Bid this slam!

It is no secret that my preferred bidding system is precision. Various partners have helped me iron out the kinks in our system over the years, but most of the time the strong club bid proves itself the winner without any of the fancy bidding tools that are options in precision. The following hand propelled my partner and I to a 60% matchpoint game the week before I left the US.

North (Don):

A
Jxxx
xxx
AKxxx

South (Me, Dealer):

xx
AQx
AKQTx
J9x

The bidding:
1C*(1) - 2C*(2)
2D*(3) - 3D*(4)
3H*(5) - 4H*(6)
5D*(7) - 6D*(8)

1 - Strong club: 16+ pts, any distribution
2 - 8+ pts, 5 carder club
3 - 5 carder diamond
4 - Choosing to show diamond support rather than the ragged heart suit (still time to find a heart fit)
5 - No spade stopper, wanting to play 3NT from the other end
6 - Showing 4 carder heart: 1435 distribution now known
7 - No 4 card heart, no extras for a minor suit slam, no ruffs in hand so no point showing club support
8 - Knowing none of my 16+ pts are in spades, visualizing my small spade(s) getting ruffed in dummy.

Nothing much to the play, ruff a spade in dummy and give up a club early. You need diamonds to be 3-2 and a reasonable lay of the club suit. This hand would have made a bigger difference in an IMP game. Playing precision you rarely miss out on the 5-3 and 4-4 minor suit slams and your ability to bid major suit slams is unaffected. Now that I am in Chennai I will bug you guys to learn precision until one of you does :)


Cheers
Prashanth.

High Seas, Strong winds, Driving rain.

High Seas, Strong winds, Driving rain. All that did not stop Vinoth and I from going to TNSC weekly pairs tournament. There were only seven tables, so it was decided, rightly that the scoring will be IMPs.

I picked up,

Kxx
AKJTx
xx
AKx

Partner held

AQJxx
Qx
AJxxx
x

The auction was uncontested.
I started the auction with a routine 1H, but messed it up later.

What should have happened:

1H - 1S
2NT - 3C*(1)
3S*(2) - 4NT
5D*(3) - 5NT*(4)
6C *(5)- 6H*(6)
7S - 7NT#(1)

*(1) Kind of a stayman / New minor forcing.
*(2) Showing 3S, exactly three spades.
*(3) Showing 0 or 3 key cards.
*(4) I fancy a grand slam, (All key cards are between us) Bid your kings. (Specific King ask)
*(5) Showing club King.
*(6) If you have Heart King, bid 7, otherwise 6S.
#(1) If its Match points. :)

The play offers no challenges.

What is of interest is the bidding. The general agreement in such situations is as follows: after a response to the number of key cards, the next step asks for the Queen of the agreed trump. Two steps from that will be asking for specific kings or the number of kings ( depending on the agreement) Its important to get the 6H bid's meaning right. It can only be asking for King of hearts, and denying King of diamonds. With Heart King, directly jump to grand slam.

---------------------------
More deals to come soon.

Cheers
Guthi.

Common Slams hands.

Date: Dec 4th 2007, Tuesday.
Venue: TNSC

On the last but one board of the session, (N-S vul) I picked up this:

AJ
Axxxx
xx
Kxxx

RHO was the dealer and he passed. I opened 1H and the auction was uncontested till the end.
This was the auction Vinoth and I (Guthi) had.

1H - 2D*a
3C*b - 3D*c
3NT - 4C*d
4H*e - 6D*f - End.

*a - I remembered that we are playing 2/1. Yay. The first time it happened in over 3 sessions!
*b I confidently bid 3C. Playing SAYC, I might have considered bidding 2NT as 3C needs some extras.
*c - Parnter is confident that I won't pass it. Why? We are playing 2/1. :D
*d- Guthi- Cue bid, obviously. He has lots of diamonds, rich boy.
Vinoth- Gerber, obviously. What is the point showing clubs now?
*e- Showing Ace of Hearts.
*f - Showed only one Ace, I will bid slam anyways!

Mr. Declarer's and dummy's hand is here.

AJ
Axxxx
xx
Kxxx


Kxx
Kx
AKQJxx
xx

Chalo, now children count your tricks. 2+2+4+0 = top tricks. Tricks needed = 12. Tricks to be developed = 4. If diamonds split is friendly - 2 more. If heart suit is super friendly(3-3) - 2 more tricks. We reach home safely.

The lead is a friendly small Spade. Declarer played the Jack and it held. - Good, no need to ruff any spades in dummy. Declarer thinks for a while and plays a low heart to his king, small one to his Ace. Opponents following with LHO playing Q on the second round. This doesn't change declarer's plan. Now played a low heart and ruffed in hand. Voila! all followed. Now declarer played 3 rounds of trumps and claimed. All. Made 13 tricks for 940.

Analysis - Bidding:
Does Gerber 4C Ace asking apply in this situation? I remember reading that on auctions like this, when opener bids two suits and then bids no trumps, it doesn't apply.

Vinoth bid 6D: I do not know if he realized that I meant 4H as cue, if it was Ace showing, then its a wrong bid. He should have signed off in 5D.

Assuming that I take 4C as Gerber and respond 4S and now he bids 6D, I should bidding 6NT, considering it is Match Points. I am glad that I was able to reason out that we may need to ruff hearts in his hand to set up the suit for black suit discards. But clearly a club lead will kill the contract if partner doesn't have either the Ace or the Queen. If I bid 6NT and partner has KQ double ton of hearts, and no club honour, it is safer. Our present bidding sequence did not allow be make any judgment.

Analysis- The play.

I think the line adopted by the declarer was not very safe. There are enough entries to cash the hearts if they split 3-3. After Jack of spade holds, he can afford to pull 3 rounds of trumps, hopefully splitting 3-2, he has to ruff a third heart in hand. If they split 3-3. All is well. If it is 4-2, Then low club to King is the only hope. If the diamond break is 4-1, We can only hope that the defender with 3 or more hearts also holds the 4 carder diamond. 5-0 break is pretty tough to handle.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some time earlier I picked up

Txxx
-void-
KJxxx
AKxx

LHO was the dealer and started the auction with 1H. Partner over called 1S, and RHO bids 2H. What is your call? Oh wait, look at the vulnerability. Its both-vul.

There are lot of options to choose from. I remember reading this auction.
1H-1S-3H-4H* - 4H says - Partner I am bidding 4S based on values, not just distribution, thus differentiating it from a direct 4S bid.

I stared blankly at my cards and remembered what Mr.Tota told me once. Just think what partner might interpret. That was some useful advice, but I panicked and called 3H. LHO bid 4H, Partner competes(?) to 4S, goes passed to LHO, who bids 5H, two passes to me and I bid 5S.

Lead was a small heart.


Txxx
-
KJxxx
AKxx


AKJxx
xxx
QT
xxx


After ruffing the heart in the dummy, declarer expertly plays low Spade to Ace and then bangs the king on the table felling the Queen. Just one Diamond conceded and made six. But not bid.

Vinoth was quick to say that I should bid 4S right away. I disagree. Now I feel 4H should have been the call. Shows spades + values + Heart void ( /singleton depending on agreements.) What say people?

If he had a maximum over call with Diamond Ace, there is even a grand slam. Ah!


PS: Ashok or SP, feel free to edit this post. I posted this in a hurry.

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One small obvious thing I missed at the table,

LHO opens 1NT(15-17) and through stayman they reach 4S. Partner leads A of diamond and dummy has JT75 in diamonds. I held Q864. I carefully played the 4, declared playing the 2. Partner casually played diamond 3 now, covered by dummy's Jack. I paused to think. Partner continued the suit in spite of me discouraging. I played the Queen, declarer won it with the King! Aah, it was so simple to count. Partner held 2, dummy has 4, I have 4. This leaves declarer with K92. (Yes I noticed the spots this time!) All I had to do was to play the low diamond, by covering, all I did was enable declarer to discard a club on the established diamond and make an expensive over trick. Hard luck? No! Bad defense.

Zzzz...
Guthi

Truly Ordinary Deal?

DO NOT look at the East–West cards, but look at the rest of it. You are declarer in 5 ♣. Ready?

This deal occurred on BBO yesterday, and I was declarer (playing with Prajwal, Guthi on my left, SP on my right). West leads the ♥ J, dummy playing ♥ 6, to East's ♥ A, and East returns ♥ 9: ♥ K, ♥ 3, ♥ 8. You play ♣ K and both follow with low cards. You then play ♣ Q, West taking the ♣ A, and East discarding ♥ 2. It seems pretty clear what your chances are, doesn't it? The diamond finesse needs to be right. No points of interest, are there?

So when West returns ♠ K, you take it with your ace, pull the last trump, and take the finesse. Correct?

Of course not. If it were so, you'd hardly be reading about it here. The thing to note is that you have ♠ J in dummy and West holds the ♠ Q. So what, you ask? Well, it's squeeze time.

If the finesse is working at all, so is the squeeze. So if the finesse is on, you can force West to play it when you lead towards dummy. Just cash your ♦ A and run all your clubs.

When you play your last club, you're down to ♠ 7 ♦ 8 ♣ 4 and dummy to ♠ J ♦ KJ. Hopefully, West is down to ♠ Q ♦ Qx. If he discards his spade winner, your problems are immediately solved, so he will of course bare his ♦ Q. So when you lead your diamond at the end, a low card from West can only mean he does not have the queen, revealing that East has it (this is called a show-up squeeze). So you don't finesse and play for the drop of the doubleton queen with East.

I spotted this play only after going down two. How did you fare?

You may now look at the East–West cards and note that on the layout this play fails too, as East has ♦ Qxx. But in view of his weak jump overcall, this play is important. And for what it's worth, I'd have gone down just one, not two, for a minor swing of 1.87 IMPs.

(Interestingly, if West is from Wackoland, he will have ♦ Q without ♠ Q, forcing you to go down in a contract every dipshit made.)

Does Your Upgrade Policy Need An Upgrade?

Because of their frequency, balanced hands are an important area of bidding. In simple natural systems, opener usually announces a balanced pattern either right away through a notrump bid or in the second round through a rebid in notrump. (The balanced pattern is not shown if he is raising respoder's major suit.) In the SAYC-based system I currently play, the various ranges of balanced hands are expressed thus (“s” means any suit): 1 s → 1 NT (12–14), 1 NT (15–17), 1 s → 2 NT (18–19), 2  → 2 NT (20–21), 2 * → 2 NT (22–23), and 2  → 2 * → 2 NT (24–25).

Of course, this schedule has an air of sweet simplicity about it, but the ranges should not be considered binding, despite the popular notion that notrump ranges are rigid. Three types of adjustments may be necessary.

1. 1 point for a reasonable 5-card suit is automatic. Do not hesitate to count a length point for, say, AQxxx, and do this consistently. Many will do it with Jxxxx too, but that is up to you. An ordinary 4-3-3-3 hand is in general noticeably worse than one of the other balanced shapes. In fact, you can deduct one point for holding a 4-3-3-3, which could be cancelled by a good feature in the hand.
2. The various effects of honour structures are important. This sort of valuation is more difficult than the others, but the familiar general rules are valid, e.g. a KQ or QJ doubleton is bad, whereas AJTx or KQJx is good; AKQ is bad, but AKQx or AKQJ is better. If two hands with abundant high cards afford poor play, it will usually be seen that the culprit is such wastage as KJ opposite Qx or AQ (!) or xxx.
3. A simple rehash of the HCP scale itself is a good adjustment. Everybody knows that aces and kings are more valuable than the 4-3-2-1 scale suggests. Significant improvement will result from simply changing the scale to 6-4-2-1 (to compare the number so obtained with the HCP, you need to divide this by 1.3).
   
   This, however, is unnecessary if you can start thinking in terms of AK controls (to be abbreviated as AKC from now on). Each ace counts as 2 controls and each king as 1. You can train yourself to think of a hand as better than average if it has more AKC than average and vice versa. But how do you know what the average AKC for your type of hand is? One simple rule is to multiply your HCP by 0.3 to estimate the average AKC in a hand with that many HCP. You can therefore upgrade or downgrade by comparison with that average.
   
   This simple rule is quite wrong when the hand has too many points. The following table lists average AKCs for all HCP counts in the range 10–25 in balanced hands (any 5-3-3-2 or 4-4-3-2 or 4-3-3-3 pattern) based on 500 000 random hands generated for each number in the range (except the last one). It also lists the factor by which three-tenths the HCP should be multiplied to obtain the true average in each case. Obviously there is little use for knowing this table by heart, but it is quite handy to know, e.g., that a 20-point balanced hand has on average not 6 but 7 AKC. Familiarity with the trend will, I think, allow opener to judge better which range his hand belongs to.

HCP	AAKC	Corr. Factor	HCP	AAKC	Corr. Factor
10	2.93	0.98	18	6.24	1.16
11	3.37	1.02	19	6.64	1.17
12	3.75	1.04	20	7.05	1.18
13	4.15	1.06	21	7.47	1.19
14	4.58	1.09	22	7.88	1.19
15	5.00	1.11	23	8.27	1.20
16	5.39	1.12	24	8.68	1.21
17	5.82	1.14	25	9.08	1.21

I will give you one example of how correct upgradation can be beneficial. In October, I held the following hand on BBO, sitting second-seat, nobody vulnerable, playing with Prajwal against SP (RHO) and Ravi:  A965  K4  K654  AK4. RHO passed and I had to choose the opening bid. According to the third criterion above, this hand is a prime candidate for upgradation. The AAKC for a balanced 18-count is only 6.24 and this hand has 7 AKC. So it should be a good idea to plan 1  → 2 NT rather than 1 NT, shouldn't it?

Partner turned out to have  83  A763  AQ732  QT. As you can see, 6  is practically a certainty and 7  has good chances.

I was naturally curious to see how others holding my cards had done, and this is what I found: it went 1 -2 -4 -5  at one table and P(?)-1 -1 -1 NT-4 NT at another, but everybody else had started with 1 NT and ended up in some number of notrumps.

If you make the popular choice, though you would like to believe that a good partner will sense slam with the 12-count 5-4-2-2, in reality it will mostly be missed, because you have “29 HCP at most and you need about 33 points for a small slam”. From partner's position, it's really hard to imagine that you will have such a cracker of a 17-count. If you're not convinced, notice that the combined hands may quite easily produce a grand slam, though I'm not sure if it's a good proposition to bid it (because diamonds cannot break worse than 3–1 and if they're 3–1 you can't have the long-trump hand sit over  K4 and be short in hearts).

There was another time, quite recently, the same players in the same positions, when I held  AQ5  K85  AK7  AK43. 23 HCP and 9 AKC—another upgrade-worthy hand. I did not have the Kokish or the Multi-inversion agreement with Prajwal at the time, so I opened 2  and only showed 22–23 with 2 NT after receiving the 2  waiting response, because 3 NT makes exploration quite difficult. I had every intention of accepting the mildest invitation.

None came, however, for partner bid 6 NT next. I did wonder if 7 NT was a possibility but passed with a sigh after realizing how foolish it would be for me to bid it. Luckily, partner held  K632  AQT  T93  QJ6, so that 12 tricks were guaranteed and maybe there were 40 % chances for the thirteenth trick (yes, a small chance of a squeeze in diamonds and spades apart from 3–3 spades). Anyway, the point is that if I had had the Kokish relay, I would surely have upgraded.

I don't remember ever deducting points for anything other than a 4-3-3-3 (don't we all like to overbid?), but surely there are examples. Here are ten hands for you to practise fitting into one of the ranges:

1.  Q543  AT3  AK  KQ94
2.  A865  K875  AK4  AK
3.  K6532  KJ  AQJ  KQ7
4.  A54  AK53  A986  A9
5.  AK5  AT653  KQ8  72
6.  AQ  AJ86  A72  AJ73
7.  AKT  AJ4  QT82  K98
8.  QT85  QJT  A93  AQT
9.  AK94  A3  KJT  KJ64
10.  K3  AQ865  KQ3  KT6