sathyab

♠xx ♥Qx ♦Txx ♣KQJxxx is not a preempt opposite a 1♣ opener. It's good mixed raise. Why would you get to loads of 3nt with zero chance ? Partner should be mindful that a mixed raise can be on ♣ length or a distributional hand with minors, so he won't be trying for 3nt on hands with lots of high cards unless they included Aces as in my examples.

Don't have time for a simulation, here're a few that seem reasonable. If partner has: ♠JTxx ♥Kxx ♦AQx ♣Axx, it's nine tricks on a ♦ finesse. ♠AJx ♥JTxx ♦Axx ♣Axx you have 8 tricks on top with some chances for one more. I'd rather be playing 3nt than defending against it.

If you preempt with KQJxxx you will be missing a lot of 3nts when partner has a good weak NT.

What would you say to team mates who brought back 1440 and ask you expectantly "so did they get to the grand ?"

That depends how often you've gone back and forth on playing Reverse Baze versus Regular Baze :) Changing your system frequently takes its toll on memory, as does playing similar but slightly different treatments with different partners. It's not uncommon to play different variants of super-accept, pre-accept, Smolen, Puppet, 3-level bids over 1nt, 2-way NMF, Wolff, Baze, defenses over 1nt, defenses over intervention of 1nt with different partners. And the list is far from exhaustive. It's not as simple to get rid of all these conventions or even play a "standard" version, as quite often there're no standards for a treatment. They don't even have proper nomenclature to name the variations.

Unforced errors in card play and defense as jogs pointed out. It takes a fair amount of diligence to review your record to identify patterns. When I reviewed my record from Atlanta, I noticed that my play in Notrump contracts at MP was poor and specifically because I was not playing the hands optimistically enough. Once you identify a problem, you can try to guard against repeating the same kind of error. Bidding errors cost a bunch too. But quite often, it's a lot harder to understand that they are indeed errors or that you would want to do something different the next time you encounter a similar situation.

If partner has 1=5=2=5, he won't love 4♦, as RsClyde has pointed out. What's the best lie with this hand over 4♦ ? You suspect partner may be 4-5 in pointed suits, should you bid 5♣ hoping for 5-3 fit or rebid ♥ hoping to land in a 5-2 fit ?

3♠, follow it up with 4♦. I have a two-suiter and there's only one way losers in those two suits can be covered: by high cards or controls in those two suits specifically. If partner who had bid 3nt over 3♠ rebids 4nt now or 5♣, pass.

♥A, ruff, now trump finesse. If it wins, one more ♥. If it loses and trumps turn out be 3-1 and they don't return a trump (say I've lost to the stiff K), then ♣ ruffs. If a trump is returned and they're 3-1, I can still ruff a ♥ and test for 3-3 before settling for 4-3 ♣.

My observation is that interesting card play/defense hands at IMPs are a much smaller subset of total hands played and probably even smaller compared to hands that cause swings in bidding. Two years ago for example we were seed#57 in Spingold and played seed#8, needless to say we were to going to be seriously out-played and out-defended. There couldn't have been more than six hands in the whole set that were interesting play/defense and the stronger team probably got 4 of them right against us getting 2 of them right. But it was swings in bidding that decided the match. A 28 IMP swing hand was definitely a big one. At our table we judged well to get to 4M judging that 6M was against odds given the lead of an obvious unbid suit. The bidding at the other table got messy with issues of UI being raised and when opponents got to 6M, our counterpart made a poor choice in lead and the slam came home.

I can understand 3♥ asking for a stopper. If they bid 4♥ you can now double describing your hand pretty accurately. Why double though ? Even if they bid only 3♥ instead of 4♥, it's awkward bidding 4♦ with that hand or doubling again.

With your side having so much in black suits, you think it's remotely possible that your opponents could have the above agreement on this hand ? Given that you're missing a fair amount of high cards in the Majors and the ♣Q, I will go out on a limb and venture that opponents doubled because they were looking at a collection of pictures. Wrong on this hand no doubt, but that's no reason to think that the opponents are inferior to play those methods or that those methods are themselves inferior.

Would it be shocking if E-W did not have an agreement about the double ? Have you and your regular partner discussed doubles of uncontested Slam bids with no side suit bidding, when one of them starts with a pre-empt ?

The majority of Bali may be Hindu, that would make it culturally more Hindu than Muslim perhaps, but I doubt that makes it a "Hindu State". I think it's still governed by the Laws of Indonesia which is an Islamic country.

Or use trumps to ruff out all the ♣ and tuck them in with a ♦. When you a ♣ after trumps, defense has to play a third ♣. Now ♦Q from hand. If they win, they are forced to return a ♦. Win in dummy ruff last ♣, give them a ♦ and they have to play ♠. If they duck the ♦, you play a second ♦ making sure you don't put up dummy's K, as now LHO can win the third ♦ and get out a ♣ forcing you to play ♠ yourself. When you play low, if LHO wins he is forced to play a ♣ which you ruff, play the last ♦ and force a ♠ play. The whole hand was: [hv=pc=n&s=sj52hakq85dq87c43&w=sq96h632djt4ckq98&n=sat7hjt9dk92ct752&e=sk843h74da653caj6]399|300[/hv] If RHO discards a ♠ you have to throw them in with the third ♠ after eliminating ♣ and guess ♦, which is probably even tougher. I was LHO. When 2♥ came back to me, I didn't want to sell out, so I doubled. My failure to double first, failure to bid NT, failure to bid 2♦ or failure to bid 2nt when balancing to compete in minors should make my distribution clear I thought. I was happy when I caught partner with nothing in ♥. I thought partner would bid 2♠ with that hand which is fairly easy to play for -1. Unless it's doubled, which is really tough for the overcaller to do looking at so much in ♥, it should be a decent spot I thought. All I remember about the hand is that declarer didn't play a ♣ or a trump after pulling 3 rounds. How we conceded an overtrick thereafter is something I can't reconstruct :( In our section of 13 tables, only 3 -110's and our -570. but in the 3 combined sections quite a few -110s and even -140s, when even 110 needed non-trivial play.

[hv=pc=n&s=sj52hakq85dq87c43&n=sat7hjt9dk92ct752&d=n&v=e&b=9&a=p1d1hp2hppdppp]266|200[/hv] Lead: ♥3 Assuming you pull 3 rounds of trumps, T1: ♥3, 9, 4, 5 T2: ♥T, 7, Q, 2 T3: ♥8, 6, T, ♦3 Opponents playing UDCA. With 4-4 in minors they open 1♦. 15-17 NT, Normal negative doubles to show 4♠.

Can't disagree more. Sports are not played in vacuum, they're played in the larger context of society. Playing Bridge or Soccer is not more important than the lives of innocent people. I don't understand why you would require India to not ban Pakistani players in Commonwealth Games, in the light of Mumbai Massacre of 2008. That'd be like saying 6 months after 9/11, the U.S should have hosted a Soccer team from Afghanistan. It should be the other way around. International Sports organizations should themselves ban terrorist-sponsor nations from International sports rather than putting a victimized country on the spot. All through the years of Apartheid, the ICC (International Cricket Council) had banned South Africa from all International Cricket.

It'd be nice to make a distinction between a direct Redouble versus bidding 3♦, get doubled and redouble that. If your partner can ask why you went thru 3♦, he might conclude that you have longer ♠.

OK, this was the whole hand. [hv=pc=n&s=sk54haq42d762ck96&w=saj7ht875dat984c8&n=s63hkj96dkqjcqj54&e=sqt982h3d53cat732]399|300[/hv] This hand was written up by Barry Rigal in an article titled "Oh, That Was Easy" in http://www.acbl.org/nabc/2013/02/bulletins/db2.pdf I was the one who overcalled 1♠ as East, presenting my partner a problem. We hadn't had time to discuss what 2♠ would mean over 2♥, so I passed hoping the auction would tell my partner I had a light overcall. I thought South judged the hand really well to not try for game given the amount of competitive bidding, thereby causing partner to assume I had a stronger hand. I normally don't make frivolous overcalls. But the spots and the shape made me do it :( In our sections with a 50 Top, 3♥ down 1 was 17 MP, 3♥ down 1 X'ed was 34 MP. 3♠ making was not 50 MP, but pretty close may be 47, as there were two 870's but no 730's ! -200 was worth 3 MP. Where there was no bidding by E-W, quite a few N-S got overboard and reached 4♥. Let the ATBs begin :)

Would it change your vote if partner had bid 2♠ over 2♥ instead of passing ?

[hv=pc=n&w=saj7ht875dat984c8&d=n&v=e&b=9&a=1c1sd2c2hpp2spp3h?]133|200[/hv]

Playing Smith, doesn't count take precedence when you are looking at this dummy ? Looks like which ♠ to win or how many to duck could be critical when there's only one sure entry outside the suit.

I probably wouldn't have found the 4♥ bid with West's hand, but I think it's a good bid. There're many near-slam hands that East can hold with good trumps that're impossible to bid with a simple raise to 4♠. How did the other table bid this hand assuming the bidding was the same up until 3♠ ?

Hmm, so the bid of 5♠ with ♥Jx was not hypothetical then ?

Is 3♣ over 2nt forcing ? A lot of people play it non-forcing to make a distinction between a direct 3♣ versus getting there after a non-forcing bid, such as 2♥ here. 4♣ over 2♠ ? Would 3♣ be non-forcing ?