AKx opposite x is sometimes worth 3 tricks

Last night at the bridge club, a place I haven't spent much time this month, Joel and I had a pretty bad game, but it was still fun. The fun was probably more due to the Malibu than anything. Here is one of our bad boards and a very interesting hand.
 

Dealer: E Vul: none	North ♠ x ♥ Kxx ♦ A9xx ♣ AK6xx
	South ♠ AKx ♥ AQJx ♦ KQx ♣ 98x

East	South	West	North
1♣	Pass	3♠	Pass
4NT	Pass	5♣	Pass
5♦	Pass	6♣	Pass
6NT	Pass	Pass	Pass

3♠ was a splinter and I intended 4NT as a quantitative invite as 4♣, I believe would have been RKC blackwood. Regardless, 5♣ is surely a blackwood response showing 0 or 3 key cards, 5♦ Q ask, 6♣ no ♣Q.

West led the ♣Q and I won the ace in dummy with RHO showing out. Plan the play.

You can count 11 top tricks – 2 spades, 4 hearts, 3 diamonds, 2 clubs - with virtually no chance of picking up a 3^rd club trick, so the 12^th trick will have to come from diamonds or spades. If diamonds are 3-3, it's easy but if not, you have some work to do to potentially set up a squeeze. You might as well start by ducking a club to rectify the count and maybe put some pressure on west. Assuming west does find a spade shift, you proceed to cash all your winners except spades. With the club left to be played, here is the 4 card ending.

Dealer: E Vul: none	North ♠ x ♥ ♦ 9 ♣ Kx
West ♠ Jx ♥ ♦ ♣ QJ		East ♠ QTx ♥ ♦ T ♣ -
	South ♠ AKx ♥ ♦ ♣ 9

West had to hold a club stopper and east must hold the top diamond. Therefore neither opponent can hold a spade stopper. The small spade in declarer's hand will be good to win trick 13.

That's a fairly simple double squeeze. I must say that I didn't give the hand enough thought or maybe I was too tipsy and I tried a different squeeze – the simple squeeze against west having to hold both clubs and diamonds, but that squeeze is much less likely because it would mean east started with 11 major suit cards. So, I went down 1. Despite 33 hcp, no one else reached 6NT but one other pair reached 6♣, down 2, so we still got 1 matchpoint.

The Familiarity Factor in Georgia Tech's Triple Option and Asbury-Gannon Swedish Canape

Every time I watch a Georgia Tech football game on TV, the announcers talk about how the Georgia Tech wishbone, triple option offense is so difficult to defend. Part of it is because they are good but they do have an inherent advantage of unfamiliarity. The opposition is not accustomed to defending against an unconventional offense so regardless of whether the offense is technically any better than a standard offense, the defense is at a disadvantage simply because they haven’t practiced against it much and don’t know a lot of the little nuances.

 

Similarly, that is the same advantage of Swedish Canapé. Whether or not you agree that canapé is a better bidding system than SAYC or 2/1 or precision, you’d be crazy to not agree that we gain a slight advantage simply by playing a system that most people are unfamiliar with. Even with explaining all of the bids, it must be harder to defend against simply because the situations that arise are different from what you’ve seen before. Plus, there are lots of little inferences and nuances that can’t really be explained, like when we open a 4 card major but never get to bid our 5 or 6 card side suit. The opponents often forget that we could have that hand but we are consciously aware that opener could be 4-5 but if opener has 5+ in the suit opened, he has no 4 card side suit.

 

General consensus is that what bidding system you use doesn’t matter much. In the long run, all bidding systems are almost equally effective as long as you know your system and follow the system. So, at the beginning of learning a new system, you will always be at a slight disadvantage because of not knowing the system fully, but once you master a strange system, you will have a slight advantage over the competition. Every system has some system wins and some system losses but those differences are small compared to the difference in experience from playing or playing against a particular system.

Is it a slam try is a search for the best game?

The game before slam principle is generally a good thing to follow – it is more important to reach the right strain at the game level than to search for slam mainly because there are many more deals where you need to figure out what suit to play in than figuring out if you can make slam.

 

Here are several uncontested auctions that Bob and I had last night in the instant matchpoint game (I would rather forget the scores, even though there were some valuable bidding lessons)

 

1S-1NT; 3H-4C… Is 4C natural or is it a cue with interest in a heart slam? The game before slam principle does not apply here. It’s too late to be introducing a new suit. Responder certainly can have enough values to make a heart slam and if responder now wanted to show interest in a spade slam, he should start by bidding 3S over 3H.

 

1NT-2C; 2S-3D; 3H-3NT; 4H-P. Is 3H a cue in support of diamonds or an offer to play a Moysian heart fit? Or could it actually be a 4 card suit? 5-4-2-2 distribution? I guess this is initially an offer to play in hearts (implying bad clubs) but could be an advance cue (if opener’s next bid is 4D or 5D) This was our actual auction – I did want to offer up the Moysian and also show interest in a diamond slam so in matchpoints I was happy landing in 4H.

 

1C-1D; 2C-2H; 3H-3S… Okay, this wasn’t our auction but it is an interesting one. 2H is surely a concentration of values, as is 3H. 3S should be last train – “I can’t bid 3NT but I don’t want to rule that contract out (probably based on having 2 or 3 spades with no stopper), can you bid 3NT?” On the actual deal, I gave up on 3NT after Bob raised my hearts so we wound up in 5C. for very few matchpoints.

 

1H-2C; 2H-2S; 4D-4H; 4S-5C; 5H-P. What’s going on here? Is it actually possible that we have a 4-4 spade fit? I apparently thought so and that 4D was a splinter. 6 of either major is about a 50-50 proposition and I think Bob might have gotten us there if he was on the same page as me with the splinter bid. I mean, what else could 4D be? The problem is that it’s kind of hard to believe we have a 4-4 spade fit, given that I did not rebid 2S. What’s your take? AT9x, ATxxxx, x, KT. 1H-2C. Do you rebid 2H or 2S?

 

1H-1S; 2NT-4H; P. This one was fairly early in the session and I wasn’t feeling adventurous yet. Is 3H forcing? It should be but this is why Wolff signoffs are good. You have a clearly defined way to get out in 3 of a suit and know that everything else is game-forcing. New minor forcing also gets most of the same things accomplished but that kind of reverses things so you can’t making a forcing heart raise immediately over 2NT. I wish this sequence were synonymous with the first auction but jump rebids of 2NT are not forcing to game while jump-shifts are.

Impossible Auctions from a GIB

North	East	South	West
1♥	Pass	2♥	Pass
Pass	2NT	Pass	3♣
3♥	Pass	Pass	5♣
X	Pass	Pass	Pass

North	East	South	West
1♥	2♦	2♥	Pass
Pass	X	Pass	2♠
3♥	Pass	Pass	4♠
Pass	Pass	Pass

Needless to say, the GIB (robot) was west in both of these deals. Both contracts went down 2, and I must say I had a mighty fine dummy both times.

I also love finding people who are frisky bidders to play against on money bridge on bridge base. The GIBs simply don't understand sacrifices, psyches, and other such bidding tactics. Yesterday I had the pleasure of getting +2000 when my RHO human opened 1S on a 1-6-3-3 hand with 3 hcp. Unfortunately, I was only at the 1/2 cent per point table.

When RHO passes LHO's forcing bid, you have an automatic pass

Once up on a time I was guilty of letting LHO back in the auction when she made a forcing 2D bid that was passed back to me.  They would up bidding their cold heart game and my partner thought I was crazy to balance. It may be right to compete in situations like that but chances are that you are allowing them a second chance to get to the right spot.

 

Last night, there was an auction where Emory had to take another call to get us a decent score. The auction:

1S-2S-3C-P

P-3D-4C-X

P-P-P

 

I was the doubler, holding Jxxx, Qx, Tx, AJ8xx. I wanted to double 3C but it’s forcing so there’s no need to double them yet. Of course, this was against the pair who previously wasn’t sure if 1D-(1S)-2H was forcing so normal bridge logic need not apply here.

 

Moral of this story: you need to use table feel to really determine if they have stumbled into a good spot or if they have missed a game. You can often tell by the look on the face of the opponent whose partner passed his forcing bid.

 

Second moral of the story: Know what is forcing. Here’s a quick rundown. Unless you have prior agreements, all new suits by responder are forcing, all jump shifts and reverses by opener are forcing, and all bids of the opponents’ suit are forcing. Also, all strange bids are forcing.11

You got +2000 and lost the Swiss match??

Playing in the 2 session flight A Swiss Sunday afternoon, Alli and Bryan came back with score of +2000 for defeating 4♣X by 7 tricks. That's not something you see much. At the other table Mili and I could have set 3NT but Mili understandably led a club from her ♣AKTxxx. It was right into declarer's ♣QJ98x. Win 16. I heard Bryan and Alli tell this to many people and they always include the fact that we lost the match. Oh, and the opps also missed a cold game against Alli and Bryan, which we got to. Needless to say, the rest of the boards were rather swingy as well but I don't remember why we got the bad scores.