sathyab

Not to sound simplistic, but the standard meaning is "points", or I guess I would sound more advanced to say "card showing" or "do something intelligent". And if you have the strength to act but no spade stopper, what else do you suggest? There are only three options. Pass and be stolen blind. Raise partner and miss 3NT. Or double. I don't even understand how this can be controversial. It's not that it asks partner to bid 3NT with a spade stopper. It's that bidding 3NT will generally be the obvious thing to do when he holds a spade stopper. Okay, sure I understand there're auctions where you're cramped for space and double is the only way to suggest that you have the values not to sell out to opponents but that you don't have a clear-cut action. Say an auction such as 1c-1s-X-3s(preempt)-X, where the X is most likely not for penalties, but just looking for a playable spot. But in this auction it's not clear at all the X wasn't a legitimate penalty double, but a "card showing" or "an offer to do something intelligent, for some definition of the word intelligent which is left to you as an exercise in bidding judgement". You argue that without your interpretation of the double, your side would be stolen blind, miss 3nt sometimes. Fair enough. But can't it be argued too that 1) You will often be pulling partner's double when your side wasn't making 3nt quite often when neither side was making anything. 2) Having witnessed your tendency to pull his doubles to 7 or 8-trick 3nt contracts often enough, your partner starts passing instead of venturing a double. Do you have any reason to believe that statistically 3nt makes far more often than 3s X going down when 3nt wasn't making ?

Amazing. This post could qualify for the Saturday Night Live segment "Really ?!$%". So the "standard" meaning of double of 3s is to ask partner to bid 3nt with a spade stopper regardless of his suit quality, the assumption being that whenever you have a stopper and a six card suit, there will invariably be nine tricks somehow ? What would you do when you were dealt a defensive hand with shortness in Diamonds ?

Surely partner can't have more than two Diamonds for his double and if he has Qx and a spade stopper he'd have bid 3nt himself, especially as you can have a better hand, since you are not handicapped by the burden of conventions such as good-bad 2nt. If you bid 3nt you're hoping that partner has a full stopper when opponents have a nine card fit or Qxx of spades when they have only an 8-card fit (LHO's 3s being based on distribution, but not necessarily a six bagger) and of course a doubleton Diamond rather than a stiff. The chances of 3nt seem to be pretty bleak if it's intended seriously to make, but a pretty good bid if you think of it as a sacrifice against 3s.

No idea where you pulled that from. If you look at North American events, the three-day pair events are pretty tough. I haven't heard of any client-server pair ever winning either the LM pairs or the Blue Ribbon pairs event in recent history. If you're extracting a lot of gifts from your opponents you should be winning major pairs events regularly. On the other hand, sponsored teams routinely do well in major team games; my guess is they do a lot better at IMPs than in BAM. You can't win MP by doing extra-ordinarily well on a few hands or lose it by doing poorly on a few deals. At IMPs, you can play 61 boards of close-to-perfect bridge and lose it all on the other three. Look for instance at the fate of Rubin's team in the finals of the Vanderbilt. Three bidding misunderstandings, two by Weichsel and Lesniewski and one by Verhees and Jansma collectively accounted for more than the margin of victory. No matter how much they outplayed the opponents on the other deals, the format of scoring doesn't allow you to wipe out those three expensive errors. I have no idea why anyone thinks this format of scoring is superior to BAM or MP.

I wonder if someone could elaborate on improving your bidding judgement. I find that the hardest part of the game and the one area where there's a lot less consensus than the aspects of play and defense. I don't know if there's any other intellectual (and supposedly objective) pusuit where two experts in a field can hold two nearly-equally-valid opinions and yet be almost mutually exclusive on a given problem. I have seen this way too often, be it BW panels, team games, multi-team games or commentaries from experts commentating on expert games, to be persuaded otherwise. What complicates matterrs even more is the fact that what an expert tells you in print is quite different from how they react in real-life. Electronic bridge is a lot more helpful in this regard as you can actually see how experts dealt with the matter at the table.

I tend to agree with posts that blame the methods less than the judgement involved in making the second double. As for agreement, I guess when you are playing systems which are somewhat less informative compared to standard methods it's more imperative to have some. Had the auction gone 1d-(1h)-X-(p)-2c-(3h)-X with North holding 9xxx 9xxx Axx AK, and South showing Diamonds and Clubs, nobody could complain much about the methods and yet the double is probably almost as disastrous. With partner showing at least 5 Diamonds and possibly six, isn't there a chance of our defensive tricks collasping as a result of Diamond fit that partner doesn't know about ? Here's a similar one from a recent IMP pairs event: [hv=d=s&v=b&n=saqxh9xdaqt8xctxx&w=st85hakqjxdxcqxxx&e=sjxht8xxxdjxxcakj&s=sk97xxhxdkxxxc8xx]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] And the bidding goes p-1h-2d-3d-3s-p-4s-p-p The 3d is limit raise in hearts. As a passed hand, South bid 3s as he was prepared to play in Diamonds had he found no spade fit. When it came around to West, I don't think there's any reason to double at all. So much of your strength is in hearts and except for the Queen of clubs, you have precious little by way of defense. It shouldn't be surprising if your side scored only 1 heart trick if you could imagine even a nine-card fit with a 4-1 break in the suit. And yet of course it was doubled and as happens often misdefended too. After an opening heart lead and the Ten of hearts by partner, playing UDCA, a club shift seems mandatory. But he thought he'd switch after cashing the second heart ! Horrified to see it being ruffed, now he's preparing his arguments to win the post-mortem. May be this is a bad example: if West does switch to a club and the fourth round of clubs ruffed with the Jack, the contract could even go down 2 ! Good double pd, wish you could defend a li'l better :)

You'd have to bid it quite well. Yes, it does indeed need some good bidding to get there. But most of the methods are well-understood and extremely well-illustrated by Kantar in his book "Roman Keycard Blackwood", Slam Bidding for the 21st century, 4th Edition. You don't need any of the esoteric stuff either, simple stuff like two-suit RKC, Specific King Ask (SKA) which most people play anyway and SSA (Specific Suit Asking). There's one additional treatment that helps on this hand, it's similar to the auction 1m-1M-2nt-3d (checkback). Now opener can bid 4m or 4om to tell his pd that he has 3M, 4OM and a good hand. When it goes 1n-xfer-to-M-2M-3x, pd now bids 3M whenever he has 3-card support for Major, 3nt with no interest in partner's suits, 3y to experss interest in pd's second suit alone and 4x on a hand where he has both 3-card Major and 4+ minor. With Kxxx Kx Axx KQxx it'd go 1nt-2d 2h-3c 3d-3s 4c-4d(RKC) 4s(1430, 3 keys), 4nt(Q-ask) 5d(low Q, 5c would show 0, 5d low Q, 5h high Q and 5s 2 Q; since Q-ask has so many steps now it can not be extended to show Kings when holding a Q) Now responder bids 5s (Specific Suit Ask in spades) Cheapest return to one of the two-suits denies third round control and isn't counted as a step. That apart the steps are: 1st step: xx or Q 2nd step: Kxx(x) 3rd step: Kx Raising SSA shows KQx. With a singleton and "lots of trumps" (this needs a lot more discussion), jump to 6 of cheapest suit. On this hand pd bids 6d. 5nt is 1st step, 6c doesn't count, so 6d is 2nd step showing Kxx(x). So there you have it: pd has Kxx or Kxxx of spades, Kx of hearts, AofD and at least 4 clubs to KQ. 7c is clear. In the auction I posted first, 3c was a temporizing bid to find out if pd had 3 hearts. But I think recognizing clubs as a possible key suit, in that you can extract key card info about both K and Q leads to a really good slam. If you had chosen Diamonds instead, things don't work out as easily.

Good ol' RKC with only hearts as trumps; two keys w/o the Q.

Aren't you taking up a lot of room with a balanced 17 HCP by jumping to 5nt directly ? Wouldn't be easier if partner could bid a 5-card minor below the six-level. There're so many things you can find out partner's hand and judge to bid 6 or 7 of a minor or for that matter even a 4-3 fit in a solid minor. You're giving all that up just so you can bid 5nt with a balanced 5332 17 count w/o inventing suits ? For instance if you had caught partner with Kxxx Kx Axx KQxx, all 7c needs is a 4-2 break in clubs.

I love that idea as I had myself brought it up in an e-mail exchange with a bunch of my buddies "Wouldn't 5nt force 6nt and invite 7nt" ? So now I know that there must be downside to it, just a matter of figuring out what it is :) On this hand partner should upgrade KJx to full value and bid 7nt I think.

Ok, if you don't think the key to the hand is the club fillers what else is ? You have all the bidding space you want between 2h and 6nt which almost anyone would reach. If hearts come home for no loser, any of the other suits can contribute tricks, but if hearts don't come home, then you do need the minor suits to be solid in which case you do need the King of clubs. One cheap way of finding out about the King of clubs is to make clubs a second suit as the Diamond Ace can be figured simply as part of key card inquiry. You say a holding of 5 Diamonds could also make the grand a good one. But how do you propose to find that out while at the same time not giving up on the possibilty of a heart fit ?

[hv=d=n&v=b&n=skxhkjxdajxxckxxx&s=saxhaqxxxdkq9cajt]133|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv] I watched the bidding on this hand in a recent GNT Open game. North opened 1nt and at one table it went 1nt-2d-2h-3c-3h-4nt-5h-7h ! The other table stopped in 6nt, auction unknown. After I saw this hand, I immediately wrote to my partner reminding him of the need to play six-key RKC whenever a two-suiter faces a strong balanced opening such as 1nt/2nt. With that agreement, the bidding could go 1nt-2d 2h-3c 3h-3s 4c-4d (RKC, as responder is interested in a major-minor two suiter in which case the immediate suit after the minor is the kickback suit, when unambiguous), 4s(1430 structure, 3 keys out of 6), 4nt (Q-ask) 5c (no Q), 5nt(Specific King Ask, 5s can be Specific Suit Ask by agreement) 6s(Spade king) So now, you have extracted as much information as you possibly can (if you had used SSA in spades you could have found out if pd had Kx of the suit or longer which could have been critical had you been interested in 7c, which could have been the case had partner shown the QofC and you suspected he had four of 'em; 7c would then be safer than 7h without the Jack of hearts, but that's academic now). You know pd has Kxx of hearts, AofD, KofC, but no Q and KofS. He must either have the Queen of Spades or two jacks for a minimum opener. Do you have enough info to try 7nt now ? If you had discovered that partner was missing either the King of clubs or hearts, it appears to be poor grand, which would be the case if pd had something like KJx KJx AJX Qxxx or some unappetizing variant thereof, so it looks as though introducing clubs would have helped to some extent.

That's not a similar position, because now you are indeed losing to Kx of diamonds as well, as he is an entry short to ruff out your AJx. At Phil's table, if declarer pulled three trumps you would know he started with exactly two spades and 5 trumps. For it to be right to rise with Ace of Diamonds, declarer has to have a stiff Diamond as playing low doesn't hurt the defense. But if declarer had Kx KQJxx K Axxxx, would he be pulling trumps and not cater for a 4-1 club break ? If that's his hand he most likely would play a Diamond to the King from dummy before pulling any trumps and then work on clubs if he stole a Diamond trick.

Phil, the spoiler, spiller :) If partner raises and leads the spade ten, it's pointless returning a spade. But little works on this hand for defense anyway. If you were dealt one more club and one fewer heart, a club shift at T2 would be semi-automatic. As it turns out, with a club shift declarer wins in dummy, plays Diamond to his King, ducks a Diamond, wins the Ace of clubs and ducks one more Diamond. Eventually his thirteenth Diamond takes care of his losing club. If you know declarer has only two spades, it could still be right to hop with the Ace in his line of play as he could have 2=5=1=5 with the stiff King of Diamonds and 5 clubs to the Ace, but I doubt he would have pulled trumps in that case, as you know he doesn't know clubs are so favorable. The way he's playing this hand now, he's going down if you play low. Going up with the Ace is right only when declarer has stiff K. My partner led the spade Ten not having raised spades. And the declarer played it in a way that was easily consistent with Kxx KQJxx K Axxx, so I did rise with the Ace. As I tried to cash the second spade trick, declarer ruffs, making 11 tricks for 1 MP out of 25 and I knew I had been had, not by the declarer, but by the third opponent.

If declarer has Kx of Diamonds, he won't lose a club eventually. If you play low, he scores the King of Diamonds, plays a Diamond back and ruffs out your Ace with one of the two entries to dummy and the club loser eventually goes away on the established Diamond. Another time you lose by not rising with the Ace of Diamonds is when declarer has Kxx KQJxx K Axxx. Now after scoring a Diamond trick, he takes the two clubs, concedes one and ruffs his fourth club with the Ace of trumps. The highest spot in trumps partner can have is the seven and that can't hurt declarer in any way.

[hv=d=e&v=n&n=sj95hat8dq862ck32&e=saq874h953daj3cqj]266|200|Scoring: MP[/hv] It goes 1s-(2h)-p-(3h)-p-(4h) Partner leads the Ten of Spades. Playing UDCA you play an encouraging 4 of spades as declarer wins with the King. At T2, he travels to dummy with the Ten of hearts, partner following suit with the 4 of hearts (no suit preference signals in trumps discussed) and play a small Diamond. Your move.

Reminds me of a signature in an ex-colleague's e-mails, a quote attributed to Napolean. "Have champagne, in victory you deserve it; in defeat you need it" !

I've been using the same metric for quite some time, i.e, performance in top-level pair events as a measure of one's progress and also as a goal to aim for, but it's not a universal yardstick by any means. I frequently attend Nationals which my regular partners don't. When I look for new partnerships, it's always the same question I have "Tell me about your recent performace at the Nationals". On the other hand, quite a few of them aren't impressed by my 1500 MP's, for it places them in lower brackets in events like Spingold and Vanderbilt which seed teams. I tell them I didn't have the time or the inclination to attend all the Bracket VII KOs in all those regionals to accumulate MP's by the bushels. Some day instead of an aggregate number of MPs and BRP Q's, they'd tell us how many Blue Ribbon Pair Qualifiers you acquired in Open events like Pair events or Open Swiss teams versus Bracketed KOs.

He was such a constant fixture at the Nationals for so long. The Fall Nationals in SFO won't be the same without him.

Steve Chen ("bucky" on BBO) and I are looking for teammates for Reisinger. We've both done fairly well in recent Nationals, reaching the finals of 3-day National pair events several times and Reisinger semi-finals once. You can reach me directly at s_bettadapura@yahoo.com Thanks, Sathya

While your hand is good for all the reasons you mentioned, it's also got huge liabilities: 3 small clubs, only KTxxx of Diamonds and a trump suit where the Queen may be of dubious value. Void, Kxxxx KQxxx xxx is obviously stronger. Good as this hand is, its true value depends a lot on partner's minor suit cards and you have to bring your Diamond suit into the picture. Hopefully your partner is on the same wavelength, realizing that you're introducing a side suit in a fit acution like this because that suit needs help.

How does a simple overcall make this hand slammish all of a sudden ? My first worry when I have a huge heart fit is what to do when they bid 4s over our game. If you bid 4d first you may have a chance to show your spade control later on the way to slam, but now whatever you do is a guess. If partner has a modest hand with a Diamond fit and club shortness, you want to pull and if pd has a stiff Diamond and all his strength outside hearts is in black suits, you wish you had passed. Assuming I had to fill in for someone who bid 3s and bolted, I'd pull and hope partner recognizes that it wasn't I who bid 3s first.

Yeah, they crushed their opponents by all of 8 IMPs. If they had lost by the same amount, not sure what Zia and R'berg would be doing, but the commentators would still be commentating, wouldn't they be? By the same token, South Africans got to an atrociously bad slam against Italy in the QF, the one that came home because Queen of hearts was doubelton and declarer got two picthes holding AK tight opposite JTxx. The commentators were unanimous in declaring that the slam was too lucy for words. SA did get to the semi-fianls. Does the result make that a good slam ? Quite of a few of the commentators are very good/great players in their own right and sharp analysts of the game. Their criticism of an individual bid/play/defense is fairly objective for the most part and it should be taken as such, not tainted by result'ing.

The problem I think is that the play in hearts in consistent with declarer holding either two or three hearts. So even if West does switch to a Diamond, realizing that they need at least one trick, they need to switch back to a heart if declarer has a stiff Diamond, as neither defender can be sure that declarer simply won't pull trumps and claim when he gets in. I don't follow. If West leads ♦Q, and it wins, he is getting a diamond count signal from partner and knows whether a second diamond is cashing. If declarer covers and partner wins, he will know my heart count and know whether a second heart is cashing. I was just saying that the defense must not only switch to a Diamond when they get in with the Ace of spades, but they must then try to cash whichever red suit trick they can determine will cash next. If it wasn't clear that they must switch to a Diamond, may be it won't be clear that they need to switch back to hearts or continue Diamonds. Hope it's clear now.

The problem I think is that the play in hearts in consistent with declarer holding either two or three hearts. So even if West does switch to a Diamond, realizing that they need at least one trick, they need to switch back to a heart if declarer has a stiff Diamond, as neither defender can be sure that declarer simply won't pull trumps and claim when he gets in.