Goofy pairs!

[jillybean]

I played in the goofy Calcutta pairs at the club yesterday, a lot of fun. Random partners, strong field and came in14/18, happy not to be last.

When we sat down to fill out our card the first thing my partner said is that he didn’t play transfers! I think I spent the first half of the tournament worrying that I would forget 'no transfers' – can you believe that not one hand came up where we could have used transfers. :P

 

 

[hv=d=e&v=n&s=sqhxxdqt732cajxxx]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

This was my hand, the first board we played. RHO opened 2♠, I overcalled 2nt thinking minors or should I say not thinking at all. Terrible bid anyway, stiff Q, Q, AJ

Partner holding Kxxx,JTxx, KJx,xx bid 3nt, I went down 2.

 

2nt over a weak 2 is natural

2nt over a 1 level bid is it U2nt.

 

Board 15

 

[hv=d=s&v=n&n=sktxxhktxxdxcxxxx&s=saxxhajxxdajtxxcx]133|200|Scoring: IMP

1♦ (P)1♥ (P)

2♥ (ap) [/hv]

 

Other pairs found 4♥, it seems reasonable to stop in 2♥. How would you bid?

 

We had a few other hands where we weren’t aggressive enough, not knowing each others limits. Other than that we were out classed in the play.

GREAT experience & great way to spend a wet Sunday afternoon :)

[pbleighton]

I think I would bid 3H instead of 2H, but it's close. Some days I'd bid 2H.

 

It's also a close accept of 3H, given that the stiff is in pd's suit.

 

Don't worry about it.

 

Peter

[cherdano]

In the second one, I would bid 3H as opener, but get to play there as I'd pass as responder.

 

I agree with your bold letters :P

[firmit]

Nice post! Glad you had a great time!

 

After partner bidding 1♥ after your 1♦, and you holding a rather strong 3 suited hand, with two honours in partner's suit, and a singleton - a 3♥ good support bid seems right.

 

However - 3 aces and a ten, should be upgraded a bit - so: let's say 13-14 for the aces and 10 +2 Jacks + 2 for the honours in partners suit + a singleton = 19-20 fit points, warrants 4♥. Maybe not everyone agrees with this, but I would not kill partner if he bid 4♥ directly (edit:if I was responder!).

[inquiry]

First one, 2NT was, er, unusual (and I do mean unusual).

 

Second one, south has a great hand in support of hearts. If you are not allowed to bid more than 2♥ (I think 3♥ is best), then something is wrong with your methods. This hand is sooo much more than 14 hcp.

[Guest Jlall]

On board 2 I imagine the normal auction was 1D-1H-3H-4H. With great honors and a singleton and the very useful DT south is worth a lot in support points for hearts. North would have an easy game bid over that. This kind of game is very dicey and is the type where good declarers often take more tricks than inferior declarers.

[HeartA]

Second one, south has a great hand in support of hearts. If you are not allowed to bid more than 2♥ (I think 3♥ is best), then something is wrong with your methods. This  hand is sooo much more than 14 hcp.

3♥ of course. 3aces, DAJTxx, plus a singleton, not a minimum for 3♥. It's close call for North to accept or not, though. Singleton in pd's suit was not so great, plus 4 trumps only.

[han]

Very nice post Jilly. I agree that south is worth 3♥ for sure.

[mikeh]

I sure wouldn't worry about missing 4♥ on board 2. You are not vulnerable so there is no need to push for a close game. I would, however, agree that the S hand is (barely) worth 3♥. Aces are wonderful cards, and are woefully undervalued in the 4321 point count we are saddled with. 4321 has the advantage of being easy to count, and the ACBL (and other NCBOs I think) have enshrined its use in convention cards, etc, but it is only an approximation to the trick-taking potential of cards. As one advances in one's understanding of the game, one leaves behind point counting (including adjustments for distribution) as anything more than the starting point of valuation.

 

So to me this is a GREAT 14 count because: I hold 14 hcps, I hold 3 Aces (6 controls), I hold a decent 5 card suit (opposite xx I have an excellent chance of 3-4 winners), I hold 4 trump and I have a stiff.... and the stiff is a low card! xxx AJxx AJ10xx A is nowhere nearly as good a hand, yet most point-counters would say it is the same hand :P

 

If I were to use a numerical valuation, I would probably do it as follows: the hcp, being in my long suits, are upgradable.. My Aces are upgradable, even my Jacks (which are overvalued by 4321) are pulling full weight because they are accompanied by other good cards in their suits (honour combinations are worth more... the whole is greater than the sum of the parts) and I have a potentially valuable stiff... which translates my small trumps into potential winners... so I'd value this at least as highly as, say, KQx Axxx AJxx Qx (now, I know I would have opened that 1N, but the point is that this 14 count values at at least 16)

 

But, as North, I'd have passed 3♥....I have a high card minimum, a usually non-working stiff and only 4 trump. Plus 4441 hands usually play at less than their hcp estimation predicts, not more.

 

So I miss a non-vulnerable 20 hcp 4-4 major suit game at imps. No big deal.

[Guest Jlall]

People passing the north hand opposite a 3H bid is really surprising to me, there must be some different standards for 3H bids. With a balanced 18 and 4 hearts I would routinely bid 3H, so there is no way I can pass 3H. I also don't buy that this is "minimum HCP" for a 1H response, surely we've responded with less than this before.

[awm]

There does seem to be a general problem here. Take the following hands:

 

QJx

JTxx

AJxx

Kx

 

Axx

Axxx

AJTxx

x

 

AKx

AQxx

AJTx

xx

 

It seems (to me anyway) that these are all 1♦ openings, and they are ordered by strength after partner responds 1♥. Unfortunately, the only heart raises we have available are 2♥, 3♥, and 4♥. If we determine that the fourth hand is too weak for 4♥ (and especially if we respond pretty light, there are plenty of hands responder could have such as Jxx xxxx xxx KQx which offer relatively little play for 4♥) then we have to select between 2♥ and 3♥ for all of the hands. The first one becomes an obvious 2♥, but now bidding 2♥ on the second hand seems somewhat ridiculous (this hand is much better than the first and even something like xx KQxxx xxx xxx offers excellent play for game). If we bid 3♥ on the second hand, then the third hand (with five more useful looking hcp) is substantially better than the second, and bidding 3♥ on this hand is somewhat ridiculous too (say partner has xxx KJxxx xx xxx; opposite hand two you have virtually no play for four hearts on a spade lead whereas opposite hand three you will make four hearts any time one of two diamond honors is onside, roughly 75% -- an even more extreme example is xx Kxxx xxx KQxx where opposite hand three you have excellent chances for game whereas opposite hand two you're sure to lose a trick in each suit even if every suit breaks and every card is well-placed).

 

Anyways the basic point is that you need more than two heart raises available. My solution to this generally involves forcing game on the 18-19 balanced with 4-card support -- yes occasionally this will get me too high when partner has the trashiest possible one-level response (admittedly for me this is still slightly better than some of Justin's junk responses) but it seems more palatable than making the same bid on hands 1 and 2 or making the same bid on hands 2 and 3.

[Guest Jlall]

FWIW with hand types like hand 2 I usually bid 2H and hand types like hand 3 I usually bid 3H, but both of those are worth more than their typical evaluations with great honors, honor locations, and DTs so I would bid 3H with adams actual hand 2 and 4H with adams actual hand 3.

[awm]

Yeah... my point is that opener's hand will evaluate to 12+ hcp in support of hearts (counting distribution). If we assume that 19 from opener is not generally enough for game, then our range is something like 12-19 which must be covered by both 2♥ and 3♥. But especially for 3♥ (which offers responder no room for game tries), we need the strength range to look like a 2 or maybe 3 point range in order for responder to make accurate decisions. So we're left with a split something like 12-16 and 17-19 I suppose, but then 12-16 is quite wide and we will force responder to make game tries on "normal" nines to reach our 25 point games, which will get us too high opposite the fairly frequent "weak notrump" type opening bids. An unfortunate side issue is that the "12-14" range is substantially most frequent because balanced hands outnumber shapely hands and we open 1m with 12-14 balanced but not with 15-17 balanced.

 

Obviously people evaluate hands in different ways and honors in different ways so giving specific hands can be difficult, but my point is that there's a really wide spectrum of hands opener can have and you can't really sensibly pack them all into only two raises and expect consistently right contracts to be reached.

 

With one of my regular partners I play a strong club system, which removes the "strong" opening bids from 1♦, and we still use six different ways to raise responder's major (two of which can stop at the two-level, the others at the three-level), and I still wouldn't say that our game bidding is 100% accurate! How much harder must it be with wider-ranging openings and only two raises? Playing relatively standard methods my "solution" is to force game with 18 and a fit, and divide these ranges as roughly 12-15 and 16-17. Obviously this will occasionally backfire when responder has a dead minimum.