Cancelling a 2/1 Game Force

Now that I have completed my service work for the summer, I feel justified in going to spend 10 days goofing off, sightseeing, drinking, but mostly playing some serious bridge in Toronto. Go here first and here next to read about my experiences as a volunteer and crew leader for the River of Life service project last week.

I head out Thursday afternoon to Toronto via bus from Macon to the Atlanta airport, flight to Buffalo, and then a bus to Toronto, and return home 10 days later. If all goes well, I'll be playing bridge 9 days straight in main events with Sean. If things don't go quite so great, I'm sure I'll find plenty of fun things to get into.

I did get to play bridge twice last week and at least one interesting question arose. We all know that you should have 26 points to bid major suit and NT games but 29 to bid minor suit games simply because you need 11 tricks instead of 10 or 9. So, when an auction starts 1H-2C and you eventually decide you can’t play 3NT and don’t have a major suit fit, can you cancel the game-forcing part of the 2C response? I mean, theoretically, you need some extra values for bidding 5C to be right so there should be some invitational bid even after you've game-forced. A minimum opening opposite a minimum game force is only about 25 points but it seems that most people nowadays say you have to go ahead and bid 5C because they prefer to use a 4m bid to be roman key card blackwood.

1H-2C; 2D-3C; 3D is the start of a sequence in question. Perhaps the only way to stop in 4C should be for responder to bid 3S over 3D (basically asking for a spade stopper) and opener retreat to 4C (with no spade stopper and no extras). But even then, there are a significant number of people who think 4C should be stronger than 5C. Does the game-before-slam principle apply here or are we in a slam try auction whether we want to be or not? If responder bids 4C over 3D, is that forcing or invitational? If we’ve determined that 4C in either auction is forcing, is it Minorwood or not? So that you don't have a misunderstanding, unless you have a chance to discuss all the little variations of sequences that lead to a 4C bid, it is probably best to treat a 2/1 as a game force without exception and a 4m bid as minorwood anytime you are in a game force.

Score of the Day: 970

+970 for 2SX making 7. This actually happened tonight on these 2 hands:

Qx
AQTxx
T8
Txxx

AKJTxx
9x
AQ95
8

The auction went: 1S-2H-P-P; 2S-P-P-X; P-P-P
West led the king of diamonds. I drew trumps, passed the heart 9, then played heart to the Q, heart A, pitching a club, diamond, covered, and won with the 7 falling from west.

In other news, playing Lebensohl and Minorwood, what is 4D in this sequence: P-2H-X-3D; P-4D?? Basically, is it invitational or Minorwood (roman key card blackwood for diamonds)? Those are pretty much the only two reasonable options. Even though 3D promises constructive values, I think there is a strong case that doubler actually just wants to invite game in diamonds. That's a hand that would probably come up more often than wanting to explore for a slam in diamonds, but 3H is available as a try for game. Advancer may still have good hearts and want to play 3NT and effectively 4D after 3H would be not accepting a game try. Maybe. I eventually agreed that 4D should be minorwood, clearly exploring for a slam. 3H would be the start of any game-try by doubler. On the actual hand tonight, I passed 4D with: xx, xxx, AQxxx, xxx. Partner had a 2 loser hand: AKQJxx, x, Kx, AKQx. Needless to say, 6S was the place to be.

Minorwood Success

Minorwood is a form of Blackwood used when trying to get to a minor suit slam. The main idea behind it is that most normal Blackwood responses would put you beyond 5 of your suit, so bidding blackwood at a lower lever would be helpful. I'm not sure how the textbooks say you should play this but my main partner and I have agreed that if we have agreed on a minor suit and we bid 4 of that minor, it is keycard blackwood. Last night, for the first time, we got to use this with some success. At least we knew what we were bidding, but still got to a bad 6NT contract, which happened to make.

AKJx
Q98
Axxx
AK

Tx
Kxxx
KQJTx
Qx

Our auction:
1D - 1S
1NT - 2D(1)
2H - 3D(2)
3H(3) - 4D(4)
4S(5) - 6NT

(1) 2 way NMF: artificial game-force
(2) sets diamonds as trump
(3) last try for 3NT (if patner has a club stopper)
(4) RKC for diamonds
(5) 1 or 4 keycards

I was hoping to get to 7D. I didn't need much from partner (xx, AKxx, KQxxx, xx would be enough for 7D to be a 90% make). Needless to say, 6NT didn't stand much chance. We would have to find the spade queen on side and find Ax of hearts to come to 12 winners: 3 spades, 2 hearts, 5 diamonds, 2 clubs. But luck was with us on this night and the slam came home.