Tuesday, October 30, 2012

When opponents don't draw inferences from our bidding

Partner and I had one of our worst club games in a long time, finishing with 44%. Looking back over the boards, the whole thing was very swingy -- lots of fives (tops), but unfortunately lots of zeros as well. And the zeros outnumbered the tops. Hence 44%.

Sitting East (as dealer) and holding:
W
West
KJx
Kxxx
KQxx
K9
Lead: 5
E
East
AQ10x
Jx
J
Q10xxxx
I opened the hand, taking advantage of the preemptive nature of our 2C bid:
W
West
N
North
E
East
S
South
21
Pass
22
Pass
23
Pass
3NT
All Pass
(1) 5+ clubs, 11-15 pts
(2) stayman, range-ask
(3) 4 sp, weak (11-13)

We ended up with 3NT played by West.  2/1 or standard players who passed as East would find that the auction goes:
W
West
N
North
E
East
S
South
Pass
Pass
1NT1
Pass
2
Pass
2
Pass
3NT
All Pass
(1) 15-17
Same contract, same direction, so what's the big deal?

Well, by bidding 2D and then raising to 3NT, partner has sort-of-indicated a 4-card heart suit whereas in the 2/1 auction, partner has stated he has a 4-card heart suit.  Against us, when South got in with clubs, she led a heart through partner's king. Against the others, presumably, defense was more passive because the Jack in dummy made it look as if we would get an extra trick if they led the suit.  3NT exactly making vs. 3NT+1.  The difference between a bottom and an average board.

Can we teach our opponents to make the right inferences from our bidding?

Of course, I had my share of bad decisions as well. Here's a bidding problem. Sitting South, I hold this wonderful hand:
S
South
xx
9xxx
9xxx
AJx
I pass, naturally, and find that partner has a strong hand:
W
West
N
North
E
East
S
South
Pass
Pass
11
Pass
12
1
2
2
?
(1) 16+ points
(2) 0-7 points
Now what?

If I had an invitational bid available here, I could have used it. (Do you play Lebensohl in these situations?). I can bid 3H or 4H, but 3H is not really invitational, just competing.  I bid 3H, partner passed and made 11 tricks for a bottom board.  Turns out my 4th trump, spade shortness and the ace of clubs (he had a singleton club) were huge.  Playing 2/1, partner would open 1H, I would stretch to respond 2H and with his 18 points, partner would raise to 4.  Having opened 1C, and then bid 2H, partner had told me everything about his hand, so he didn't feel compelled to bid the game.

Is it time to ditch precision and go back to a 2/1 bidding system? The advantage of this is that we might get less swingy matches. On the other hand, as our string of clear tops from last night illustrates, opening light does play dividends as well.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Virtue unrewarded

Playing in a robot tourney on BBO, I bid 5C, got doubled and made it.  For 32%!  The majority were in the same contract, but they made an over trick.

What would be your line of play here? Once you have decided, click Next to see my line of play.


Since I have only entry to dummy, I decided to take what I thought was the better line on diamonds, to lead the Queen.  It appears that most players took the heart finesse, and when that won, they had a diamond discard available.

Is this just virtue unrewarded, or am I missing something?  Such as that since West discarded the 7 (assuming that is not a false card), I could have assumed that he had the King and led a low diamond towards the queen.

Monday, October 8, 2012

A Guinness with That

Thanks to a chain of contacts initiated by frequent commenter Paul Gipson, I got to play bridge in Ireland the second night after I got here.

Not only did I have a pleasant partner, friendly opponents and a glass of Guinness at the table, we even scored up 64% for second place!

The one dark spot was this board. See if you can make a better decision than I did.  I was South on this hand and had started 1S. West made a negative double. Partner prempts 4S and east bids 5D. What would you do at this point? Pass, double or bid 5S?



Would your decision change if I told you that this was a strong pair? (I didn't know this at the table).  Well, I passed and 5D made. They were one of only two pairs to bid a E-W game. 5S would have been a good sacrifice; this was the full hand:



Still, it was not all terrible  judgment. Here was a defense that turned out to be worth all 18 matchpoints. In the following hand, 1NT is 12-14 and 2D is natural. Against 4C, you lead the Ace of hearts and partner encourages with the 4 of hearts. Now what?



Click Next to see my defense:


Did you find the spade switch on trick 2?  I thought it was a relatively straightforward deduction, given partner had bid. Also, 4H our way makes on anything but a trump lead. So, I expected the board to be flat.  Some pairs bid 3NT and made on a diamond lead by North. Others were in 3C making 4. No one was in a heart contract.  +50 was the only positive North-South score!


Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Preempting the play

With a system change, I find myself playing a lot more low-level contracts, playing them blind and messing them up. See if you can do better.  You open 1NT (12-15) and three passes later, you get to play the hand. You get a heart lead, you play low from dummy and East inserts the 10 of hearts. Plan the play.
N
dummy
Jxx
Kxx
xxx
Axxx
Lead: 7
S
You
KQx
Qxx
KQx
Q10xx

The contract is only 1NT. I can come to 7 tricks with 2 spades, 1 heart, 1 diamond, 2 clubs and a possible extra trick either in hearts (if west has the Ace) or diamonds (by leading twice towards my hand).  The problem was that the 7 of hearts looked high and so, I thought it was East who had the heart length. So, I ducked a heart.  Bad assumption. Then, when I was in dummy with a heart, I decided to use that single entry to lead a diamond. Second bad move.  I needed to breach clubs, full of holes as they are.

The whole hand:
.
N
North
Jxx
Kxx
xxx
Axxx
.
W
West
xxx
AJxxx
AJxx
J
Lead: 7
E
East
Axxx
10x
10xx
K9xx
.
S
South
KQx
Qxx
KQx
Q10xx
.
Standard bidders would open my hand 1C, west would overcall 1H and then the hand becomes much easier to play because you have an approximate count.  So, this was a matchpoint zero.