Kickback is confusing

I'm on the flight home from Richmond. It was a really fun tournament. Many of my favorite young bridge players and none of the ones I don't like were there. We (me, Meg Myers, Mike Kovacich, and Bob White) made it to the semis of one KO but ran into a brick wall. Meckstroth, Rodwell, and company beat us fairly solidly. That was definitely the most fun of the 8 sessions of bridge. They did play better than us but luck was also on their side a little bit. We somewhat sensibly bid to 3♦ but found Rodwell with KJT98 of trumps and little else opposite a strong club. Another one Meg overcalled on a 12 count with KQJxxx of diamonds and went for 500 against a partscore. Meckwell had a kickback misunderstanding and accidentally got to a slam that was about 45% but made on this day.

1NT-2♣-2♥-3♣-3♦-3♠-4♥-5♦-6♦-P was their uncontested auction. 1NT was 14-16. 2♣ was stayman. 3♣ showed 4 spades and a 6 card minor. 3♦ asked. 3♠ said the 6 card minor was diamonds. 4♥ was intended as keycard blackwood for diamond but taken as a cue. 5♦ was a signoff but taken as 2 keycards with the Q. They needed basically a spade finesse and not 4-0 diamonds.

The deal that put the match away was this potential slam we had on about board 19. Meg had ♠KJxxx, ♥-, ♦Jxx, ♣KQJxx. Our auction: 1NT-2♥-3♦-4♥-4♠-4NT-5♣-6♠.

Partnerships that play daily or at least more frequently than a long weekend once in 2 or 3 months develop solid agreements about superaccepts, control-showing/asking bids, keycard auctions, but even the most established of partnerships screw it up once in awhile (see above). Anyway, we both agree that superaccepts are rare but have never discussed what kind of superaccepts we play. Regardless, 4♥ is surely a splinter and 4NT exclusion (excluding hearts). My keycard response wasn't consistent with that as that thought didn't cross my mind until Rodwell laid down the diamond ace. It probably wouldn't have mattered- she may have bid 6 even if I showed 2 instead of 3.

If you play the bidding a new suit over the transfer shows a weak doubleton, as many people do, then there is no problem signing off in 4♠ on this deal. The problem with that is that it can guides the defense too much. Meg could have retransferred with 3♥ and then cuebid 4♣ but that might preclude you from bidding exclusion later.

In the Swiss this morning, Bryan and I got to 5♦ when the opponents got to 4♥ and lost 12 when diamonds split 3-0 with AJx offside. I held ♠x, ♥AKJTxx, ♦QTxx, ♣xx and opened 1♥, Bryan bid 2♦, and i raised to 3♦. Bryan got interested in slam and keycarded before signing off on 5♦, missing 2 aces. Had I chosen to rebid hearts we would probably not have considered slam but gotten to the cold 4♥. He had ♠Kx, ♥Qx, ♦Kxxxxx, ♣AKJ. In the postmortem, one out of 5 disagreed with our bidding and I have yet to find anyone else who disagrees with us at imps.

Sent from my iPhone