Sacrifice now? or later!

Study the deal below.



Q1) What will you bid in Prajwal's (akjq) seat?

Q2) Anyone wants bid 5H over West's 5C?

I paused a little long at that moment, then passed. East bid 6 in a flash. I took a little time and decided to sacrifice in 6H.
I lets analyze the various cases that were flashing in my mind that time.
5H is a winning bid

• if we push opponents into a hopeless slam, but this is counting too much on opponents, but we will study this option.
  
• (look at the vul) when 5C makes and 5H is <3>=3 imp save, rite?)

5H is a losing bid

• if we push opponents into slam which otherwise opponents may bid (and make it).
  
• if 5C dosen't have a play.
• if 5H is down more than 3.
  

(Are there any other cases? )
I (rightly?) jugeded that my hand falls into the 3rd category.

Too bad the jerk bid 6 anyways. Passed around to me, time to think again.
This time however, there are not that many possibilities. I quickly bid 6H.
The defence took their tricks. two black aces and a diamond ruff.
Just a 500 as opposed to their 6c which would have given them 1370.
My best save ever! Yippee. ;-)

Wait, there is one more interesting sutiation,
Q3) What will you call in my position with that holding? 4-7-1-1 ? Do you preempt?

PS:
It is not clear to me when and how junta realise that they might be pushing opponents into a game and so refrain from preempting. Most of these are in situations where one has to raise a preempt. Can someone please post about it?

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Khuda Hafiz

Guthi

Vinoths BBO-table presence?

This deal came up on BBO when I was playing Vinoth. We were playing Polsih Club, with 2/1 style over 1M opening. (rebid non-forcing).

Scoring - IMPs; Red on white.

LHO as dealer passed and Vinoth opened 1S. I held
AT87 AK974 87 Kx
I responded 2H.

Q1) Playing 2NT as artificial raise with 4 trumps, do you think that should be used here? Since there is an outside source of tricks in Hearts, is it recommended to bid 2H (establishing a GF, but hiding the support)

Over partners rebid of 2S, I raised to 3S. I hope you will agree its the right bid. (2S; is our catch-all bid, doesn't deny extras, doesn't promise 6 carder) The partnership also agreed on playing 3NT as frivolous and cue bids as serious. The auction went. 1S-2H; 2S-3S; 4C - 4H; 5C* - 5S; 6S - end 4C was a cue bid, showing slam interest. 1st or 2nd round control. 4H is 2 of the top three honours in Hearts, denying 1st or 2nd round control in D. 5C - I understood it (rightly) as voidwood and responded (honestly) two key cards w/o the Q. Q2) Do you think the treatment of 5C as exclusion blackwood is good? Q3) Do you think in response to keycard ask, I should respond 2 with Queen, (lying about the Queen) because partner will expect only 3 card support from me ... etc Vinoth's holding was: KQ943 Q85 KT632 void

Yes, partner doesn't have any extras. infact, I think in terms of high cards he has a minimum. Q4) Do you think he can sort of upgrade, looking at his Q of Hearts? and bid 4C? ( playing serious cue bids) Q5) This is a general question, do you think its a good % to bid slams with one key card and the Q of trumps missing? on 8 and 9 card fits, in MPs and IMPS. Q6) Also, you might ask why opener did not bid 3D over 2H, we were taught to play crossing 2NT as showing extras ( atleast a King more than normal opening) Hence the D suit stayed buried. Do have any suggestions on how to handle these situations generally? ******************************

KQ943 Q85 KT632 void

AT87 AK974 97 K4

Our friendly opponent lead a D. Hearts and spades broke evenly too. so, did not pose a play problem.

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All readers are encouraged share their views on this (blog needs some action?)

My views;

A1) 2NT is not cool. with a good 5 card suit, I prefer to bid it. Reserve 2NT for more balanced hands, 4432 and 4333(?)

A2) 5C as voidwood is cool. (and not 5-5)
A3) I think its cool if we lie about the Queen of trumps in this position.

A4) The 4C I think is not good. but then, had he bid 3NT/ 4S, I would have passed, and never bid the slam. So, it worked.
A5) I don't think in 8 card fits is a good idea at any vulnerability. in 9 card fits, I think slam should bid bid, especially when red. (Waiting for Ashok to give me the numbers associated with it ;) )

A6) Some one needs to detail full fundaes behind crossing 2NT barrier. Vinoth does is all the time with just 13 point hands. As he understands in, only sub minimum openings like this, should not cross 2NT.

Once he bid 3C after I made a 2/1 (1H-2D) holding x JTxxx Kx AKJxx. He wanted to show his good clubs.

(Post your answers as comments, I'll add them into the post later)

Adios
Guthi

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JP said:

1. Personally, I would have made a 2N call to begin with, considering that all my values are controls. A 3C response showing shortness followed by 3H shows your hand quite well (whether you play it as a control bid or a good side suit).

In your particular auction, I agree with 3S. I am ok with 4C, but certainly not with 5C as voidwood. Vinoth is not strong enough to push for slam by himself.

2. I dont like 5C as voidwood as it seems to assume captaincy and does not have the flexibility that cue-bidding has in terms of involving both partners in the decision process. If you had a cue-bidding auction, you would have figured that you have two potential losers in diamonds and stopped short of slam (I think 5S is the right place to be).

3. I agree with 2 without Q. If I had a 5th spade I would have responded with Q. With a 9 card fit, it is less that 50% that you are going to drop the queen.

4. Yes, the Q of H is an awesome card to have.

5. No. Thats precisely why the queen of trumps is included in keycard asking responses. It is anti-percentage to bid slams missing a keycard and the Q of trumps, when you don't have a 10 card fit.

6. I like to play anything more than 2N to show extras (after a 2 over 1 game forcing response), even while playing precision with 11-15 HCP openers. It really helps to limit the hand. Its fine to not show the diamond holding. Going with the philosophy of precision, opener shows his point range as narrowly as possible within the first two bids.

Cheers,
JP.


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Manoj (joemanjo) said:

1) NO. If your suit were say Qxxxx or Kxxxx where your values are primarily outside that suit, then you may employ 2N in lieu of 2H. Here, 2H shows a real source of tricks and concentration of values.


2) Usually, to avoid confusion, direct jumps to 5 level are used as EKCB. What is direct jump to 5C over 3S? What does it mean if partner does not use the direct jump but goes slow? He certainly expected your 4H cue over his 4C (perhaps wanted to hear 4D but you could not oblige), so in effect he has not gained any valuable information after 3S where he could not have employed a direct jump to 5C as RKC. Is it good?

3) When you know with assurance that your partnership has ten trumps, but your partner may not know that, you can lie about the Queen. What is your partnerships expected rebid after 1S-2H with KJTxxx, Qx, AKxxx, - or Kxxxxxx, xx, AKQx, - or KQJxxxx, xx, AQxx, - Would you rebid 2S with both these? If so, then the 5C bid shows a void in partners hand and is more gainfully employed to find out secondary controls needed for GS.

4) Yes and No. Not enough for a serious slam try. Not even enough for courtesy cues from his side.

5) Nope. It is only in 10 card fits.

6) I will question not about 3D but the more obvious 3H. Both of you need to reevaluate your hand after each round of bidding. After 1S-2H, partner can give near full value for his hand. I would reevaluate this hand at about 13 hcp. Still not enough to bid 3D.

Some competitive bidding gadgets.

In preparation for Beijing, our bidding knowledge has improved for sure.
I'm posting here about some of them. There are many minor variations/adjustments made by many partnerships, I'm posting the ones SP and I have agreed upon.

Meckwell transfers.

It applies in these situations:
1M -(x) - bid
Yes, only one situation! Lets look in detail in this situation 1S-(X)-bid

• 1NT is transfer to clubs. 5+Cs at least
  
• 2C is transfer to diamonds. 5+Ds at least
  
• 2D is transfer to hearts. 5+Hs at least
  
• 2H is a good 3-card raise. 7-9 points
• 2S is a bad 3 card raise. 4-6 points
• 2NT is a good raise with 4 cards.
  
• 3C, 3D, 3H (all jump shifts and double jump shifts) are fit showing, with 4 card support at least and ability to play at that level.

Some interesting continuations are possible after this convention. Of course the opener can reject the transfer depending on his hand - if he has say a two-suiter or a single suiter. If the 1M bidder completes the transfer into a new suit, return to the M by responder now will be 7-9 points and 3 card support; with 5 cards in the shown suit. Transfer and 3M is same but 10-11 points. This can be treated like a game try bid. This can apply by a passed hand too (Drury of any kind is off on interference) However we cannot play Bergen raises playing fit showing jumps in competition.
Over 1H-(X)-bid, logical changes shall apply, (2S can be used as splinter?) 1S is natural, forcing and tends to show good 5 cards (sitting over the doubler)

There is a variation of this given in WJ2005. In that 2C/D/H are natural, NF. But 1NT is a good raise ( probably giving opener to make game tries) and 2M is a weak raise. Rest are the same as given above.

One additional case where these can be played is when the 1M was over-called naturally and opponent makes a negative double.

This concept can be extended to many other situations. For instance, over opponents 3-level major preempts, say your are playing the common artificial responses, (4m is 5+m and 5+OM and game forcing). They can be applied when partner opens 1C/D (both precision) (not really sure if playing standard it will apply) , making the necessary corrections for playing strength and hcp.

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Cheers
Guthi

India vs Italy in China

Date: 10th Oct 2008 - Friday
Venue: Beijing International Conventional center.
Focus: U-26 team swiss round 15 of 17: India vs Italy.
India's aim: To retain the last position.

Players: Guthi and SP in Open Room
Dashu and Arijit in Closed room ( Vinoth & Karan were supposed to play - but we were
misinformed.)

You can find our results here.

I shall post about what happened in the first two deals here, others will follow. Most deals are intersting. A cute Italian girl who was my screen mate. Lets call her - cig and her partner aig (amorphous Italian guy?)


Board-1

Full credit to SP for finding a diamond switch at trick 2. ( little credit to Guthi for not stupidly leading Ace of spades?)

The auction.

P - P - 2S - X
4S* - X - End.

Q1) Do you agree with the first Dbl by West? (2S is a regular weak bid)
Q2) after winning the first heart with the Jack, what do you shift to?
Q3) do you agree with the 4S by north?

A1) Its fine by HCP count, and the rule that there is 3 card support for other suits, such auctions run into trouble w/o 4 cards in the other-M. What say? Another option is a 2NT overcall, especially because others have passed.
My order of preference is this X>2NT>Pass>3D. What is yours?

A2)
Play went: Heart to Jack; low D - Q - Ace - ruff; club A; club Q - discard H; spade A; low spade.
cig had no way of goin to dummy now. ended up losing 1S+1H+2D+1C.
I think declarer can hold the contract to -1 on this defence by cross ruffing the minors suits - losing 2S+2H only.

Full credit to SP for finding a diamond switch at trick 2. ( little credit to Guthi for not stupidly leading Ace of spades? Like in the other table?) removing the entry to the table incase clubs get set up. He did not cash Heart Ace thinking it could get ruffed - placing me with 4Hs - which is the right thing to do.

I can easily imagine what happened at the other table: spade Ace, heart shift, ruff the thrid heart, spade king, club to Q, then Ace, ruff one, ruffing finesse of D gives a total of 10 tricks.

Correction: Vinoth points out that after diamond switch the contract can be made peacefully by crossruffing. So it turns SP has to switch to a spade at trick two - stealing the first 4 tricks. It follows that the contract is cold after the lead of Spade Ace.

A3)
The toughest question? I wonder what is 3C in many juntas agreements ( in 2S-(X)-3C! )
by an unpassed hand its obly forcing, by a passed hand should it be fit showing? as in raise to 3S with values-length in clubs. 4C is surely that by a passed/unpassed hand. This will help partner to decide if its worth a save in 4S - if opps bid 4H of course.

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Board-2

Bidding was very intersting here.
1D* - 1S - 2C - 2S
P - P - 2NT* - End

1D was precision. 2NT was some kind of scrambling showing minors, denying 4 carder heart(?) with a 4 carder heart I would double. SP passed it to play.
I managed to get 1S+4H+1D+1C for down 1. I don't see any line to make it on low spade lead. Opps will run with 4 spades, 1 club and 1 diamond.


Q1) Do you open Easts hand K9xx;AKxx;J8xx;T

A1) I agree with opening a 2.5 trick hand which has both majors. Yes, even in standard.

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Cheers
Guthi

I read a relay system over 1NT opening.. It's quite simple and seems efficient. Have a look at it..

http://www.lusobridge.com/main/Noticias/sars.pdf