.
Board: 3
Vul: E-W
Dlr: South
N
Pard
♠
Q98
♥
J94
♦
K8
♣
K9632
.
W
West
♠
KJ53
♥
10763
♦
Q752
♣
J
Lead: ♣J
E
East
♠
4
♥
AK52
♦
J964
♣
8754
.
S
Me
♠
A10762
♥
Q8
♦
A103
♣
AQ10
.
South (me)
North (pard
1♣1
2♣2
2♠3
4♠4
—
—
(1) 16+ artificial
(2) 5+ clubs, 8+ points
(3) 5+ spades
(4) fast arrival
It is a hopeless contract on the lie of the cards. Standard bidders started with a 15-17 1NT and played in the comfortable 3NT contract. This was in a regional pairs game, and close to zero matchpoints out of 15.
On the other hand, the opponents opened a 15-17 NT on this hand and could never catch up:
.
Board: 16
Vul: E-W
Dlr: West
N
Pard
♠
—
♥
643
♦
KJ943
♣
AK1032
.
W
West
♠
AKJ53
♥
J102
♦
A52
♣
QJ
Lead: ♣A
E
East
♠
Q87
♥
Q7
♦
1086
♣
98654
.
S
Me
♠
109642
♥
AK985
♦
Q7
♣
7
.
W
West
N
Pard
E
East
S
Me
1NT1
2NT2
Pass
3♦3
3♠4
Pass
Pass
Pass5
—
—
—
—
(1) 15-17
(2) Minors
(3) choice of minor
(4) Cut it out guys. I have a 5-card suit!
(5) Not sure if partner will bid again if I double.
3S down 3 was 300 to the good guys and a matchpoint top. Those two boards evened out and we ended up with 53% over two sessions for fourth place and 2.3 gold points. Had I not forgotten our system a couple of times, we may have won the thing outright.
Being in 4S on the first board seems pretty normal to me, what with North having a potential ruffing value to favor the 5-3 game. If other pairs did not find spades, I suspect that is because their bidding agreements did not allow them to investigate 5-3 fit after opening 1NT. I would chalk the result off to bad luck: who can possibly tell that the HJ is what is needed to potentially prevent the opponents from beating 3NT off the top?
ReplyDeleteAt the local club, I see stuff like your second board all the time (just yesterday morning, in fact, a declarer with a 3=5=2=3 hand chose to bid 4H on an auction of 1NT-(2D, diamonds + major, by my partner)-2NT, lebensohl-(4D by me). My partner's major? Why, hearts! 4H was down 3, for +150 and all the matchpoints.
I attribute this type of result to players' having learned to do something that they do not really believe in. In this case, I suspect an opponent has been taught to open 1NT on a 15-17 5-3-3-2 hand with a five card major, and will do so, but is not really comfortable in the process. Thus, when competed against, the player returns to the comfort zone, a zone in which the player can't really stand not to bid a five card major.
Another common example of a player having learned to do something in the auction but not really understanding why, occurs when a player who could have bid a suit (preemptively or otherwise) later introduces the suit at the two level or higher in an auction where the player's partner has not bid and the player's opponents have not yet shown a fit. What can this mean? it likely means that the player wanted to bid the suit as dealer but instead passed because of some perceived flaw, either a flaw wrt the suit quality or a flaw wrt some side suit holding. Fair enough. But when the player introduces the suit AFTER the opponents have begun to exchange information but not found a fit, bidding the suit retains the same flaws but is now more likely to be punished, as the opponents have had a whole round of bidding exchange to possibly conclude that they are unlikely to have a fit.