Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Invitational or competitive?

Yet another hand that shows why you need good partnership agreements ...

You hold a poor 4-count with both majors when partner doubles for takeout:
You bid 1H, but west competes to 3D over which partner bids 3H.

Is this invitational or merely competitive?

You pass and dummy hits with 19 points. Even if you had known that partner meant it as invitational, would you have accepted?
West leads the Ace of diamonds on which his partner discourages. He nevertheless continues the King. You ruff, and lead to the King of clubs.

What next? Can you make 4H if you had bid it? Try to plan out the play without getting all tangled up!

I think that if any two of the three suits break favorably (3-2 in spades, 3-2 in hearts, 3-3 in clubs), you can make the contract.  So, 4H is odds-on. My line is to take the heart finesse now (with the jack) and discard the third diamond on the queen of clubs. If the jack falls, I have a spade discard as well, so only one spade loser. If the jack doesn't fall, I play on spades and hope they split 3-2. The full hand:
Would your line have worked?

2 comments:

  1. when partner opens 1C/D, you should bid 1H with 4-4 in the majors (and enough points to respond). When partner doubles, it's considered better to respond 1S instead. Do you see why?

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  2. So that you can compete in hearts the next round without pushing the bidding up a level ... that's cool! I'll have remember that.

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