4 hands from the spingold

[joshs]

Here are 4 hands from the spingold:

 

First as a warm up here is an easy hand from round 1:

 

You play a strong club and fairly natural methods:

 

Kxx x AQxx AKT9x

 

You open 1C(16+ ART)

Partner bids 1S (5+S, 12+ HCP)

What's your rebid/plan?

 

A defensive problem from round 2:

AJ9xx A2 2 Q5432

4'th seat, both red

1D-P-1H-1S

2H(4 trumps)-P-2S-P

3C-P-4H-All Pass

 

You lead your stiff diamond, and dummy comes down with:

T7x KQT9 KQ43 Ax

Trick 1 goes low, 9, A.

Trick 2 goes trump 3, A, 9, 6.

What do you do now?

 

4'th quarter, down 29, you think you have picked up 10-15 back but are not positive, 6 boards to play:

Red vs White, 4'th seat:

Qxx Axx KQ AJxxx

P-P-1D-x (Agree?)

1H-3C(limited to 10)-P-3D(Agree?)

P-3S-P-?

What is your bid and plan?

 

 

4'th quarter, down 29, you think you have picked up 5-10 back but are not positive, 3 boards to play:

KJx AQJx AQx AQx

Opps silent

P-1C(16+ART)

1S(5+S, 8-10)-2S(Agree?)

4S(undiscussed, but presumably he hates his hand)-?

Now what? What is your plan?

[hrothgar]

You play a strong club and fairly natural methods:

 

Kxx x AQxx AKT9x

 

You open 1C(16+ ART)

Partner bids 1S (5+S, 12+ HCP)

What's your rebid/plan?

2♠ seems clear:

 

Set trump at a nice low level and pray you have asking bids available...

[joshs]

You play a strong club and fairly natural methods:

 

Kxx x AQxx AKT9x

 

You open 1C(16+ ART)

Partner bids 1S (5+S, 12+ HCP)

What's your rebid/plan?

2♠ seems clear:

 

Set trump at a nice low level and pray you have asking bids available...

I said natural methods.... The one asking bid you have available is called roman key card blackwood.

[DrTodd13]

Hand 1: I am going to try to bid ♣, ♦, ♠ in that order. If partner doesn't give me the chance by jumping to 3N then I settle for a 4♠ bid after that.

 

Hand 2: ♥6 some kind of trump suit pref? Why wouldn't you play it this way? I doubt the 6 is his lowest card. Doesn't look like I'm beating this without the ♦ ruff so I'll lead the ♠9 at this point.

 

Hand 3: All things being normal, I'd bid the normal 3N and quiver over the likely ♣ lead and continuation giving them 4♣ plus some major trick. If I really think I'm down and need a swing I'll bid 4♣.

 

Hand 4: I still think I'm down eh? Slam seems marginal and you want to bid things that are marginal that you think the other guy may choose not to go for so I say just blast to 6♠ after 1♠.

 

I never these right when I'm playing with Josh so I'm not hopeful of my results. :)

[Codo]

1. 2 Spade is too easy to ask...confirm fit, show slam interest, so what else?

 

2. I really disliked my bidding and my opening lead, but you did not ask for that...

The 6 of heart looks like quite an average card. Maybe high, low or inbetween.

Maybe pd has zero or one Spade, so I lead the ace and another.

 

3. 3 NT, if bidding Diamonds first and NT later shows a hand with doubt about the stoppers? But pd won´t understand my bid this way, so I give up with just a singelton stopper in each suit and bid 4 Club.

 

4. I will hate pd to bid so silly opposite a unlimited hand and bid RCK.

[pclayton]

1. I'll start with 2♣; the same call I would make if partner opened with a natural 1♠. Conveying my club length and simultaneously learning about pard's looks like a good first move.

 

2. I can't figure out this hand - the only diamond holding that makes sense here is 6 in pard's and a stiff in declarer's, except why is declarer playing small from dummy?? So I have no idea what partner is doing, except I will woodenly play a trump back. Maybe others can point me in the right direction.

 

3. Pard sure sounds like 4-6, but 3♠ is sort of forced with a lot of non-descript hands without a diamond or heart stop. Tough hand, but I think I'd opt for a 4♣ call. The tricks for 3N look a little slow; maybe I've won the board with my double instead of a 1N overcall.

 

4. If I'm looking for a swing I'll pass. The drek you are hoping for resembles: Qxxxx, Kxx, Kx, xxx and you hope they table a club.

[mikeh]

1. 2♠. Somehow, I always find that auctions go easiest when you show your support early. Admittedly, with all my controls, partner may have limited cue options available, but he knows I have a good hand... and 2♠ will make for a comfortable auction, while bidding around the hand just increases the chances of confusion setting in.

 

2. Not clear at all what is going on, but I do NOT think that partner has the ♠K. He knew my lead was almost certainly a stiff and so could have played the J from J109 if he held that...and while the 6 is an unexpected spot in trump, we are missing the J87 as well and so it seems possible but less than probably that the 6 was his highest card. So I am going passive on this one... hoping for declarer to be something like Kxx Jxxx Axx KJx....I return a trump

 

3. I would have bid 1N rather than double... we can and will still get to a 5-3 major fit after 1N and I wasn't expecting a ♣ fit. I agree with the 3♦ bid... it is aggressive, but you are stuck. 3♠ (in my partnerships) is NOT likely to be a 4 card suit but is suggesting a moysian. I think I have already done my all... he should play me for both reds stopped and a strong interest in 3N (the ♦ stopper I show explicitly via 3♦, the ♥ stopper implicitly via my double) and he chose not to bid 3N.... since I have bid aggressively already, I am done... 4♣ for me.

 

The only argument against this is that I doubt that we can make 4♣ unless we can also make 3N.... but we may well go down a trick or two less ... give partner KJx xxx xx KQxxx and we can't make anything but 3N is a heck of a lot worse than 4♣ on a ♦ lead.

 

4. Down an estimated 19-24 imps with 3 boards to go.... well, that's closer than I've been in a lot of matches :rolleyes: I always think that you owe your teammates the opportunity to be stars... in other words, you stay in the boat if the match is reasonably close and assume that your teammates have picked up at least one good swing for you. But one good swing still leaves you stuck with time running out. So I think that this is the time to try something a little off the wall but not ludicrous. I assume that partner has a balanced hand... with almost any 5431 type he'd be interested at least a little bit... after all, he knows the approximate score as well as you do. If I swing, I either pass or I bid notrump... I am not going to put him in a ♠ slam with the opening lead coming through this hand nor do I want this hand visible during the play. I am going to bid 6N and let them find a lead. Well, that's what I'm doing here, in the safety of knowing that I am not actually at the table :D Maybe he has AQ10xx xxx Jx J10x and it's a good day for finessing :D

[winkle]

1. I feel strongly that my system should at least have a way for me to show a

club suit and spade support, so I'll start with whatever sqeuence shows that.

Maybe that means 2C followed by a spade raise, or if it goes 2C-2N I can

splinter. If the system has no way to show that, it is broken.

 

One thing I do not want to do is to immediately set spades as trumps and start a

cuebidding auction. Playing natural methods, I can't expect to have an

intelligent auction when the only thing partner knows about my shape is "3+

spades."

 

3. 4C. It sounds to me like partner's shape is something like 3235. 3S suggests

that he is unable to show a red suit stopper. 3N could make if partner has diamond

help: something like has Kxx xx Jxx KQxxx and hearts are 5-3 and righty has both

aces. The diamond stopper is by itself a very big if, and the other conditions

are hardly a cinch. So even though I'm red I think 4C is the percentage action.

(5C can't possibly be any good of course).

 

As to the swing factor, the other table may have bid 1N which would land them in

3N, or they may bid 3N with my hand on a similar auction. So I can reasonably

hope expect to pick up 6-8 imps with 4C.

 

4. I don't think partner would (should) bid this way with two prime cards such as

SAQ or SA and a K, so I think more likely a protytpe hand for partner is some

5332 hand with SQ and two kings. I'm not all that worried that partner will

have two kings and two jacks instead xxxxx Kx Jxx KJx -- it's unlikely anyways

and I'll just hope he downgraded that.

 

I think I'm in very good position to visualize partner's holding, much better

than I would in standard where the auction would go 2C-2D-2N-3H-3S-...? So

rather than worrying about generating a swing I'm just going to try to figure

out what's the percentage auction. Of course if my counterpart are not playing

standard methods, maybe I'll reconsider.

 

So how good is slam opposite partner's hypothetical 5332 with SQ and two kings?

 

The chance that spades will come in for one loser is very good. Opponent's

spades could be 3-2; or spades could be 4-1 and partner could have the ST, or

lefty could have 4 spades and partner have the S9. I'd say that's in the 86%

range.

 

If one of partner's king is the HK, 6N just needs spades to come in => 86%.

 

If partner has both minor suit kings, 6N would require a finesse and spades to come

in => 43%. I suppose it's a little better than that since partner may have a 4 card minor.

 

So if possible, it seems reasonable to ask partner to bid a slam if he has the

HK. RKC doesn't work here. I can try 5H if I think partner will take that

correctly (you tell me). Otherwise, I'll just try 6N.

[joshs]

OK Here is my take on these hands.

Hand 1 is from Day 1 of the Spingold. We are in a 3 teams advance out of 4 bracket. We play 32 boards against one team in the afternoon, if we win we rest in the evening, if not we have to play in the evening.

 

My partner and I sit out the first session, and come back to find us down 40 after 16 boards. We got back 50 in the 2'nd half including this board, which I included mostly for educational purposes:

 

If Partner had opened 1S and you played 2/1 or some other 5 card major system you would not make a forcing spade raise with Kxx x AQxx AKT9x. You would bid 2C first for a number of reasons, chiefly:

1. You are not sure spades should be trumps, and have lots of room to work it out

2. You have a source of tricks for partner and want partner to promote the club Q

 

The full hand and the auction:

AQxxx KQ Jx Qxxx

Kxx x AQxx AKT9x

1C(16+, ART)-1S-2C-3C-3S(3 spades, 5+ clubs)-4C(I want clubs to be trumps)-4N(diamond Q bid, perhaps I should have bid 4D which is rkc)-6C

 

In other partnerships I have a double fit keycard available, but sadly not in this one.

 

Makes 6. 6S went down on the 4-1 spade break at the other table.

 

 

 

Hand 2: I still can't sleep at night over this one.

 

 

[hv=d=w&n=sqxxh76djt9xcjxxx&w=stxxhkqt9dkq43cax&e=skxhjxxxxdaxxxckx&s=saj9xxha2dxcq5432]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

I needed to defend passively and exit with a heart (or a club).

 

I was worried that if the hand was:

[hv=d=w&n=sqxxh76djt9xcjxxx&w=stxxhkqt9dkq43cax&e=skxhjxxxxdaxxxckx&s=saj9xxha2dxcq5432]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

or a similar hand

 

That declarer could strip the hand and then play a spade covering partner's card and end up with a spade trick, so I felt most layouts where partner didn't have the Spade K or a stiff spade we had no chance to set them, and after about a ten minute tank I played A and a spade, letting him make.

 

Chalk one up for the 2S bid which masked declarer's hand. Had he bid 3D the defense would have been much easier.

 

Note that partner might have false carded me at trick 1 if he held the spade K, but its hard to do that in tempo and he would need to have the DJ to do that at all...

[joshs]

4'th quarter, down 29, you think you have picked up 10-15 back but are not positive, 6 boards to play:

Red vs White, 4'th seat:

Qxx Axx KQ AJxxx

P-P-1D-x (Agree?)

1H-3C(limited to 10)-P-3D(Agree?)

P-3S-P-?

What is your bid and plan?

 

 

4'th quarter, down 29, you think you have picked up 5-10 back but are not positive, 3 boards to play:

KJx AQJx AQx AQx

Opps silent

P-1C(16+ART)

1S(5+S, 8-10)-2S(Agree?)

4S(undiscussed, but presumably he hates his hand)-?

Now what? What is your plan?

As it turns out we had allready picked up about 25, not the 10-15 I had estimated, so we were in a dead heat.

 

At the other table there was no 3'rd seat opener and the auction went 1N-3N on the following cards:

 

[hv=n=sakxhxxdxxxckxxxx&s=sqxxhaxxdkqcajxxx]133|200|[/hv]

 

A magic fit, and an easy 3N.

 

At our table, expecting that 2 club honors and 1 spade honor was more likely I bid 4C and we played there, making 5.

 

For instance:

 

[hv=n=sakxhxxdxxxckxxxx&s=sqxxhaxxdkqcajxxx]133|200|[/hv]

where leading either red suit beats 3N.

 

 

I was expecting to get a pickup, but instead I had a critical loss. I was intending orignally to bid 3D and then 3N to show doubt, but I talked myself out of the 3N bid after partner bid 3S. Who knows if he would have sat for 3N with that hand....

I am still undecided if I should have bid 3N over 3S.

 

On the final hand, I slightly lied about the situation. This hand was immediately after the previous one where we played 4C making 5, and there were 5 boards to go.

And I think we need a big swing.

 

On this hand I bid key card (after a 5 minute tank) partner showed 1, and then asked for the Q (after another 2 minutes) and then stopped in 5S. Hoping that the slam would be bid at the other table and goes down. The opps also stayed out of slam at the other table. And we lose the match by 5. :P

 

 

 

For those who bid 6N here is your play problem:

A87xx xxx KJ Jxx

KJx AQJx AQx AQx

 

Plan the play in 6N on a diamond lead.

 

Also, as punishment for bidding 6N, you get to compute the odds of it making!

[mikeh]

In 6N... lots of permutations and I won't analyse them all here..

 

win the J♦ and ♠ to the J.

 

1. The ♠ finesse loses

 

They almost certainly return a ♦. Win and hook a ♥. If it loses... I'm down... so...

 

 

It wins, cash the ♠K. If the suit splits such that I can pick it up (3-2 either way or stiff 9/10 in rho), cash the ♦A and the ♣A and run the ♠, coming down to a 3 card ending, with the ♣J in dummy as my threat against either opp holding 4♥ and the ♣K.

 

If the ♠ suit fails to break, I am in real trouble. Cross in ♦ to hook the ♥...it is a given that this wins or I am down now. I need ♥ 3-3 and the ♣K onside and I still can't do it unless the ♣K is doubleton...because I am out of entries... so after the first ♥ hook, I burn my last entry to dummy and play a ♣to the Q, cash the A and go back to dummy with the J and hook the ♥...if this makes, I will run out to buy a lottery ticket!

 

2. The ♠ finesse wins.

 

Cash the K.. if all follow, then cross in ♦ and hook the ♥.

 

If that wins, play ♣s for 2 winners (A and low will suffice) to prevent LHO from having hoodwinked you by ducking with K♥.. .take your 5♠, 2♥, 3♦ and 2♣.

 

If the ♥ loses, then if LHO has the last ♠, he should play it now... and you are going to have to read the ending to determine whether to play for ♥ 3-3 or the ♣K onside... and your possession of the ♦A will prevent any squeeze.

 

If lho does not return a ♠, he will likely return a ♦. Win and cash the ♣A before running the ♠.. setting up the squeeze against 4♥ in the same hand as the ♣K

[joshs]

1. I'll start with 2♣; the same call I would make if partner opened with a natural 1♠. Conveying my club length and simultaneously learning about pard's looks like a good first move.

 

2. I can't figure out this hand - the only diamond holding that makes sense here is 6 in pard's and a stiff in declarer's, except why is declarer playing small from dummy?? So I have no idea what partner is doing, except I will woodenly play a trump back. Maybe others can point me in the right direction.

 

3. Pard sure sounds like 4-6, but 3♠ is sort of forced with a lot of non-descript hands without a diamond or heart stop. Tough hand, but I think I'd opt for a 4♣ call. The tricks for 3N look a little slow; maybe I've won the board with my double instead of a 1N overcall.

 

4. If I'm looking for a swing I'll pass. The drek you are hoping for resembles: Qxxxx, Kxx, Kx, xxx and you hope they table a club.

Phil I think you misread hand 2....