, it seemed a reasonable try by this hand, just has no play at all on A and back a Spade. The discussion after centered around inviting with the 18 HCP hand, is it strong enough with the wasted J of Spades, all the values in the short suits, and no good source of tricks. We thought the Club hand should accept, with its 7 probable tricks. So wondering what people thought of that?

Next hand is at MP’s, with you holding KQ75 AJ3 6 AKJT74, all Vul. You open 1C and partner responds 1H, you reverse with 2S, and partner bids 3S, showing values. Over your 4H, partner bids 5D, and over 6C, bids 6D. Now over your 6H bid, partner bids 7H, and you place the final contract in 7S. What do you think of the auction?

You Partner

1C       1H
2S       3S
4H       5D
6C       6D
6H       7H
7S       P

The opening lead is a Diamond, and partner puts this dummy down, A864 K975 AK94 8. So you have a parking place for your Heart loser, and just have to have the Clubs and Spades behave. Unfortunately Spades are 4-1, and even though you can pick up the Clubs with 1 ruff, you have a Spade loser for down 1. Since no one else got to the grand, this is a cold 0. Turns out both 7H and 7NT can make, since the Q of Clubs comes down doubleton, and the Qxx of Hearts is also onside, the only grand that fails is 7S, sigh.

Finally, we have AKT4 6 KJT743 97, None Vul at MP’s. You open 1D in first seat, and it goes 2H (weak) on your left, P, P back to you. This is one of those hands you can feel partner wants you to reopen with the double, but with a weak distributional hand, you decide to reopen with 2S. Partner has little sense of humour here, and 2 rounds later, you are waiting for the lead in 6S. The opening lead is a middle Club, and partner puts down J873 AJT75 A AK3. So now it is a play problem, but you do have lots of chances, what is your line of play?

Contract 6S, opening lead 6 Clubs, LHO preempted 2H on auction

J873 AJT75 A AK3

AKT4 6 KJT743 97

I think the best line is win the Club, cash the A Diamonds, play a Spade to the A to see if anything good happens, then ruff a Diamond. When this lives, you can decide if you are going to hook the 10 of Spades on the way back, which you probably should do since this is MP’s. If that wins and Spades are 3-2, it is now easy to ruff another Diamond with the J of Spades, and get back to hand with a ruff to pull the last trump and claim. If Spades are 4-1, then you need the Q of Diamonds coming down, and can not afford to ruff anything else. Unfortunately, partner lost site of the play, and forgot to cash the A Diamonds early, then when did not take the Spade hook, actually lost control of the hand and went 1 down, instead of making 7. This was also not a good score for us.

How to Blow off a Complex Squeeze

2011-07-09T21:26:00.000-05:00

Had this hand come up in a practice match against a couple of teammates this week. There were a couple of interesting points in the bidding, namely is 6D a place to play or a cue-bid of some kind. I assumed it was a Cue-Bid and proceeded to the grand.

Here is the hand 7H Hand

The bigger problem was my play of the hand. I screwed up at trick 5 and pitched the wrong card from dummy and the squeeze did not operate. I have to throw the Spade from dummy, and keep the Diamond threat card there, rather than the way I did it with the Diamond in my hand and Spade on dummy. Then when I cash the 2 Clubs, I can throw my Diamond, cash the 2 Diamond winners in my hand, and on the last Heart, both LHO and RHO are squeezed down to 2 Spades to protect their suits. In the actual end position I set up, the squeeze did not operate and I went down 1. And I should get it right, since it appears from the lead and then Heart shortness, that LHO is now more likely to have the Diamond length.

Of other interest to note, is that if LHO pitches 2 Spades instead of 2 Clubs, no squeeze appears to operate, since that person can always protect Clubs and Diamonds, while RHO protects Spades. Or at least I could not see one that worked, maybe the audience can find one.

How Good is Good - Part 2

2011-06-26T16:56:00.000-05:00

Here is the first part of the post from the other day.

Have a tough hand for people to decide what to do on, will post what the other hand is tomorrow.

Playing IMPS Vul vs Not, you pick up this collection 542 86 KQ95 KT74 and hear it go 1H on your left, 2H (std Michaels) by Pard, Pass on your right. You elect to bid 2S with this hand, and it now goes 3H on your left, 4S (!) by Pard, P on your right.

Your hand has suddenly grown up a lot, but do you take another bid, and if so, what?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The other hand was KQT86 --- AT8 AQ965. When the A of Spades was doubleton onside and no suits broke bad, 12 tricks were available in Spades and Clubs. At our table, the above hand passed 4S, not sure what the best bid is, since the Michaels hand should be good, but does it have to be a 1 loser hand.

How Good is Good

2011-06-23T11:08:00.000-05:00

Have a tough hand for people to decide what to do on, will post what the other hand is tomorrow.

Playing IMPS Vul vs Not, you pick up this collection 542 86 KQ95 KT74 and hear it go 1H on your left, 2H (std Michaels) by Pard, Pass on your right. You elect to bid 2S with this hand, and it now goes 3H on your left, 4S (!) by Pard, P on your right.

Your hand has suddenly grown up a lot, but do you take another bid, and if so, what?

The Trouble with Pre-Empts

2011-05-26T20:18:00.000-05:00

Playing IMPS at our weekly game, you pick up the following hand that would go well in a Master Solver's problem. Vul vs Not at IMPS, you hold A75 QJT7 J53 A83 and hear it go 3D on your left, Double by partner, 5D on your right, so now what?

I would love to make some kind of invitational bid, but partner is not going to interpret 5H as forward going, I think this is all up to you. Are you going on to slam, or are you bidding 5H. I do not think too much else other than perhaps Double enter the picture.

On the plus side for the 6 level, partner made a Vul Double at the 3 level, so should have a decent hand, and there is a good possibility that partner is void in Diamonds, the opps have shown a lot of them. On the minus side, any tenaces that you need to pick up through partners hand are not likely to be working, and partner may have stretched a little for the double, since he is short if not void in Diamonds.

I think it is around 50-50 whether you go on, and partnership style probably plays a lot to do with it, along with perhaps state of the match. In a grinding match, you want to take your probable plus and go for 5H or Double, in a swingy match, or if you feel you are down, lean a little more towards the 6 level.

At the table, I opted for 6H, which was not a success when partner put down the wrong good hand, KQxx Kxxx x KQJx. I like the TO double, but RHO put the pressure on when she bid 5D with a balanced hand and the KQ tight of Diamonds. But that is what Bridge is all about, pressure, and it worked this time. Have to see about next time :)

Diamond Madness

2011-05-16T21:22:00.000-05:00

Helping some friends practice for the CNTC Playdowns at the end of the month, had 2 very interesting slam hands come up involving Diamonds as the central theme. You are playing IMPS on both hands.

On the first, you pick up 4 AQ74 KJ87 T853 with everyone Vul and Pass in first seat. The opps are silent throughout and you bid a forcing NT over partners 3^rd seat 1S opener. Partner now makes your hand better by jump shifting to 3D. So how do you plan to catch up in the auction now?

This hand bid 3H, planning on a delayed raise in Diamonds, but partner KO’d that idea by bidding 4H. This hand now bid 5D, and over partners 6C cue-bid, settled in 6D, the final contract. In the discussion afterward, it mainly centered around should this hand start with a Diamond raise to 4D, or show where the values are to start, and if so, how to catch up, since 5D can be a lot weaker hand. My suggestion that the person holding this hand liked, was to start with 3H, but then over 4H, show the strength and primary Diamond support by jumping to 6D, not 5D. After all, your hand has gotten awfully good on this auction, with partner virtually guaranteeing short Clubs.

This would have made it relatively easy for the other hand to raise to 7D on AKQ75 KT3 AQT64 ---. Since hearing that partner has a good hand with Diamonds and cards in Hearts is exactly what it needs.

The next hand, with everyone Vul, you pick up A943 K7 KQT8752 --- and hear it go Pass on your left, 1S by partner, Pass on your right. You make a 2/1 2D bid, and it goes 3C on your left, 4C by partner, 5C on your right, what now?

At the table, my partner bid 6C with this hand, showing the first round control and seeing where partner was going. I bid 6D, confirming that my 4C cue-bid was for Diamonds, and partner decided that I pretty well had to have the required cards on this hand to carry on to 7. Not sure if the interference propelled us to the grand, since there was a pretty good chance we were going there anyways on this hand when I showed a good hand in support of Diamonds.

This was not a play problem as I put down KQJ75 AT94 A43 T. I also liked the fact that partner played the grand in Diamonds instead of Spades. We have at least a 10 card Diamond fit, so the chances of a ruff on the opening lead are higher in Diamonds than in Spades, our probable 9 card fit.

Couple of Failures at Slam Bidding

2011-04-20T23:35:00.000-05:00

Have not posted for a while as I have been travelling and busy a lot the last month, but home and playing again. And coming up with some not so good examples of slam bidding.

On the first, you pick up AQT74 2 --- AKJ8753 and hear partner open 4C (Namyats) in first seat. Oh well, so much for playing in a Black suit. At least you have 1 Heart and a good void, not the other way around. You bid 4D, which asks for partner to describe their hand, and partner makes a bid you have not talked about, 5S, which gets doubled on your right.

Over 4D, you have agreed to play 4H showing a suit with 1+ losers, 4N shows no suit with 2 quick losers, and 4S/5C/5D show a suit with 2 quick losers, and imply no other suit with quick losers. You have not talked about much else in the basic discussion over these bids. So you are on your own with what partner decided 5S would mean.

You eventually decide to redouble this, and partner now bids 6H. You are assuming that 5S was a void, with no suit having 2 quick losers. The question is, does partner have solid Hearts for this auction. You decide that he should, and raise to 7H. This is not a success when partner holds
--- AJT87432 AKQT 9.

I held this hand and decided with the lack of defense coupled with a 2 loser hand, I did not want to start with 1H and lose control of the hand (what if one of the opps help partners hand). But over 4D, I decided if partner was asking about my hand, I was going to slam. The problem is I kind of got too cute, and decided to try to describe my hand now, with disastrous consequences, sigh.

On the second hand, you hold AQ T843 J3 KQ852 and over partners 1D opener, decide to bid 1H. Partner bids 3S over this, showing a splinter in Spades and a game forcing Heart raise. Is this enough to move over 4H with?

I figured that when I worked on the splinter values principle, I had 10 working points to add to partners supposed 18-19 min, giving us well over the 24 required to look for a slam opposite a splinter, so moved forward. I should probably go slow and bid 4C over 3S, letting partner asses their hand, but I think we will wind up in the same spot in 6H. Partners hand is 4 AKJ7 AT854 AJ3, right at the bottom end of the splinter and with poor Diamonds, so when the Heart Q is third offside, there is no way to avoid 2 losers. On the hand, I actually just jumped to 6H over the 3S bid, getting there quicker.

At the other table, the strong hand jumped to 4H over 1D-1H, which I think should make my hand even more interested in slam, since they think the Q of Spades is working and the Spades are protected on the opening lead. But they passed 4H and were right, winning 12 IMPS :(

Will try to get back to keeping this up to date, and stay home a little more.

What Does He Mean Now?

2011-03-03T23:59:00.000-06:00

Playing in a playdown for a team game this week, I gave my partner a tough bidding problem, yet again. Happy to say that he passed the little test with a perfect score.

No one vul at IMPS, he picked up K863 AKJ862 --- JT3 and over my 1S opener, he bid 2H, which we do not play as GF. I now bid 2N, showing a strong NT+ (and setting up a GF), and he bid 3S, which is a slam try in Spades. I bid 4D, and he correctly signed off in 4S with no Club control. Except that I now bid 5S, what does that mean and what to do?

After thinking about it a while, he bid 6H, trying for the Grand. I signed off in 6S, and even with a 4-1 Spade break, it easily made. His reasoning for going on, he had already denied a Club control, but I went on anyways, so I must not be looking for minor cards, but for how good his major suits were. Since he had great holdings in both majors, he went on to 6S.

My hand to produce this problem for partner was AJ95 Q7 KQT5 AK6. Spades were 4-1 on my right, so an opening Diamond lead might have given me some concerns, but the Club lead meant I could safety play the Spades. And yes, we do play 4 card Majors, so this is not an auction that the world would duplicate.

Next week is off to Louisville for the first part of the NABC and the NAOP pairs. Will post some of the interesting things that happen when I get back.

Do You Take a 2nd Call?

2011-02-21T22:59:00.001-06:00

Playing IMPS in a pick-up teams game on BBO, you enter the last board down some to a tough team, and pick up this hand with no one vul, 7 --- KJ9543 AJ8763. It goes 1S on your right, so you overcall 2N (anyone for 4N and get it over?). This now goes 4S on your left, P, P back to you. So do you or don't you?

At our table, this hand decided to bid 4N, figuring he had to have a good place to play it. This now went 5H on his left, P by partner, 6S on his right, oops. So not what, do you try 6N, or let them play on their bad splits.

This hand now passed, and on the A of Clubs lead, dummy put down J932 AQJT976 T 4, might have been worth some kind of Heart call over 2N, but whatever. The A of Clubs holds, and when you lead a Diamond and partner follows, declarer claims with the A of Diamonds, solid Spades, and the K of Hearts.

Fun hand, turns out any major suit slam from the solid Spade side makes, and Hearts also makes since there is no ruff. At the other table, the 2 hands bid to 7 Clubs, and got their Diamond ruff for +800 after a Spade lead, and A and out a Diamond.

How Abuse Works on BBO

2011-02-20T21:31:00.000-06:00

Played in a pickup team game on BBO today and got lucky to have a super nice, very competent partner to play with. Unfortunately, the same can not be said about the person playing to my left, his partner was incredibly abusive and resulting every board, with what he had done wrong.

On the first board, the opps got to 3D in a competitive auction. My partner found a truly inspired lead of a trump, and when the smoke cleared, declarer was down 2. Turns out any lead but a Diamond sets up at least 1 trick for declarer, and gives him time to work on a ruff in dummy. With the trump lead, declarer was left to set up suits himself, and with most suits being frozen, his breaking them meant we got the extra trick, and were able to exit trumps each time. As soon as the hand was over, my RHO piped up with a truly supportive comment, with any kind of reasonable play, 3D should make. This was total fantasy, on a trump lead and continuation from us, looking at all 4 hands, you might hold it to down 1, but are never making it, but since there was a lead of one of our suits at the other table and it made, 3D had to be makeable, so it was his partners poor play.

On the second board, my LHO had to lead from AK8642 of Spades after a 1C-1H-1N auction. He selected the A of Spades, then shifted to a Heart. When the smoke cleared, I had made 9 tricks and his partner started in on him, “you must lead a small Spade from that holding”, right on this hand since his partner had JT tight. A small Spade lead turns out to hold me to 1, so it cost a couple of overtricks, but that was not our hero's point.

On the third board, my RHO arrived in 3H after showing 55 in the majors. So now he could shine. Except that he managed to short ruff his hand, lost control, and wound up down 2, not much was mentioned about that hand. The 4th hand, my partner played very well in 3S on a competitive auction to make 4, picking off a J and Q from the non-openers hand to wrap up the overtrick. Since my LHO had been the person on lead the whole hand, nothing much was said. 5th Board, RHO overcalled 2S over a strong NT on his right, buying the contract, and making 4 when his partner layed down a very nice dummy for him. 6th Board, my RHO opened 1S light in 3rd seat, and I overcalled 1N, buying the contract. LHO led his stiff Q of Spades, which I won, and eventually made 7 tricks when RHO ducked the K of Spades later.

The 7th hand, RHO held K862 AK853 KT 95 and opened 1H with all vul. His partner bid 3H, limit, and it went 5D on his right. He decided to double this, and with the Clubs wrong, my partner had to go for -800, for a 4 IMP loss. Then the true fun started.

My RHO heard this auction, 1H-1S-2S-4S with his side silent. He held K7 T962 AQ86 T63 and decided to lead the 10 of Clubs. His partner, holding AJ2, won the A on the first trick and returned a Club, assuming his partner would ruff this or the next one, since he had a later entry in the K of Hearts behind dummy. This proved to be fatal, and my partner wound up with an overtrick. This is where the fun started, he started accusing his partner of not knowing bridge, being an idiot, and generally making life nasty for his partner. He had wanted him to read that the 10 of Clubs was a top of nothing lead from length, and that he should have known to switch when in with the A of Clubs. When in actuality, it was the lead of the 10 of Clubs that gave away the entire suit and the contract.

On the next hand, my RHO showed the other side of his sportsmanship. My partner wound up in 3N, and with AT8 of Spades opposite KQ752, ducked a Spade early to make sure of the 4 tricks in the suit he needed. This proved to be fortunate, since Spades were 4-1 on the hand. When my partner next got in, he played the 8 of Spades before the A, an obvious misclick, and tried to get an undo before the next player had played a card. This was of course refused. He asked again, and my LHO stated he had no objection, but it was again refused. So my partner played on. Fortunately, my RHO did not really understand bridge either, he had started with the lead of the J of Clubs from JT842 and when his partner dropped the Q under dummy's K from K5, he promptly returned the 8 of Clubs the next time he was in, losing to the 9 as his partner showed out. So now, in the fullness of time, my partner was able to strip him of exits, throw him in with a little Club and claim 3N on the forced Club return anyways. He did not even prosper on the nice sportsmanship play.

The final hand. My LHO holds 92 A JT2 Q987652 and all Vul hears the auction go 2H on his left, 2S by his partner, 5H on his right. The opening lead is the 8 of Diamonds, and the dummy tracks with K865 T8765 AKQ9 ---. The A of Diamonds wins the first trick, declarer following with the 4, and a small Heart is led off board. This hand won the A perforce, and after some thought, returned a Spade. Declarer soon claimed, and my RHO started screaming at his partner, calling him every name he could think of, telling him not to pollute IMPS games by joining them anymore. It turns out that he had led a singleton Diamond this time, and had 2 Hearts, since declarer was 55 in the reds for the 2H bid. And a Diamond return would have beaten 5H. This may be the only possible holding to beat this contract, but it is not necessary to berate your partner that much for not playing it.

During the round, when the abuse was the worst, I had sent my LHO a couple of private messages telling him to ignore the idiot and just try to have fun. He had responded that was all he was trying to do. I sent a message to the abusive one after the end, telling him that kind of abuse on partner was not called for, and tone it down. Got back a lot of swearing, and a couple of derogatory names, so added this guy to my enemies list, and a big note for him, saying do not play in any game he is part of again.

Am I Crazy

2011-02-13T11:56:00.000-06:00

Had a hand over the weekend that generated a lot of discussion / controversy. Actually, several people called me a little crazy over it. Playing IMPS in a reasonable strength team game, you pick up K6 QT6 KJ76 KJ98 NV vs Vul in 1st seat. Since you are playing 12-14 NT’s, this is an easy 1NT opener, which goes Pass on your left, 2C by partner, Pass on your right. You bid 2D, Pass on your left, and 2H by partner, which is not forward going, rather pass or correct for a major at the 2 level. You are planning to Pass this, when it goes Double on your right. You pass, and after some thought, LHO bids 2NT, which is Passed back to you.

I doubled. My thoughts ran along the lines of RHO has a borderline hand with both minors, since he did not act directly over 2C, but wants to compete now. This hand will not play well for the opps in anything if I have the minors so well placed over RHO. I like the fact I will be getting a Heart lead, and even if partner is virtually broke, the majors should not run. No one ran from 2N doubled, although I think my partner thought about it, and there we were.

The opening lead was the 5 of Hearts and this dummy tracked, Q742 A2 AT5 AQT4, more Spades and perhaps a little better hand than expected, but not that far off. Declarer ducked the Heart and my Q held the trick, so tentatively that gives partner the K. The next question is what Heart to return. I made an error here, since I never want to be in my hand, I returned the 6 of Hearts instead of the 10. If partner has the 9, I want to unblock, and if not, it likely doesn’t matter. So I should unblock for all the cases where it matters.

Declarer now played a Spade off board, winning the J in hand, and pinpointing pretty much the whole Spade suit, and led a Club to the 10 and my J. I returned the 10 of Hearts on which declarer played low and partner dropped the 9, sigh. So I exited with the K of Spades, declarer winning with the A. Declarer now tried a Club to the Q and my K.

I decided to play partner for 2 cards, and played on Diamonds myself, rather than exit a safe Club and delay the play. When partner had the Q of Diamonds, we were soon scoring up +500 on the board for down 2.

After the hand was over, my partner was surprised that I would double this contract, whereas I thought the double was odds on because of the auction and it’s implications. Giving the hand to several local experts, they all said they would pass and expressed surprise at the double. So not sure how far out in my reasoning I was, but seems I was not in the same mindspace as everyone else.

On another note, had a tough bidding decision to make later in the same game. With no one vul, I picked up this nice hand in 1st seat, AQ75 65 AQ AKT83. I opened 1C and with the opps silent throughout, partner responded 1H. I reversed into 2S and partner bid 3H, showing values since we play 2N as the start of a poor hand sequence. So now what?

I have extra values (some) for the reverse, but not particularly robust suits. I like my tenaces, and wanted to make sure NT was played from my side, but still wanted to show some interest in Hearts. I finally decided to bid 4D on the hand, and partner bid 5N over this. Completely forgetting the auction, I raised to 6N, thinking I would be playing it, after all, isn’t intent to bid something the same as bidding it? Unfortunately, neither opponent bought that argument at the table when I brought it up.

Anyways, we managed to now wrong side 6N, the best contract, but fortunately the K of Diamonds was onside when Hearts went 5-0, providing the 12th trick. My question was, should I bid 3N, does it give full value to my hand, even if it sets up the right side for the contract. 4N sounds like key card in Hearts, something I do not really want to do, so not sure what the best action is. Partners hand was always going to force to a slam, but that is not a requirement on all hands we want to get to slam on. Partner had KJ3 AKT743 42 Q7. My only suggestion to partner on the hand was to avoid bidding NT, the most likely contract, while making a forward going move, I thought 5D might be best for that, since it is unlikely to be a possible spot to play on this auction, but I have played in 2-2 or worse fits before.

Both Minors over a Weak NT

2011-02-10T20:48:00.000-06:00

Had a hand that somewhat fell outside our discussions over 1N in a team game this week. We play 1N shows 12-14 HCP and may include a 5 card major or minor. So when partner opened 1N with no one vul and I held Q2 9 KQJ97 AJT98, I had to decide on an approach that made sense.

We play 3 of a major as a fragment with both minors, at least game interest, so a 3S bid is fairly close on my hand, but tends to imply only 5-4 in the minors, will have to talk to partner later if it can include this hand pattern. Part of the reason for having that is to be able to play in a 4-3 or 5-3 major suit game if it looks right from the 1N opener side, so doing it with only 2 may get me 4 of the major, something I would not be happy with.

We also play 4 suit transfers, so I felt the best way to start was to transfer into Clubs and then bid Diamonds, which is forcing for at least 1 round and should imply something like this in the minors, since I did not start with a fragment. So I started with 2S (Clubs) and partner bid 2N, denying honour third in Clubs. Wanting to continue on with the description, I now bid 3D, and partner bid 3S over that. In the discussions we had on these auctions, we agreed that a bid of a major over a minor and a forward going bid pinpointed values, to start towards notrump, but also perhaps leading to a minor game/slam, so partner is showing stuff in Spades, and basically denying much in Hearts. This actually makes my hand better.

I now bid 4H to show a control in Hearts, and deny a balanced hand since I bypassed 3N. Partner bid 4N over this. I really thought this had to be forward going in Diamonds, since partner could have just bid 5D. It should not show Heart cards, since with both majors, partner would have bid 3N over 3D. All of the news that I had gotten to this point had been good, so I decided to just jump to 6D on the hand, ending the auction. I was asked what the meaning of the auction was, and I actually explained my reasoning of the 4N bid. The opps, a good experienced pair, thought that 4N should be weak, but I do not agree with that assessment.

LHO led the 9 of Spades, and dummy tracked with what I had expected, almost a perfect hand, AK83 JT42 AT4 Q6. With the Spade lead, the slam became a laydown, pulling trump and pitching the Heart on the third Spade, before taking the Club hook for an overtrick. On a Heart lead, I need the Club to make. Turned out the Club was onside, so the contract was always making.

I realize that it might be pushy to go after the slam opposite a weak NT with my hand, but the bidding kept indicating good things from partner. The big question is, would partner bid 4N the same way without the Q of Clubs, in which case it is a very bad slam. She still has A AK for me, and a ruffing value in my second suit. Have not had a chance to ask that question yet, but it should be informative for future bidding. And we will have to decide if we want to or can add something in for a decent minor 2 suiter over a 1N opener.

Nasty Lead Part 2

2011-01-31T18:34:00.002-06:00

In the previous post, I gave a play problem in 6H after a Spade Lead. Here is the whole hand for any interested to see how their choices worked out.

N   E   S   W

1C P 1H P
1S P 2D P
3C P 3H P
3N P 6H P
P   P

                           AQ73
                           T6
                           53
                           KQJT4
KJ84                                     T962
8                                           J52
KJ97                                      864
9852                                      A73
                         5
                         AKQ9743
                         AQT2
                         6

Of course, the only way to make the hand on a Spade Lead is to take the round 1 finesse, but that is something that most people hate to do. At the table, declarer after some thought, played the A of Spades and took the Diamond finesse, losing to the K, and a Club came back to the A for down 1.

The interesting part was the same boards were in play in both semi-finals, and at both tables where 6H was reached (I am not sure of the other auction), the lead was the same card, the 8 of Spades, with the same result.

Nasty Lead

2011-01-29T00:24:00.000-06:00

Playing in our local Sectional this weekend, you are playing in the first half of a KO match. With everyone Vul, you pick up 5 AKQ9743 AQT2 6 and hear partner open 1C in first seat. You bid 1H, partner bids 1S, and then bids 3C over your 2D 4SF. You bid 3H and partner now bids 3N. Hearing about a probable Diamond card encourages you to jump to 6H, ending the auction. For ease of viewing, here is the auction again.

N E S W
1C P 1H P
1S P 2D P
3C P 3H P
3N P 6H P
P P

LHO thinks for a minute and then leads the 8 of Spades and this dummy appears

AQ73
T6
53
KQJT4

5
AKQ9743
AQT2
6

What do you play at trick 1, and how do you plan for the play. And besides the fact that partner should have bid 4H over 3H, not 3N, any other problems with the bidding. Finally, does it make any difference as to the style of the person on lead, whether they listen to an auction before leading, or just lead 4th best all the time? And of course, the leader found the only lead available to present a problem on the hand, don’t they always.

Think about the hand and I will post the whole hand in a day.

An Unfortunate Tale

2011-01-27T23:33:00.002-06:00

Playing IMPS on BBO, you pick up this hand with All VUL, 7 KQT9753 J KJT4 in first seat. First question, is this an opener. I think it is, this hand is going to play very well in Hearts, but not very well anywhere else, so let your partner know that early. But the person that held this hand thought it would be easier to show it later, so started with a Pass.

The auction now went 1D on his left, 3S by partner, Double (Neg) on his right. Oops, looks like you have trapped yourself. Do you really want to bid 4H Vul opposite a partner that pre-empted in your short major, with RHO showing Hearts? Again, this hand passed, and LHO now bid 3N, which was passed back to this hand. It does not feel right to never take a call with this hand, but there is no real way to describe it now, so this hand passed for the third time. See why it is right to open.

The opening lead was the 9 of Spades from partner, and this dummy tracks, Q82 J6 A84 QT853. A truly interesting negative double, what it was going to do over 4H by their partner is unknown, but the 3N was a welcome bid. Declarer puts up the Q of Spades which holds at trick 1, and quickly claims 10 tricks with 7 solid Diamonds in his hand and the 2 Black Aces. Turns out your partners hand was KJT9643 A8 72 62. You had the first 7 tricks in Hearts if they were led, and excellent play for 4H. At the other table, the opponents sacked in 5D, down 2, over 4H, meaning your team lost 13 IMPS.

This is why I believe you have to open a hand like that when you have the chance. With Spades, you can consider waiting since you can always bid at the level of current bid, even though that may be uncomfortable. With Hearts, you are subject to the whim of who has Spades, and may have to come in at a level higher, as in this case. By passing, it turns out that a hand that had play for game in their suit, never took a bid and allowed the opponents to steal a double game swing back the other way.

I was lucky enough to be on the plus side of this, having bid the 1D and 3N on the hand. I was very surprised with dummy when it came down, and could not figure out where the Heart suit went until I saw that hand after. I originally thought the 3S preemptor had a bunch of Hearts as well, never suspecting that kind of hand. And I am still not sure what partner intended if I ever bid 4H, did not really want to ask, it would not have been fun to play in 4H with Kxxx in Hearts in my hand opposite that.

3 Hands

2011-01-18T18:20:00.000-06:00

Had 3 very interesting hands this last week involving some tough decision making at the 6 level. For the first, you are playing IMPS and are Vul vs NV opps. You hold 3 J9753 K643 A87 and Pass in first seat. It goes P on your left, 1H by partner, and 3S on your right. You raise to 4H and over 4S on your left, partner bids 5C. It goes P on your right, you take the intermediate road with 5H, but now it goes 5S on your left, P, P back to you. So the auction has gone

N   E   S   W
P   P   1H  3S
4H 4S 5C  P
5H 5S P   P
?

How good is partners hand for the 5 level second bid and pass of 5S. And is your singleton Spade a duplication of partners values in that suit? The main question is, assuming the Pass of 5S is forcing, which it should be, how many losers should partner have? Partner freely bid over 4S, so should have distribution, and you have good features in both suits, a 5th trump and the A of partners second suit. So give partner something like AKxxx of Hearts and KQxxx of Clubs, there should be no losers there, so what about the side suits, x Ax in the pointed’s makes a slam almost a laydown, so the problem is if partner has less. Is x AKxxx Qx KQxxx good enough for this auction, free 5C and a P opposite a passed hand?, how about x AKxxxx x KQxxx, which requires 2 Aces and trumps from partner?

The other consideration is if partner has a very distributional hand, can you even beat 5S? A lot of your ‘tricks’, may not score on defence. For those 2 reasons, I think this hand should go on, besides, if the opps take out insurance at IMPS against 6H, you will feel a lot better doubling 6S.

Turns out 6H is a maker and you may be allowed to play there, partner has an unusual hand, KQ AQKxxx --- KQxxx, so 6H only loses the A of Spades, their 2nd Ace does not cash, also making it hard for them to sack. At the table, the above hand doubled, and was able to beat 5S 1 trick when the Hearts were 1-1, somewhat luckily getting a plus.

The next hand is a little tougher, playing MP’s, with no one vul, you pick up K932 AQ75 AQ974 --- and hear partner open 1C in first seat. You bid 1D and partner bids 1N, showing a 15-17 HCP NT, since you play weak NT’s. You bid 2D, GF Stayman, and partner bids 3C, denying a 4333 hand, or either 4 card major, but showing 5+ Clubs, what now?

N    E   S    W
1C P   1D   P
1N   P 2D P
3C P   ?

The big question here, I think, comes between 3D and 3N. Can partner have Diamond support, and does 3D here promise 6, or just 5? You are only on the borderline of the slam zone, and partners 3C call did not improve your hand at all.

I think at IMPS or in a very strong field, this is a lot tougher hand, since missing out on 6D when it is available can cost a lot, even if only in lost opportunities. At MP’s, it is a lot tougher if you should bid on, since partner needs a fitting hand for much play in 6. But the other consideration in a medium field, how many people are going to hear partner open a strong NT, and after checking for a major, blast to 6N with this hand? Not really sure what is the best idea here.

At the table, this hand bid 3N, ending the auction. 6D and even 7D are actually very good contracts, since of course partner has the perfect hand, A5 KJ K83 A97652. 3N also looks like it has a lot of tricks, and in the interest of self serving reporting, I will not go into my line of play, except to say that I took at least 9 and much less than 12 tricks on a Spade lead when Diamonds went 4-1. Who needs to preserve communication!

The last hand, again back to IMPS, All Vul, you pick up a nice hand, AKQ74 KQJ85 3 AK and open 2C in first seat. Partner responds 2D, showing at least 1 control and values. Over your 2S, partner bids 3D, and over 3H, bids 4S. What does that show and now what? First, with a 1 suited Diamond positive, partner did have a way to show that and did not, also, 2D placed you in a GF auction, so 4S is weaker than 3S on this hand. Either way, with a positive and some support you want to make a slam try, so over 4N, partner bids 5C, showing 1 or 3 KC’s.

At this point, you have 3 choices, bid 6S to play there, bid 6N, or bid 6H giving partner a choice of slams. I think 6H is the best bid here, since partner does not know you have 5 Hearts, it was not required on this auction. At the table, this hand bid 6S, and partner put down 85 973 AJT85 J96, about the minimum possible for a 2D bid. When Spades went 4-2, 6S was down 1, with 6H having a lot more play.

A bunch of discussion ensued later about what responder should bid over 3H. The available bids are:

3S – Slam try in Spades, has to have better Spades, out
3N – No Club stopper, out or at least should be a low option when partner is showing the majors
4C – Cue bid on Jxx, out, partner is really not going to be happy playing in 6S with AKQJxx AKQx x xx which is a possible holding
4D – Should show a 6th Diamond since Diamonds may be the best slam, out
4H – on a possible 4-3, out
4S – By process of elimination, about only bid left?

This brought up the problem with these sequences, is there a bid that indicates real support but a min hand, vs a bid that indicates a doubleton and wanting to really sign-off? And it must come from the list of 6 available bids listed above. The only bid that comes to mind is to have 4D as a kind of temporizing bid, but that really perverts it in my mind, and precludes most hands where that might be the only spot to play when you do have a 6+ card suit. Switch the K from Clubs to Diamonds in the other hand, and 6D becomes the place you want to play this hand if it is opposite a decent 6 card suit.

We did not come to any solid answer on the above, other than the other hand needs to be aware of the problem that responder may have, and bid 6H to give an option on these kind of auctions.

Fun (!) on BBO

2011-01-12T00:01:00.000-06:00

Playing in a pickup team game on BBO with a new partner I got to see the following up close and personal. You pick up, NV vs Vul, QJ9 K97 65 KJT53 and hear it go 2D (Weak) from partner, double on your right. You pass, and it goes 2S on your left, P, P back to you. Since this is a part score hand, and you have no fit (or defence), you decide to compete with 3D, hoping they will get a little higher. Sure enough, they listen to your wishes, it goes 3H on your left, P by partner, 4H on your right. You now pass, and they proceed to wrap up 4H for -620, instead of the -140/-170 you had wrapped up for passing out 2S, and the 10 IMPS.

Next, you pick up this fine hand, Vul vs Not, T8765 8 KQJ7642 -- and hear it go 1C by partner, 3H on your right. Not wanting to get partner involved, or allow any decisions, you leap to 4S, ending the auction. Partner is a nice person and puts down a good hand, AK 43 T983 AKQ52, no problem except the 3H pre-empt meant it, he did not have Spades, they go 5-1, and you go down -300 in 4S, cold for 5D.

Finally, a play problem, you hold, All Vul, AKT8 Q73 A7 JT83, and with the opps silent throughout, you bid 1S over partners 2nd seat 1D opener, and raise his 2S bid to 4S. The opening lead is the 4 of Clubs, and partner puts down J952 KJ84 KT4 A2. You win the A, and decide to follow the old Zia rule by playing the J of Spades, to see if LHO has the Q or not. When he plays the 4 of Spades, you decide not and play the A, LHO following low. Now when you play the K of Spades (forget about those Club losers), LHO follows low again, and RHO pitches the 3 of Diamonds, oops. You play a Heart to the K and A, and LHO cashes the K of Clubs, before exiting a low Diamond. You cash the 2 Diamonds, ending in hand, and play the J of CLubs. It is kinda late, but you probably need the Q onside, but who cares, ruff the Club, Heart to the Q, ruff the Club, cash the K of Hearts, except RHO ruffs this, and nastily cashes the Q of Spades for down 1. The other table bid 3N, an easy contract, so they did not have to play carefully in 4S, but with any type of care, like starting with A and out a Club at tricks 1 and 2, it also has lots of play.

Sigh, have to think about deleting my account again, or perhaps not play on there for a while.

A Pair of 7S Auctions

2011-01-09T19:20:00.001-06:00

Had 2 hands in the last couple of days that involved 7S being an option, 1 of them worked out, the other, not so much.

On the first hand, you pick up the following hand Vul vs Not, A987 KT AJ54 AQ2. With the opps silent throughout, partner opens 1S in 2nd seat. You decide to bid 2D, you have never played with this person before and on BBO, the only discussion you had was playing 2/1. Partner bids 2H, and over your 3S, bids 4D. The fact that partner did not bid 4S and raised Diamonds, has improved your hand, so you cue-bid 4H, and partner now bids 5C.

Couple of things come to mind here, partner did not key-card, but bid 2 suits and cue-bid the other 2, making 2 slam tries. Why? You decide to bid 6C, and partner now bids 6S. The question is, do you have enough and/or know enough to bid 7S. Partner should be something like 5431 on this auction, or perhaps less Clubs to cue-bid 5C. And that makes some sense since partner signed off in 6S over your Club cue-bid, so perhaps that was bad news. And with 4 Diamonds, would he not of raised Diamonds first over 2D? So this kind of implies partner is likely 5530 instead, or perhaps 6430, either of which make your hand better. KQ of Spades, A of Hearts, and K of Diamonds give pretty good play for the grand.

This hand decided that partner had to have 1 of those hands and made a nice bid of 7S. Of course it is easier in a fun rubber game, but still a nicely reasoned auction. Partner actually has the expected hand, KQ642 A9873 KT8 – so there are lots of chances in 7S. And the hand plays pretty easy when Spades go 2-2 and Hearts behave. There are other chances, but they do not have to be even tried. I held the opposite hand, and was very pleased when this partner believed me and raised to 7S. Playing with a regular partner, I should bid 6H over 6C, but with a pickup partner I have played 2 hands with to that point, I did not want to put too much pressure on.

The other hand occurred with a fairly regular partner in our weekly IMPS game. You hold QJ974 A973 KJ9 3 and open 1S in first seat. It now goes P on your left, 5D by partner, P on your right?

Can partner have super long Diamonds and want to play there? And if so, why are both opps silent in this auction. After joking that this must be Exclusion Key Card, partner passed here, assuming it was Diamonds. Problem was, it was EKC in Diamonds, so the hand did not play that well in our 3-0 fit.

At the other table, the auction went the exact same way, except that the opening bid woke up to what the 5D bid was as she was thinking of passing. So they got to the cold 6S. The other hand was AKT853 KJ --- KQT97.

Grands do not come along that often, so to have 2 at least possibles in as many days is kind of fun.

Forcing or Not

2010-12-30T20:23:00.000-06:00

Had an interesting situation come up in our weekly IMPS game yesterday. My partner and I had an lively discussion on whether this auction was forcing or not, I thought it definetely was, he did not. No one vul, you open 1S and it goes 4H on your left. Partner bids 4S and it goes 5H on your right, is a pass forcing or not?

My contention after the fact was that since the opps had pre-empted, and we had bid a game over it, we by force came into a forcing auction. Otherwise, there is no real intelligent way to try to bid. And it will not be the first time I have given up -550 for 5H doubled making. But what are your thoughts, since 4S can be made on a very wide variety of hands, does my first comment apply, should this become a forcing pass auction?

The hand worked out, since I had a small doubleton Heart, I assumed partner had a singleton and a good hand. I bid 5S and partner was able to claim quickly, even though he did have a doubleton Heart as well and had thought the pass was not forcing, since we were not vul and I had not shown a strong hand in bidding 4S.

Not really sure what is best with my hand after 5H P P back to me. I had Q53 76 AJ94 KJT6. If partner has anything like a good hand with short Hearts, 6 might even be right, but I was worried if he thought it was a forcing pass situation, so decided to bid 5S, hoping for 2 things, get a discussion going on what is a forcing pass situation, and not insult partner if he had intended it as a forcing pass :)

What Suit to Play IN?

2010-12-20T21:27:00.000-06:00

Playing IMPS in a local qualifying game for the CNTC’s against a good pair, you pick up the following hand with your side Vul vs NV, 76 AJ65 K6 AKJT4. The auction starts with 2H (standard weak 2) on your left, 2S by partner, 3D on your right. You have an awfully good hand, that has actually improved on the auction with the 3D bid on your right, coupled with partners probable shortness in Hearts (3D tends to be lead directional with Heart Support). So now what?

Possible bids that come to mind here are 3H, 4C, 3S (an underbid), Double and perhaps even 3N. What do they have going for them. First, 3H sets up a game forcing situation, which you want, but does nothing to help you find where to play the hand, which is bad. You are not certain which of Spades, Clubs, or NT is right, and partner will play you for Spade Support now. 4C shows your suit, but does it do justice to your hand. Or do you need to, since it should be forcing and you can bid again later. 3S is a bid I do not like, it tends to imply better Spades, with a lot less high cards, and it is not really forcing. 3N is a weird bid, that may work, but you may have to take the first 9 tricks on a Diamond lead, and that may not be possible without very good Spades in partners hand. Double is an interesting bid, except if they are left to play there. It should show values, but does it mean more penalty or action on this kind of auction. And can/should partner pass it? Plus will the opponents, or will RHO always run back to Hearts if LHO passes? Too many questions not to make Double a little scary.

At the table, the person holding this hand elected to start with 3H, setting up a force. This now went 4D on their left, 4S by partner, 5H on their right. This is good in that it confirmed partner should be very short in Hearts, but there are a lot of points and/or distribution in this deck. And we are back at the crux of the matter, you are still not certain what to play the hand in. Although a free 4S by partner goes a long way to letting you know where partner wants to play the hand.

I think options at this point boil down to Double, which should get fairly messy even NV, 5 or 6 Spades, depending on how much you trust partner, or perhaps 5N, hopefully offering partner a choice of slams, in Spades and the only remaining suit, Clubs. The question about that is, are your Clubs good enough to offer partner a choice of where to play the hand or not? I am not sure what is best here, but with partner bidding freely to 4S, I think I like double or 6S the most, with it being a toss up between them.

At the table, this hand actually bid 6C now. The reasoning was that since the opps had an announced 2 suited fit, it made sense that our side also had a 2 suited fit, so partners hand should have Clubs. If you are going with that reasoning, 5N makes more sense, since partner can bid 6C with Clubs, and Spades without Clubs. On this hand, 6C became the final contract, and partner put down AKQJT4 4 J985 83. 6S has a lot of play and will make on most lines of play with the A of Diamonds onside and Clubs behaving. 6C was not a success with the Q of Clubs offside and declarer losing control of the hand and eventually going down 2.

The last question on this hand, do you agree with the 2S and 4S bids on this hand, especially where 4S is made as a free bid. I actually held this hand and felt that with the solid Spades, after the 3H cue-bid, I wanted to bid where I wanted to play, expecting some values in partners hand. After partner later bid 6C, I thought I had shown the Spades, and expected partners hand to be almost a twin to mine, but in Clubs. The only worry I had was partner having a singleton Spade and the opps leading that suit early to cut communication, perhaps for that reason, I should consider 6S more, since transportation should be less of an issue. It certainly would have worked well here, but not sure about in the long run, when I assumed partner was not offering me a choice of locations to play the hand.

2 Suiters in the Statosphere

2010-12-17T20:37:00.002-06:00

Playing IMPS in the local team game, you hold the following hand NV vs Vul. 8 AKJ86 A AKJT63. Partner opens 1D in first seat, and after a Pass on your right, you bid 2C, GF. This now goes 2S on your left, Pass by partner, 3S on your right. What now?

First, it would be nice if those pesky opps would stay out of your auctions and let them stay uncomplicated. And second, there are a lot of points in this deck, or distribution. You are aware that partner and the person on your left like to bid, but the person on your right is pretty reliable. So does that say anything about the hand. Partner is unlikely to have psyched in first seat, that is not his style, so you can rule that out to start, and the person on your left is frisky, but not crazy, so EW should have a lot of Spades and shortness somewhere. Question is, how does that help you.

The person at the table now bid 4S with this hand, trying to show the hand strength, but I think that gets you to high early. I actually like a Pass with this hand, to see what partner does. I think that will leave you much better prepared to bid something reasonable. Over the 4S bid, partner bid the expected 5D, and over 5H, now bid 5N, which is a something bid. At this point, this hand guessed, and bid 6C, which bought the contract. The opening lead was the K of Spades and dummy tracked with AJT 953 KQJ864 8, not the dummy of your dreams. Since this person was unsure of what 5H meant, they did not correct 6C to 6H. Although I feel a bid of 6D might be warranted, since this hand is going to be useless in Clubs for the most part.

At the table, it looks like you are now prevented from setting up the Diamonds for any Heart pitches, but you have to try and make it. You can win the A of Spades, and decide what rounded suit hook to take, but the Hearts only need to be 3-2 with the Q on side to avoid a loser there. The Clubs need to be 3-3 or 4-2 with a tripleton or doubleton Q on side to avoid that loser. So it appears the Heart hook is the winner, and it actually works on this hand. Add that to a 4-2 Club break with no ruffs coming, and 6 Clubs can come home with the Heart hook. In the interests of safety, I will not reveal the line taken at the table, except to say that it did not make.

Back to the bidding, the reason I like a Pass over 3S is that partner is going to do 1 of Double, bid 3N, or bid 4D. Either of the first 2 are things you like, since you can bid 4H or 5H (my preference) over them to show a massive 2 suiter, on the Pass and Pull is stronger theory. And over 4D, if you bid 5H and partner bids 6D, you are fairly happy to pass with the A of Diamonds and all of the tricks in your hand. The direct bid of 4H over 3S does not begin to do your hand justice in my opinion.

The question asked at the table was if the Pass had to be forcing. If you are playing 2/1, it does, since you are below game, you are in an absolutely forcing auction.

What to Bid

2010-12-12T10:17:00.000-06:00

What to bid with Ghoulies is always a problem, especially at Teams. So when this hand came up in the first round of the TUE-WED KO's, it was bound to present lots of problems and opportunities at the same time. First published in the Daily Bulletin for the Orlando NABC's

None Vul, you pick up QJ98743 -- -- QJ9642 in 4th seat, and here this unlikely start in front of you, 1H by LHO, 1S(!) by partner, 3S (Splinter) by RHO, so what now?

I have given this hand to several people I respect, and most have groaned and been very unsure of how to proceed, with bids ranging from pass to an immediate 7S. The consensus seems to be 6S. But what would you bid, think about it before reading the rest.

At the table, this hand decided to make the consensus 6S bid, which went P, P to his RHO. This person had an interesting problem as well, but decided against the bold 7H call with 5 A97654 AT632 A, not fully trusting partners pass of 6S, and Doubled, hoping to get a couple of A's. Declarer quickly claimed making 6 for -1210 their way, when he held the AK of Spades and the K of Clubs.

Here was the full deal

                        AKT62
                        32
                        Q94
                        K87

--                                           5
KQJT8                                  A97654
KJ875                                   AT632
T53                                        A

                       QJ98743
                       --
                       --
                       QJ9642

The result at the other table was the same -1210 for a weird kind of push board. The auction started the same, but this S bid 4C over 3S, trying to find out if he should save over 7H or not. When RHO bid 4H over that, he also leaped to 6S, which was doubled and claimed.

Hang em High

2010-12-10T21:41:00.001-06:00

Playing on the last day of the Orlando NABC in the AX Swiss Teams, you pick up the following nice hand with everyone Vul AQ975 A42 AK AQ7. You are getting ready to decide how to bid this when partners open 2D (Weak) in 2nd chair in front of you, the opponents both passing. This now presents the problem in a totally different light. Systemically, there are 3 primary things you can do here, bid 2N (OGUST) to ask partner what kind of pre-empt this was, although you have some idea looking at the AK of Diamonds, or you can bid 3C, asking if partner has a high card feature in their hand. The last option you have, is to bid 2S to check if partner has any Spades support, this is forcing for 1 round.

You decide on option 3 and bid 2S over 2D, and partner surprises you by bidding 4H. You are not a regular partnership, and have not discussed this, but that certainly looks like Heart shortness with Spade Support, which is about as good news as it is possible to get on this hand. You bid 4N now, RKC in Spades, and partner shows in with 5C (1/4). This is certainly starting to look serious, the only question now is, how good are partners Diamonds?

Working under the assumption that partner should not open a very bad Diamond suit in 2nd seat, the non-weak pre-empt seat, and certainly should not bid 4H with something like Kxx x Jxxxxx xxx, I think you should gamble out 7D here. You can not count 13 tricks if partner has bad Diamonds or Spades go 4-1, but even with Spades bad, there is an extra chance, partner can ruff out the Spades and take the Club hook, if needed, for trick 13. All in all, I think your odds for 13 tricks come in somewhere in the high 80’s, certainly not absolute, but pretty solidly in your favour.

At the table, this hand bid only 6D, making 7 when partner held Kxx x QJT98x xxx and even though Diamonds were 4-1, Spades being 3-2 meant an easy claim early on the hand. At the other table, this hand passed, and now there was no practical way to find out about the massive Diamond fit and count 13 tricks after a 2C opener, Spade bid and raise. So a possible big pickup went out the window. Who says that weak 2D bids have no value.

Qualifying for Day 3 in the NA Swiss Teams

2010-12-09T17:43:00.001-06:00

We had lots of earlier opportunities to qualify to play in the third day of the NA Swiss Teams in Orlando at the NABC’s, but had decided to defer the decision to this point in time (in other words, we had been doing the wrong thing a little too much). We needed a large win in the last round to leapfrog into a qualifying spot, and had been having a good round when this board came up as the last board of the set.

Vul vs Not Vul, you pick up A AK532 A KQJT843 and hear the auction go 1D by LHO, P, P to you? The opps are playing a standard 5 card major, strong NT, 2/1 system, so the Diamond bid can often be made on a 3 card suit. Any ideas on how to bid this monster in anything remotely like a sane auction?

The biggest problem is that most people play 2N in balancing seat as a standard 19/20+ balanced hand, not as unusual. So you can not use that to describe your hand. And just bidding 1 of your suits at the game or slam level is like rolling craps. Hint, discuss with you partner what 1D – P – P – 2N really means to that person.

After discussion with quite a few people after the fact, the consensus seemed to be that 2D followed by 3C over partners probable Spade bid was the best way to start. It should be forcing and show a good 2 suiter, probably in Hearts and Clubs like you have since you did not raise Spades. At least this way, you have a hope of getting your hand across to partner.

At our table, I opened a 12-14 HCP 1NT and after a long period of thought, my RHO leaped to 6C, since he could not think of a way to describe this hand over 1N. I had many scattered values, and did not want him to score ruffs in dummy, so I led A and another Club. When dummy contained a pair of pointed Jack’s with 2 small Clubs and 1 small Heart, there was no way to make the slam, and we got an eventual Heart winner for down 1.

At the other table where they opened 1D, our partner bid 2N, and then over partners 3H transfer into Spades, also leaped to 6C. This convinced my counterpart to protect his Heart holding with the same A and another Club, resulting in a push board, and us failing to qualify by 3 VP’s, despite having a 5-3 W/L record for the day.

Never Relax

2010-12-08T17:40:00.002-06:00

Played this hand in the last match of the first qualifying day for the North American Swiss in Orlando last week. It was one of the most annoying bridge hands I have had for a while, mainly because I had worked out virtually all of the hand, then wound up completely falling asleep at the end and destroying everything I had done up to that point.

With everyone Vul, I picked up the following hand, 4 KQG843 KJ3 KJ5 and heard the auction go 1C on my left, 1S by pard, P on my right. We play transfers to overcalls at the 2 level, so I bid 2D as a transfer to Hearts, showing 5+ Hearts and 8+ HCP’s. Partner refused the transfer and bid 2S. This tends to show 6+ Spades and usually less than 2 Hearts, and does not promise extra values. I decided that at IMPS I wanted to play this hand in game, and wanted to protect my Diamond and Club values, so jumped to 3N on the hand, ending the auction.

The opening lead was the 3 of Clubs, and dummy tracked with AKJT95 6 A964 93, not a bad buy here, I put up the 9 of Clubs, and RHO made (what I thought anyways) was an error by covering with the Q, since that left very little available to be in his hand. I could now play his partner for virtually every card left, allowing me to keep the positional second Club stopper alive. I did not want to commit to the Spades yet, I was worried that RHO might have the J of Spades, so decided to start on the Hearts first. If they are 33, I have no worries on the hand. So I led the K of Hearts, which held the trick, and then the J of Hearts, also holding the trick as RHO shed the 10 of Hearts. I kept on with the Q of Hearts, won by LHO with the A as RHO pitched the 2 of Spades, a very strange card. I had pitched 2 small Spades on the 2 Hearts. LHO still retained the 9 of Hearts, so it looked like he was something like 2425, 3424, or possibly 2434.

LHO now returned the 3 of Spades, and I won the A while RHO followed small. This is where I started to lose the hand, LHO must have the Q of Spades on the hand, both for a real opener and because I need him to stay on lead to protect Clubs. So the easy play here is a small spade off board. This works anytime LHO started with Qx or QJx of Spades, the only holding it fails to is Qxx and that meant that RHO had pitched a Spades from Jxx looking at that dummy, something I considered highly unlikely. Instead, I cashed the K of Spades off dummy, pitching a low Heart, while LHO followed with the Q. And now I started to give myself doubts, did RHO pitch a Spade from Jxxx and now had the J. So I came off board with a Diamond to the K and played the 8 of Hearts to LHO’s 9. And at that point, I did something really stupid, I kept the Club on board and called for another Spade pitch.

LHO had now worked out all he needed, and cashed the Spade J, squeezing me in the red suits, before exiting with the Q of Diamonds, forcing me to lead away from my Jx of Clubs, since I had pitched trick 9 with that last Spade pitch from dummy.

Needless to say, partner was not very pleased with this, and with good reason. Pitching a Club and Diamond off board at any time and keeping as many Spades as possible means I can almost never go down on the hand. The only thing I could think of later was that when RHO played the Q of Clubs, then pitched a Spade, I relaxed on the hand since I did not think I could go down anymore, and stopped counting on the hand. I had worked out basically exactly what they both had, within 1 optional card, and thought everything was rosy. Goes to show, can never lose concentration on a hand, especially if it appears to be going well.

The 1 good point about it was that the 3N did not cost us too greatly, we wound up in a dead tie, which meant both teams easily qualified for day 2. If I had made it, the Australian team we were playing would have had a good chance of being eliminated from day 2. So they were very appreciative, it was just my team mates that were not as happy for some reason.

Scissor You

2010-12-05T19:30:00.000-06:00

Scissor You

Going to present some hands from the NABC in Orlando that just completed. This hand from the Evening Session of the 2nd day of qualifying for the North American Swiss Teams gave a chance for declarer to make one of the more interesting plays available in Bridge.

NV vs Vul Opps, you pick up AJ7 KJ983 753 K4 and open 1H in 2nd seat. It now goes 2C on your left, 4C (Splinter), Double on your right. You bid 4H which ends the auction and the opening lead is the K of Diamonds. Dummy comes down with KT42 QT54 AJ86 8. Plan the play before reading the rest.

The only way to make the hand now is to exercise a scissors coupe on the opponents. You need to win the A of Diamonds at trick 1, and play a Club towards the K at trick 2. If you do anything else, including playing a Heart, your LHO will play a second Diamond and then lead a Club to RHO to get a Diamond ruff. Playing the Club before the Diamonds are unblocked kills the entry to RHO's hand prematurely and prevents the ruff, giving you enough time to play the rest of the hand.

Here is the complete hand

                              KT42
                              QT54
                              AJ86
                              8

Q63                                              985
A76                                             2
KQ                                              T942
QT953                                         AJ762

                             AJ7
                             KJ983
                             753
                             K4

Mother Love

2010-11-11T11:09:00.001-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, I got to play with my Mother in the Erin Berry Rookie Master game. This is a game sponsored by the CBF and Erin Berry’s parents to promote bridge. Rookies (less than 50 MPs) sign up, and are paired up with a Master for the game, everyone plays the same yellow card, and it is mainly for fun. Hand analysis sheets are given out, and the overall winners are recognized on the CBF site. Erin Berry was a young lady from Saskatchewan that loved bridge, but was killed at a young age in a car accident. My mother has been playing for quite some time, but only recently with the ACBL. We got to go out for Dinner before the game, then have a good time playing for the evening.

Early on in the game, my Mother had to wonder what kind of ‘Master’ she had been stuck playing with, when I was the only declarer in the room to go down in 4H. I picked up AT8 AJT43 874 A6 and opened 1H in first seat. This went P, 2C by partner, and I rebid 2N. Mom now jumped to 4H, ending the auction, and the opening lead was the 8 of Clubs. This hand came down in dummy J62 KQ98 QT KQ93, a very nice pull indeed. The rookies always sit W and S, so the rookie at this table had led the 8 of Clubs, not much sense asking if they have any agreements. I finally decided it was not from length and strength, since there were only 2 cards higher than the 8, so played low from dummy, winning the A when RHO also played low. I played a Heart to the K and another back to the J, hoping to keep some communication open, and both opps followed as Hearts were 22. I now played a Club towards dummy, and LHO played the 10, sigh. When I won and cashed the 2nd high honour, RHO showed out, meaning the 9 would have held in dummy if I had played it.

But now came the problem, I had a complete blind spot on the hand, and pitched a Diamond on the good Club, before playing the J of Spades, losing to the Q on my left. LHO led the Club J back, which I ruffed, and eventually took another losing Spade hook, for down 1. Somehow, no one else forgot to pitch a Spade on the Club, and all made, some making 5, some 4. A couple did not bid game, but that always happens in these games. If I had found some way to put in the 9 of Clubs, and remembered to pitch Spades, I had a top waiting for me to claim.

One other hand that also did not work out for us involved a very nice sequence by one of the Rookies. Holding KT43 AKQ4 K5 AT4 he opened 1C, and over partners 1S bid, reversed into 2H. His partner bid 2S, and he now leaped to 4S, showing the full monster. His partner jumped to 6S, and had the perfect hand with A98762 T98 A 963, claiming 7 when the Hearts went 33. Unfortunately for us, less than half the room made it to 6S, and a few in that contract managed to hold themselves to 12 tricks. There were also 2 that did not get to game, so –1460 was a bad score for us.

This is a fun game that I strongly recommend that all players in Canada should try to support. It was sad to see 2 or 3 rookies that came out to play and not enough masters showed up to pair them up. The great committee that organized the event phoned people at the last minute to come out and got everyone paired up, but when Bridge is dropping in attendance, anything that gets new people out should be strongly encouraged and supported.

CNTC Qualifying

2010-11-06T17:44:00.000-05:00

Playing in a CNTC qualifying game this week, had a few interesting hands come up. On the first, with opps Vul, you pick up J973 8 AQ975 AQ6 and open 1D in first seat. This goes P on your left, 1S by pard, Double on your right. I thought my choices here were mainly between 2S, 3S, and Redouble. The problem I had with 2S and 3S is they are both flawed, you are too good for 2S and may not be strong enough for 3S, with the bad Spades and weak Diamond suit, so I finally decided on Redouble, showing a good hand, since I will be able to show the Spade support later.

This now went 2C on my left (interesting, where is the Heart suit), 3C by partner, and pass on my right. I needed to set trumps now, so I bid 3S, and partner raised this to 4. The problem I have now is that partner has shown a good hand with 3C, and I have a lot of controls. I assumed 3C was shortness, since there was no sense in cue-bidding the K of Clubs when you are not sure it is any good. The only bad part on my hand is with the double on my right, if partner does not have the K of Diamonds, it is likely to be offside and make any slam almost impossible. But I thought passing now was a little too unilateral, so I raised to 5S, hoping partner could work this out. M now bid 6S, and the hand was not that much of a play problem. Partners hand was AKQTx xxxx Kxx x. Even without the third top Spade, she has a lot of play in 6S, but may have a Spade guess. At the other table, my hand bid 3S on the same start to the auction, but the other hand made a very lazy 4S bid to give us 11 IMPS.

Later in the same match, I picked up 7 A6 AKQ983 AKJ4, Vul vs Not. I do not like opening 2C on 2 suited hands, especially the minors, but this was a little to good, so I did open 2C. Partner bid 2H, which we play as a full double negative, No A, at most 1 K, and if a K, nothing with it. I bid 3D over this, and partner bid 3N. I finally decided I probably had 9 tricks if partner could stop Spades, which I hope it sounded like she could, so left it there. The opening lead was the K of Spades, and RHO made a good play with KQxx, playing the Q and another when partner encouraged, hoping for a 5th Spade from his partner. He was also looking at JTx of Diamonds, so knew they needed 5 tricks on the run to set it. Partner had Jxxx of Spades and the Q of Clubs, so we made 4. The problem on the hand is that partner had Qxxx of Clubs, so 6C makes on the hand. But with Jxxx Qxx xx Qxxx, it is hard for her not to bid 3N over 3D. This illustrates why I hate bidding 2C on 2 suiters, but I guess 3N is better than playing in 1D. At the other table, the auction went 2C – 2D (waiting) – 4D and they got to 6D, which has no place to put the Heart and Spade loser. I do not like the 4D bid, if my hand bids 3D, and then decides to brave out 4C over 3N, they have a chance to play it in Clubs. If you are going past 3N on this hand, then I like that auction a lot more than 4D. I am really not sure if the hand is worth 4C, since you have a lot of possible losers on the hand. And once partner showed the bust, you need the 4th Club to the Q to have much chance. It is a tough hand to judge, play partner for Qxxx in Clubs and try for 6C, or a Spade stopper and Diamonds running so pass 3N. I know there are some people that play certain bids at the 3 level on this start revolve around having a second minor suit with the first bid suit, but that can get pretty complicated, and we do not play it.

I felt sorry for 1 pair we played against in the 2nd round. I do not know if it was the light, my glasses and eyes, or whatever, but I picked up 82 QT83 KQT983 9 and heard it go P, 1H to me at equal vulnerability. My tendency is to try and jam an auction like this, so I jumped to 3D. This went 3S on my left, 3N on my right, all pass. I went to lead the Q of Diamonds, since I had Heart entries, when I realized that my K of Diamonds was the K of Hearts!! My 3D pre-empt had just been made with 82 KQT83 QT983 9, bet the opps were not going to figure this hand out at least. I didn’t want to lead a Diamond now into what might be pretty good Diamonds on my right, so I led the 9 of Clubs. Dummy tracked with KQT73 J4 A54 K64. Declarer put the K of Clubs up, partner won the A, and returned the J of Clubs to declarers Q. Eventually, when partner got in again, she led the J of Diamonds, and declarer wound up a trick short when nothing worked and he could not read my hand for some reason. It turns out nothing is right on the hand and there is no hope, but everyone still got a good laugh in at my expense.

The final round, we had 2 interesting boards, on the first, I picked up AK3 Q8 AK8763 32 and after 2 passes, opened 1D. This went double on my left, 1H by partner (which we play as natural but limited to 9 HCP), pass on my right. I did not want to get to carried away to start on this hand, so just bid 2D. This went P on my left, 2H by partner, P on my right. The fact partner probably has 6 OK Hearts makes my hand better, but I was torn between inviting and bidding game. But partner is not shy, so I just bid 3H, which seems more like the value of the hand, and partner passed. Partner had KJTxxx in Hearts and out on this hand, with a Diamond void, so we made exactly 3H on the hand, picking up 6 IMPS when they bid 4H down 1 at the other table.

The last interesting hand was not one of my finer bidding moments, only the result wound up being positive. I picked up JT93 K975 AQJ2 A with both side vul, and opened 1D after 3 passes to me. This went 2C on my left, 3C by partner, double on my right, everyone has come alive. Instead of bidding an easy 3H, looking for a major suit fit, I bid 4C, hoping partner would bid a 4 card major here. Partner decided I had a good hand in Diamonds for 4C (gee, you think) and leaped off to 6D on the hand (oops). The opening lead was the K of Clubs and partner put down a real nice dummy, K8 AJ62 KT875 93. Pretty much the most she can have and not open, I can see where the 6D bid came from, now I just have to try and make it.

I needed to guess the Spades and Hearts, and I had a couple of ways to play each. I perforce won the A of Clubs, and not wanting the opps to decide how to play the hand or get comfortable, played a small Spade at trick 2. LHO played low on this without thinking, so now I had to think. I finally decided that with the A, he would have at least stopped to think a sec (I Hope), so gave partner a heart attack when I called for the low Spade. This forced the A, and now I had to only pick up the Hearts. A Spade came back to the K, LHO playing low, and I pulled 2 rounds of trumps ending in my hand when they were 22. I now played the J of Spades, covered with the Q, and ruffed as RHO followed. I ruffed a Club back to hand, and cashed the 10 of Spades, LHO pitching a Club. So LHO was either 3226 or 3325 on the hand with the Q of Spades and presumably the KQ of Clubs for the lead.

I finally played for the 2nd hand, and played the K of Hearts and a Heart, claiming when he had the first hand, but the Qx of Hearts. Glad I didn’t know about the doubleton Heart, not sure what the odds are of playing for the Tx as opposed to the Qx, since I can make with either, as long as I guess right.

Thinking about the hand after, I really believe that I played for the wrong hand at the time. Since with 5 Clubs and almost no values on my right, she should have bid 4C instead of just doubling 3C. She is vul, but still, with 5 card support for partners overcalled suit and a side A, you have to take some action.

But as my Dad used to say, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good :)

NAP Fun

2010-10-30T23:28:00.001-05:00

Had a few interesting hands from the District 2 NAP finals this last weekend. On the first, we were playing 2 local experts that shall remain nameless for obvious reasons. With everyone Vul, I picked up 2 K8752 653 J432 and heard the auction go P P to me. Even I don’t open this bad of a hand, even in 3rd seat. LHO opened 2C strong in 4th seat, partner bid 3D, and RHO doubled, showing scattered values, all of a sudden everyone had come alive.

Now I psych about once every 2-3 years or so, and since I had not done it in quite a while, and wanted in on the fun on this hand, I really wanted to bid 2S. The problem was, that is such an obvious ploy, especially when you run back to 3D, that I did not think it could work against these 2. I really considered the double bluff, bidding 2H, the suit I had, thinking I was most likely to get doubled there, and then could run to 3D, causing more confusion. But I did not like the options if LHO bid 2S over my 2H instead of doubling, I would then be wishing I had bid 3D direct, so I finally settled on 2S. This went the expected double on my left, pass, pass back to me, so I dutifully ran back to 3D, which went around to a double on my right. LHO passed, and that became the final contract.

The opening lead was a Club to the K and partners Q, and partner played really well on the Heart return, dumping the 10 and Q on the first 2 rounds of that suit, as RHO won the A and gave his partner a ruff. They cashed a Spade, then partner ruffed the Club return and claimed, since he had unblocked the Hearts to take the marked hook and pitch the Club losers. +670 looked very out of place with all the -1430’s for 6S making their way. I mostly blame South for this, I do not thing Pass is correct over 3D on this hand with a pronounced 2 suiter, how do you expect to get back in this. The South hand was AKQT5 9 Q AKT985.

Next hand was against a very aggressive pair in the 2nd session. I picked up AJ72 J5 QT92 KT2 in third seat and had the auction go P P to me. We play a 12-14 HCP NT, and I do not like to shade it. I decided to let the spot cards, and 3rd seat status sway me, since did not want to give free ride to my LHO. Partner bid 2C, mostly Stayman, and passed my 2S response, ending the auction.

The opening lead was a small Spade, and dummy tracked with KT3 KQT7 J8764 5. The opening lead ran around to my J, and I returned the J of Hearts, holding the first trick. LHO had hitched slightly on the J of Hearts return, and since I wanted that side in, I led my second Heart. Sure enough, LHO won the A to return a 2nd Spade. I wanted to lead Diamonds off board, hoping to throw LHO in yet again, so I won the K on board, and led a little Diamond off board, throwing the 10 when RHO won the A of Diamonds. I was expecting a Club now, and had not totally decided what to do in that suit, when RHO surprised me with the Q of Spades return, on which everyone followed. I led a second Diamond out of my hand, and LHO won the K, while RHO showed out. They took their A of Clubs, but my +140 looked very lonely again against all of the pass-outs or +110 for 3D.

We partially got the good score for bidding, partly for a slightly soft defence, but those are the kind of things you need a few of for a good score.

The last hand, I picked up NV vs Vul, K6532 K853 --- 7632. The opponents bidding went 1D on my left, 2N, 6N, double by partner. I had been planning on an aggressive lead against this, probably a Spade, until the double by partner. Now knowing that Diamonds was not a source of tricks, I did not want to give away too much by underleading a K, so I led the 7 of Clubs. Dummy tracked with a flat 19 count, with AKQJ of Clubs in the mix and no major suit A’s. So when the smoke cleared, I scored both of my K’s, and partner got a Diamonds trick for +500 and a good score. The reason I was writing the hand up was the nice double by partner to talk me out of a major suit lead, the reason he did it. His hand on this auction was xx xxx QJ87xx x and he had figured a normal major suit lead would give declarer too much of a tempo. By asking for a Diamond lead, since he probably had that suit well stopped, it would give us the best chance of beating this hand and moving their good score to our side.

RH played one of the best pair of sessions I have seen him play, and with a little luck, we would up going to Louisville in the Spring. Should be fun.

The Path to Dummy

2010-10-18T19:31:00.000-05:00

Playing MP’s at a local club this week, you pick up the following hand with everyone Vul, 763 AKJT A T8732 and hear the auction go 1D in first seat on your left, P, P back to you. As a partnership, we play aggressive overcalls, so partners pass should mean the lack of a biddable major, but at MP’s, passing is not really an option here, the major question is what to do. I was not sure this was our hand, so I decided that I did not want to make a nebulous TO double, have the opps buy the hand in 2 or 3 Diamonds, and have partner lead a little Spade from some random holding for a 0 on the board, so decided to overcall 1H. This had the advantage of getting partner off to what I thought would be the best lead if we wound up defending.

This went 2D on my left (interesting, less values perhaps than expected), 3D by partner, P on my right. I decided that I liked my hand if partner had Hearts and some values, since the probability was that I would be leading Black suits through the opener to partners supposed values, I had the red suits fairly well covered. And the 2D bid on my left improved the chances that partner would not have too much wastage in Diamonds, so I leaped to 4H, which ended the auction.

The opening lead was the K of Diamonds, and partner put down a very nice collection, perhaps too nice. A4 Q753 985 AKJ9. I won the A of Diamonds perforce, cashed the A of Hearts, both following, and led a Club towards dummy. LHO sportingly produced the Q, so I won the A and ruffed a Diamond high. It looked like I was probably a lock for 12 tricks now, the question was could I come to all 13? I cashed a second Heart in my hand, both following, and now made a mistake in the play. My plan was to go to dummy, ruff the last diamond, then see if the Club lived to get back and pull the last trump, finally pitching the Spade on the 5th Club from my hand.

This is fine, but I played the Spade to the A for the ruff first, then tried the Club to see if I could get 13 tricks, which actually worked. But I should try the Club first, after pulling the 2nd trump, since even if it gets ruffed, I still have the timing to take 12 tricks, and the knowledge that I could not get all 13. The problem with doing the Spade first is that I have opened up the Spade suit, and if the Club then gets ruffed, the opps have the ability to cash a Spade winner and hold me to 11 tricks, for what should be a bad score.

Turns out that 3 of the 11 pairs made all 13 tricks, while most of the others made 12. There were only 2 that managed to hold themselves to 11 tricks somehow, for a very bad score.

As for bidding to 6 on this hand, I am not sure how possible that is, especially when LHO bids a 2nd time. It requires partner to have an absolute perfecto super max for passing 1D, with the Q of Clubs appearing, and having a 3rd Diamond, without anyone bidding Spades on this auction. I think that is kind of a lot to ask for, and I certainly feel admiration for anyone that can honestly say they can bid this slam with some confidence.

Lazy Play

2010-09-27T21:01:00.000-05:00

Playing in our local regional this last week, you are in the 2nd last match of the Swiss Teams. You are currently leading the field, but there are a lot of teams snapping at your heels, so any slip up and you will find yourself looking up, not down.

The first board of the match, you pick up JTxxx AKJTxx Ax --- and hear the rather surprising auction, 1H (3D) ? to you, what now. This particular North player had the ability to use 5C as exclusion key card, to find out scientifically what to do, but finally decided to play pressure bridge and leapt to 6H, which went all Pass. The opening lead was the K of Diamonds, and it turns out you are off the AK of Spades, but due to a fortunate lie of the Clubs, partner is able to pitch 4 Spades on the Clubs and make 6H. The result, a push board, it was the identical auction and play at the other table.

Now for the other problem on the board. Sitting in East chair, you hold AKxx x Txx 9xxxx and hear the above auction, 1H (3D) 6H to you. Do you double, and if you do, what do you think the chances are partner will find a Spade over a Club. And finally, will 2 Spades even cash. These are the kinds of decisions, especially on board 1 of the match, that can give you even more grey hairs. Personally, I think I would chance the double, it sounds like your RHO is prepared for a Diamond lead, and without partner knowing there is a profitable other lead, they will probably try a Diamond or maybe a Trump. The risk of not doubling is that if you have 2 Spade tricks to cash, they may go away, the risk of doubling is that partner leads the wrong suit, or that you did not have 2 tricks to cash at all. But I think the risk/reward ratio is in favor of the double, since if you double and it makes, either since it was always cold or partner leads the wrong suit, you give up 5-6 IMPS, but if the double causes it to go down, you stand to gain 13 IMPS. If the double was neutral, in that it was always going down or always making, it is about even.

Now for the board that gave this article it’s name. Later in the same match, V vs Not, you pick up this fine hand, AJ AT3 AKT7 QJT8 and open 1C in first seat. This goes P, 1H by partner, Double on your right. We play a redouble shows 3 card support (not my favorite, but the condition of contest), so I thought the options were between that and a flawed 2N bid. Since I have good 3 card support, only 1.5 stoppers in Spades, and a ruffing value in support of Hearts, I thought it was fairly lopsided in support of the redouble to start. This now went 1S on my left, 4H (!) by partner, 4S on my right.

I have an awful good hand on this auction, the question is can we make a grand slam? I would need partner to have 6 Hearts to the KQ and the AK of Clubs to be able to count 13 tricks, and the 4S bid tends to be warning of some not to friendly breaks here. So deciding not to play partner for the perfecto, I bid 6H, which went around to RHO, who not being done, bid 6S. Wanting to get partner in on any decisions, I passed, but partner reopened with a double, ending the auction.

Partner led the K of Clubs and this dummy tabled, KQTx x QJ9xx xxx, certainly had her bidding shoes on. I signaled encouragement, and partner continued with the A of Clubs (oops, looking like the perfecto, sigh) and another Club, everyone following. I now cashed the A of Hearts, and continued with the Ten, declarer ruffing on board. Declarer played the J of Diamonds off board, and I won the K as partner played a high Diamond (standard count). So I am pretty sure I have an exact count on the hand, and continued my last Heart, LHO and partner following, ruffed on board. Declarer exited the K of Spades off board, as I won the A, and then did not stop to think like I should have. I know declarer started with 5323 distribution, and partner was 2623. Unless we manufacture something, we are only getting the A of Diamonds at this point, since declarer is almost all trump now. But there is one small chance, if you look; if partner has the 9 of Spades, it is higher than all of declarers trumps, and he will score it on 2 rounds of Diamonds. In addition, he can then play a Heart to give me an uppercut in trumps, for the full +2000 on the board. But, being lazy on the board, I returned the pedestrian J of Spades, and watched partner follow suit with the 9 (of course) as declarer claimed -1400 on the board. Fortunately, they missed the grand at the other table as well and we only lost 2 IMPS on the board. But chances like these have to be taken advantage of when they come up if you want to win, especially when there is no downside, as happens here.

The last part, which kind of surprised me, occurred at the end of the first match we played. It was an Ax event, and we were playing a local team, that usually plays in Flight B, except they had 1 person on their team that forced them to play in A flight. When they played a really good match, we scored it up as a dead tie. I went back to their table to compare before turning the result in, but they said they had us winning by 12. Looking at their score card, I saw they had marked 1 game as making, when our partners said they had gone down 1. I pointed this out, and the NS at the table thought about it and went ‘Yea, we did set that’. We marked it up as the draw, and they thanked me for being honest. Not sure what they expected, but I can not see too many people actually taking the win here, especially against a newer team like we were playing. Or maybe I am wrong and that does happen too often. We wound up winning the event in the end, but if we had taken that win and won, I would not really have felt very good about it.

Fargo Regional

2010-09-07T20:46:00.001-05:00

Just returned from the Fargo Regional where had a really great time. The food and hospitality was great, and the bridge was mostly fun. Except for a couple of hands that I wanted to report on, where I did not do as well as I could/should have.

The first hand occurred during the finals of the SAT/SUN KO’s. We were playing a pair of very nice, but highly aggressive ladies and this was the final board of the 2nd session. Up to that point, I thought we were doing pretty well, but that does not excuse my hideous transgression on an interesting board. I opened a 12-14 HCP point 1NT with the following hand AT83 KJT A8 7543. Partner responded 3C, which we play as GF Puppet Stayman (4 and 5 card majors) as opposed to 2C which would be standard Stayman. This was doubled by RHO and I bid 3D, showing a 4 card major and denying a 5 card major. Partner bid 3H, showing Spades, and I signed off in 4S. RHO decided to double this, ending the auction. On the plus side, we had discussed this auction before, and had decided that the 3D bid showed a 4 card major, while pass denied it. And I was glad partner did not bid 3S showing Hearts, (or worse 3NT) as I would probably have had to bid 4H on the hand, with my less than elegant Club non-stopper.

The opening lead was the J of Clubs, dummy came down with 7642 AQ8 KQ653 Q, and the Club Q was won by RHO’s A of Clubs. A second high Club came back, which I ruffed on board, and when I led a Spade off board, RHO popped with the K. I still could not tell if RHO had long or short Spades on this hand, but if the K of Spades was singleton, I could at least hold the damage down, since I had to duck 1 Spade anyways to have any chance. If Spades were 3-2, I was in good shape, but I expected them to be 4-1, I was just not sure of what direction. If it was LHO with 4 Spades, I was probably not going to make this hand, but might get out for 1 down if I played carefully. RHO persisted with another high Club, which LHO thankfully followed to, and I ruffed it and led the last Spade off dummy. RHO now flew with the Q of Spades, and I won the A, LHO pitching a small Heart, and showing me where the J9 of Spades were, still in RHO’s hand.

I now led the A of Diamonds, and then the small Diamond to the KQ on board, pitching my little Club from my hand. Both opponents followed to the Diamonds, making the 2 remaining Diamonds on board good, and giving me a perfect count on RHO’s hand, 4135. The trump coupe looked simple now, cash the Heart, and run the 2 Diamonds on dummy through RHO. It looked so simple that I called for a Diamond, since order did not matter!!!!!!! As soon as I called for the Diamond, even before RHO threw the Heart, I was quite aware of what I had done, not sure if it was a mechanical error, or just thinking of the ending before I had completed the setup, or what. But RHO did not show any mercy, pitching the Heart, and now being able to ruff in on the first Heart with the 9 of Spades for down 1.

Fortunately, we had a good set for the rest of it, and combined with the +32 from the first half, we easily survived the –12 on this hand when the declarer at the other table did not make my error in the same contract.

The other hand was against a well known couple from the US, and involved an inferential decision that I still think I have to make right. I was quite annoyed at myself at the time for following through with my original plan during the hand. I held 92 AJ9 AT98 AK43 and opened 1D in first seat. Partner bid 1S and I rebid 1N showing a strong NT. Partner bid 2C, invitational Stayman, and I bid 2D, denying 3 Spades or 4 Hearts. Partner now bid 2N and I went on to 3N primarily on the strength of my spot cards.

The opening lead was the 5 of Clubs, low from an honor or 2nd from no honor, and dummy tracked with AKT75 T743 J65 7. It looked like I was going to have to decide if I wanted to try to set up Spades, which would require a quite favorable position in the suit, or use the 2 entries to try to set up a red suit, and then hope for an end-play for the other red suit. RHO played the J of Clubs, which I ducked, and then won the 8 of Clubs return with the A as LHO followed with the 6. I thought the odds of the Spade suit were low, but slightly higher than the other line. I wanted to catch LHO early to see his reaction as well, so I played the 9 of Spades almost immediately after winning the Club. Sometimes a card like this will get a small reaction, and I was hoping I might get some kind of a read. LHO was a good player, and played low without any thought at all. So that ruled out any 2 or 3 card holdings in his hand with an honor, as he would have covered. That left only 3 cards to 2 honors, or 4 cards to an honor in his hand that would give me any play.

I decided to continue on with my original play, and ducked the Spade now, which I really think is and was wrong. This wound up going very bad, and I eventually drifted off 3 on the hand. The hand was actually makeable even with the Club lead and lack of entries if I just follow my instincts and play for a little luck. Win the Spade on board, and play a Heart to the J, losing to the K on my left. Win the Club return, play a Spade to the A, and another Heart to the 9, which holds. Cash the A of Hearts, dropping the Q on my right, and exit the Club to LHO. Now when he has only 2 Spades, he is endplayed into leading a Diamond, play the J off board, and when it holds, cash the 10 of Hearts and the A of Diamonds for 9 tricks.

Of course, this was much easier after the fact, but as soon as LHO ducked the Spade, every instinct at the table was telling me to go for line 2, and I stupidly ignored them, sigh.

On a more positive note, we did do a few things right during the weekend, and 1 of the good results occurred early in the same final session of the KO’s where I screwed up the trump coupe in 4S. I picked up JT83 KQ43 A87 Q9 with neither side vul, and heard my RHO open 2H in first seat. I passed, LHO passed, and partner re-opened with a double. RHO passed, and I decided the best chance for a decent plus was go for the penalty, and also passed, ending the auction. I think this is a bit of a lead problem, and since I was a min for the penalty pass, decided we needed to set up some tricks early, so led the Q of Clubs, a lead that tends to do very good or bad. At least I thought if LHO had solid Clubs or something, I was going to ruff in early. Dummy tracked with Qx J KJTx J8xxxx, actually quite a nice buy for declarer on this auction. Declarer played low on the Club, partner signaled he liked it, and declarer ruffed it, both good and bad for us, since we had started the tap on declarer, but we might need some of those tricks later.

Declarer now led a Spade, I played low, and partner won the Q with the K of Spades, to lead a Heart to my K. I returned my last Club to partners 10 and declarers ruff, shortening declarer to the same length in trumps as I had. Declarer now played a Diamond, which I ducked, and won the J as partner showed an even number. I won the K of Diamonds with the A as all followed, and realized the hand was now fairly easy for the defence, I led the J of Spades and a small Spade to partners A, declarer following, and on the A of Clubs, over-ruffed declarers 9 of Hearts with the K, to give partner a Diamond ruff. Now a final Club gave me another trump trick for a nice +500 and a 12 IMP pickup when even with partners nice hand, nothing makes on the defensive cross ruff.

All in all, it was a fun tournament. I had not gone to Fargo for the labour day regional for a while, and got to see a bunch of people I had not seen for a few years, as well as play a bunch of bridge. We had a couple of great meals, including one at Ushers in Moorhead that was so grat we tried to go back 2 nights later, only to find out they were closed on Sundays. The turnout this year was down, a symptom everywhere, but with the great site, great hospitality (free lunch every day and something at the end of the day for a snack) and good bridge there, hopefully more people will decide this is a good tournament to come back to and let them build up again.

That unlucky 5

2010-08-27T18:59:00.001-05:00

Playing in our weekly IMPS game the other day, I did one of my usual overly aggressive things and opened 3S (NV vs NV) on the following 2S hand KQJ643 JT Q653 8 in first seat. I felt the Spades were a little good and the 2 suited nature added to the offensive value, hence the bump to the 3 level.

The auction was quick after that, double by LHO, all Pass. So much for wanting to head for the 3 level I thought.

The opening lead was the 2 of Spades and pard put down a dummy I really probably did not deserve, 87 K9xx Kx Kxxxx, but was very appreciative of. Ok, so I am off 4 Aces, that does not mean I am down yet, but kind of cuts into the wiggle room a little. And with that hand, partner may question my bidding a little more than usual if I don’t come close or make this one.

So the first question is, what was the Pass of the Double on. I am assuming the rest of the Spades, so that means RHO has AT95 in his hand, making the Spade suit real interesting. Although a Spade lead is normal on these auctions, it looks like that might not have been the ripper here, with the interesting spot cards. The other question is, does RHO have much other than those Spades? I expect not much, since that leaves LHO with a probable 3 Aces and a couple of Queens for the double. I am sure there might be a stray Q in RHO’s hand, but I think on initial evaluation, I am going to play LHO for the majority of everything else, and RHO for only the Spades.

RHO covered the 8 of Spades with the 9 and I won my K (std philosophy here, always try to win with the highest of touching honors, as it tends to disguise your hand from at least 1 opp). I am really not happy with the line I took, as I think the opps could have beaten me if they thought about it a little more. I decided I needed to shorten my Spades for a probable trump coup, since I thought I needed to ruff a Diamond on board. I actually led a Diamond at trick 2, and LHO won the A and returned the 9 to boards K. I now led the K of Clubs off board, effectively requiring RHO to be 4243 to make the hand, and some help. I got it when RHO won the A of Clubs and returned a Club for me to ruff. When I led the J of Hearts and LHO played low, I won the K, ruffed another Club, cashed the Q of Diamonds, and led the 4th Diamond. When LHO pitched, I could claim by ruffing and leading another Club off board, scoring all my Spades minus the A.

The opps best chance to beat me is by killing my entries before I shortened my trumps. Win the A of Clubs, cash the A of Hearts, and lead another Heart. At this point, I would be forced to take the Heart hook, since I would not have the entries for a trump coup now. Turns out, everything was friendly, RHO had the distribution I needed, and the Q of Hearts was onside. So I think I was always destined to make the hand.

After the fact, I decided that leading a Club to the K at trick 2 was probably better. Assuming LHO wins the A and returns one, I can ruff, and lead the red suits up now, making on most distributions that RHO has. And if LHO ducks the A of Clubs, when the K holds, I can ruff a Club back to my hand and again lead red suits up, plus I have an extra trick to play with. Of course, if any of the A’s are offside, and RHO gets in to lead a second Spade, I have a lot more work to do, but it was a good day.

At the other table, the contract was the same, 3S doubled, but I do not know the auction to get there. Declarer lost his way though, and went down 1, so we wound up with a nice pickup.

The reason for the title is the small spot card RHO has vs the 6 in my hand. After the Spade lead, I can always pick up the Spade suit for 1 loser. But if you exchange my 6 and RHO’s 5, then on many lines, I require the trump coup to have any chance.

aaargh

2010-08-22T17:52:00.000-05:00

Playing on BBO with a pick up partner last night, I had the kind of hand that always haunts for a while afterwards. My partner picked up this hand with us Vul and the opps NV, Q97 AQ74 J64 A54. I opened 1C in first seat and he bid 1H, I bid 2S, and I think I would bid 3C with this hand, trying to find out where to play it. Instead he bid 3S, which might work out and might not. I bid 4S. I think his hand calls for a move forward here, he has an opener opposite a reverse, but how, since he painted himself into a corner. And how do you even know the Spades are the right suit. I think at this point, I would bid 5C and hope for a 5D bid from partner, but he bid 4N, KC. I answered 5H (2 without the Q) and he jumped to 6S.

The opponents were not on our side and unsportingly cashed the AK of Diamonds for down 1 on the go. Fortunately Spades were 3-3, so AK84 opposite Q97 came in for no losers, for only down 1. My partner merely said unlucky, sigh.

Here is the full hand.

I still feel I have a reverse, it is just wether I should bid 2S or 2N over the 1H bid. I thought with the Qx of Diamonds, 2S was more descriptive of my hand. I looked later, and almost everyone bid 1S on the same auction with my hand, so I guess I was wrong.

The worst part was the scores on the board where it was played by other people. Of the 16 times it was played, 7 of them were in slams, 1 6S, 1 6C, 1 6H (!), and 4 6N. It was set twice of those 7 times. And of the 3 6N that made, they were all played by E, so South did not lead his 5 card Diamond suit. The other bad part was that 3N went down twice, both times by E. In each case a Diamond was led, and declarer put up the Q of Diamonds (!) at IMPS no less. At least in those cases, some justice was served.

I think the main part of this hand is the E hand has to tred carefully on this hand, even with an opener opposite the reverse. The 4333 distribution and effective 3 small in the unbid suit are not wonderful holdings. Even with a reverse, the hand may not play were anywhere, and you need partner to take a Diamond cue-bid to head for slam anywere. That is why I said I liked the 3C bid, trying to get partner to bid 3D. On this hand, you will probably hear 3H now, and you can bid 3S or 3N over that. At least that gets the core features of your hand across, and lets partner move on if they can.

What Defines a Good Slam

2010-08-12T22:33:00.000-05:00

Playing in our weekly IMPS game, you have this interesting hand come up. Vul vs Not, you hold KT93 T75 AKQ8 AT. Playing weak NT’s, you open 1D, and over partners 1H, you bid 1N showing a strong (15-17) NT. Partner bids 2D (GF Stayman) and you bid 2S, then over partners natural 3D, you show the 3 card Heart support with 3H. Partner bids 3S, now what?

It is starting to sound like partner has a near mirror image of your hand with 3442 (could be 3541, but will bid 4H later if that is so), presumably with a good hand, since he is taking the slow road to find out where we should play, but how good is his hand? Assuming a Spade card for 3S, along with good Hearts since he has nothing in Diamonds, and presumably not much in Clubs since did not hear 3N here. So can the Hearts be solid, which would be required to have any good play in a slam, something like Axx AKQJ xxxx xx, with this auction. Even Axx AKQx xxxx xx, would make 6D against the odds, with quite possibly 3 losers.

I think this is a very hard hand to get correct with any kind of reliability, since how do you find out what partners 4th round in a specific suit is like. At the table, I actually jumped to 5D at this point, hoping with the right hand, partner would go on. After the fact, I think that a bid of 4C at this point is better, since I do not have to have a control in that suit. And then over partners whatever bid, now bid 5D.

On to partners actual hand, and whether this counts as a good or bad slam. He held Qxx AKQJ xxxx xx, close to what I needed, but Q instead of A of Spades. So the slam depends on picking up either the J of Spades, or guessing an Ax with either opp once Diamonds are 3-2. So all in all, not a good slam, probably coming in around 26-27%. Turns out Diamonds were 3-2, and based on the lead and pitches, I played RHO for the length in Spades, and thus the J. All of this worked so we did make +620, and I am still happy I was not in the slam, since I would have had to think about that a lot more than it required in 5D. But the final definition that is sometimes hard to argue with is whether it makes, and since this one did, it is OK, not up to good, but not as hopeless as some I have got myself into.

Don’t You Hate it When You Get Things ‘Almost’ Right

2010-07-27T20:26:00.000-05:00

Playing in our IMPS League Weekly Game, I had a neat defensive problem come up that while we almost succeeded, the patient wound up dying anyways at the end.

Our Vul opps got to 3N on the simple auction 1H-1N-3N (4 card majors, 1N is not forcing). Partner led a Small Club, and the Club suit was

       Q9xxx
KJx              Tx
         Axx

I won the A, and led my middle Club back, declarer inserted the J, losing to the Q, and partner returned a 3rd Club, clearing the suit and setting up 2 tricks for us. The only problem remaining was to get partner in to cash them.

The interesting part of the hand is the battle in the Heart suit between declarer, having to set up a third trick in the suit, vs us, trying to force an entry to my partners hand to cash Club tricks. The other 2 suits are irrelevant to the story since they were going to provide a set (5) number of tricks for declarer, or enough tricks for us to set the contract, there was no way for declarer to set up any more tricks in those suits.

The Heart suit was, with the spots being of prime importance:

      K98
742       AQ65
      JT3

Declarer won the third Club in hand, and led the 7 of Hearts, partner put the 9 on this, a somewhat unusual card, and declarer played the Q. I survived the first hurdle by pitching the J of Hearts on this. (If I play low, declarer can always play for this position and keep partner off lead by leading up to the Heart A, and ducking if partner plays low, I will not be able to duck any longer) Declarer now came back to hand in Spades, and led a low Heart. Partner, worried about me having JT doubleton of Hearts, played the K now, forgetting that declarer never raised Hearts on the auction, something he probably would have done with 4, even if they were bad. Declarer played the A of Hearts on this, and I made the same mistake that partner did, playing declarer for 4 Hearts rather than the actual position, and did not follow through with pitching the 10 of Hearts.

When I played the actual low Heart, declarer came off board with a low Heart, hoping for something good, and it came up when I had to win this trick, giving declarer a lucky third Heart trick and the contract.

I really found this hand annoying for myself, since I had found the pitch of the J of Hearts under the Q, then did not follow through with the subsequent pitch of the 10, leaving the 8 of Hearts as the boss Heart for partner to cash the 2 Club tricks.

Of course, this might have been a little easier with the 8 of Hearts at the first Heart trick, but that does not really matter. When partner played the 9 and the K, I have to play him for the 8 as well, since there is no way for me to beat the contract if I win any Heart trick. Since it is IMPS, an overtrick from pitching the 10 of Hearts is not really going to matter.

At the other table, it was played from the other side, so there was no Club lead, so out partners easily made an overtrick with more time. This could have allowed us a big swing in the match, instead of winning 1 IMP.

How Good of a Suit Do You Need to Play In It?

2010-07-21T18:30:00.000-05:00

Playing IMPS in a pickup team match on BBO, you pick up this hand NV vs Vul, Q AKQJ87 J6 AT92. Partner opens 1S in 2nd seat and you bid 2H. Partner now jumps to 3S.

At the table, I was not sure where we should play yet, so I bid 4C, hoping partner could make a Diamond Cue-Bid. Partner decided to be nice today, and bid 4D, over which RHO decided to wade in with 5D. I was hoping I was right on partners hand now, that he had a good Spade suit and the A of Diamonds, so I jumped to 7 Spades (Not Hearts), since I thought it might be easier for him to get to his hand in Spades, than me to get there in Hearts on a Diamond lead. Turns out this was important, since partner held AK98742 96 A Q63.

We actually got a Club lead, but on the normal Diamond lead, 7H has no play, while 7S is still cold on the 3-2 Spade break.

The other thing I was considering was 7NT, which is what they played in at the other table, however on the same Diamond lead, it eventually went off 3 tricks. Nice to win 17 IMPS every once in a while.

To Bid or Not to Bid

2010-07-21T16:22:00.002-05:00

Playing in our weekly IMPS league, had a few hands come up that presented problems (opportunities) for all involved.

The first hand, you pick up this hand all Vul. A A54 J8xxxx xxx and hear it go P, 1S, 2S (Michaels) to you. You decide not to take a call here, and it now goes 3H, 4D, 4H back to you. I think this is a pretty easy 5D call here, which goes, P, P, 5H back to you, so what now?

First, do you even know who is sacrificing on this hand, or is anyone? The person on your right must have a pronounced 2 suiter to be bidding this way, and partner is probably fairly distributional as well. You have 2 fairly sure defensive tricks, but negative defense in Diamonds. (I count negative defense when you have a holding that will subtract from partners expected defensive tricks, here you do not expect to cash very many Diamonds) I would expect that you will beat 5H about 50%-75% of the time based on the 2 tricks that you have and 1 hopeful trick from partner.

The next question is, what are your chances in 6D? If you receive a Heart lead, and partner can pull trump and set up Spades for Club discards, fairly good, but will you receive a Heart lead on this hand? Give partner a hand like KQxxx --- AQxxx Kxx and you are a favorite for 6D, since 2 Clubs can not cash, even with less in Clubs, you would make on a Heart lead. However, I would expect a 6D bid will not receive a Heart lead in many instances, so would not count on those versions very often. All in all, I would bet that it is about 50-50 as to whether doubling 5H vs bidding 6D is better, and the payback on 6D is a lot higher, so the nod has to go in that favour. At the time, I thought 6D was a funny bid, but looking at it in retrospect, it is probably a close choice.

In reality, it is the winning choice, 6D goes down 2, but 5H was not going down on this hand. Rho was 1-7-0-5 with the AK of Clubs. At the other table, the auction went 1S-4H, and the 1S bidder did not take any action over 4H.

The next hand, All Vul, you pick up T9842 A5 AQJT6 J and hear it go 4H in first seat on your right, your bid? This has put you under tremendous pressure, and it is usually right to get in the auction with a good 2 suiter, but does this Spade suit qualify you? Think about what you would bid (in tempo remember) and I will tell you what happened at the 2 tables next.

At my table, my RHO bid only 3H, giving me almost the same problem. I decided this hand did not qualify for any sane bid, so passed, which went P on my left, 4C by partner, P on my right. I bid 4S, which went Double, P, P back to me. I did not relish running to partners suit with a singleton, I was not sure he would thank me, so decided to sit it out, at least partner would not have to play it. The opening lead was the Q of Hearts and partner put down an amazing hand, A65 3 87 AQTxxxx. The K of Diamonds was onside, and the defense made a small error in the Spade suit, allowing me to make an overtrick for +990 and a loss of only 7 IMPS.

Finally, you pick up xx KQT8xxx Ax Kx and open 1H in first seat, all Vul. Partner bids 2C over this and you rebid 2H, partner now bidding 2S, back to you.

At the table, my partner decided to slow things down with a 2N bid here, which got raised to 3N. Worried about being able to take 9 quick tricks after the expected Diamond lead knocks out his A, he opted to run to 4H, which bought the contract. The opening lead was the K of Spades, and this dummy tracked, A9xx --- Q9x AQT9xx.

Partner ducked this trick, and won the A on the Q of Spades continuation. He came to hand with the K of Clubs to play the K of Hearts, won by the A on his right, and he ruffed the Spade continuation (A Diamond switch would have been nastier). He now continued the Q of Hearts and when the 9 dropped under this, was able to drive out the J, win the now Diamond continuation, pull trumps, and run the Clubs for making 4. 3N was definitely easier though.

At the other table, this hand decided to bid 3H over 2S on the same start to the auction. He now received a 4H bid, a bid I really like, but decided that if partner had Heart support and a good hand, he had a great hand. 6H was not a success.

Those Pesky Opponents

2010-07-09T11:47:00.000-05:00

Playing IMPS in our weekly game, had 2 interesting hands come up where you have to judge what level to play a hand in a competitive auction, always one of the toughest parts of the game. As the title suggests, why can’t the opponents get out of our beautiful auctions and allows us to make our own errors in our own way.

On the first hand, No one Vul, you hold AJx ATxxx J A9xx and hear it go 1S on your left, double by partner, pass on your right. This is certainly a GF hand, so you decide to start with 2S to at least start to set up a forcing auction. Partner bids 3D over that, and you now show Hearts with 3H. Partner bids 3S over that, so now what?

At the table, this hand bid 4C, and partner bid 4H, again back to you. What do you know about the hand. Partner has Diamonds and Hearts (presumably 5/6-4), and a good hand, due to the 3S bid on the way to 4H, and should have short Spades (since I can not see a 3S bid on this auction on 2 small missing all those A’s).

Since you have all A’s and the 5th Heart, I think you have to take another call here, if not just drive to a slam. At the minimum, a 4S call to invite moving forward. At the table, this hand passed, stating afterwards they were worried about what LHO (A solid bidder usually) had for the 1st seat opener.

In actuality, there is almost nothing to the play. Partner puts down x Qxxx AKQxx QJx. On the Spade lead, you win, cash the A of Hearts, the J of Diamonds, and a small Heart. When Hearts are 2-2, you can claim, and have lots of play even if Hearts are 3-1, as long as opener does not have the singleton. At the other table, they had an uncontested auction and did not reach the good slam, so it wound up a push board, but had chances for an easy 10 IMPS.

The second hand, you are Vul against Non-Vul opps (as we call it, terrorist vulnerability), with AQx AKx Jxx Qxxx, no spot cards. Partner opens 1D in first seat and it goes 3H on your right, your call.

I think this is a very tough problem, you have a good hand, but too much of your strength is in Hearts, and you do not have a 4th Spade or any shape. When I held this hand, I thought the choices were between Double and 3NT. And the problem with a Double is what am I going to do when/if partner bids 4S over it, I will be essentially guessing on where and at what level to play the contract.

I finally decided to just bid 3N at the table, which ended the auction. Partner also had a problem hand, and took a while before passing. We had a long discussion afterwards on what or even should he can bid over 3N, with no firm conclusion. Basically the 3H bid was perfectly timed to give us no room to both show extra values for our previous bidding. Partner held Kxxx x KQTxx AKJ, so slam was a claim, just giving up the A of Diamonds on a perfect fit. We also decided that the most likely person that can move on this hand is this hand, which can bid 4H over 3N, under the assumption that 4N is safe and is to play. On this hand, 4H will easily get us to some slam, pretty much all of which make.

As for the original problem, there was some discussion at the bar after about the merits of Double vs 3N, and a few of the Doublers said that over 4S they would basically give partner a choice of slams, 6D or 6S. I think this is being far too optimistic, what is partner to do after the auction 1D (3H) Double with something like Kxxx x AQxxx Kxx or worse Kxxx x AKQxx xxx except bid 4S, and this will create a very poor slam. The more I think about it, the more I think 3N is the only viable bid over 1D (3H), anything else leaves you really guessing. And if partner can not move over 3N on some hands, you may have to accept that sometimes pre-empts work.

A Difference of Opinion

2010-07-03T17:09:00.000-05:00

Playing in our weekly IMPS game, had the following interesting hand come up. All vul, I picked up AJ2 T863 T9 QJ84 and heard it go 1D by partner in first seat, 1S overcall on my right. This is the poster child for a negative double, and LHO bid 3S, pre-emptive over it. Partner now cue-bid 4S, pass back to me.

I felt I needed to slow the hand down a little here, my values did not appear well placed, so I bid 4N. Since we do not have any suit agreement yet, just values, I hoped this would imply values in Spades. Partner now bid 5C over that, and I felt I had a problem. I assumed from this auction that partner was a good 6-4 or perhaps 5-4 in the minors. My hand was actually not that bad, considering. If partner had a 6-4 hand something like x AK AQxxxx AKxx, then slam was a good prospect. The question was, how much less could he have for the 4S bid and the 5C follow up?

I finally decided that he had to be showing 1 of the very good variations, and raised to 6C, ending the auction. The opening lead was a Spade, and partner won the A while following with a little Spade. He now played the Q of Clubs off dummy, which held, then a small Club to the K and A. Finally, another Club to board, RHO following while LHO pitched a Spade. I thought with bad Clubs, he had to have a great Diamond suit on this hand, but he now ran the 10 of Diamonds, losing to the Q on my right. Back came a Heart, and based on a confidentiality agreement with pard, I will not disclose the rest of the play, other than to say it made 6:)

Turns out partner held x AKQ AJxxx ATxx. I think that is a 4C bid (or double) on this auction, your suits are too poor to force to game, and partner is not shy, will bid most games that have a shot. I think the Q of Hearts has to be in 1 of the minor suits to bid 4S.

It turned out we did not have to bid the poor slam to win the hand though. At the other table, strange things occurred, and when the opponents did not overcall, the auction proceeded 1D-1H-2C(!)-P. So bidding and making game would have won us almost as many IMPS as the slam. This is not something you expect that often, I guess the big hand assumed if partner could not bid over 2C, they were not missing much, but after 1D-1H, I think that hand improves too much not to try 3C.

Are Redoubles Ever Worth It?

2010-06-28T22:06:00.000-05:00

Watching a match between 4 International Players on BBO the other day, I saw a hand that had every type of thing a spectator could want, high level decisions, redoubled contracts, some great and some not so great bids, in other words lots of fun for us. Not quite as sure about the fun level for some of the participants, these kinds of things can make your hair go more grey.

Here is the hand in question.

After 2 passes, East started with a normal 1H, and South overcalled with a normal 2C. West got the excitement started with a nice 4H bid, and North had the first problem of the hand, do you bid with this hand and the bad Spade Suit or not. He finally decided to pass, as did East. And now South surprised North with an unexpected 4S bid. This ran around to East, who made a great defensive bid of 5C, which his partner converted back to 5H, so far so good.

This is where North started to lose his mind, in my opinion. You have heard the cue bid of your partners suit on your left, you have 5 card support for your partners second suit that he freely introduced at the 5 level, hos many black suit winners do you really expect on defense on this hand? I think the clear bid here is 5S, this is IMPS, take out the insurance. But our North doubled, based on his hopefully 2 defensive tricks, and whatever partner could contribute.

And now it was East's turn again. He had got to the position he had wanted to be in, and he is also not sure how many losers he has on this hand, but decided to force the issue with the Redouble. I am not sure if he was not happy here and was hoping to pressure the opps into running, or he really thought he had them. If the latter, why the redouble, how much real defence does he have on this auction, and partner promised negative values on defence with the 4H bid.

Anyways, it appears poor South and East are along for the ride at this point, as it swings back to North, now starting to doubt the soundness of that earlier double. So deciding to finally believe West, he retreats to his undisclosed 5 card support finally. Now West, pleased with his earlier 5C call, setting the defence for the only hope to beat this, doubles, hoping he can get a third trick from somewhere. Perhaps 5H doubled was not so bad after all?

And finally, we come back to North. Having voted for defence, then ran, he now decides that maybe he had a superb hand on offence after all, and he Redoubles this, ending the auction. So a simple hand that should have quickly wound up in 5S doubled, where West gathered a bunch of IMPS based on a great 5C call, got pretty convoluted on the way there.

There was nothing to the play, West ruffed the automatic Club lead, cashed the A of Hearts, and waited for the A of trumps.

But earlier, he had options for a nice easy +650, assuming he picks up the Hearts, which he upgraded and downgraded to +200 (instead of -850 if he bids 5D), and finally was gifted with a free extra +200, to almost break even with anyone allowed to play 4H :)

Blind Spots

2010-06-15T21:34:00.000-05:00

Playing on BBO with a pick up partner in a team game, this interesting hand came up. I held 52 K865 AKQT8 Q7 and opened 1D in first seat. Partner bid 2C over this, and I decided not to get him too excited by bidding 2H and having him interpret this as a reverse, so contented myself with 2D to start. Partner bid 2N over this, and I bid 3N to end the auction. The opening lead was the Q of Hearts, not what I really wanted to see, and these are the 2 hands.

52
K865
AKQT8
Q7

AQ3
32
J65
AJ963

Not that nice spot cards in the Heart suit, but partner decided to duck the Heart lead, and the 10 appeared on his right. RHO now played a small Heart to LHO's A, and the 7 of Spades came back. And here is where partner had his blind spot.

You currently have 8 top tricks, and only have to develop 1 more to make this, at IMPS. So you need to take the safest line. Partner looked that the chance of 1 of 2 hooks working was 75%, and that gave him chances for overtricks (sigh), so put in the Q of Spades here, butchering a nice hand and play. This lost to the K, and the J of Spades came back. The hand played out for a while, and eventually partner played the Q of Clubs off board, making when the K was onside. And not even realizing the problem with the hand.

When the Spade came back, you now have a 100% line of play. Win the A of Spades, play a Diamond to board, and run the Q of Clubs. Even if it loses, they can not attack the Q of Spades, and you have an easy 9 or 10 tricks, with no down side.

It is plays like this that need to be punished with both black K's offside, to teach people about real percentages in bridge. I would rate that if played in a club game, over 90% of the people playing this hand would put in the Q of Spades, and complain about luck if both K's were offside. Then they would ask the lone +400 how they made it when everything was offside, or assume a different lead.

A couple of interesting Grands

2010-06-15T21:22:00.000-05:00

Playing with RH, had a couple of very interesting hands come up, increasing the number of times that I have bid a Grand.

The first, from the recent World Wide Bridge Contest, I thought RH made a couple of truly great bids. I will give his hand as it is the most complicated in the auction. He held --- AKT3 K97 KQT642, and heard the auction start 1H from me, 3S (V vs Not) on his right. His hand is really good at this point, but how to find out about the minors and Hearts sanely? He started with 4C, showing the suit, and forcing, and I raised this to 5C. He now bid 5S, showing the first round control, and I bid 6C. He now bid 6H, which I think shows his hand very well. In fact, this is the auction that Eric Kokish put in his write up about the hand, except for the problem that I contributed.

Back over to my hand, I held Q976 QJ962 A A98, and was trying to figure out what RH could have for this sequence. He had to be looking for a grand here, else why the interesting route to 6H. I did not think that 6H was not a place to play this, we have talked about direct vs indirect auctions before, and I thought he was showing the hand he had. Incidently, I was annoyed with myself when I bid 6C and read the Eric Kokish write up later. He suggested 5N over 5S, hopefully showing the A of Diamonds as a good card. I had thought of that, but decided that playing partner for AK of Hearts, Spade void, and good Clubs was a little too rose coloured glasses, and bid 6C. But now when partner bid 6H, could he have anything less than what he had? If he did, we were going to have to have a discussion about this hand, since not wanting to insult partner here, I raised to 7H. There was nothing to the play, even Clubs split, so claimed very quickly.

Of the 2110 times this hand was played, the grand was bid 198 times, or 9% of the pairs. The worst part is there were 565 pairs that only bid game, and several that did not even bid game on this hand.

The second hand was from our weekly IMPS League game, playing against a good pair. I held AK865 --- AQ983 A95 and heard partner open 1C. I bid 1S over this, and partner bid 2H, the full reverse. Even with no real fit, this was starting to look interesting. I bid 3D (4SF) over 2H, looking for more info, and my LHO doubled this. Partner now bid 3H freely, and I bid 4C, setting trumps. Partner bid 4D over this, and after the double, I assumed this was the void, so I bid 5N, asking about Clubs. Not sure where all 13 tricks are coming from here, but that won't be my problem. Partner thought for a sec and bid 7C over that. The opening lead was the 2 of Clubs, and here are the 2 hands as a play problem.

AK865
---
AQ983
A95

74
AJTxx
---
KQJ865

Partner allowed the Club to go to the 8 in his hand, and thought about options. Without the Club lead, there were 3 Heart ruffs in Dummy, but transportation is a problem. Partner did not look at the hand long enough, and decided to try to set up Spades, playing AK, when the second Spade got ruffed and another Club came back, the hand got ugly quick, and partner eventually drifted off 3 tricks.

I really think this is a neat hand, that has a couple of chances for making, primarily on a squeeze and partial strip. If you plan to ruff 2 Hearts in dummy, you come to 12 tricks, with threats in Spades, Diamonds, and Hearts for the opps to cover in the end position. But you need to ensure that you cash the A of Diamonds early as well, or you will squeeze dummy. It also looks like since the double of 3D, the squeeze might have to operate on your RHO only. There is also 1 other chance that I talked about with partner after.

I think the correct line of play is ruff a Heart, ruff a low Diamond, ruff another Heart, A of Diamonds, and the Q of Diamonds, making RHO cover this with the K. And now the extra chance comes in, RHO started with 10xx of Diamonds, so the 10 drops under the Q and K, making it easy to set up the 98 of Diamonds for trick 13.

It turns out the squeeze does not operate on this hand, so you have to take in the extra chance to make it. At the other table, they stopped in 6C, and also got a Club lead. But something went wrong and they also went down in 6C, cutting the loss on the board to 2 IMPS.

Back from Vacation

2010-06-15T20:53:00.001-05:00

Hey to anyone that was reading this for a while. Sorry for no posts recently, but just got back from 3 glorious weeks cruising and wandering around the Med.

That is an amazing and fantastic part of the world we had never seen before, and totally loved it.

But now I am back, playing bridge again, and will start posting neat stuff again.

David

Lazy Bridge

2010-05-07T15:32:00.000-05:00

Playing with a pick up partner in an IMPS game on BBO a couple of nights ago, I had a very strong demonstration of the variance in the term ‘Expert’. The person I was playing with counted themselves an expert, and for the most part, did quite well. But unfortunately, we had a hand come up that I would describe as beautiful because of it’s grace and timing, but my partner would describe as horrible as he went down in the game we bid.

All vul, with the opps silent throughout, my partner picked up QJ987 AKJ Q83 A9 and opened 1S in first seat. I raised this to 2S and he blasted to 4S, a bid I like since any random 8 count should give you some play. The opening lead was the 10 of Clubs, and dummy appeared with T64 Q A42 QJ8432.

The Club lead removes the possibility of a Club loser, but sets up the worry about a Club ruff. The Club was covered by the J, and after some thought, RHO played low, allowing the J to hold. For now, the main problem is the possibility of 2 Spade and 2 Diamond losers on the hand. The Hearts give a parking spot for the Diamond losers, but with the Club lead, entries are a bit of an issue. The line I like is cash the A of Diamonds, then overtake the Q of Hearts and pitch both Diamonds on the Hearts. Next, ruff a Diamond with the 10 of Spades, and lead a Club to you’re A. If this holds, ruff the last Diamond with the 6 of Spades and claim 5. (Hide the Spade spots as long as possible) If the Club gets ruffed, and they can and do pull trump, you still have 4 losers, but that is unlucky.

At the table, after the J of Clubs held, partner immediately played a trump, which RHO won with the A to play a Diamond through. He went up with the Q (premature) and this was covered with the K and A. Now he played another trump(?), guaranteeing down 1 when they cashed the K of Spades and 2 Diamonds. Even at this point, playing Hearts would have collected 11 tricks when Clubs were 3-2. But playing the 2nd Spade when the Diamonds were open for 2 losers is just being lazy.

The reason I like the hand is the beauty of the timing, you play every side suit card without touching trumps, then wind up with 5 Spades that always play for only 2 losers, whatever you do. The hand becomes so simple and elegant, that you can claim fairly quickly. Watching it get beaten up with a bludgeon was very painful.

Another Forcing Pass

2010-05-06T16:02:00.002-05:00

Had another hand with a difficult forcing pass situation last night in the IMPS Game. Vul vs Not, you hold the following hand, xx AKQxxxx Ax xx and open 1H in first seat. This goes 2D by partner (you are playing 2/1 and this is a full forcing 2D, 3D would be a limited hand with Diamonds). This now goes 2S on your right, and you jump to 4H to (hopefully) show solid Hearts. This now goes 4S on your left, P, P back to you.

First, I think this is clearly a forcing pass situation. You were in a game forcing auction where the opps interfered and then bid on over a game bid. Partner then passed the bid over your game, so I think it is a forcing auction. Now, what is your hand worth. Personally, I think you have an absolute maximum with great cards for your previous bidding. You have the 7th Heart, and the A of Diamonds. For this reason, I would bid 5D with this hand. The 2 losers in each black suit are a worry, but what does partner have to make a forcing pass if you have solid Hearts and that A of Diamonds?

At the table, partner doubled with this hand, stating he had a lot of defense. Not sure I agree with that, and I think we had a disagreement mostly about what the forcing pass meant and entailed. I think it strongly suggests bidding on with a hand that is suitable, basically a hand that probably would have bid again without the opponent’s interference. Partner thought it was a hand that was unsure what to do over the opponents bid. The problem with that interpretation is that there is no way to intelligently bid if that is what you have. If you have the agreement that it always shows a willingness to bid on, but requires a fitting hand, then partner can feel free to safely bid whenever these situations come up. With the other agreement, you are basically going to double on every hand, so what is the purpose.

The actual hand is kind of funny, partner held AT T KT98xxx AKJ, a good hand with bad Diamonds and unsure what to do. I passed the 4S doubled, but we lost 1 trick and only got the hand for +500, not the +800 we can get. Declarer was void in Diamonds, so all slams have the 4-0 Diamond break to content with. Turns out the best place to play the hand is 7NT, since my RHO has the Diamonds and the Club Q, so there is an automatic squeeze for trick 13. At the other table, my RHO did not bid 4S, so my hand was able to bid that, and over the 5D cue-bid, raised to 6D. a contract sort of doomed to failure on the 4-0 trump break, except a funny thing happened to the defense. After a Spade lead and 2 rounds of Hearts pitching the Spade loser, declarer cashed the A of Diamonds to find out the bad news, then instead of trying a legitimate line to make the contract ,either the Q of Hearts to pitch the Club loser, or such, played 3 rounds of Clubs ruffing on board, and played the Q of Hearts now. Our partners, fearing a pitch of a Diamond on this, ruffed it, allowing the slam to make when the second trump trick now vanished. Counting can not be overstated!

Back to the main part of the discussion, what does a forcing pass mean to your partnership, and what do you expect when partner bids on vs doubles?

Chicken at the 5 Level

2010-04-30T14:37:00.000-05:00

Had an extremely interesting hand this week at the Team Game, both from my point of view and my opponents. All Vul, I picked up 953 KQ98 KQT95 A. My RHO opened 2S (alerted) showing 5+ Spades, and a second 5+ card suit, with less than an opening bid. This presents a problem, since if I double, and bid Diamonds over a Club bid from partner, I have shown a lot better hand than I have. And overcalling Diamonds, may lose the Heart suit. At the table, I passed, hoping partner could balance, but after the fact, I feel that overcalling 3D is the lesser of all evils, since at least it gets me involved in the auction with less later guessing. Sigh, pre-empts are there for a reason.

LHO now jumped to 4S, which went P – P to me. This has raised the level of the problem, but actually given me some great information. What I know so far, I assume LHO has 4 Spades for the Vul 4S bid, and I assume he does not have a great hand, he did not ask about his partners second suit. So this leaves me with partner having a few values, and a highly probable stiff Spade. Since I have the KQ in each red suit, the values partner has are either Clubs, a little unlikely since RHO is almost certain to have them and thus (I hope) something in them, or Aces. Since a singleton Spade, 1 Red A, and a red suit fit leaves me with 2 losers on the hand, I bid 4N as TO with 2 suits. This went P, 5D by partner, P back to me, confirming that RHO’s second suit has to be Clubs as well as giving me a place to play. . Not wanting to do the full crazy man play, I passed and the problem reverted to my LHO.

His hand was A984 J2 74 KJ974. At this point in the auction, he is certain that the opps have a Diamond fit, and that his partner probably has Clubs to go with Spades, although that is not certain. But it does point to a probable 2 suited fit by both sides, and that the opps each have a probable singleton in a black suit, so are odds on to make 5D. Backing this judgment, he now bid 5S over 5D, passing the baton to the 5D bidder.

His hand was interesting, x Axxxx AJxxx xx, the question now becomes, should he bid, pass, or double over the 5S bid. Is a pass forcing in this auction, since who is sacrificing here? And what did partner have for the 4N bid. First, I think the pass should be forcing here, it follows standard rules. The opps pre-empted on the hand, and your side voluntarily bid a game, over which the opps bid again in their pre-empt suit. Even if the method of getting to the game was unusual, nonetheless, you did freely bid a game after a pre-empt. Now, do you have enough to pass is the next question. To answer that, what should partner expect from you on this hand. 1 A and the short Spade are probable’s, so is the presence of the second A and the 5-5 enough extras to pass? I think it is a judgment call and really tough in this kind of competitive auction. It turns out that our side can make 6 of either red suit, but after the 2S and 4S bids, that is going to be hard to get to. I would expect it would take superb judgment from a very experienced pair, and even then the final contract would be in doubt till dummy came down. As is, this hand doubled 5S, ending the auction, and beat it -2 for +500, and a 5 IMP loss on the hand.

All in all, a very interesting hand, with pretty good judgment all around. And the opps get full marks for playing a system that allowed them to generate a small swing in their favor with the close possibility of a large swing.

Swiss Fun

2010-04-19T16:41:00.000-05:00

Just finished our local sectional tournament and there were a bunch of interesting hands that came up.

The first was during the KO's and is an exercise in adjusting the worth of a hand during an auction. You start with a very nice hand, AKQJ KQ95 AJ93 7 and open 1D in first seat (sometimes 5 card majors without a strong Roman bid can be interesting). This goes 1H on your left, P, P back to you. My hand has already started downhill, but still too strong to give up on. I thought the choices were an overstrength 1S and a flawed double. I decided to double, hoping I could survive the expected 2C call from partner with 2N. However, over the double, partner bid 1S, passed back to me.

At this time, my hand is decidedly overvalued with the Spade cards and positional Hearts. I actually thought about passing here, since partner having Spades on this auction and passing 1H was a strong warning. But after a little thought, pass was too pessimistic, and I bid 2S. I do not like anything stronger, and I think 2S in this auction should actually show a pretty good hand. Of course, partner was not getting away with any forward movement, she was going to be in game then  But knowing that, she passed 2S.

The play was not that interesting, the opps slipped 1 trick and let partner make 3, the limit of the hand is actually 2S. Partner had a balanced hand, xxxx xxx Qx xxxx, with no spot cards. The opening lead went to the Heart A and the Heart return got ruffed, but the opps erred by signaling for and receiving a Diamond return, allowing partner to win and pull trumps, then they ducked the K of Diamonds when partner led a low Diamond off board.

At the other table, on the same start to the hand, my hand decided they had to have a great hand and raised 1S directly to 4S. This was not doubled, but they found the defense to beat it 2 tricks, for a small pickup.

Next few hands occurred during the swiss teams.

In the first match, I picked up this interesting hand, K KQ953 A98653 7 and decided to open 1H in first seat, to avoid a lot of bidding problems later. The opps were silent and over partners 1S, I bid 2D. Partner now bid 3C (4SF) and I bid 3D, figuring the smallest lie was about shape, rather than start a Diamond and lie about strength. Partner bid 4D over this. We had agreed that over explicit fits, 4 of a minor was BW in the minor, and I thought it should apply here, but we had not talked about this type of auction as an explicit fit (we did later and agreed on it), so I jumped to 6D, hoping for K fourth of Diamonds and any 2 Aces (partner can not have 3 Hearts on this auction). Partner was a good partner, putting down that exact hand, without the 3rd A, so 6D made easily for an 11 Imp win, the opps stopped in 3N at the other table. I do like partners 3C and 4D bids, he had primary support and Aces.

The next hand is from the same match, my LHO held this hand. Jxx AKQ Qx AQJxx Vul vs Not, and opened 1C in second seat. This went 2H on her right, Pass by partner, 3H on her left. After some thought, she doubled 3H, and her partner went 4D, which she passed. Her partner lost 3 Spade tricks and 1 Diamond trick for down 1, but they were cold for a Vul 3N, since her partner had Kxx of Clubs and the A of Diamonds, and the opps can only take 4 Spade tricks, if they lead them. At the table, she stated after the hand she was worried about the Spade suit, so did not bid 3N over 3H. BTW, my partner stated he went into full panic mode after P 1C and he held a Q, so he bid 2H at terrorist vulnerability (white vs red), hoping to make it hard for them to bid a slam.

Next was a difficult problem our opponents had from another match. You hold the following hand with no one vul, A3 AQJT5 K4 AKJ3 and open 2C after a pass on your right. Partner responds 2D showing some values (but no good suit), and over your 2H bid, raises to 3H. At the table, this person now bid 4N and after finding 1 KC, settled in 6H. The opening lead was a small Spade, and dummy put down Jx xxx Ax Qxxxxx. When the K of Hearts was onside but 4th, it was not possible to make the hand in 6H, but as can be seen, 6C is makeable.

At the table after the match was over, we were discussing this hand and thought that if the strong hand bid 4C over 3H, then bid 4N over either 4D or 4H by the other hand, the weaker hand should bid 6C to offer a choice of contracts. The problem with this is that it gives up on 7, and requires partner to have the good Clubs and not solid Hearts, so there is a problem in Hearts. I think standard bidders will always have a problem with this hand, I am sure a relay system that finds out partner has 3 Hearts and 6 Clubs will be able to get to 6C, but most people do not play that sophisticated of a system. At the other table, they play control responses, so the weaker hand bid 2H (not something I like), which now went 3H – 4H – Pass.

Next hand, you hold KJ9752 AQ K62 AT with no one vul, and hear partner open 1D. You bid 1S and partner bids 1N, showing a strong NT (15-17). You are now going to play in at least 6S on this hand, the question is, should you try for 7 with an upper limit of 34 on the hand. The 6th Spade and the fact partner opened 1D are plus factors, while the flat hand opposite flat hand with 6-8 HCP missing are negative factors. I eventually just bid 6S on the hand, since I was not sure how I can KC to find out about both the Q of Diamonds and Spades. In retrospect, I do not like my bid, since something like AQ Kxx AQxxx xxx, a minimum, gives me excellent play for the grand on almost any lead. The question is, how to find out about both Q’s without going past 6S. I don’t have any foolproof methods at this time. If I can force partner to KC in one of the suits, in theory he will be looking at the Q’s, and can decide. To do that, I will have to set Spades as trump (2D-?-2S) and then start cue-bidding. I suppose that has the best chance. On this hand, I was lucky, and it did not matter. Partner held AQ Kxx Axxxxx QJ. The 3rd Diamond was in the same hand as the K of Clubs, so the show up squeeze worked to make 7. At the other table, partners hand jumped to 3D over 1S, and they subsequently did bid the grand, but in Diamonds, where they had a trump loser, so we luckily won a bunch of IMPS.

The final slam decision I had was with J3 KQJ95 Q6 A942 all Vul. Partner opened 1S, and with the opps silent throughout, I bid 2H (GF). Partner now bid 3D, which we play does not show extras, but will not be a bad opener. I did not like the lack of fits, and bid 3N to slow the auction down and give a possible out. But partner bid 4D over that, showing the serious 2 suiter. I bid 4S over that, since my hand has been going downhill this entire auction, and partner made 1 more move with 5S (!) Now, A, what is that, and B, is my hand worth anything.

I finally decided that he was asking for stuff basically in his 2 suits, with maybe some consideration for A’s outside. The problem was, if he was going on because of my 2H call to start, say with 1 or 2 Hearts, I did not have the A in that suit. But I did have the A of the probable suit to be led, and I had a card in each of his suits, so this was presenting itself as a real problem. I finally decided that this looked a lot like a 4 or 6 hand, where it might be on a hook, and if so, I did not want to be in no-man’s land, so took the crazy push to 6S. As expected, the opening lead was a Club, allowing partner to pitch his singleton Heart on the A, and take the Diamond hook. When this was onside, he cashed the A of Spades, dropping the Q, and claimed. His hand was AKTxxxx x AJT98 ---. Not a slam of beauty, but it was a lucky day all around, and this was another in our favour.

All in all, we bid or defended 6 slams over the course of 54 boards, a fairly high percentage, and wound up with a slam swing in our favour on every one. Some of them were not that deserving, but they were interesting boards.

How Good

2010-04-11T15:20:00.000-05:00

This hand came up playing in a P/U team match this weekend. No one vul, you pick up A32 AQ7642 A K87 and open 1H in first seat. Partner bids 2C over this, and you decide to jump to 3H, over which partner bids 4H, now what?

First, I think I would have bid 2H over 2C, I want to see what partner is going to do, but over 4H, the question is, do you bid again. I think the answer has to be yes, you have every control in the deck, and partner made the 2/1 in the suit you wanted it in, Clubs. Any kind of decent Club suit, with the K of Hearts and 1 or 2 backers, has to give you good play for slam. Opposite a hand like xxx Kxx xx Axxxx, you will not have play on a Spade lead, but even opposite that, you would have play on a Diamond lead, and that is about worst case.

At our table, this hand passed over the 4H bid, and his partner put down Qxx Kxx QTx AQJx, for a claimer 6. Not sure what that hand was supposed to do different over 3H, since looking at 2 quick losers in each side suit with a flat hand, needs a very good hand from partner to make a slam. And with that good of a hand, the other hand should be going on.

At the other table, the auction was funny, but worked out for them, and they will consider themselves great bidders. On the same auction, the 2C hand bid 4N over the 3H bid, then bid 6H. Since it turned out everything worked, it made, but I think the 4N/6H bids are losing bids in the long run.

An Unusual Ruff

2010-03-25T11:15:00.000-05:00

Playing in our weekly IMPS League Wed Night, I had a situation come up that I think is unique in my too long bridge history. I opened 1 of a major (not a psyche), wound up playing in the other major, and scored a ruff of the first major in my hand as the contract going trick.

With no one Vul, I picked up this hand in 3rd seat, K432 AQ87 Q42 85 and heard it go 2 passes to me. I don’t normally like to open that light, even in 3rd seat, but wanted to get in the majors if possible, so opened 1H. This went 2D on my left (so much for even holding a bad opener) and partner made a neg double, passed back to me. I had an easy 2S bid, which partner raised to 3S, ending the auction. The opening lead was the Q of Spades (ouch) and this dummy appeared, A875 953 K2 QJT4, not bad, but this is still going to need some work. I actually agree with 3S by pard, since I do not tend to open light in third seat, he has a good hand, it was my problem for doing it this time.

I won the K of Spades in my hand, did not want to duck in case that was a singleton, and led a Club out of my hand. LHO won the K of Clubs, while RHO played the 2, and continued with the 10 of Spades to the A on board, RHO following. I continued the Q of Clubs off board and LHO won the A (Nice Hand) and led out the J of Spades, RHO pitching a Diamond. Finally, LHO exited a Club to board, RHO following. I pitched my 2 little Hearts on the 2 Clubs, hooked the Heart (LHO at least did not have that card as well) and claimed, giving up a Diamond to the A to LHO and ruffing the losing Heart on board in my hand, after having opened 1H.

The other nice hand was a great defense by my partner. I held K98 QT52 K983 64 all Vul and heard it go a Strong (15-17) NT on my left, passed to me. Not liking total suicide bids, I asked partner to lead, and got the 4 of Spades (3 and 5). Dummy tracked with QJ6 J843 75 K752 and declarer put up the Q of Spades, covered by the K and A. Declarer played a med Club to the K and back to the 10 and Partners J, after some thought, partner played the 10 of Spades, which held the trick. Next, partner led the 2 of Spades to the J on Board, declarer also following. When Declarer now played a small Club off board, I played a small Diamond (lavinthal), indicating a preference for a Heart switch. This went to the Q and partners A, and partner cashed the 13th Spade, with all 3 of us pitching small Hearts. Now partner made a great play of the K of Hearts, which declarer won with the A, and led his remaining small Club to the 7 on board, partner pitching a small Heart while I threw a second Diamond. When declarer came off board with a little Diamond, I flew with the K and declarer won the A (not wanting to be endplayed into playing Hearts from my side). A small Diamond went to my partners Q, and I claimed the last 2 tricks with the QT of Hearts over the J, for down 1.

Teams Action

2010-03-23T15:15:00.001-05:00

Playing with a good partner in a team game on BBO, had the following 2 interesting hands come up. First, you pick up 983 A AKJT753 J3, All Vul, and open 1D in first seat. This goes P and pard jumps to 4S, P back to you, so now what.

I know this is a sign-off in Spades, but I have an awful good hand in support of Spades, basically a 2 loser hand. If partner has AK 7th of Spades and a singleton Club, then slam is a pretty good option. So the question is, do you proceed forward and if so, how. Answering the second and easier question first, if I am going to bid, I would bid 5H over 4S. This has to be a cue-bid in support of Spades, else why introduce a new suit at the 5 level, and would let partner decide somewhat intelligently based on his Club holding (I hope). That is, if it is read correctly, I have played in these kind of less than elegant contracts at the 5 level before.

But back to the first part of the question, should I bid on. I think this is the tougher question and is based on how much you really trust partners bid. I think the bid should show solid or semi-solid Spades, and no control in any outside suits, basically 2+ losers in each. Otherwise there is no intelligent way for partner to bid. If that is the case, I should not bid on, since I do not have control of all outside suits, and my 5H bid would pinpoint the problem to the opps. After some anguish, I did pass at the table, and the opening lead was a Club, the opps cashing 2 Clubs winners and partner claiming right after with AKQJxxx xxx x xx, about what he should have.

The second hand, you hold QT62 AQ K7 A7432 No one Vul, and hear it go P – P – 2S to you. I thought the options here were P and 2N, I did not plan on doubling and hear partner jump in Hearts, or bid 3C on that suit. P is probably the better call on this hand, if partner can not act, you will stay out of the trouble you might get into over 2N, and if partner has enough to act over 2N, he will balance with a Double on many hands. With all that, I decided to bid 2N anyways, and partner raised this to 3N, ending the auction. The opening lead was the Q of Clubs, and partner put down a nice hand K KTxxx Q9xx Kxx, looks like passing 2S would have definitely worked well, but we are in 3N.

I played low on the Q of Clubs, planning on ducking it to start, and RHO played the 9 of Clubs on it. Wanting to help them a little with their signalling, I played the 4 of Clubs, and LHO continued the J of Clubs. I played the K on that, and RHO surprised me by also following, giving me 4 Club tricks to start. Communications were going to be interesting on this hand since most values and tricks were in short suits, so I decided to start unblocking with the K of Spades, figuring if RHO won the A, any shift would be good. Sure enough, he won and played a low Diamond. That got me up to trick 8 with no problems, but I needed to work out number 9 now, the K of Hearts could provide it, but communication was going to be a problem. This is where I did not do well on the hand. I need to try and force a late entry to dummy, so I should rise with the K of Diamonds, hoping that LHO wins it. If he returns a Diamond, I am back to the same position, but any other return leaves me with 9 tricks now.

LHO inserted the 10 of Diamonds, and I won the Q, even though in retrospect it is probably better to duck this. Now I was on board and decided to see what the opps would pitch on the Clubs, so I ran the 3 Club tricks, pitching 2 Hearts from board, and coming down to this position and needing 4 more tricks.

---
KTx
9xx
---

QTx
AQ
K
---

LHO had pitched a Spade and a Heart on the Clubs, while RHO pitched 2 Spades and a Heart. I assumed now that LHO was down to Jxx of Hearts and AJx of Diamonds, while RHO maintained Jxx of Spades with 1 Heart and 2 Diamonds. Playing for that, I cashed the 2 Hearts, the J did not appear and RHO pitched a Spade, then the Q of Spades, on which LHO threw a Diamond, and finally the K of Diamonds. All was going well until RHO won the A of Diamonds (oops), cashed the J of Spades and exited a Diamond. The lack of the K of Diamonds play should have cost me, but LHO, in a fit of sleepiness and generosity, threw the J of Diamonds on the J of Spades instead of the J of Hearts, and let the 9 of Diamonds score the last trick for making.

Partly OK played, but not thinking on the nice small Diamond return by RHO when in with the A of Spades should have cost me. I kept assuming that LHO had the A of Diamonds and was on his way to being endplayed, but there is still no reason not to play the K of Diamonds and start to find out. On this hand, when it wins, I have a better assumption of the correct position of the Diamonds, and can easily end-play RHO for trick 9 by ducking a Diamond after cashing out.

A Proper Expert

2010-03-19T09:36:00.000-05:00

Playing with a new person from Canada in a pick up game last night, I got reminded that the term ‘Expert’ is vastly overused on BBO. This lady describes herself as Advanced on her Bio, but she was far more of a pleasure to play with and way mode advanced than a lot of Experts I have played with, I hope I get the chance to have another game with her.

The board that most impressed me was a tough contract I placed her in, that she handled very well. (I only overbid a little, honest) I held the following hand, with no one vul, AT86 AJ953 AQ95 --- and heard partner open 1D in first seat, a definite good start. I bid 1H and partner bid 1N, so I reversed into 2S, trying to create a forcing auction, and partner jumped to 3N, I assumed showing a min, with at least some wastage in Clubs, and probably somewhere around a 2254 or 3244 type hand. I persisted with 4D, and partner bid 4S, which I hoped and assumed was encouraging, so ended the auction with a jump to 6D. The 4S bid and lack of any Club bids were the encouraging things partner had done. Now all my advanced level partner (I had looked previously) had to do was make the contract I had dumped her in.

The opening lead was a small Diamond, and she held QJx Kx KT8x QTxx, a min, but some nice cards in our 3 suits, and the non-Club lead actually helps the timing now. She let the Diamond ride to the 8 in her hand and set about on the side suits immediately, not pulling trump as I feared she might. The Q of Spades lost to the K on her right, and a Diamond came back to the J and boards A. She now played a Heart to the K and back to the A (I assumed to ruff 1-2 Hearts, rather than try to guess the Q), and the Q dropped on her right. Ruff a Heart high, pull the last trump, and claim. I thought her timing on a tough hand was excellent and congratulated her on her timing and line of play on the hand. At the other table, the auction started the same, except after 2S, the other hand bid 2N, my hand bid 3D, and the other hand jumped to 6D (!). This caused my hand to start thinking, and he went on to 7D, down 1.

The next hand, partner held KQTx QJxx Jx Axx and over 1D – 1H by the opponents, came in with a 1S bid, that bought the hand. The opening lead was the 10 of Hearts and dummy came down with 98x xxx A10xxx Jx. The AK of Hearts were cashed on her right, and a third Heart ruffed by LHO. LHO cashed the A of Spades, and switched to the K of Clubs. She allowed this to hold, won the Q of Clubs with the A, and ruffed a Club on board. Now when she played a Spade to her K, LHO showed out, leaving her with these cards, QT Q Jx --opposite 9 – Atxx -- with the lead in her hand, for a fun ending. She played the J of Diamonds letting it ride, losing to the Q, but now when a Club came back, she lost control of the hand and went down 1. I told her after, if she cashed the Q of Hearts, A of Diamonds, and exited a Diamond, she must win the last 2 tricks to make the hand exactly, sort of a trump coupe aided by the opps.

Another point that I hound on, but it is important, you can get a pretty good inferential count on this hand at this point. You know that RHO has 4 Hearts and 4 Spades, and RHO opened 1D with 9 cards in the minors. If LHO has 2 Diamonds, then RHO opened 1D with 4 Diamonds and 5 Good Clubs, not impossible, but more probable that Clubs are 4-4, making RHO either 4414 or possibly 4405. In either case, you need to get your A of Diamonds before it is not available.

Many Interesting Occurrences – 1 Hand

2010-03-11T11:06:00.000-06:00

Had the following hand occur last night in our IMPS game. It was amazing to watch all of the things that happened on just 1 hand. I held the following: K 9xx ATxx QJTxx with no one vul and passed in second seat. Partner opened 2C in fourth seat and when RHO passed again, I bid 2D, which we play shows real values with no good single suit (would have shown the Clubs if I had 6). This was doubled on my left and partner now bid 2S. I bid 3C and partner bid 3S.

At this point, I like my hand, I just wish I had a second Spade to go with the K. But with partner rebidding the suit, I thought the K was worth more than 2 or 3 small, so I cue-bid 4D, hoping partner would appreciate the joke. Partner bid 4H and I signed off in 4S, assuming if he did not bid again, I was not going anywhere. Partner now came up with a 5C bid.

I was fairly sure partner did not have great Clubs on this hand, since he did not raise them at any point. But I wanted to offer a choice of contracts, hoping partner could read I had decent Clubs and short but good Spades (that is a real reach to hope that, but hey) and bid 6C. Partner thought about this a while, and finally passed 6C, and my RHO led the K of Diamonds (!). This was partners hand, AQJT9x KQT Qx AK. I have to admit I would have passed 4S on the hand with the Qx of Diamonds, but the Club cards are nice and I did show a good hand with a Diamond control.

The problem now was 6C, and although the Diamond K had set up the Q, it had severed late entries to the board. Nice to be in 6C instead of 6S on that lead though. In 6S on the K of Diamonds lead, you really have no play, the Clubs are cut off, and playing a Heart allows my LHO to win the A and give his partner a Diamond ruff. You gotta love that double of 2D on 5 or 6 to the J, it was certainly effective. But back to the play in 6C, partner won the A of Diamonds, led to the A and K of Clubs, which got interesting when my LHO pitched a Diamond on the second Club, then back to the K of Spades to pull trump.

Now for the second interesting part, instead of dumping the 3 Hearts on the Clubs and leading back to the Q of Diamonds to claim 7, how about we throw the 10 of Hearts and the AQ of Spades (for dramatic effect) on the Clubs, and lead a Heart off board for making 6 (!) At IMPS it does not really matter, especially when the opps at the other table stopped in 4S, making 7 when our partner could not find the inspired singleton K of Diamonds lead to cut off dummy at trick 1.

Just another ordinary hand.

3NT Woes

2010-03-05T12:57:00.000-06:00

Playing in a pickup team game on BBO last night, I had 2 very interesting 3N hands that I would really to have done better on. I guess I was very much in Zia’s heat 3 mode, since I worked out what the opponents had to hold, what the probability of them holding that was, how I had to make it, did not do that, and managed to butcher both of the hands, somewhat to my partners dismay.

First hand, Vul vs Not, you hold this nice collection AQ2 AKQ9 KT7 AJ4 and open 2C in second seat after a Pass, planning to rebid 2N on the hand. Your LHO kind of gets involved with a pre-emptive 3D, which gets passed back to you. The 2 options here look like double and 3N, and I finally decided on the latter due to the vulnerability and flatness of my hand, and not wanting partner to have to play 3N, if that is the final resting place, on a Diamond lead through my hand.

The opening lead was the J of Diamonds and this hand hit from partner T987 Jxxx xxx Tx, not the world’s fair, but a couple of useful spot cards, just have to figure out how to use them. If I win this, I have 7 winners, and if the Spade hook is on, up to 8. I figured that I needed 1 of the KJ of Spades on my right, or the KQ of Clubs there, or a Diamond Ax or Qx there, to have a chance. But when RHO played a low Diamond on the first trick, the option of his having honor doubleton, as remote as it was with the 3D bid, went out the window, I was going to have to rely on 1 of the other scenarios. Problem was, in blissful ignorance, loving the smoothness of my deceptive play, I decided to duck the Diamond lead, whereupon LHO switched to a Heart, making the full punishment play. When RHO played low, at least I won the A, not the 9, and ran 4 rounds of Hearts ending on board, LHO starting with 2 and making 2 Diamond pitches, RHO pitching a Spade. I now led the 7 of Spades off board, and when RHO played low, made the silly play of the Q of Spades, hoping he started with 3-4 Spades. This held, but LHO pitched a Diamond on the A of Spades, and when the smoke cleared. I was down 2 on a hand it is hard to work out a way to go down on. Everything was as I hoped, RHO had KJxxx xxx x KQxx, so almost any reasonable line makes 9 tricks, mine took 7.

So with that over, I picked this up on the next hand, NV vs Vul, AKT73 A2 AQ73 A4 and opened 2N in first seat. The opps were silent and partner transferred to Hearts with 3D and then bid 3N over my 3H bid. I finally decided to leave this in 3N on the hand, and got the Q of Spades opening lead. Partner put down xx KTxxx Jxx Qxx and RHO followed with the 4 of Spades to the first trick. They were playing UDAC signals, so I played the 3 of Spades on that, too let LHO know his partner did like Spades. Sure enough, a small Spade came back and RHO pitched a small Club, while I won the 10 of Spades.

I now had lots of options for some more tricks, setting up Hearts, setting up Diamonds, the 1 thing I did not want to try was the Club suit, I decided the small Club was an honest card and I was going to play RHO for the K of Clubs for the time being. As I said, I was not doing while on the thinking department, so instead of playing the Q of Diamonds out of my hand to try and set up Diamonds, and to keep options open for later by possibly setting up a late Heart entry, I played a Diamond to the J, losing to the K on my right, and back came another Diamond. I won the A of Diamonds, cashed the Q of Diamonds, and LHO threw a Club, so no 3-3 Diamond break.

At this point, I am up to 8 tricks, with an endplay leading to a Club winner the best chance for 9, with a possibility of a third Heart trick also in the mix. I think that at this point, cashing the 2 winning Hearts, and then throwing RHO in with a Diamond gave me the most options, but instead I immediately threw RHO in with that Diamond, and since I had not done any stripping in Hearts, he led 1, threatening my communications. So I won the A of Hearts, and cashed the AK of Spades, RHO throwing a Club and a Heart, as did Dummy. At this point, I convinced myself that RHO was down to Kxx of Clubs and a Heart honor, so I should throw him in by ducking a Heart and let the forced Club return run to the Q. But I finally convinced myself this was wrong again, played a Heart to the K, dropping the Q, and a Heart to LHO’s J, who cashed the Spade, and led a Club finally, with RHO having the K, so down 1, sigh. I was right at each stage, and did not play accordingly, that is really annoying. Like I said, when you are in Heat 3, just go with the flow, do not try to think, because every thing you think of will be wrong.

Turns out we won the stupid match in spite of me. We only lost 7 IMPS on those 2 boards, instead of winning 20, and then won the match on the last 3 boards. First, the opps with our cards at the other table doubled 3H holding Kx in Hearts and some scattered values, and it made, then did not push to a bad but makeable 4H, and my partner made an inspired trump guess in 3H on the last board to make it for the final 1 IMP pickup.

How Good is Your Hand?

2010-03-02T10:25:00.000-06:00

Playing IMPS the other night, I had this hand come up, with no one vul. I held 9x Kxx AQx KJ9xx and opened a 12-14 HCP 1NT in first seat. Partner bid 2H, transferring to Spades, and I dutifully bid 2S, which I like to play denies any really great interest in Spades, certainly true with my hand. Partner then bid 3C, which is natural and GF, and created a problem for me.

I really like my hand in support of Clubs, it is worth more than the 13 HCP it started life with, but is partner looking for game or something more. If partner has any slam interest, my hand is really good, but if he is only interested in game, I would like to suggest 3N rather than 5C. For this reason, I finally decided to bid 3N, since I had values in both red suits. I could have cuebid 3D, but that has a chance of getting us to 5C with my Heart card being led through if partner has nothing in Hearts. If you are playing with a regular partner, do you have a method of showing primary Club support, but stoppers in both side suits, like in this hand, below 3N?

I was really hoping partner could bid over 3N, and he did, coming through with 4C. Now my hand has grown up, and playing a little catch up, I cue bid 4D. Partner cue bid 4H, and I think I dropped the ball here. I would have liked to bid 4N (DI), but I was not playing with a regular partner, and I assumed he would take it as RKC, something I did not want to do. After the fact, I think I should have bid 6C now, since my hand has to be perfect for partner, but I chickened out and only bid 5C. Thankfully, partner liked my 4D bid enough to raise to 6C, and pretty well claimed at trick 1 when nothing got ruffed. Partners hand was KQxxx Ax K AQxxx, so there was not much to the play of the hand. I think this is the kind of hand partner should have for 4C and 4H, which is why I was annoyed at myself for only bidding 5C, I put a lot of pressure on partner to raise to 6C. If he did not have the K of Diamonds, he might not, and it was really not necessary to making 6C.

At the other table, they bid to 6NT (unknown auction, although it probably started similar since they also play a weak NT), a contract I can see my hand wanting to get to to protect the red suit holdings. The problem with 6NT is that it is basically a straight 50-50 shot at winning 2 IMPS for 990 - 920 vs losing 14 IMPS when the A of Spades is offside, since with no Spade spot cards, there is no other source for a 12th trick. Fortunately for their side, the A of Spades was onside today, so the other team won 2 IMPS.

Imps Strategy - Pressure the Opps

2010-03-01T16:00:00.000-06:00

Playing IMPS in our Wed League, an interesting situation came up that I have seen a few times before, but that rarely seems to be used as effectively as it should be. Everyone Vul, you hold J9xx x KQT9xx xx. The auction proceeds 1H on your left, Double by partner, 2D (alerted) on your right. 2D turns out to be a good Heart raise, to be expected from your hand.

At this point, I know quite a bit about the hand, some of it the opps know, some of it they do not. First, they have a 9-11 card fit, depending on how many Hearts partner has, I will assume for the time being a 10 card fit on average. Second, they have a double fit (highly likely) in Clubs and Hearts, to go with our double fit in Spades and Diamonds. Third, the 6th Diamond in my hand, along with virtually no values outside of Diamonds, adds up to a -1 or -2 trick defensive value, in other words, my hand will detract from partners defensive tricks, not add to it. Now to what the opps don’t know, they do not know they have a double fit, and they do not know the size of their Heart fit, since it could be on an 8 or 9 card fit, the extra 2 card chances are known to me due to my shortness in Hearts and my partners probable shortness based on the TO double.

The thing I do know, is I do not want the opps to have any room to find out the information that is currently known to me. If they find out about the double fit and size of the Heart fit, there is no way we will buy this hand, they could be cold for a slam based on my hand.

So at the table I jumped to 4S at this point, based on our double fit and wanting to apply maximum pressure on the opps. I do not feel any number of Diamonds will help us, we are not taking any tricks in Diamonds, we will not play there, and if you bid Diamonds now, and then Spades, the opps may define that a double fit our way strongly implies a double fit their way, increasing the value of secondary cards in Clubs. A possible action by LHO if I double or bid 3D is for him to make a 3C or 4C bid, showing where his length is. Now it might not be possible to shut RHO out of the hand.

The 4S bid bought the hand at our table, primarily due to my partner having a lot of Aces. The opening lead was a Diamond, and he put down ATxx Axx Jxx Axx. The Diamond A was won on my right, a Diamond returned for LHO to ruff, and the K of Clubs return guaranteed 1 down at this point. But the ruff in Diamonds guaranteed that there was no way for them to go down in 4H, which was bid and made at the other table, for a substantial pickup our way.

This hand is all about pressure and determining early what the opps probably hold, and how the auction is likely to go. It turns out the 4S bid was enough here, since my partner had 3 tricks against 5H, but without 1 of the Aces, we still have a good sack and 5H will now make.

The last time I got to do something like this, with 4 Spades and a hidden 6 card minor in my hand, was substantially funnier. Similar auction, with a leap to 4S, except LHO led the doubleton in my suit, RHO winning the A and returning the suit. Now when I gave up a trump trick to RHO, LHO pulled out a trump preparing to ruff the opening lead suit, as RHO led their suit to get in for the ruff his way. There was a lot of laughing after when I ran the hidden 6 card suit they had set up, pitching several losers from dummy.

What does a 4S bid look like?

2010-02-22T13:01:00.001-06:00

Playing IMPS on BBO last night, I had a bizarre reaction from one of my opps to a bid I made. I still think I would do the same thing next time it comes up, but I was essentially told I was crazy. But then some of the people I play with know that, so perhaps they are right after all.

Anyways, NV vs Vul, I held QT9xxxx --- A8xxx x in first seat. Some people like to pass with these hands, and back into the auction later, but I have never been a member of that camp. I truly hate allowing the opps to exchange any information at a level they are comfortable with, when I can prevent that. I believe most decent or good opps will not commit unforced errors very often, you have to remove them from their comfort zones as quickly as possible, to cause more interesting things to happen, some good, some not so good. So enough soap box standing. I did not think 3S was much of a pre-empt with this hand and this vulnerability, I really did not want to defend 4H, and I was not going to bid again if I opened 3S, so decided to take the full monty route and open 4S on the hand. This went all pass and the opening lead was a small Diamond.

Dummy hit with a VERY nice hand for me, KJxx xx J9x AJxx, nice offense and not too much defense, unless something weird happened, I should have some play for this (Diamond lead is unexpected but certainly helpful) and not much could hurt 4H. But when dummy came down with the KJxx in Spades, my LHO piped up with a quick comment about what kind of 4S bid did I have when dummy had those Spades, and what kind of person was I. I played low on the first Diamond, and won RHO’s welcome K of Diamonds with the A, looking very good now. So not being able to resist temptation, I sent back a message about ‘You have not seen anything yet’, as I played a Spade to the K and RHO’s A, LHO showing out. This sent LHO into a frenzy, calling me an crazy and not knowing what I was doing at all.

I ruffed the Heart return, pulled the last trump, led a Diamond towards board, and claimed 5 when LHO won the Q of Diamonds. LHO did not say much after that. It turns out that 5H is easy to make, since I can not ruff the Club, so it looked like this must be a decent board, wrong! At the other table, my hand believed in the pass and get back in later philosophy. So it now went P, 2H, DBL(!), 4H back to him (nice double opposite a passed hand). He easily went to 4S, which his RHO now bid 5H over, this was passed to his partner who bid again with 5S(!), and this was doubled to end the auction. Since that K of Diamonds was singleton, it is virtually impossible to go down in 5S with any reasonable Diamond play, and this was not an unreasonable day. So we would up losing 5 IMPS on the board because our opps were forced to sack at the 5 level when we were not, usually a good thing, but not today, sigh.

Incidentally, I would probably not pass with my RHO's hand in balancing seat, even if I might go for a number Vul vs Not, too much chance you are being taken. He held Ax KQxxx K KTxxx. I would have bid 4N, trying to indicate I have 2 places to play the hand. Not sure it would have mattered, I assume my partner would have bid 5S over 5H, and we may have then pushed the board. But I do not like Pass with that hand.

There was also a funny thing that happened later in the match. I picked up xx JTxx Qx A9xxx all Vul and heard the auction go 1N on my right, 3N on my left, P P back to me. I was moving the mouse to the P icon, but passed over the double icon on the way there. My laptop sometimes has phantom mouse clicks when over a hyperlink, and this proved to be one of those time, I doubled 3N with this hand. Since the game had no undo’s, I was now stuck, sigh. So I led a small Club, and dummy hit with Qxx in Clubs and a Good 3NT. To make a long story short, declarer put up the Q, partner won the K, cashed the J of Clubs (I ducked since I still needed him to have another), and led the 10 of Clubs back, down 1. I actually apologized to the opps for this, saying what had happened and that it did not deserve to be rewarded. This got a chuckle out of both opps, who were good about it, apparently they had had it happen before as well, perhaps not being as lucky. The double turned out not to matter, contract did, our partners wound up in 4S making, when my LHO’s hand, with 4333, decided to Stayman, found the 44 Spade fit, and bid 4S instead of the normal 3N.

Weak NT Theory

2010-02-18T16:29:00.001-06:00

Had 2 hands at the team game yesterday that brought up a question on when to and when not to open a Weak NT if you are playing them. Both hands had virtually duplicate distribution and HCP, but I opened 1 of them 1N and the other 1C, my opponent at the other table opened both 1N. Just for my own piece of mind and to see if anyone agrees with my reasoning, I was going to present my arguments for the 2 points of view with the 2 hands.

To start, the 2 hands were

AQx Qx Qx A97xxx
Kx KJx Jx AJ9xxx

As can be seen, both have the flaw of having a 6 card minor, usually something that stops the 1N consideration.

On the first hand, I considered the Q’s a major feature of the hand. They provided effective tenaces in 3 suits, and favoured playing the hand from my side, to allow them to be led into. This swayed me into opening 1N on the hand, which made the auction simple when partner bid 3N. I will talk about the actual hands later, since they are not the main part of the discussion.

The second hand, I think anyways, is quite a bit different. The better Club suit, and the K’s instead of Q’s, lend themselves more to a suit contract, and although you may want to protect your K’s on opening lead, there seemed more chances for other contracts. And since I do not like violating the no 6 card suit for 1NT rule that often, I decided to open this hand 1C.

I think one of the things you should look for when deciding what side to play NT contacts from is the presence of Q’s in the hand, especially doubleton Q’s. This 1 is very close, and could be as much personal style as anything, but I try to apply certain rules to when I will violate any agreements, such as opening an offshape 1N like these 2 hands.

The first hand was funny more in the play and comments at the table. I got a small Heart lead (3rd and 5th), and the 2 hands were.

Kxx Kxx Kxx KQ8x
AQx Qx Qx A97xxx

I let the Heart ride around to my Q, which won the trick, and played a Club to the K, both following. When my RHO showed out on the Q of Clubs, my LHO joked that this hand was proof against even my declarer abilities, prompting a rude comment from my RHO on opening 1N with a 6 card minor. The hand basically plays itself, run the 9 black suit winners, coming down to Kx of Hearts and K of Diamonds on board, and x Qx in my hand, and exit a Diamond to the K, then wait for the 11th trick from 1 of the opps. Even my RHO at the time agreed that my hand should probably open 1N, not much else looks right. This turned out to be a push board, mostly as expected.

On the second hand, a lot more fireworks ensued. After opening 1C, my LHO jumped to 2S, and partner bid 3S, essentially asking for a Spade stopper. RHO now bid 4D, lead directional with Spade support, so I passed, as did LHO, and partner bid 4H. Rho now showed really good Spade support with 4S, and since I was now sure my partner had Clubs and I did not like the prospects against 4S on this auction, I bid 5C. This went 5D by LHO, double by partner, 5S on my right. And now I tried to have a senior moment, sigh. Looking at the multitude of bidding cards on the table, I went and forgot that my partner had doubled 5D, not the 5S bid, and I passed, instead of doubling, thinking that we were already in 5S doubled. Partner thought about this for a while, and bid 6C, ending the auction. The opening lead was a small Diamond and this dummy came down.

x Axxx Kx KQTxxx
Kx KJx Jx AJ9xxx

We have Clubs sewn up, but no def tricks available there, and it actually looks like on some hands we would need to take 3 Heart tricks to even beat 5S. So I played low on the Diamond at trick 1, thinking even my current LHO, known to underlead A’s a lot, would not do so on this hand, and RHO won the A of Diamonds, and cashed the A of Spades, oh well, so much for 5S. Switch the A of Spades and Q of Diamonds, and we can never beat 4S, and have to be lucky to beat 5, with the opps announced double fit.

When RHO showed up with the Club, I decided the Hearts were probably 3-3, the only thing that made much sense, so played the straight up finesse, which worked, so only down 1.

There are a bunch of points on this hand, first, after 1C (2S), partner and I both agreed, after the fact, that 4S is probably a better bid to describe the companion hand. You do not want to allow your LHO to be able to announce the fit they have or any defensive bids such as happened. Second, although I should have doubled 5S, we were not sure that the other hand should go on. You need good Clubs, very good Heart support, and first round control in Diamonds to go with the announced (by the pass of 5S), duplicated second round control of Spades.

That does not forgive the dumb pass of 5S though, that is a good part of what started the last part of the problem. At the other table, my hand decided to open a weak NT, and our partners hand, with 6-4 in Spades and Diamonds, decided not to make an overcall. So the companion hand jumped to 3N, and it made comfortably after the Spade lead.

I still think that 1C is the correct bid, and in theory it should have worked out here. We should have been defending 5S doubled while our partners got to play it in 4S doubled, since without the knowledge of the Club fit, it will be hard now for either hand to bid 5C. But instead, we managed to lose 13 IMPS on the board :)

Bridge is a Spectator Sport

2010-02-17T12:15:00.000-06:00

I got to watch 4 hands that decided a team match last night, all controlled by 1 person on the team.

First hand, NV vs Vul, you hold 3 AKJT2 Q9753 Q2 and open 1H after a pass on your right. It goes 1S on your left, P by partner, 2H (good Spade raise) on your right. You decide to double this instead of bidding 3D, and it goes 2S on your left, P, 4S back to you. Guess it is time to introduce Diamonds, so you wander back in with 5D, which goes P, 5H by partner, double on your right, ending the auction. The opening lead is the A of Spades, and partner tables J542 984 T64 863. The defence is pretty nasty, but at then end, you are down to A of Hearts and the 975 of Diamonds, with only the 8 out (they screwed up taking a Diamond with the J) and 2 Hearts and 1 Diamond on board. You decide to try to cash the A of Hearts instead of starting with the 9 of Diamonds, and then find out Hearts were 4-1, allowing you to go for the full -1400 on the hand.

Second hand, All Vul, you hold J9742 Q73 K5 K63 and hear partner open 1C, RHO overcalling 1NT. You decide to double this, since your side should have half the deck, and it goes 2C on your left, double by partner, 2H on your right. In the spirit of the hand, you double this as well, ending the auction. You lead the 3rd best Club, and dummy tracks with T53 JT86 Q8742 8. Partner wins the A of Clubs and shifts to the K of Spades, which declarer wins with the A while you encourage with the 7. Declarer now plays the J of Clubs, ruffs it on board when you play low, and plays the J of Hearts off board. Partner wins this with the A of Hearts, and plays a second Spade, but declarer wins that with the Q, ruffs the Q of Clubs, and gives you a Heart, Diamond and a Spade, making 2 Hearts doubled for -670.

Third hand, all Vul, you hold AJ2 Q9753 A974 3 and open 1H in first seat. This goes 1S overcall on your left, 2C by partner, P back to you, so you bid 2D, your second suit. This goes P on your left, 4H by partner, double on your right. You pass, LHO passes after a long thought, and partner passes, ending the auction. The opening lead is the K of Spades, and partner lays down 873 AK842 QT8 A6. You decide to duck the opening lead, and the J of Clubs is returned. You win the A, cash the A of Hearts (all following) and can pretty much claim 5 now, by playing Diamonds into the danger hand, as long as 1 of the Diamond honors are onside. If both are on your left, then you will at least guarantee making 4 in all hands. Not our intrepid hero, he ruffed the Club back to his hand, clearing the Clubs, then cashed the Q of hearts to remain in hand, before leading a Diamond to the Q and K. A small Spade came back, and you can still make it by going A and out a Spade, end playing your LHO, but it is perhaps better to play low, letting the Q win, and then winning the A of Spades for a return. Now go to board with a Heart, take a losing Diamond finesse, and you have manufactured 4 losers out of 2, down 1 for -200, instead of making 5 for +990.

Fourth hand, you are not quite done yet. No one vul, you pick up AK87652 A KJ2 84 and hear it go 2H by partner, P to you. You bid 2S, partner raises to 3S, and you continue on to 4S. The opening lead is the 5 of Hearts and partner puts down QJ QJT974 T753 5, a perfecto match for a nice 4S. This looks like an easy hand, win the A of Hearts, give up a Club, win the probable Spade return, and ruff a Club, eventually giving up 2 Diamond tricks to make a nice 4S. So what can our intrepid hero do to this hand we ask. How about the Q of Hearts on the first trick, not covered and then won by the A, a small Spade to the J on board, and the J of Hearts, planning to pitch those Clubs away. Except that RHO pitches an encouraging Club on the J of Hearts, so when you play the Club on it, Rho wins the K of Hearts, and plays a Club to RHO, who plays another Spade on the table, and worse, ruffs the 10 of Hearts when you play it off board. Now when you play Diamonds out of your hand, you do lose the expected 2 Diamonds tricks for down 1, and a sum of 45 IMPS punted on 4 boards.

I did really watch this happen at the table last night. I will not disclose who was where for fear of being hunted down, but the person who sat in that chair was not feeling to happy after the match. Sometimes you are not playing well, but then that is the time to play down the middle, not try to be the hero of the match and make up for what you have done before. As Zia said, when you are playing in heat 3, do not try to do anything outside your abilities that day, play straight up, and hope partner is in heat 1 and can supply the magic. Because anything you try to do is not going to turn out great, rather it usually turns out as in these hands, a little not so great.

Sat Aft Fun

2010-02-14T14:30:00.001-06:00

Playing in our regular Sat Aft team game, had a couple of really wild and interesting hands come up. First a question, what is the most tricks you have gone down in a freely bid contract without being doubled? I may be trying for the record here with my partner from this week, cause the answer this week is 8 tricks (!).

My partner held Jxxxxxx T9xx x x with no one vul and heard me open 1D in first seat, pass on his right. He now bid 2S (WJS) and it went 3N (after some thought) on his left, P, P back to him. Not being satisfied with the status quo, and thinking if they did not try for Hearts (where might they try this?), I must have them, he fearlessly ventured out with 4H (!). This went slow pass on his left (!), P by partner, and another slow pass on his right (!). The opening lead was the A of Spades, and partner (me) put this gem down, x K KQxxx KT98xx, not the world's greatest opener, and not a happy camper on this auction, but no double, not too much trouble :) After the opps pulled trump, I think they made a mistake letting 1 card score on dummy to go with the long Heart in declarers hand. Turns out the 3N bidder had a balanced 21 count with AT of Spades and Ax of Hearts, while his partner had QJxxxx of Hearts. She did not double since she thought the run out to Spades would be cheap, but she had KQx of Spades opposite a partner that jumped to 3N, and 6 good cards in declarers second suit. 4S was not cheap, more like Sticks and Wheels (1100) non-vul. So -400 looked now like an odd push opposite the expected 3N from the other table, except the other table also got into the bidding our way with the distribution, not sure what the whole auction was, but they apparently pulled 4 of a major doubled to 5D doubled, that then went for the whole 1700.

And as for why I passed 4H in our auction, when a disaster is unfolding, and you are not yet doubled, you NEVER pull before you hear a double. Sometimes wierd and wonderful things like this happens.

Next we have this hand, again with no one vul, you hold Kxxx Axx Axx xxx and Pass in 2nd seat after a Pass on your Right. It now goes 3D on your Left, 4D by partner, Pass on your Right. First, what should 4D be on this auction, the normal interpretation is a distributional TO of the pre-empt that did not want a TO double to be left in, usually more distribution or less HCP/Defence. So the question is, do you have enough to try for a slam. You have length and 2 good cards in partners supposed majors, and an outside A to control the pre-empt suit.

My answer is that yes, if partner has anything close to his 4D bid, I think you have enough to try for the slam. But the next question is how, you need to be able to show good support, with a control in Diamonds, and let partner know he needs good control of Clubs to go on. I think the first option of 5S should ask about Diamond control and Spades, not about Clubs. So that leaves the direct leap to 6S or a 5D cue-bid. Personally, I think the 6S bid is putting too much stain on partner, who could be punished for getting you to a game after a pre-empt, when you may have 0 play for a slam, so I think the 5D cue bid is about right, and hope partner works it out.

It actually turns out anything over 4S will get you to a slam on this hand, partner held AQxxxx KT9xx --- AQ, so 6S is an easy make, giving up 1 Heart trick. I also think this is the kind of hand that the 4D bid should show, a distributional good TO, without an incredible amount of defence or willingness to defend 3D doubled if left in.

Last hand is more of a decision I had based on the game being played. NV vs Vul, I held KJ AK4 AQ AKJTxx and decided to open 2C in first seat (just too much stuff for anything else). This went 2S on left, double by partner, P back to me. We do not play together regular, so I was not sure what the double is, although the standard in our area is it shows values and is not for penalty, so I hoped this was what it showed. In addition, I know the my LHO is a very aggressive bidder that will be in with any reason, so 2S does not have to show any kind of a good hand. For this reason, and since it is a fun, not serious game, I decided to go for it all and jumped to 6N (!), ending the auction. The opening lead was the J of Hearts, and although partner stated his hand was based on what I had hoped it was, it was not the dummy of my dreams. Qxx 9xxx KTxx xx, not that many values, and certainly not much usefull, and worst, short Clubs.

I won the Heart in my hand as RHO contributed a middle Heart (normal signals) and layed down the A of Clubs, nothing exciting happening, before playing the K of Spades. I had wanted to find out what was happening on the hand a little, and needed Spades as options for transportation and tricks. LHO won the A of Spades as RHO followed low, and now played another Spade, RHO again following as I won my J. I would have much preferred LHO to play another Heart, as that left more options open, but I was now forced to win the Spade in hand, since the bad Diamond position left me with no other place to put the loser Heart.

I now had to decide how to play the Club suit, since I was down to the single entry to board. Options are to bang down the K of Clubs and hope the Q appears, or use my entry to go to board, pitch the Heart loser on the Q of Spades, and hook the Club. I kind of thought the 2nd option was better, since RHO had more positions for the Club Q in his hand, but that also meant going down a LOT more, even though that is not that big of a consideration at IMPS. The other consideration that comes in is when I can not make the hand due to a 4-1 break in Clubs. I still think the percentage line is to go to board, hook the Club, and hope for the best. But I decided against that at the table and banged down the K of Clubs, perhaps due to table feel or whatever, still not sure. Turns out it did not matter towards making the hand, LHO pitched a Spade on the K of Clubs. At least I was able to salvage down 1 on the hand as I gave up a Club. Turns out this was worth 2 IMPS on the board, as they went down 2 in something at the other table, I assume 6N as well on a Spade lead and used the Diamond entry to take the Club hook, and now lost the Club, Diamond, and A of Spades.

Slam Fun

2010-02-08T09:53:00.000-06:00

Playing IMPS with an unfamiliar partner, you pick up the following hand with everyone Vul, AK73 J82 KQT75 K, hear partner open 1D and get a 1H overcall on your right. You start with a negative double, and it goes 3H (Preemptive) on your left, P, P back to you, now what?

Partner should be short in Hearts, you want to find out if he has 2 Aces and at most 1 Heart, whereupon you will likely try a slam, hoping the Spades sort themselves out for no losers. But how do you force partner to cue-bid Hearts if he can?

I think the best way to go about that is to bid 3S here, and over partners assumed (hopeful) 4C bid, bid 4D, which has to be forcing on this auction. If partner has anything including a shortness in Hearts, this should get a 4H cue-bid. In practice, this is exactly what will happen, partner will bid 4H over 4D, and when you check, you will find you are off 1 Ace, so will settle in the easy 6D contract.

At the table, this person cue-bid 4H with the 3 small. And then over partners 5C bid, bid 5D, which ended the auction and cost 12 IMPS. Partners hand was xx x AJxxx AQTxx. Looking at 2 small Spades, should this hand expect both major Aces, good Diamonds, and the K of Clubs (or the actual hand) for the 4H call and bid 6D?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Had another funny hand from a practice teams match we had SUN. With no one vul, you hold 973 --- Q8632 K7543. Partner of course opens 1H and it goes P on your left. You decide to get cute and bid 1S, hoping partner will bid 2 of a minor and you can pass. Of course, partner, not being in on the joke, responds with the response you did not want to hear, 4NT, KeyCard in Spades, sigh.

4N does not sound like a good place to play this, and partner will not have a sense of humor over a pass, so you bid 5D, showing not too many KC’s. Partner now settles you gracefully in 6S (!) and the opening lead is a small Spade, this just keeps getting better.

At least partner puts down an OK dummy for you, AKQ65 AKJ873 3 A. You win the first Spade with the A as RHO contributes a small Spade, and ruff a Heart to your hand, all following. Club to the A, followed by another Heart ruff, again all following. Pitch the Diamond on the K of Clubs, ruff a Diamond back to board, pull trumps with the KQ of Spades, they were 3-2, and give up 1 Heart, they were 5-2, making an easy 6 Spades. Turns out the only way to beat 6S was to take the Diamond winner then switch to a Spade, something made harder when you right sided the contract, placing the person with the AK of Diamonds NOT on lead, instead the person with 5 Hearts to the QT was on lead.

At the other table, they also got to 6 Spades, but from the normal side this time. They also got a small Spade lead (!, not the Diamond A), but tried to cash 1 Heart before trying to ruff 2. Now the 5-2 Heart split spelled doom when the third Heart got ruffed high and a Diamond cashed.

4th Seat Pre-Empts

2010-01-28T11:28:00.002-06:00

So what does it mean to you when you or your partner open a weak 2 bid in 4th seat after 3 passes? Does it really mean you have less than an opening bid, and if you do, why not pass the hand out? Who are you pre-empting in pass out seat.

I have always thought that a 2 bid in 4th seat, assuming you are playing normal weak 2’s, is something along the lines of an ACOL 2 bid, an intermediate hand with a good 6-7 card suit, and no other 4 card suit.

Playing on BBO last night with an inexperienced player, I held, All Vul, K9 AKJT873 J QT7 and heard it go 3 passes to me. Thinking this was the perfect way to describe my hand, I opened 2H and it went all Pass.

Partner put down Axx xxx KTxx Axx and on a Club lead, there were an easy 11 tricks available when the K was on my right. Partner stated he thought I would still have a weak hand, even though it was IMPS scoring, so passed to try and get a plus.

I thought afterwards that perhaps I should have opened 1H, but I assumed this treatment was fairly standard. Guess I was wrong, and need to talk about it with a partner more before I throw it out. But it kind of follows the philosophy of all balancing situations, where a jump in a suit shows a good suit within the confines of previous bidding.

What would you and your regular partner assume a 2H call was after 3 passes?

Comments - Yea

2010-01-26T15:16:00.002-06:00

OK, a new feature looks like it was added where people can post anonymous comments. That has been a complaint I have received for a while.

So hopefully it works and people can leave comments. Would be nice to get feedback :)

D

NAOP Part 2 - The Grand that Wasn’t

2010-01-26T15:07:00.002-06:00

Couple more hands from the NAOP playoffs this past weekend. The first is a bidding problem, playing MP’s with no one vul, the 2 hands are:

AJ73 KQ4
Q95 AK76
KJ AQ72
AKT3 85

As you can see, there are 13 Aces in 7N on the hand. The play is the easy part. How do you construct a realistic auction to get to 7N. The key to the hand is actually the J’s of Spades and Diamonds, which are each worth a full trick. You can probably find out 1 of them is worth it, but finding out about the second is hard. Checking partner has the correct Q’s instead of the somewhat useless Q of Clubs, in time to stop if you need to, is beyond most bidding systems.

Now I am sure we will have some relay precision players that will state they can get there, but even with those systems, checking on J’s is a little difficult. How many differentiate between Kx and KJ in the Diamond suit, and yet it is totally crucial to the hand.

I will leave it to the total theorists to devise a clean auction to 7N, without a guess or hope built in. We got to 6N, along with most of the room. 1 pair did get to 7N, but I did not ask their auction, or if it was real or not.

- - - - - -

The next hand needs to be offered up as an apology to the pair I perpetrated it against. Sometimes bad bidding gets rewarded, but it still leaves kind of a sour taste in your mouth, when you know you did something utterly stupid, and got a good result out of it.

Early in the first session, Vul vs Not, I held AJT6 AJ972 --- J974 and heard the auction go P – 2D (10-14 Roman with Diamonds) to me. This pair used to play Flannery 2D, so maybe it was the unexpected answer when I asked what the alert was (at least I asked!), but I decided I was going to bid (MP’s!) on this hand. Now the simple easy bid, that nicely describes your hand is double, but then there would be no story. Instead I wandered in with 2H, hiding 2 out of my 3 places to play from partner. This now went double on my left, P, P back to me, sigh.

Just for curiosity, to see what I got myself into, I asked, and was informed that the double was pure penalty, as expected. Now normally, I will not jerk around partner here, I dug the hole, I get to shovel it in after myself. But since RHO had Diamonds, I was sure that would be the lead. And being tapped at trick 1, with a known bad split behind me, was not my idea of heaven, so I tried to get partner involved (why do it earlier when I can now) and redoubled. This went P on my left, 2S by partner, double on my right. At least I have real Spades over the doubler, so I passed, and apologized to partner as I put the dummy down.

The opening lead was the 6 of Hearts and partner had an interesting hand, 9752 K8 JT84 832, probably better than I deserved, but since I made him play it, less than could hope for. He let the Heart ride around to the 10 and his K, then led the Heart back. His LHO pitched a small Diamond on this while RHO followed low. He now played the J of Hearts off board, and when it was covered with the Q, pitched a Club, as LHO pitched another Diamond. It now went A of Clubs on his right, and a small Club to the Q. LHO now returned the 3 of Spades. At this point, due to the 2D opener, partner has a complete count on the hand, knowing that his RHO has a stiff Spade. But is it small or an honour? He finally decided that with both honours in Spades, LHO had 2 heavy of a hand, and played the A, dropping the Q.

The hand is now an open book, and easy to make 2, but an interesting thing occurred. Partner played a Club off board, ruffing it low, then played a Diamond and ruffed it low. Instead of playing another Club and ruffing it back to hand, he played another Diamond out of his hand. LHO thought about this a sec, then played his last Diamond on it, allowing him to take 2 ruffs on board on back to back tricks. He now ruffed the Club back to hand, and led the Diamond to claim the 8th trick with the J of Spades on board.

As I said, there is no justice, to make as bad of bids as I did and get rewarded. But it turns out the only way to get doubled in 2S is this way, since if I make a standard TO double, my LHO has an easy 3D bid on the known fit, and that will pretty much end the auction, since even I am not crazy enough to bid again at the 3 level there.

- - - - - - - - -

The final hand is another play problem that my partner faced. All Vul, you hold KJ9432 AJ983 97 --- in 3rd seat. It goes P – 1C to you, and you decide to avoid Michaels and start with 1S. This goes double (Values) on your left, 2S by partner, 3C on your right. You have heard of the old 6-5 come alive saying, so you now wander in with the full 4H (!). This goes double on your left, 4S by partner, P, P, Double, ending the auction.

The opening lead is the 5 of Spades, and partner puts down QT6 542 KQ42 T64, an awfully nice bad hand, with what values there are where you want them. Problem is, you still have a lot of work to do. When you play low on the Spade, it goes 8 on your right, K by you. You now place a small Diamond on the table, and it goes A on your left. LHO now plays the 10 of Hearts, on which RHO places the Q, solving your Heart problems. Now what?

At the table, partner won this with the A, and played a small Spade, too late. LHO won the A while RHO pitched a Club. And a Heart went to the K and back for a ruff, for down 1.

Turns out the hand was cold all along, with the A of Diamonds on your left, and the KQ of Hearts on your right. You have the 2 entries you need to play Hearts up to your hand twice.

NAOP Pairs

2010-01-25T16:38:00.002-06:00

Played in the NAOP pairs playdowns this past weekend with RH. We wound up third overall, not bad considering the number of self inflicted problems we gave ourselves. RH played really good overall, especially on defense. Have a couple of hands that turned out well, although at least on the 1, luck had at least as much to do with it as anything else.

First hand, All Vul, MP’s, you hold Q95 9753 KT5 AK2 and hear the auction go as follows.

N E S W
P P 1H P
4H P P P

Leaving you on lead. I decided to make a bit of an attacking lead, since I expected N to have a short suit somewhere, so I selected the 3 of Hearts, fully expecting partner to show out, and give the suit away to declarer, but threaten ruffs, if dummy had a short suit as I expected. Dummy came down with AT63 J842 AQ94 7, kind of what I expected, although better than I had hoped. Anyways, this went low on dummy 10(!) from partner, Q from declarer. So declarer had opened 1H with 4, that was interesting. Declarer now played a Diamond to the Q, holding, the A of Diamonds, partner showed 3, and a Diamond to partners J, declarers small 1, and my K, leaving a good Diamond on board.

At this point, I did not see any point in letting declarer know the Heart position any more, and getting a cheap winner with their 6 of Hearts. I did not want to lead a Club for the same reason I did not lead 1 to start, I hate leading this holding, so that left a Spade. I decided to cater to partner having the J8x or something like that, and led the 9 of Spades back. Declarer ducked this and partner won the K, declarer following low, and tabled the J of Clubs, covered by declarers Q and my A. At this point, it looks like declarer can do OK left to his own devices. My Spade return did not work as hoped, and I have set up a good part of the board. So time to do something about it. At least the 9 of Spades left me with a bit of an illusion, I now returned the 5 and declarer went into a hitch, finally winning the A on board as partner and declarer followed low.

Declarer now played a Heart to his K, partner throwing a small Club. If declarer now pulls trump ending on board and cashes the Diamond, I can score the last 2 tricks with the Spade and Club for down 1. So declarer tried exiting the Spade to my partners supposed Q, but I was able to win, and now play the K of Clubs, tapping dummy. This meant I had to still score another Heart since declarer was board locked for down 2 and +200. Declarers hand was 874 AKQ6 872 Q93, a lead directional 1H call in 3rd seat that his partner had no sense of humour about.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The next hand, you hold Vul vs Not, MP’s, J974 AQJ8 AQ86 J and decide to open 1H in 2nd seat after a pass on your right. We mostly play 5 card majors, but I did not want to have rebid problems after 1D, and decided to have fun. This now went 1S by partner, which I raised to 2S (a little heavy, but at MP’s, if partner does not bid again, this is where I want to be). Partner now jumped to 4H, offering me a choice of places to play. Looking at the Diamonds, I decided that this was as good a spot as any, since I assumed we were in parallel 4-4’s here. The opening lead was the K of Clubs, and dummy was a bit of a surprise, AKQ8 K95 J9 T654. Not sure what partner was doing here, I would have assumed that the Spades had to play at least as well as a supposed 5-3 in Hearts. Maybe he was worried I might pass 3H, and would correct to Spades with 4 of them, whatever.

Anyways, it certainly looks like Spades is going to make 5 or 6, depending on the Diamond K, so I am going to need some luck here to come back to near equity, if I can. The K of Clubs held, RHO signaling encouragement, and another Club came back to the A on my right. Since there was little point in holding up, I was being tapped sometime, I ruffed this, and took stock. In Spades, you can ruff a bunch of Clubs safely, and pull trump with the other hand. It looked like the only way to duplicate this, was the same line and hope. So back to the board with a Spade, on which RHO dropped an alarming 10, and ruff another Club to my hand. Now I cashed the 2 high Hearts left in my hand, on which all followed, and another Spade to board, hoping. Thankfully, RHO played a low one now, and when I played the K of Hearts off board, everyone followed as I pitched a Diamond. So far so good. Now I ran all the Spades ending in dummy, RHO wound up having 3 (that was a nasty 10) and LHO pitched a Diamond and a Club, while RHO pitched a Diamond. Hoping I had read it all correctly, I now exited the last Club off board, while LHO won and was endplayed into leading from the K of Diamonds into my AQ in the 2 card ending. Making 5 for a slightly above average board.

What Does This Mean?

2010-01-21T14:21:00.002-06:00

Playing IMPS in the weekly IMPS game, you hold the following nice hand VUL vs NV, AQ75 A83 K4 AK95 and open 2N after it went Pass on your right. This goes Pass on your left, and partner bids 3C (Puppet Stayman). You are all set to bid 3D showing 1 or more 4 card major, when RHO, who had passed initially, chimes in with that same 3D call. Now what?

First things first, you check the opps card, and see that they play a weak 2D, so why did RHO not open that to start, but is willing to wander into a live auction now. Assuming not complete suicidal tendencies, which is possible given who it is, the probable answer is they had some feature in the hand preventing a normal weak 2 in Diamonds, probably a 4 card major or similar. A 2nd minor would not stop them from opening 2D, so you can probably rule out Clubs as a 2nd suit. So if you give RHO some kind of 6-4 or 7-4, that makes a little more sense.

Second question, does an immediate bid now work the same as it would directly over 3C, does it show a 5 card major or a 4 card major? What would your partnership meaning be of a free 3S bid here be, showing 4 or 5, or ambiguous, if you play Puppet Stayman. And if it shows 5, how do you indicate you do have a 4 card major, or can you. Simple things first, assume a double would be penalty oriented, and 3N would show at least 1.5 stoppers and probably deny anything like a major. So since you have neither of those, options look like they are between 3S and Pass.

The person holding this hand finally opted to Pass and see what partner did, opting for flexibility, and not muddying the waters with an ambiguous 3S call. This now went 4D on your left, Double by partner, Pass back to you. Again, now what?

I think I would have passed here, you have a lot of defense, and assume if partner has anything to help, this will go down a few, maybe even a lot (think +800 or +1100). And bidding now risks turning a plus into a minus if you and partner are not on the same wavelength, especially with the warning that suits are probably not breaking the best.

At the table, the person with this hand thought for a while and wound up bidding 4S, hoping if partner did not have Spades, they would pull it to 5C, which hopefully would have some play. That is a lot of ‘Hopefully’s’ in there, which is why I come back to the pass and take the plus philosophy, but hard to argue with success. In this case, the opening lead was the A of Diamonds and partner put down JTxx 98 JT QJTxx, a min, but a perfect fit. 4S made with an overtrick when the Spade hook was onside and they split 3-2 (perhaps against the odds). Switch the majors and it will be a tough call for this hand to bid 5C, but it maybe/should reason it out.

The 3D bid was made on Kx KJTx Q98xxx x, a bit of a stretch, and not happy if it goes a quick double on your left, but without it there is no story. And you never win if you do not force the opps out of their comfort zone.

---------

The next hand in the same match was also really interesting, but from our point of view this time. All Vul, you hold KJ2 AKJ7 A KQJ98 and hear it go 2S on your right, alerted as showing a 2 suiter (5-5+) with Spades and any other suit and less than an opening bid.

The first thing to decide is how to approach this from your hand. You can start with the assumption that RHO has Spades and Diamonds, until proven different. The normal course of action here would likely be to bid 3N, since on a Spade lead, you should have time to knock out the A of Clubs and scramble home. And if partner has anything, they can check how good your hand is over the 3N. The problem with that logic is LHO also knows about openers second suit. And if they decide that a Spade lead is not called for and ever find a Diamond lead, you may not have many tricks in NT. For that reason, and my hand is so good if a fit is found, I decided to start with a TO double, treating the 2S opener as a standard pre-empt to start (in our methods)

This went Pass on my left, 2N (Lebensohl) by Pard, and Pass on my right. We play pretty standard Lebensohl here, but bidding 3C has a good chance of my playing there if pard is broke. I thought I wanted to do something to indicate general strength here, but was not sure what. Just because I think RHO has Diamonds, does not mean pard is in on the joke. And I did not want to play 3D on some kind of 2-1 or 3-1 fit. So the options I thought I had were 3S and 4C. 3S has the advantage of leaving 3N open as a possible contract, but since it will be played by pard, the now more probable Diamond lead from opener will kill my stopper at trick 1, forcing pard to have an actual second stopper, plus another card, to make 3N from his side. And if pard ever bids 4D over 3S, I am not sure what I am going to do, everything will be a distortion now. So for these reasons, and to show where I lived, I finally decided to jump to 4C.

This now went P, 4H, P back to me. See how easy it is to create problems for yourself without really trying, it is a natural gift for me it seems. OK, what do I need for a slam from partner. I need one of the 2 missing Aces, and either the Q of Hearts 4/5th or 5-6 Hearts and a good break. That is a lot for a 2N bid to hold, couple that with the announced fact there are nasty distributions walking around (from the 2 suited 2S bid), and I decided that taking the plus here was the best course, and passed.

Pard did have the good version of a poor hand, holding 6 Hearts to the nothing, and the nice Q of Spades. 4H made an easy overtrick on the Diamond lead (that was openers second suit), losing to the 2 Black Aces when Hearts were 2-1. Not sure what they played in at the other table, we were not told, but we did win 13 IMPS on the board, so either they got to 3N down on a Diamond lead, or they bid the slam off 2 cashing Aces. It is a tough hand, that I think I got right more on luck than perfect judgment, but I did have a reason for what I did each time, and it did work as I expected from the start of the hand, so will take it.

New Bridge

2010-01-20T12:52:00.002-06:00

I remember back when the concept of ‘New Math’ was introduced into schools in Canada. It was not revolutionary, just trying to show some new concepts. Now it looks like we have the concept of ‘New Bridge’.

Bob Hamman came up with the Bridge Maxim that if 3NT was a viable option, then you should always bid it. 1 opponent in last nights IMPS match on BBO obviously heard that and has certainly taken it to heart. On the first 3 boards, either he would open 1 of a suit, have his partner make a 1 level response, and jump to 3N, or have his partner open 1 of a suit, and also jump to 3N, with his hand being largely irrelevant to the decision. 1 of the 3 was successful on mis-defence, then this hand came up.

All Vul, you hold AKQ75 T743 --- T832 and hear the auction go 1C by partner, 1D on your right , 1S by you, P on your left, 3N (again) by partner , P to you. Now what? Unfortunately, almost anything can be right here, from passing, to 4S, 4H, 4/5/6 Clubs, dictated by what partner holds in Diamonds. Assuming partner does not have 3 Spades, then I personally like 4C on this hand, as I think it has the best chance of getting you to the most reasonable contract. Partner should have real Clubs on this auction, and the chances of finding 4 Hearts if partner has length (likely) in Diamonds, is a lot lower.

The actual holder of this hand bid 4S, thinking that the 5-2 had to play OK if partner had any values in Clubs, probably not an unreasonable point of view. Unfortunately, partner put down 63 AQJ9 K8 AKJ54 after a small Diamond was led. 4H certainly looks like a good spot, and even 6C is nice looking. It would be nice if partner would get over that 3N concept and bid rationally. Would 2H here show extra values in your system (?). And does partner have enough for that, I sort of think so, and it still right sides the contract.

Anyways, in 4S, declarer put up the K of Diamonds, and it lost to the A, which was ruffed low. Declarer now played a Heart to the Q, losing to the K, and the 9 of Spades came back (nicer for declarer than another Diamond), declarer winning the A. Declarer cashed the K of Spades, hoping to be able to pull most of the trumps and run winners, but RHO pitched a Diamond on this (ouch). Declarer now played a Club to the A and cashed the K of Clubs, but this was ruffed on his left and now another Diamond was returned. When it was all over, declarer was down 3 in 4 Spades, for -300. It turns out, with both the K of Hearts and Q of Clubs offside, 6C can not make, but it is still not a bad contract.

At the other table, they found their Heart fit, but stopped in 4, making for +650, and a big swing our way.

I wish when some people learned something, that they would apply it with some common sense, instead of blindness. This person kept on always bidding 3N at his first or second turn, and it kept turning out badly for them. And it had to be annoying to his partner, who was now being cast as incompetent since his partner never trusted him to play a hand, or to know how to get to the right contract. Made a note to never ever play with this person, and just took our win.

How to Screw up a Hand in 1 Easy Lesson

2010-01-11T11:42:00.003-06:00

Had the following hand in the weekly Sat Aft Team Game. With No one Vul, you hold QT8632 5 KT3 AKT and open 1S in first seat. The opps are silent throughout and partner bids 2C (Nat but not 2/1). You rebid 2S (time to raise Clubs later), and partner bids 3S. 3S is a special bid, showing a Slam Try in Spades (2N would have started an auction showing a lesser hand). You bid 4H (in your limited discussions on this new convention partner threw at you, 4 level bids now were shortness), and partner jumps to 6H. You decide to bid 6S thinking it will play better, and you have arrived.

The opening lead is the 6 of Diamonds, and you see this dummy, A2 AK87 A52 Q964. Just a side note, I do not like to make a 2/1 in any suit that I do not want to have as trump, so I would probably have bid 2H over 1S here. The real problem occurs when it goes 1S-2C-3C, now you are not sure if the agreed trump suit is going to be good enough to play in. If it were to go 1S-2H-3C, you are a lot happier supporting Clubs, the only problem on 1S-2H, is if partner rebids 2S, you are not always sure of a 6 card suit.

Anyways, on to the play problem. At the time, it looked like I had to pick up the Spade Suit for 1 loser, since the Heart K would take care of the Diamond problem. I won the A of Diamonds on dummy (BAD PLAY) and played A and out a Spade, playing for some 3-2 break and either an honour appearing on my right, or a good guess. RHO played the 4 and 9 of Spades, and LHO contributed the 5. So now I had a guess. After some thought, I paid my RHO a compliment and put up the Q of Spades, of course losing to the K, down 1. I thought about it for a while, trying to decide if this was a guess or not, and had come to the conclusion that it was.

Then I thought about the hand overnight, and came to the complete conclusion that I had totally blew the hand, and it should not be a guess at all. I believe (well after the fact), that the correct way to play the hand is as follows. Win the Diamond in my hand (need that Diamond entry later), and play A and out a Spade again. But this time, I cover whatever RHO plays, since I have a chance if LHO shows out for a trump coup on a 4-1 Spade break, something I thought I could not handle at the time.

If LHO shows out, you need RHO to hold at least 3 Clubs and 2 Hearts, and play in the right order. Decide which RHO is longer in, Clubs or Hearts, and play that suit off first, ruffing the 3rd or 4th round. Then play the other, pitching the Diamond loser along the way, and another ruff. If all goes well, the Diamond to the A, provides the entry for the trump coup now (hence the reason for winning the first Diamond in hand). The biggest difficulty on the hand is deciding at trick 4 what order to play the rounded suits in. If RHO has 4 Clubs, they have to go first, if only 3, Hearts have to go first (so that you are able to cash everything without RHO ruffing early, or getting a bad pitch). Based on the lead, I would likely play RHO for 3 Hearts and play AK and ruff a Heart first, then the 3 rounds of Clubs ending on board, and decide what else to ruff to hand at that point. This works any time LHO did not lead a 3 card Diamond suit, but in that case, you probably had no hope.

Back to reality, at the other table, they also got to 6S, and made the prosaic play of A of Spades and a Spade to the 10, for an 11 IMP win on the board. My RHO might have ducked the K of Spades if he had it, but since he did not, will never know.

Major or Minor

2010-01-03T21:51:00.002-06:00

Another interesting hand from a BBO Team match, this one with a philisophical point. On the auction, P P 2N P 3N P P P do you lead a Diamond or Heart from this hand, KT AT43 96542 86.

The Diamond is the longer suit, but does require more from partner, and will pickle any Diamond honours in partners hand. The Heart lead requires partner to have a Heart card, and another trick, since even with 3 Hearts and a Spade, you need 1 more for the magic 5. And it is not a requirement that the opps do not have a major suit fit, RHO could have almost anything in the majors for his 2N bid, and even LHO could have a major in a 4333 hand and have decided to go for 9 tricks.

Anyways, on this hand, it turns out the Major is the right lead, partner has KJ762 in Hearts, with Qx in dummy, declarer had 2 small. The Diamond lead pickles partners Qx in Diamonds, and the opps have 8 winners in the minors with the A of Spades.

Not sure what the correct answer is, both could be right on any given hand. It is perhaps unlucky on this hand that the Diamond lead not only does not set up your suit, but gives up the 9th trick on the go.

SAYC now has a forcing 1N!

2010-01-03T21:32:00.002-06:00

Playing in a pick up match on BBO with a 'World Class' partner, I held the following hand NV vs Vul. KQ954 AT3 742 KQ in 1st seat. I opened the hand 1S, and it went (P) 1N (P) back to me. My partner had stated we were playing SAYC, which meant 1N was limited and non-forcing. I could not see many games available, and this seemed as good a spot as any, so I passed.

My partner proceeded to make 4N on the hand, and then started in on me for passing. According to him, the correct auction was for me to bid 2C (!) over his 1N, then raise his 2H to 3H, so he could then bid 4H. This seemed pretty far-fetched to me, since even if he had bid 2H over a 2C bid by me, I doubt I would have raised. Any hand that could not bid a natural (not 2/1) 2H over my 1S was not going to get a non-vul raise from me.

My partners hand was --- K98642 QT98 A62, just about a perfect fit, with everything co-operating, including the J of Diamonds doubleton onside. I believe I would have bid 2H on this hand, and got to 4H the sane and easy way. As a matter of fact, that is how they got to 4H at the other table, by bidding 2H over the same 1S opener.

Sigh, guess that is why I can never make that 'World Class' level.

That is OK though, I was given a lesson a couple of hands later on how to get to close games by him. He held J942 7 A542 Q852 and over 1H (P), he bid 1S. This now went (P) 2C (P) back to him. I think most people would have chosen a Pass, or an aggressive 3C, but he now made the master bid of 2N. This was raised to 3N by me on 83 AKQ93 J8 AJT6. I thought I had a source of tricks, good Clubs, and help in Diamonds. He got a Diamond lead, so he put up the J and won the K with the A. He now hooked a Club, losing to the K, and a Diamond came back. Due to the spots he had, the opps had no problem cashing 3 more Diamonds. His LHO now cashed the A of Spades, led a Spade to his partners K, and won the next 2 Spades with the 10 and Q, for a quick and merciless down 4, vul, -400. Fortunately, they got to 5C down 2 at the other table, so we only lost 5 IMPS.

As I said, guess I have to study more.

Wild Sets

2010-01-02T18:45:00.002-06:00

Just played a set on BBO in an 8 board team match that had a game swing on every hand, and I wasn't even the cause of all of them :) (Much as some of my pards will question that)

First hand you hold AJ74 2 KQ83 AQ92 with no 1 vul and hear pard open 1H P to you. You bid 1S and pard bids 2S. You finally decide to BW, and pard bids 5S. So you sign off in 6S, and get the lead of the K of Hearts to see this dummy. 9853 At765 A64 K. Not sure what the 5S bid was, but you play it out and the 10 of Spades is offside, so down 1 for an 11 IMP loss. This was the first contribution from the opps to the cause.

Second hand you hold KQ953 AK85 AK76 --- and decide to open 1S playing SAYC. Pard bids 2S, so hoping pard has anything actually usefull, you bid the scientific 6S. The opening lead is the 4 of Spades, and dummy appears with T87 J74 J3 AKT93, not the dummy you were praying for, but some hope. The opening lead goes to the A on your right, and the 8 of Diamonds comes back. Since there are no entries for setting up Clubs in time, it looks like you need the J of Spades with the 4th Diamond, so embark on that path, planning to pitch the 2 loosing Hearts on the AK of Clubs, and cross-ruff the hand. There is a little care required to score everything, cashing the AK of Hearts early, but it does not matter, the 4th Diamonds is over-ruffed with the J of Spades on your right. At least this is a push board.

Third hand you hold AJ K95 K76 A5432 Vul vs Not and hear it go P 1H P to you. Even though this is not poker, you decide to bid 2C on your bicycle, and hear it go 3S on your left, 4D by pard, P back to you. Not sure what was going on, but pard should have an OK hand for this, so I jumped to 6H. I think anything much less is an insult to partner. Pard held Q AQ762 AJ83 K86, and when Hearts and Clubs went 3-2, claimed 12 tricks for a 13 IMP win, the opps played in 3N at the other table on the auction (3S) DBL (P) 3N. Think you have a pretty nice hand to bid 3N when partner makes a Vul TO double of 3S, but it would have worked if any rounded suit did not behave.

4th hand you pick up KQJ982 QJ4 T943 ---, all Vul, and hear it go 1C by pard, 1H on your right. You bid 1S and it now goes P on your left, 2D by pard, P on your right. Not sure what is best on this hand, finally decided to bid 3S, trying to show good Spades, since was betting pard was short on this hand. This now went (P) 4C (P) back to me. Sigh, problem is almost anything could be right here, but finally decided to just bid 4D and hope pard could work out what to do, this went all pass. The opening lead was the A of Hearts followed by the K of Hearts which partner ruffed. Partners hand was 6 3 AKQJ7 A96543, I think I would have bid 5D here, and would have been happy not to lose 2 major suit tricks, but whatever. Pard now ruffed a low Club, pitched the Spade on the good Heart, and played a Diamond back to hand, all following. Think a full cross-ruff would have been better, since it turned out Diamonds were 3-1 and Clubs were 5-2 behind you. But the kind person with the Clubs cashed the final Club winner before playing a Heart, and let 4D make. At the other table, they got to 5D, but only got the 2 Major suit Aces, the Clubs going on the Spades and Ruffs. So we lost 10 IMPS on this board, up 24-10.

5th Board, you hold J7 4 AKJ9852 A85 NV vs Vul and hear it go 1C on your right. There are many ideas on what to bid on these hands, anywhere from going very slow to bid lots, to 3N. I have to call it a hunch, but I thought the opps were not happy, so decided to go for the push, and if I missed a slam our way, I could apologize to our pards, so I bid 4D on the hand. This went 4S on my left, 4N on my right, 5D on my left, 6S on my right. Not sure what kind of BW these guys are playing, but this is getting interesting. The opening lead is the 3 of Diamonds, and this dummy hits, AT92 AKQ986 QT Q (HUH!?), precision and no alerts, gotta love it. I would have bid 4D almost for sure if I knew that is what they were playing. Anyways, covered the Q of Diamonds with the K which held, so cashed the A of Clubs, then the A of Diamonds, and declarer claimed the last 10 tricks for down 2 (?). Not sure what the guy on myright is up to, but that is another 11 IMP loss for him, we are up 35-10 now.

6th board I held T52 85 Q8 KJ5432 Vul vs Not. This is a brutal pre-empt even for me, so I passed, and it went 3 Passes to 1C on my right. Now that I know they are playing precision, I have an easy 2C bid over that, and it goes 2S on my left, 4D (cue bid) on my right, 4S on my left, 5H on my right, 5S on my left, all pass. The opening lead is the 9 of Clubs, and this truly amazing dummy tracks. AQ AKQT9742 --- QT6, that is right, a solid 8 card major hit in dummy :) Declarer covers the 10 of Clubs with my Jack and his A, and plays a Spade to the Q, which holds. He now plays the A of Hearts, pitching a Club, and the KQ of Hearts, pitching a Diamond, and now it is my turn, ruff or not? First, I do not like the spot cards in Clubs, that stupid 6 in dummy is setting up, thanks to my wonderfull suit, and if declarer has 6 Spades, overruffs my Spade here, and plays a Spade to board, it will be good. So I pitched a little Club as declarer pitched another Diamond and pard dropped the J of Hearts. Now came the good T of Hearts, I pitched a Club, declarer another Diamond, and pard ruffed with the J of Spades. Pard now played the A of Diamonds, and declarer pitched (!) from board. So partner now played the 8 of Clubs, covered all around, and ruffed by declarer. The 9 of Spades went to partners K and dummies A, but I now had the good 10 of Spades for down 1. Declarers hand was 98643 --- KJ9765 A7. It turns out with the amazing spot cards in Clubs, I think 6H is cold on any lead, since you can lead out the Q of Clubs covered winning the A, Spade hook, and play the 10 of Clubs, pinning everything, with that damn 6 becoming the 12th trick again. Dare anyone to find that line at the table :) Anyways, the Hearts were not put down in dummy at the other table, so we won another 11 IMPS for a 46-10 lead.

The 7th board was about the only one I could have anything but great things to say for my partner. She listed herself as Advanced, but based on her declarer play and defence, she was a lot ahead of most experts on BBO :) I held QJ7 76 AJT93 A94 All vul, and with the opps silent throughout, bid 1D over my pards 1C opener. Pard now bid 1S and I was at the first crossroads. We were playing SAYC, and I sorta had to decide now if this was a game forcing hand, or what. I rejected 2S, since pard will pass on most hands where I would want to be in game. 3S sets the trump suit, perhaps wrongly, and almost always should show 4. 2H sets a GF, one of the times where I would be happy if it set a 1 round force, perfect for this hand. Since all my values were in partners suits and I had good spot cards, I decided to treat it like a GF hand and bid 2H, this also had the advantage of letting partner tell me more about her hand. She now bid 2N and I bid 3S, hoping with only 4 Spades and a good Heart stopper, she might prefer 3N if it looked right. This went all P, and the opening lead was the 2 of Spades. Sigh, so much for forcing. When I saw pards hand, I was not sure I wanted to be in any games, she held AT86 KQ3 K75 765, something even I might have passed unless playing a weak NT. But it turned out almost every card was friendly, with Spades 33 and the K onside, so she made 5 in 3S, losing 10 IMPS to the opps in 3N at the other table, we were now up 46-20.

The last board was a sorta decision, do you open a Strong NT holding J9 KJ5 AQJ96 KQ4 or decide to upgrade it and open 1D, planning to rebid 2N. I finally decided to open 1N, which proved wrong on this hand when it went all P and pard put down K873 984 T83 A32. Everything was friendly, and the opps set up my Spade and Heart tricks right away, so I made 3N on the hand. Fortunately, they played in 3D at the other table, so the final score wound up 46-20 our way.

Still not sure what game my RHO was playing, but he was flying high on a few of the boards. Plus I guess when to jam their auctions correctly, and gave them problems instead of us a minus. The same calls I made here could cost almost the same next time if the hands are a little different. But I will still follow the philosophy that the opps will not make as many mistakes in an uncontested auction as in a lively one. So keep on bidding and let the cards fall as they may.

Happy New Year to all, and may 2010 be a fun time to play bridge :)

A Defensive Problem

2009-12-31T16:01:00.001-06:00

Playing IMPS, you hold 4 Q93 Q74 AQT865 with no one Vul in first seat. You decide to open 3C and this goes P P to your RHO who bids 3N, ending the auction.

You decide to lead your singleton Spade and this dummy appears, Q975 J874 K65 J2. Declarer plays the 5 on the first Spade and captures your partners 8 with the 10. Declarer then plays the 3 of Clubs towards dummy, your play.

What is declarer doing, you are looking at stoppers in both red suits, so where are the tricks coming from. Does he really only need 1 Club trick for 9 tricks, or what is he doing.

I think there are 3 main options here, and still not sure what is the best. Option #1 involves ducking this completely, and hoping your partner can get in to lead a (hopeful) 2nd Club through declarers supposed K. Option #2 involves clearing the Club suit with Q, A, and another, and hoping you can win a trick with a red suit Q to set this (if declarer needs another trick and you can survive the Spade discards), and option #3 involves winning this trick with the Q and playing on a red suit.

I have some sympathy with option #3, but that means something strange is going on. Even if we give declarer 5 Spade tricks, an outside AK in a red suit leads to only 8 winners. And if declarer has the other red A, then he has 9 winners in that case and will likely not go down. For that reason, I also think option #1 is out. Once you duck the Club and the J holds, any competent declarer is going to have to go out of his way to allow your partner to win a trick now, really unlikely. And even if you win a Red Q and the A of Clubs, you are essentially back to option #3.

For that reason, as bad as it might prove to be, I like option #2 on the hand. Declarer may guess you to have 1 of the red Q’s on this hand for the play, but may not guess you have both, and may not have anything they can do about it anyways. The biggest option is what discards you are going to have to make on the Spades that are coming next. I am not sure I have an answer for that, will have to depend on what partner signals, but I think it is the least of all evils. And who knows, a nice declarer might not run the Spades before trying to guess what red Q to play you for on the hand. Not perfect, but not sure there is a perfect answer on this hand.

On the actual hand, the person defending with this hand did choose option #3, winning the Q of Clubs and switching to the Q of Diamonds. This was not a success, since Declarer held AKT3 A62 AJ8 K73. On the Spade lead, declarer had 7 tricks, and the Club gave 8, so instead of trying to make an early guess on a red suit to play, started by trying to set up a Club trick (and cutting communications) and got a bonus when the Q of Diamonds came back. This was now 9 easy tricks, on a hand that any other defense would probably beat. The hand was beat in 3N at the other table, for a double digit swing.

Where are we Going?

2009-12-16T23:32:00.003-06:00

Had a very interesting hand today in our weekly team game. With no one vul, you pick up a nice hand in 3rd seat K AKJ5 AQ86 AK83 and open 2C after 2 passes to you. This now goes 3S on your left, and 2 more passes back to you. We had briefly discussed that the pass over the interference showed some valus and nothing to bid. So now what?

I had a few choices, but I finally decided that 3N was not one of them. So that left Double, 4C, and the wild 4S. I think double is the most flexible, since you can play in any suit partner bids, but it does not get the strength of your hand across. And I think your hand is strong, since partner should now have a 4 card fit with you, you have a lot of playing strength. So for that reason, I decided to bid 4S, and get most of my hand off my chest.

Partner now bid 4N over that. I assumed this was not to play, or at least I hoped not, but if not, what was it, more values, or 2 places to play. I finally decided that it should be 2 places to play, so I bid 5C. Partner now bid 5D over this. At this point, my hand got better, if partner has Diamonds and Hearts and a few values, my hand is very good. any time partner is 3442, or 2452, with as little as Q of Hearts and K of Diamonds, slam should have some play. So wanting to find out if we were on the same wavelength here, since this had kinda never come up before, I raised to 6D. The opening lead was the 8 of Spades, and the A and Q of Spades were played by my LHO. Partner ruffed this on board, cashed the A of Diamonds, and went into the tank when the 9 appeared from the 3S bidder. His hand was xxx Q9xx KJ8x xx. He finally decided he probably could not make it if his RHO had 2 singletons, so played a low Diamond back to his hand, and his RHO contributed the 10, making the contract a simple claim.

I am not as sure about the problem if RHO has 2 red singletons, since there are some squeeze chances, but it is probably right. On the other hand, it was nice to see that 6H has serious problems on the 4-1 Heart break with the 10 behind the Q9xx. I am not sure that 6H can make since you have to ruff the Spades high. It turns out that 6D can only make since partner has the nice J of Diamonds.

I am not sure how this hand should go after 3S, but it is always tough after the opps pre-empt at a high level. I am glad that we got to this, at the other table they stopped in 5H after the Spade hand only bid 2S.

BBO at it's Best (?)

2009-12-13T17:47:00.003-06:00

Playing in a pick up team game on BBO with the host, she picked up this hand Q3 AK764 QJT5 76 All Vul and heard the auction P by her, 1D on her left, Double by pard, P back to her. Now at this time, I think there are a few things available. I personally like 4H with this hand, anytime pard has anything resembling a double, this should have play. But I guess you can test the waters with 2H or something. I kinda think 2D is dangerous, since if partner bids Spades somewhere, you will have a tough time showing your hand.

But almost anything showing a good hand here will work. What really does not work is 1H with this hand. At the table, it now went all pass, and when dummy comes down, guess what, you are claimers for 4H on this hand. Partners hand is KT7 Q853 76 AK85. This is supposed to take another call after making a TO double and hearing partner only bid 1H, sorry, not today.

Anyways, when the hand showed, the host immediately typed in a long series of ?????, perhaps asking about her bid, but I assume asking why I passed. Perhaps because if I really bid 2H on this hand and it ever now goes double on my left, it is going to be bloody. I was then ejected from the game by the host, since I obviously did not know how to play. This is not the first time I have run into this from some US players, I can only guess that the TO doubles have become so bad, that you do not dare bid more than 1H on those hands, and expect partner to do something again with a real TO double. And you write off those occasional -1100's to plain bad luck when the doubler bids again and someone doubles.

So I put another bit of wording beside someone else's name and will politely refrain from playing in a game that person is involved in. And try to get some sanity back into the bidding world :)

Danger, Will Robinson :)

2009-12-06T11:48:00.004-06:00

Had a hand on BBO with a pickup partner last night, that I am not sure how you are supposed to handle it, other than hopefully to survive. We did not.

Vul vs Not in first seat, you pick up AQJ542 95 4 AK85 and open 1S. You are playing SAYC and partner bids 2H, which is not GF, but standard. This now goes 3D on your right, and you bid 3S, 4D on your left, P P back to you. You do have a fairly good hand, with shortness in the opponents suit, but partner not bidding 4S here is a bit of a problem, since it means you should not get 3 card support.

It looks like the options are double, 4H, 4S, and Pass. I do not think Pass is a valid option at IMPS, so you can discard that. Double might be right, but you do not have a lot of defense and are you going to get this more than 1 down, if you even beat it. So would rule that out as well, leaving a tough choice between 4H and 4S. Since you have already rebid your 6 card suit, which is not that solid, I think 4H has to be right here, and let partner decide. Anytime he has 2 decent Spades, you will probably get returned to 4S, and with good Hearts, partner will leave it in 4H.

Now for the surviving part, this is not your hand. The idea on this hand is to get out with the least damage, since this is a true nightmare hand. Here is the full hand, in all it’s gory details.

In either major, the taps start right away, and with 5 good cards behind each major, there are a bunch of losers. I had the Heart hand, and decided to bid 2H over 1S, even though slightly under strength, but what else are you supposed to bid, playing SAYC, and not having the agreement that 1S-3H shows this kind of hand (A very good thing to play, in my opinion, since these hands are designed to give you nightmares, and this one in particular). Anyways, at our table, the N hand decided that he should show his Spades again, and this went double behind him, and a Diamond was led and returned. This now got messy, and when the smoke had cleared, we were –800. I think 4H is always destined for down 1, perhaps down 2, but reading the position will allow you to do better, and taking the first Diamond tap in the short Heart hand really helps.

At this point, my partner started in on me for the 2H bid, since that was obviously the source of our disaster, according to him. I did not think I needed to get into the discussion about what constitutes a suit you can bid, and then rebid freely at the 3 and 4 level with no support, since it was obviously irrelevant to the discussion. But I should give some cudo’s to our opps for laying the trap for us. The 3D and 4D bids were well judged, and the opps did not make any mistakes once we had wandered into the danger zone.

Just as an FYI, at the other table, my hand also started the same way, with 2H, but the opps did not find the 3D bid. So N now rebid 3C, and over 3H, bid 4H, which got doubled. This did go down 2, but that is only 500, vs our 800.

Weekly Imps, Back at it

2009-12-03T17:05:00.000-06:00

Had a pair of back to back interesting hands yesterday at the Weekly IMPS League. On the first, you hold AK764 KT3 5 AQ84 All Vul and hear partner open a 12-14 HCP NT in 2nd seat. You transfer to Spades and partner accepts with 2 Spades, which has many negative connotations, no 4th Spade from partner (Weak or Strong), no 3 card holdings with good hands. So this is simple, you bid 3C, which we play as a 1 round force, possibly game forcing as well. Partner now bids 3D, saying he likes 1 of your suits, and setting up a full game force. So you bid 3H, and partner now jumps to 4S. Now what?

At the time, I thought partner had a minimum or near minimum 3 card Spade holding with help in Clubs on the hand, hence the jump to 4S. I would need a minimum of xxx AJx Axx Kxx to have any play for slam (it is now on a Heart guess), but even with that minimum, would partner jump to 4S with all primes? I finally decided that partner had too much room to do something between 3H and 4S, especially 3S, if he had anything that would work towards slam, so decided to pass. That was the wrong decision, as partner actually had xxx Axx AKxxx Kx and slam was a claim when Spades went 3-2. Turns out partner was worried that 2N over 2H would promise a Spade honour or 2 (something I disagree with, would rather know partner has a good 3 card raise with a max, this hand, then honours). And then over 3H, was worried that 3S might not be forcing, which I disagree with since 2 cue-bids can not now stop below game. And even if it was non-forcing, 4 of a red-suit would have gotten us there.

At the other table, they had a variant of the same problem to also miss this slam. After a 12-14 HCP NT as well, my hand bid 2D (GF Stayman, not playing transfers) and his partner bid 3D. This now went 3S by my hand and 4S by his partner. Talking to the person that bid 4S after, I said she should have cue-bid 1 or the other of the red suits, since at this point, that must indicate a good hand for Spades. Again, not knowing how good the fit really was, my hand passed for a push board.

On the next hand, you pick up a nice collection with None Vul. AK42 5 AKT73 AKT. This gets even better when partner opens 1S in front of you. I was really tempted here to actually just bid 7S, like c’mon, how often to you really get the possibility of that auction? I actually bid 4N, since there is little I can learn on this hand by bidding 2D first. Partner showed 1 KC with 5C, and I bid 5D asking about the Spade Q. Partner now bid 5H showing the Q of Spades and the K of Hearts, so no Club loser, now what.

At the table, I fell asleep here and made a non-bid, 5N, knowing what partner had to bid over that before he bid 6S, since I am looking at every other card missing. I eventually now hoped for something other than 3 small Diamonds from partner and raised to 7, but I had put myself to a guess for no reason. I really think, after the fact of course, that 6D here has to be taken correctly. I do not think you can want to play in Diamonds on this kind of auction, so it should be asking for 3rd round Diamond control. Partner was nice and had Qx, so this is not a problem hand. But it would be a nice one to stay out of when partner has xxx, even though there are still chances as long as partner is not 3 small in each of the minors.

At the other table, it went 1S-2D and then after KC BW, my hand decided to be pessimistic and settled in 6S, also not thinking of the 6D bid. Although in his case, there would be a lot more ambiguity now, since after 2D, 6D actually could be a place to play.

Pre-Empting Partners

2009-11-26T12:42:00.002-06:00

Had an interesting discussion hand come up during last nights weekly IMPS League team game. You hold AJTx xx AKx Kxxx with none vul. You are not playing Namyats, and partner opens 4H in 1st seat. Do you bid, and if so, what?

The first question is, how good should partners hand be to bid 4H, and what range/type of hand can he have. With equal vul, partner should have in the neighborhood of 7 ½ (Maybe 7 in some cases) - 8 ½ tricks, without too much high card outside Hearts. You have 3 tricks, plus 2 - ½ tricks, so can state you have 3 ¾ - 4 tricks for part, plus 2 card Heart support. So if partner has the high end of trick count, with good Hearts, you want to be in slam, if partner is on the low end, you want to pass.

That sort of answers the question, you want to invite slam, but want to ensure partner has the good hand to get there. I think that sorta brings the answer to the question, I think the probable best answer is to raise to 5H. This should ask partner to go on with a solid Heart suit and not too bad a hand. Since you expect to be off the A of Clubs, you do not want partner bidding again with bad Hearts. The only problem with this, is how often will you be too high in 5H? This would happen any time partner has 2 Heart losers and the A of Clubs, or 1 Heart loser and 2 Club losers. So when is the risk worth the gain.

Partner is in 1st seat, so should not have a terrible pre-empt. And even if partner did it on some kind of shape hand like 7-5 with a minor, you have good cards for either minor, so should have some hope. So all in all, I would probably go the aggressive road and raise to 5H.

On this hand, that gets an easy 6H, which is always cold, and makes 7 on a Spade lead. So the next question is, is this hand too strong for a 1st seat 4H call? The opposite hand was K9x AKxxxxxx x x. There is very little defense, 8 ½ tricks, and a good suit, so the major question is, is the hand too good to open 4H when NOT playing Namyats, since there is a chance of missing a slam, as happened. The actual hand passed 4H, and the discussion afterwards was whether the hand should bid, and whether the other hand should open 4H or not. I think it is a close call either way for both hands, but the 4H hand knows they do not want to defend any contract, so wants to make if as difficult as possible for the opps to get into this auction, the definition of a pre-empt.

And this is why I do feel that Namyats, despite all the bad press it gets, is actually a useful convention. It is nice to know when partner has a good pre-empt, vs one of those other, ‘Putrid’, things that you never open :)

What Constitutes a 2/1 GF Hand?

2009-11-18T11:42:00.001-06:00

Back on BBO, was playing in a pick up Team Game when this hand came up for the opps. All Vul, you pick up 73 T7 A KQT97653. The auction goes 1H by partner, pass on your right. I know you only have 9HCP, but c’mon, look at the hand, this hand is worth a lot of tricks in Clubs, and the 1H opener rather than 1D has improved the hand. I would bid 2C and then 3C or even 4C with this hand.

At 1 table, this hand bid 1N forcing (uugh!) and heard partner bid 3D, which went double on his right. Now he has got himself into a position where some people might never mention their 8 card suit, but at least he got over that and bid 4C. His partner raised this to 5C, and now he had another problem, how much can he make? He finally passed, and wound up making 7 when partner put down Axx AKJxx J9xx A. 6 was pretty much always cold on anything other than a Spade lead, tough to find after the double of 3D. And on this hand, everything was cold since the Q of Hearts was 3rd onside. Looked like losing a slam swing on the board.

Except for the weird happenings at our table. After 1 Heart, P, this hand decided to bid 4C (!) at our table, what most people think of as a Splinter. His partner now Cue Bid 4S and he bid 4N, seemingly confirming the Splinter. The 1H opener now bid 5D and he attempted to sign off in 5H (!). This got raised to 6H and on the opening Diamond lead, was not the expected dummy. This quickly went down 2, when dummy got tapped in Diamonds so declarer could not take the Heart hook, and 12 IMPS went the wrong way on the board.

This hand get so simple if you just start bidding your suit, either 2C followed by 3C or 2C followed by 4C, which I prefer. Either way, partner with lots if A’s and a source of tricks, will have a chance to place this in a decent contract.

CNTC Unit Final Part 2

2009-11-16T16:57:00.002-06:00

The only potential slam hand that came up during the CNTC Unit final was as follows. You are not vul and pick up KT762 A73 864 K4. Partner opens 1D in first seat and you bid 1S, the opps are silent throughout. Partner now bids 4C (Splinter), up to you?

The main question is do you have enough to cooperate towards a slam with the wasted K of Clubs or not. At our table, this hand decided the 5th Spade and A was enough to make 1 try, and bid 4H. Partner now Key Carded with 4N, and settled into 6S, which then got doubled by your RHO. The opening lead was the K of Diamonds, and partner laid down AQJ4 KQJ5 AQ93 6. It looks like the A of Diamonds is going to get biffed here, but with nothing better to do, you play it. Strangely, it holds, and when you play Spades, they are 2-2. You quickly claim, and RHO explains he looked at the auction wrong, and thought the opening bid was 1C, not 1D, hence the double.

At the other table, this hand decided that there was a little too much wastage opposite the shortness, and bid 4S, hoping partner could act again. This ended the auction, and resulted in a 12 IMP swing.

Diamonds are Sue's Best Friend

2009-11-16T16:00:00.005-06:00

Playing in the unit CNTC finals, a couple of interesting problems came up this past weekend. On the first, All Vul, you hold this hand in 2nd seat. AK8 --- KJ42 AQ9752 and open 1C after a pass on your right. This goes 2C (standard Michaels) on your left, P by partner, 2H on your right. You come back in with 3C and it goes 3H on your left, P-P back to you. You are playing with an aggressive partner, so you know she does not have any 8 count, or any kind of decent Club support, and you know Hearts are not friendly, so the big question is, do you disturb this contract, and if so, with what.

First question is, can they have any play for 4H if you do take another call, your LHO should be showing a decent hand, either distribution, high card, or both, and your partner is limited. You do have the 6th Club and the Heart void going for you, but what are you going to do if they bid 4H, sit it or bid another time? At the table, this person passed 3H, and it made for -140. The problem was, they can make 5D as partner had xx Kxx Axxxxx xx, and in their methods, could not bid 2D over 2C. This cost 12 IMPS when our partners got to 5D making at the other table.

But even that was due to a bit of luck and a convention I do not personally like, Klinger. The auction at the other table went 1C – 2D (Klinger, showing the majors) and the Diamond hand doubled, showing Diamonds and some values. Now it was easy for them to get to 5D. That is my basic problem with Klinger, you show some 2 suiters by bidding 1 of the suits the opps will have to play in. You can never keep them out of openers suit, or NT, but Klinger makes it easier in some auctions for them to show marginal hands with the other suit they can play in by doubling, as was the case here.

The counter to that argument though, is if the auction goes 1C-2C Michaels, you have 3 bids available. If you play a variant of the Unusual vs Unusual over Michaels, the normal treatment then is 2D is 6-10 or so, 2H is a limit+ in openers suit, and 2S is 11+ in Diamonds, the other suit. So this hand still could have got in, playing something like that.

Next hand, you hold Jxx Jxxxx 10xx x NV vs Vul and hear it go 1D by partner, 1S on your right. You decide to pass, and it goes 2D on your left (good Spade raise), P by partner, 4S on your right. You pass and this ends the auction. You lead the stiff Club and table hits with K9x K Q98 QTxxxx. Partner wins the A of Clubs while declarer drops the J, cashes the K of Diamonds, and leads a small Club back for you to ruff. However when you return a 2nd Diamond, declarer ruffs, draws trump, and claims making 4. Looks like you missed the 2nd ruff until partner explains he only had 2 Clubs, they had a 10 card fit, and Partner did not have the Heart A.

Normal, expect at the other table, opener doubled the 2D bid, showing good Diamonds, so this hand decided to sack in 5D and your RHO bid 1 more to 5S. On the same defense, this went down 1, for another 12 IMP pickup. 5D would have gone for -500, so trying for 5S converted losing 4 IMPS into 12.

Last hand in this batch, All Vul you hold Ax Ax AQxxxx Kxx and hear it go P 1H to you. The hand is fairly good, so you decide to start with a Double, even if Spades can get you in trouble. This goes 2H on your left, 2N (Minors) by partner (nice partner!), 3H on your right. That is too bad, as it would have been nice to bid 3H with your hand, so what now.

This hand now bid 4D, assuming it was forcing after the double, except that it went all pass. The opening lead was a Heart, and dummy put down xxx x Kxxx Axxxx. It takes a Spade lead to beat 6 on the hand. The discussion was mainly what is forcing after 3H? How do you compete, or can you? At the other table, they got to 5D for the final 12 Imps from Diamonds.

The bridge in the final was a little inconsistent, with 10 game swings occurring in 28 boards (plus 2 more potential game swings), not counting all the part score swings. A lot of this was the boards were tough, with decisions having to be made in competition at the 5 level on several, but a few too many were mis-defense or questionable decision making both ways.

How to Get Lucky and Survive in the KO's

2009-11-11T16:23:00.003-06:00

Playing in the first round of the KO's, we were in a round robin of 5 teams looking to eliminate 1. So we of course started off the first half of the round robin with a loss and a tie against the first 2 teams, placing ourselves in the position of needing a win in the 2nd half against the other 2 teams.

Playing the first set, you pick up AK82 AQT5 873 A4 if first seat Vul vs Not, and decide to slightly violate system by opening 1C (playing a weak NT system). This goes 2C (Michaels) on your left, and 3D by partner. You play unusual vs unusual style bids, so 2S would have shown a forcing hand in Diamonds, but also play fit jumps in competitive situations, so this should qualify as that. It now goes 3H freely on your right (!), which you double, P on your left, and 4D by partner. You finally decide to take a hopeful plus and bid 5D. The opening lead is a small Spade and partner holds x x AQJTxxx QTxx, giving you chances for a slam on a Diamond hook. After winning the Spade,partner takes the Diamond hook, which loses, and eventually gives up a Club on the hand, when there are no squeezes. The K of Hearts was onside, the 2C bid was on Jxxxx in each major. So it looks like the winning play for the Diamond slam is almost impossible to find, 3 rounds of Spades ruffing, Heart hook, cash the A, ruff a Heart, A and out a Diamond, endplaying LHO in Clubs. So you are happy that the slight underbidding that kept you out of the slam worked.

At the other table, this hand opened a strong NT, and with no opposition bidding, they got to 6D on a Spade lead to the Q and A. Declarer could not work out the complete hand, so took a Diamond hook at trick 2 losing to the K, and another Spade came back. Declarer won that, ruffed the 8 of Spades, keeping the 2 hidden, hooked the Heart, cashed the A, and ruffed a Heart, then ran all the Diamonds. The opps signalled wrong on the hand, and declarer took the last 2 tricks with the A of Clubs and 2 of Spades for our side.

Turns out we thought we had won the other match at our table, and probably lost this one due to our opps staying out of the slam. Wrong, we lost the match we thought we could win, and won this match to advance to the next round. This got us jump started, although we eventually lost in the final on a close match.

The hand that decided the match we thought we had won you hold KJTxxx Ax --- JTxxx Not Vul vs Vul. The auction goes 3D on your left, Double by partner, 5D on your right, what do you call?

At our table, this hand bid 6S, and when there is no Club ruff on the go, and partner lays down AQxx Kxxxx --- KQxx, it is not hard to make it. (The ruff and sluff on the opening lead does not give anything away, and since Clubs were 2-2, there was no way to beat it) At the other table, our partner with that hand finally decided to bid only 5S, and thought it was good on the Club lead, until no ruff emerged. We had won small pickups on several other boards, and the opps had missed a hard to get to but making slam at our table, but when our partners missed both the slams, our small pickups could not handle that 1 hand.

That is a problem with these short matches in this kind of format, 1 bad thing happens and you only have 5 boards to recover, do 1 bad thing in more than 1 match, and it gets interesting :)