What’s it to be? Concluded

The question was, with this hand, what bid to make with the following information:

AK10xxx
xx
xxx
Qx

Partner opens 1NT 13-15.

After a system discussion of 5 minutes with your inexperienced partner, it seems to you that your options are:

(1) 2S natural and weakness takeout
(2) 3S 5+ forcing
(3) 4S
(4) 3NT

So what’s it to be?

	NORTH AK10632 98 1043 Q8
WEST Q854 A1054 852 92		EAST J Q62 KJ97 K7643
	SOUTH 97 KJ73 AQ6 AJ105

For playing 2S making 11 tricks I got 41%. Half the field was in game, most in 4S, a couple in 3NT.

I was playing at the Adelaide Bridge Centre, Phil Gue’s club. It is a most pleasant place to play and has excellent MP scoring in place. Your scores are available the instant you finish and during the night you can see all the scores so far on each board after you enter your own score. Great fun. For a link to the sort of thing I’m talking about, go here.

Tomorrow, something COMPLETELY different. Do drop by.

What about this pairs decision?

Speaking of pairs, I played last night, and in a very weak field, you pick up:

AK10xxx
xxx
xx
Qx

Partner opens 1NT 13-15.

After a system discussion of 5 minutes with your inexperienced partner, it seems to you that your options are:

(1) 2S natural and weakness takeout
(2) 3S 5+ forcing
(3) 4S
(4) 3NT

So what’s it to be? Or maybe you have another option under the circumstances.

Making a mountain out of a molehill….

You pick up

7
104
AJ85432
1052

Nil vul, RHO is first to speak and begins with 2D a standard multi. You pass, on account of what happened last time you bid on something like this (you don’t want to know, trust me), and LHO bids 2H for correction. Partner doubles and RHO passes.

What now?

5D crossed my mind, and then 4D – it’s always nice to get a plus, isn’t it? And then I started thinking about the hand and the auction to date. Maybe I need to get a life, but really, it is quite an interesting situation.

One of two things is happening. Either LHO has made some sort of psychic 2H bid or partner has an extremely strong hand. Nothing else fits your hand, does it? That made me think I wanted to bid 3H to get him to bid 3N if he had a heart stopper – and if he bids anything else I can correct to five diamonds. If we have the auction to ourselves I think this’ll work well as a plan. But if LHO has psyched (and is planning more mischief) I could get into trouble.

Once I started considering this fact I realised that what I really wanted to do now was bid 3D on the basis that partner was so strong they were bound to bid again. But while I’ve been thinking about all this a considerable time has passed. 3D might just bar partner from bidding any more. So in the end I went with 3H.

As suspected, LHO hadn’t finished yet. She bid 4H and partner said 4NT. Is there anything to be said for passing that? It is MP Pairs, we are in notrumps, and if we were going to make 3NT we are going to make four. Call it too many drugs without a helmet in my younger days. Sometimes they still kick in. I showed my ace – always nice in dodgy auctions if your blackwood reply is also a 7 card suit – and partner bid 6C. Is there anything to be said for correcting that? Maybe. But what are you going to do over 6S next? I passed.

WEST	NORTH	EAST	SOUTH
Chua	Schroor	Hinge	Sheather
			2D
Pass	2H	Dble	Pass
3H	4H	4NT	Pass
5D	Pass	6C	All Pass

VBA
State Pairs Qualifying
Session 3
Bd 27
Dealer South
Nil vul

	NORTH S K9632 H AQJ3 D 1097 C 9
WEST S 7 H 104 D AJ85432 C 1052		EAST S AQ5 H 6 D KQ6 C AQJ873
	SOUTH S J1084 H K98752 D — C K64

I guess it was a case of the operation being successful but the patient dying. One off was not a lot of matchpoints…but at least it is likely, if I have managed to find a 3D bid in tempo, we probably would have gotten to 6D which suffers the same fate (in clubs the diamond ruff was not found).

Please help me, doctor, I’ve been playing Pairs.

Honestly, it must be a couple of years since I’ve had a pairs game and let’s just say there is room for improvement.

Last night was the first qualifying night of the Victorian Open Pairs and things didn’t go altogether according to plan.

Suppose you pick up, vul against not:

S 109xx
H Jxx
D 98x
C Kxx

RHO opens 1D, you pass, LHO bids 2C and partner butts in with 2S. This is passed around to LHO who doubles. RHO bids 3H over that. So what do you do? ANYTHING? Pass looked like the best bid I’d made all night, but in fact 3S makes 9 tricks and plenty of people bid it. Partner has nothing much, either:

S AJxxx
H Kx
D AJx
C J109

Was I just unlucky: spades broke, HA was onside, CQ was onside, the 98 of diamonds were worth about a trick when there was DK10 doubleton under the ace….