dburn

Is East supposed to rebid other than 3NT with: ♠xx ♥Qxx ♦AKxxx ♣Axx ? If so, what is he supposed to rebid, and why? (Memo to self: asking hanp a question is a mistake. I knew this, but I had forgotten.)

[hv=d=w&v=b&w=sak432hk32dqj97ck&e=sq5hq1094dk10832caj]266|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] West opened 1♠, East bid two game-forcing diamonds. West raised to three diamonds. If you have any observations on the auction so far, feel free to make them. East bid 3NT. West bid 4♦. Was that a mistake? East bid 5♣. Was that a mistake? West bid 6♦. Was that a mistake? East and West played 2/1 game-forcing. I will not ask the question for a fourth time, because I already know the answer - to play that way is a mistake.

One thought (because I never have more than one, and often have fewer): imagine partner with KJ109x in both majors and enough stuff that the contract depends on finding ♥Q if there are two losers in spades. Now: playing in spades, partner can delay the heart guess until he has more information about the distribution in other suits. Playing in hearts, he cannot. This may be another manifestation of what is called the "Vondracek effect": when two possible trump fits are equally distributed in the declaring side's hands, the weaker suit should be trump.

A back-of-an-envelope calculation gives the odds as roughly 0.006%. This accords with personal experience - if you play, as I have, an average of three sessions a week with 24 boards a session for 50 weeks of the year, it ought to happen to you about six times in the course of thirty years. Law 7C is indeed clear - you must shuffle your hand before returning it to the board. This may have been introduced in order to prevent a manoeuvre that certain teams were said to operate, although I have not seen any direct evidence. The notion was that if your opponents could make a slam, you sorted your cards before returning them to the board. When your team-mates observed that their opponents did not sort their cards after removing them from the board at the other table, they would bid the slam.

No real reason I can think of to do other than open 1♣; if I pass or open three or four, I will probably think that I ought to do something on the next round of the auction, but I will not know what. May get more of a feel for this if I start the auction at the one level - why should I be the one to decide how high our side should go, when we might make anything from one club to seven diamonds? 4♣ is the bid of a man who hates his partner; 1♦ is the bid of a man who hates everybody.

The line followed at the table seems reasonable enough, except for ruffing a heart without cashing the king first. That would have cost the contract had West begun with 3=3=6=1 distribution (assuming that, as you should, you attempt to re-enter hand by ruffing a club rather than a diamond). Admittedly, 8-1 clubs is not very likely, but it is better than a 0% chance, and not cashing ♥K before taking the ruff gains exactly 0% of the time as far as I can see.

Whereas 1NT - 2♣ - 2 any - 4NT is regarded by most as natural and non-forcing, and whereas 1NT - 2♦ - 2♥ - 4NT is so regarded by many, the sequence 1NT - 3♥ - anything - 4NT is almost universally regarded as Blackwood (where 3♥ shows hearts). Come back tomorrow - we will try to have something else for you to learn.

Would lead a club without thought; a diamond might blow a trick even if partner has the jack, while a club will not. A spade is speculative: could work very well or very badly. A heart is close to ridiculous at any form of scoring, but maybe marginally less wrong at matchpoints than at IMPs. No doubt it was the winner.

It seems to me that the critical holding for declarer, and one that makes his line of play not at all unreasonable, is: ♠AKQ109x ♥Q ♦10x ♣AJ102 Now, he could have made the contract after the trump lead by playing for the actual club position, but his shot of a diamond at trick two is a long way from ridiculous (nor is playing the ace, although he could still make by ducking). However, if that is what he has, I had better play a spade now rather than some silly king of hearts. True, if I let the contract through by doing the latter I could always blame partner afterwards for not having led a diamond, but I would rather beat 4♠ at my table and blame team-mates afterwards for not being in 3NT. Edit: forget all that. Declarer's line would be ridiculous if that was what he had. Originally I was thinking that a spade would be necessary if declarer's clubs were AJ87, but my own club holding seems to preclude this. Would still play a spade rather than a heart, since I can't see when we might need to do the latter. But I confess that with ♦KQJ it would never occur to me to play other than the jack on the ten, so there is doubtless something about the problem that I am missing altogether.

This deal from the final match may have laid to rest one of the more prevalent superstitions surrounding the pack of cards. [hv=d=n&v=b&n=sk4haqj753da975c5&w=s106hk94d1062cqj1074&e=saj952h106dkq84ck8&s=sq873h82dj3ca9632]399|300|Scoring: MP[/hv] North, Veronica Guy for Scotland, played in four hearts on a trump lead after South, Samantha Punch, had produced an optimistic (an ancient Gaelic word meaning "ridiculous") raise to game in the sequence 1♥1♠-1NT-Pass-3♥-Pass-4♥. She won and led a low diamond, won the next trump, drew the last, messed around for a bit and led another low diamond. In practice East ducked this and could later have been squeezed in the pointed suits for eleven tricks, but declarer settled for ten. It is worth noting that if North's ♦9 had been interchanged with East's ♦8, the contract would have failed. As I watched, I could envisage what Guy might have been thinking: "Partner's raise was a little perverse, But it might have been very much worse. Game would not have been great With the diamond eight, But luckily, I held the Curse."

This is one of the most often mangled suits in bridge - even Zia doesn't know how to play it. Two finesses is certainly correct: a simple check will show that this loses to QJx, QJ doubleton and a singleton honour offside, while gaining against a small doubleton, a small singleton or a void offside. The chance of each of these holdings, given roughly by gnasher above (although he should not have counted both 6-0 breaks), is: QJx offside 7.1056% QJ offside 1.6149% Q or J offside 2.4224 % Total losing cases for two finesses 11.1429% Small doubleton offside 9.6894% Small singleton offside 4.8447% Void offside 0.7453% Total losing cases for playing from top 15.2795%

I wonder: how often will a player of any level of skill play the queen from Qx?

So if opener actually has his bid, what does he do? Bids 4♥ quickly with a heart control and 4♥ slowly without one.

For the actual story, see here.

The Law says this: If a player at the table considers that he or another player has conceded a trick that could not be lost by normal play, his proper course is to summon the Director and ask for a score adjustment. His proper course is not to cast aspersions on the morality of any other player.

I recall that in the 2000 Olympiad in Maastricht, the Netherlands, the Conditions of Contest addressed the problem of sportsmanlike dumping by attempting to make it illegal. The form of words they chose was along these lines: Teams may play whatever line-ups they want for tactical reasons, but for the players at the table, failure to play other than as good bridge as possible is not permitted. I think I was the only person present who worked out that this meant it was mandatory to play badly. The question that has troubled me since is: when the Italians beat us in the semi-finals by playing well, should I have called the Director?

Fascinating. Presumably the author of this "descriptive information" believes that a married woman has missed or will miss the good things in life, and that her title should reflect those misses. "Mrs" is an abbreviation for "mistress", the woman in charge of a household. The Oxford English Dictionary remarks that: The form "missus" originated purely as a spoken word, but was of course later adopted as part of written vocabulary; the form "misses" did occur, but was rare. The former is now used only jocularly, the latter not at all. "Miss" is also an abbreviation for "mistress", and was in former days used thus: the wife of Mr [an abbreviation for "master"] Hinden was Mrs Hinden; her eldest daughter was simply Miss Hinden, and her younger daughters were Miss X Hinden, Miss Y Hinden and so forth. "Ms", the reader who has followed me diligently until now will not be surprised to hear, is also an abbreviation for "mistress"; it was used occasionally until the 18th century as an alternative to "Mrs". As to punctuation: when letters are omitted from the end of a word, it is common practice nowadays to denote this by a period; when letters are omitted from the middle of a word, an apostrophe is generally used. However, when the forms "Mr" and "Mrs" were first adopted in written use, they were not punctuated at all (there was very much less punctuation around in the 17th century than there is now), and the use of "Mr." and "Mrs." is a modern anomaly for which there appears no good reason.

It's probably not very surprising, that whatever you think the minimum combined strength should be for a game forcing auction, it comes up most often when it is equally split between opener and responder. Yes, dburn might be able to give a one-line proof for this fact. He might, but he begs to observe that he is no mathematician. As far as he can make out, there are essentially three important results in probability theory: The Law of Large Numbers, which states that things will probably happen about as often as you would expect; Bayes's Theorem, which states that if you observe for long enough how often things happen, you can probably work out how likely they are to happen again; and The Central Limit Theorem, which states that both of the above theorems are probably true, or at any rate not demonstrably false. Beyond that he will not venture, except to observe that if he had to make game with 24 hcp between the hands, he would rather have them divided 12-12 than 24-0. Luckily (so to speak) if Frances's pivot tables - which he would trust with his life - are to be believed, he will more often than not be in this relatively happy position.

It is possible, I suppose, that if Eric Rodwell had four hearts and knew that your partner had two, he would have won the second round of hearts, rather than allowing your partner to be brilliant at his expense. As to that ace of spades: if I remember correctly, Hamman and Soloway used to play that when you split honours in front of declarer, you "split high", so that from KQ you played the king. It is possible that this, rather than his usual desire to confuse everyone including himself, was what motivated Zia to play the ace from ♠AK.

Don't mind 1♥ if 1♣ shows 3+ - rather less likely that we ought to play in clubs in those circumstances. Would certainly bid 2♣ if 1♣ showed 2+, though - if partner has anything, we might make 3NT, and it is important to show these clubs in that context. Mind you, one advantage of 1♥ is that it will make it easier for the opponents to find a 4-4 spade fit; my hand suggests that on this occasion I would not greatly mind if they did that, and nor would my partner. If my spades and my diamonds were interchanged, the case for 2♣ would be enhanced, since now I might be more concerned about making it easier for the opponents to find any spade fit they have.

You may be right. I say only that if I had ♠KQJ10xx ♥xx ♦xxx ♣Kx I would consider it more effective to bid 2♠ over 1♠ immediately than to pass for the duration of the auction and watch partner lead a non-spade against 3NT (or any other contract, for that matter). With another ace, I would be content to pass at my first turn, then bid spades at my second, because I do not anticipate the auction being at an inconvenient level when my second turn comes. Your mileage may vary, but the main point I was trying to make is that if you and your partner have agreed to play that an immediate 2♠ is natural, you do still need to have a good idea of how strong it is. Would you raise it with, say, an ace and a king and a couple of spades? One more drill: if you open one of something, and partner responds 1♠, and the next hand bids a natural 2♠, what is your double? This may seem a simple question, but not all that long ago I watched a pair of champions conduct exactly this auction, and the double was explained (but not intended) as "three-card spade support". Presumably 3♠ would have shown four-card support.

If it's any consolation, I would have led the same silly diamond as your partner led. And I would have bid 4♠, not 3♣, with your hand also.

Since I was at the Camrose in the role of vugraph commentator, I was consulted by the Director about this ruling. When the hand actually occurred, a diligent search of the North-South and East-West convention cards eventually enabled me to explain to the audience that [a] the North-South methods were demented; they were not as demented as North, who seemed to believe that the methods applied in a situation where they clearly did not. I had no idea at the time that North did not know against which country he was playing, but if I had, I would not have revised my opinion of North's general level of dementia other than upwards. I confess that I was not sure about the basis on which the Director allowed North to change his call only with East's permission. That seems to imply a set of screen regulations with which I am not familiar. The WBF General Conditions of Contest say: As far as I know, no revised regulations have yet been published, and the EBU regulations for screens do not seem to me to make any specific provision for the situation that actually arose. I may be wrong on both of these counts. Law 25 says that: but this does not apply here, since [a] a pause to reflect upon the fact that you did not know what methods the opponents were playing is certainly a "pause for thought" within the meaning of the Act; and North clearly intended to bid 3♦ when he bid it. At any rate, North was stuck with 3♦, as in my opinion he should have been whether East would allow him to be stuck with it or not (but the Director is one of the most capable on the highly capable EBU staff, and he doubtless knew something I did not about the Law and the regulations). As it happened, South was 5-5 in spades and diamonds and was able to offer a forcing raise to 4♦, hastily passed by the demented North and leaving East in a bit of a pickle. I spoke with East at some length during the dinner that followed the tournament, so my opinion might have been one of the two conflicting ones he is said to have received. Whereas in general I am very much less sympathetic than most with the idea that certain infractions profit the offending side simply through "rub of the green", I said that in the circumstances I did not believe that his side was due any redress - he had just been desperately unlucky. His treatment of the situation as it arose on his side of the screen appeared to me tactically correct and morally irreproachable, as I would expect from this fine player and gentleman. However, as not only this East but every other competitor in the Camrose was to discover, nothing would avail against North in his might this day.

Curiously enough, while I agree that West should double 1♦, I can understand a partnership style that precludes it (double is either shape-suitable or a strong hand). But I cannot for the life of me understand an East who passes out 2♣. For drill: what is 2♦ at East's second turn in this auction? It isn't silly to play double as majors, either equal length or longer hearts, and 2♦ as majors with longer spades. For extra drill: if you do play 2♠ as natural, how strong is it? At first sight it may appear that you ought to have a pretty good hand to wander into an auction where LHO has opened, partner has not acted, and you are bidding a suit that will not always break very well. But experience suggests that an immediate 2♠ is better played as a decent weak jump overcall with a good suit, while a delayed 2♠ shows a good hand.

Would not consider a minor at either form of scoring. Would prefer a spade to a heart simply because the spade spot I will lead (the eight playing top of nothing, the seven playing second highest from bad suits) is less likely to be misread by partner than the six or the five of hearts. Mind you, I don't consider our chances of beating the contract to be very good. But here, unlike a similar problem elsewhere in these forums, the opponents are marked with not only length but strength in the minors. Moreover, my spot cards in the minors may prove awkward for declarer unless I break the suits first. Still, as with all opening leads, anything could work on a given day (for example, if dummy produces 4=4=3=2 shape, I may regret not leading a diamond). If the situation is "clear" to the original poster's correspondent, I conjecture that he will not remain a beginner or even an intermediate player for long - it is far from clear to me.