Amidst the breaks in rehearsal for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and to keep me awake, let me tell you about my most fun hand from the Gatlinburg tournament.
I was playing with MiniMeck with Barbara Heller as my LHO and white vs. red, I picked up: T, Txxx, AJTx, AJxx. It's 2H-X to me. Obviously, I bid 4S, which is by agreement RKC Blackwood for hearts. Barbara doubles, Matt redoubles, showing 0 or 3 keycards, pass and I bid 5H. Hey, 6H could make opposite this if Matt happens to have AK and a minor suit K and a minor suit singleton, which is barely possible. Anyway Barbara opted for 6C with her Axxxx, A, x, QT9xxx, which was off 2.
Gatlinburg was, as it usually is for me, short and sweet. I'm sure I had some article-worthy hands from the KO and BAM Saturday, on another day. MiniMeck, Arjun, and Ricoh managed a satisfying 8th in A/X in the Sunday Swiss.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Rule of 15
Are you a follower of the rule of 15, which says that if it's 3 passes to you, you should only open the bidding if your high card points plus spade length is 15 or more? It's typically a very good rule, and it is based on the idea that when the points are balanced, the side with a spade fit is more likely to go plus on the board, because they can get the contract at the two-level while you would have to go to the 3 level in some other suit. Anyway, Tuesday night at the local club I picked up: K, 9xx, AJxx, KQxxx. both vul, it's 3 passes to me, and without a second thought, I pass it out. Partner happened to have a 9 point hand with Qxxxxx of spades and everyone else in the room was in 2S or 3S going down 2 or 3.
Here is another example of the my bidding judgment that is perhaps against the field, but not at all related to the rule of 15. This hand is from 2 weeks ago. I held: xxx, KJ, AKQ, AKJxx. In second position, unfavorable vulnerability, I opened the hand 1C. The auction progressed without interference: 1H-2D-3C-3D-3S-4C-4H-6C-P. 3C was game-forcing with 4 card club support. 3D and 3S were cue bids, 4C was key card blackwood for clubs. Over 4H, I should have bid 4S to inquire about the Q of trumps and possibly any kings. I would have gotten a 5S response, showing the CQ and SK and denying either red king. Then I could have bid the better scoring matchpoint contract of 6NT opposite: AKx, QT9xx, x, Qxxx.
I know a lot of you would open 2NT or 2C with my hand but game chances are very unlikely if partner can't muster up some response to 1C, and 1C will surely get us to a better partscore than either of the strong openings. Yes, I distorted my shape a little bit with the reverse into a 3 card suit, but I think that isn't such a big deal. It seems like a better lie than opening 2NT without a spade stopper and barely 1 heart stopper. In retrospect, though it is not too unlikely that partner has 4 diamonds and a stiff club and we may wind up in a 6D contract that is, for example, ona 3-3 break.. Put a small spade in with the diamonds and this is definitely the correct way to bid the hand using fairly standard methods. Put a diamond honor in the spade suit and this is sure a 2NT opener also.
Here is another example of the my bidding judgment that is perhaps against the field, but not at all related to the rule of 15. This hand is from 2 weeks ago. I held: xxx, KJ, AKQ, AKJxx. In second position, unfavorable vulnerability, I opened the hand 1C. The auction progressed without interference: 1H-2D-3C-3D-3S-4C-4H-6C-P. 3C was game-forcing with 4 card club support. 3D and 3S were cue bids, 4C was key card blackwood for clubs. Over 4H, I should have bid 4S to inquire about the Q of trumps and possibly any kings. I would have gotten a 5S response, showing the CQ and SK and denying either red king. Then I could have bid the better scoring matchpoint contract of 6NT opposite: AKx, QT9xx, x, Qxxx.
I know a lot of you would open 2NT or 2C with my hand but game chances are very unlikely if partner can't muster up some response to 1C, and 1C will surely get us to a better partscore than either of the strong openings. Yes, I distorted my shape a little bit with the reverse into a 3 card suit, but I think that isn't such a big deal. It seems like a better lie than opening 2NT without a spade stopper and barely 1 heart stopper. In retrospect, though it is not too unlikely that partner has 4 diamonds and a stiff club and we may wind up in a 6D contract that is, for example, ona 3-3 break.. Put a small spade in with the diamonds and this is definitely the correct way to bid the hand using fairly standard methods. Put a diamond honor in the spade suit and this is sure a 2NT opener also.
What Signal Are You Expecting?
Defensive signaling quiz today.
You hold: 9, AKQ63, 8, T98764. At imps, the bidding has gone, starting with you: 1H-1S-4H-5D; all pass. You lead the ace and dummy hits with: KQJ76, J7, 94, KQJ5... http://poll.pollcode.com/Ki38
You hold: 9, AKQ63, 8, T98764. At imps, the bidding has gone, starting with you: 1H-1S-4H-5D; all pass. You lead the ace and dummy hits with: KQJ76, J7, 94, KQJ5... http://poll.pollcode.com/Ki38
These polls aren't working too well. The html code I was given to paste doesn't have ana ctual vote button, and I don't think people want to be that interactive with this thing anyway.
If partner has 5 hearts, you need suit preference at trick 1, and it partner has only 4 hearts, you need count so that you know you can cash another heart. Yes, most partnerships play that at the 5 level, the K lead from AK asks for count, for just this situation, and an A lead is usually an unsupported A, and asks for attitude. Leading an unsupported A is more common and more frequently the correct play at a high level contract. So, the correct answer is that you should lead the K, partner should signal count, and then when you cash the second heart, partner gives a suit preference signal.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Why Did Partner Played the Spots that He Did In that Order
Today’s hand has the simplest auction one could have short of a pass out but it presents a few crucial defensive signaling situations that can be quite nebulous. I was west in this deal last night at the local club and at first I blamed allowing them to make 5 on a system failure. My partner and I were playing upside-down count and attitude and odd/even discards. I have modified the deal very slightly so as to not allow declarer a chance to make more than 2 on best defense but this deal just as well illustrates the defensive points I want to make. In retrospect, my partner should have figured out the situation.
As you can see, NS should make 4 clubs without any trouble: 6 , 1 spade, 2 via 2 finesses, and 1 ruff (or possibly 1 and 2 ruffs). In notrump, there are 8 tricks once the defense plays 3 rounds of hearts. West leads 4th best , east wins the K and continues with the 3, top from a remaining doubleton. South splits the honors, west wins and leads the 9 back to declarer’s Q.
Put yourself in east’s position now. Clearly you are not defeating 1NT but it’s matchpoints so minimizing the overtricks could be very important, especially since many people will be in clubs. You can make several valid assumptions from the defense so far. Partner started with 5 hearts and must have the 8 as well. If he did not have the 8, he would duck trick 2 and wait for you to regain the lead and lead through declarer’s Q8 into his A9x. Another assumption you can reasonably make is that partner has a sure entry, for if he didn’t, even with this heart holding, he would duck trick 2 so you would have another heart to lead when you get in. Now that we have that figured out, what is partner’s sure entry? He could have led back the 8 or the 9 at trick 3, so the 9 must suggest a spade entry.
Okay, so how do we discard on the run of the clubs? Dummy has pitched a diamond and a spade on the hearts so far. We can safely dump a diamond, but then we see partner discard the 9. Playing odd/even, this should be encouraging for diamonds. Do we believe this signal or the signal on the 3rd round of hearts? What do we pitch on the next club? We can probably safely let go of one spade and maybe partner’s and declarer’s next discard will clear things up. Sure enough, declarer dumps a low spade and partner the 5. What is partner trying to signal? Do you think the supposed suit preference at trick 3 was really a signal or was partner merely playing top from a sequence? The bidding marks declarer with only 5-7 points in the pointed suits, meaning partner must have one of the aces.
I think this hand might convince me to give up odd/even discards. It’s totally not consistent with upside-down count and attitude, so it’s one signal stuck in the middle of a hand that doesn’t really flow with the rest of one’s signals, not to mention not being able to find an appropriate card sometimes. At least if you’re playing upside-down attitude discards, you could discard the 8 and then the 10 and that would clarify that the 8 was low. Lavinthal is a discard method I kind of like as well. There’s no possible confusion, except maybe in the suit preference part of it. At least in a case like this, whichever diamond west discards first tells partner he has the spade ace. In odd/even, does discarding an odd card in a suit followed by another odd card in the same suit cancel the first odd discard in an attempt to say, “sorry, partner, I didn’t have an even card to discard so maybe 2 odds make an even.” Would it make more sense to discard the 8 and 10 first in an attempt to say “Sorry, partner, I don’t have an even spade, but maybe 2 evens will make an odd.” No, 8 + 10 = 18, which is still even, but 9 + 5 = 14, which is even.
Discarding the Q first might get the message across that west doesn’t have the ace, but that gives declarer the option of a finesse for a 9th trick. Yet another way to think about the hand is that west will not mind blanking his ace, whichever suit it is, but might need to keep several cards in the other suit (his Jxx or Qxx might prevent a 3rd or 4th overtrick), so the suit he discards first should be the suit he has the ace in. This line of thinking is a bit far-fetched to me, but it’s a possibility.
Anyway, at the table, my partner believed my diamond discards more than the heart signal so he ditched all of his diamonds on the clubs expecting me to have the A or even AQ of diamonds and declarer wound up taking 4 diamond tricks. He came down to Q95 and K while I had A, 84, Q and declarer still had AJT5. Making 5 for -210 and zero matchpoints. There’s so much to potentially think about on defense and it’s good if you and your partner think along the same lines and know what signal to expect from each other.
Put yourself in east’s position now. Clearly you are not defeating 1NT but it’s matchpoints so minimizing the overtricks could be very important, especially since many people will be in clubs. You can make several valid assumptions from the defense so far. Partner started with 5 hearts and must have the 8 as well. If he did not have the 8, he would duck trick 2 and wait for you to regain the lead and lead through declarer’s Q8 into his A9x. Another assumption you can reasonably make is that partner has a sure entry, for if he didn’t, even with this heart holding, he would duck trick 2 so you would have another heart to lead when you get in. Now that we have that figured out, what is partner’s sure entry? He could have led back the 8 or the 9 at trick 3, so the 9 must suggest a spade entry.
Okay, so how do we discard on the run of the clubs? Dummy has pitched a diamond and a spade on the hearts so far. We can safely dump a diamond, but then we see partner discard the 9. Playing odd/even, this should be encouraging for diamonds. Do we believe this signal or the signal on the 3rd round of hearts? What do we pitch on the next club? We can probably safely let go of one spade and maybe partner’s and declarer’s next discard will clear things up. Sure enough, declarer dumps a low spade and partner the 5. What is partner trying to signal? Do you think the supposed suit preference at trick 3 was really a signal or was partner merely playing top from a sequence? The bidding marks declarer with only 5-7 points in the pointed suits, meaning partner must have one of the aces.
I think this hand might convince me to give up odd/even discards. It’s totally not consistent with upside-down count and attitude, so it’s one signal stuck in the middle of a hand that doesn’t really flow with the rest of one’s signals, not to mention not being able to find an appropriate card sometimes. At least if you’re playing upside-down attitude discards, you could discard the 8 and then the 10 and that would clarify that the 8 was low. Lavinthal is a discard method I kind of like as well. There’s no possible confusion, except maybe in the suit preference part of it. At least in a case like this, whichever diamond west discards first tells partner he has the spade ace. In odd/even, does discarding an odd card in a suit followed by another odd card in the same suit cancel the first odd discard in an attempt to say, “sorry, partner, I didn’t have an even card to discard so maybe 2 odds make an even.” Would it make more sense to discard the 8 and 10 first in an attempt to say “Sorry, partner, I don’t have an even spade, but maybe 2 evens will make an odd.” No, 8 + 10 = 18, which is still even, but 9 + 5 = 14, which is even.
Discarding the Q first might get the message across that west doesn’t have the ace, but that gives declarer the option of a finesse for a 9th trick. Yet another way to think about the hand is that west will not mind blanking his ace, whichever suit it is, but might need to keep several cards in the other suit (his Jxx or Qxx might prevent a 3rd or 4th overtrick), so the suit he discards first should be the suit he has the ace in. This line of thinking is a bit far-fetched to me, but it’s a possibility.
Anyway, at the table, my partner believed my diamond discards more than the heart signal so he ditched all of his diamonds on the clubs expecting me to have the A or even AQ of diamonds and declarer wound up taking 4 diamond tricks. He came down to Q95 and K while I had A, 84, Q and declarer still had AJT5. Making 5 for -210 and zero matchpoints. There’s so much to potentially think about on defense and it’s good if you and your partner think along the same lines and know what signal to expect from each other.
Monday, April 12, 2010
2♣ Opening in Canapé Systems
So, about a week ago I bought Ken Rexford's book on his Modified Italian Canapé System. If you know me at all as a bridge player, you are well aware of my interest in canapé bidding systems for a number of reasons, mainly that is fun and while it is actually a very natural system, it still confuses the opponents by frequently concealing your best suit for the first round of bidding. So, I spent a good bit of time thinking about how to improve my system, which I use with Sean and Ramesh but am interested in teaching it to and playing it with anyone else who is interested. There are definitely a few kinks that I have yet to work out but lately I've had more and more success with it. Anyway, if you are interested in a good book on the theory of canapé, check out this book.
There are some things I dislike about Rexford's system, mainly the fact that the 1♦ opening could be on a void. In my canapé system, the 1♦, 1♥, 1♠, and now 2♣ openings are the same: either one-suited in that suit or 4 in that suit with a longer side suit. hands with 5M and 4♣ are awkard to bid after opening 1M because of the difficulty of accurately showing the second suit (having to treat it like a one-suiter or a balanced hand), so I finally gave in to testing the effectiveness of 2♣ being a possible canapé hand instead of just single-suited with clubs, and the problems seemed to be relatively few.
The structure Sean and I came up with yesterday for how to bid over 2♣ as 11-16 hcp with either a canapé hand with a 5+ card major or single-suited with clubs is as follows:
2♦: artificial 1 rd force, may be any strength; if game-forcing, no 5 card major
2M: 5 card suit
raise: invitational
cheapest bid in other major: mixed raise
2N: max w/ long clubs
3♣: min w/ long clubs
2M: 5 card suit, constructive but not forcing, usually tolerance to play 3♣ opposite a one-suiter
2NT: artificial game force w/ a 5 card major
3♣: no 3 card major
3♦: at least 1 3 card major
3M: 5 card suit
The other option for dealing with the 5M and 4♣ hands in canape is to use 2M openings to show these hands, which really is easier to handle, but the value of a 2M preempt is too good to use for something else. Now, if we could use 2♦ as a weak 2 in either major, then I wouldn't be opposed to this treatment, but then this wouldn't be a general convention chart system.
Edited Sept 1, 2010:
The rest of our opening bids are now:
1♣: balanced 12-14, any 17+ unbal, any 18+ bal.
1♦/♥/♠ :11-16, 4+ card suit, could have longer side suit (1M could be 4441 w/ shortness in other major)
1NT: 15-17
2♦: 11-16, 4-4-1-4 or 4-4-4-1
2♥/♠: good weak 2 (9 to 12) in 1st and 2nd seat. 3rd seat much less disciplined
2NT: 5 to 10, 5-5 minors
Please see my other atricles on canape bidding.
There are some things I dislike about Rexford's system, mainly the fact that the 1♦ opening could be on a void. In my canapé system, the 1♦, 1♥, 1♠, and now 2♣ openings are the same: either one-suited in that suit or 4 in that suit with a longer side suit. hands with 5M and 4♣ are awkard to bid after opening 1M because of the difficulty of accurately showing the second suit (having to treat it like a one-suiter or a balanced hand), so I finally gave in to testing the effectiveness of 2♣ being a possible canapé hand instead of just single-suited with clubs, and the problems seemed to be relatively few.
The structure Sean and I came up with yesterday for how to bid over 2♣ as 11-16 hcp with either a canapé hand with a 5+ card major or single-suited with clubs is as follows:
2♦: artificial 1 rd force, may be any strength; if game-forcing, no 5 card major
2M: 5 card suit
raise: invitational
cheapest bid in other major: mixed raise
2N: max w/ long clubs
3♣: min w/ long clubs
2M: 5 card suit, constructive but not forcing, usually tolerance to play 3♣ opposite a one-suiter
2NT: artificial game force w/ a 5 card major
3♣: no 3 card major
3♦: at least 1 3 card major
3M: 5 card suit
The other option for dealing with the 5M and 4♣ hands in canape is to use 2M openings to show these hands, which really is easier to handle, but the value of a 2M preempt is too good to use for something else. Now, if we could use 2♦ as a weak 2 in either major, then I wouldn't be opposed to this treatment, but then this wouldn't be a general convention chart system.
Edited Sept 1, 2010:
The rest of our opening bids are now:
1♣: balanced 12-14, any 17+ unbal, any 18+ bal.
1♦/♥/♠ :11-16, 4+ card suit, could have longer side suit (1M could be 4441 w/ shortness in other major)
1NT: 15-17
2♦: 11-16, 4-4-1-4 or 4-4-4-1
2♥/♠: good weak 2 (9 to 12) in 1st and 2nd seat. 3rd seat much less disciplined
2NT: 5 to 10, 5-5 minors
Please see my other atricles on canape bidding.
This Weekend's Bridge Results
Final tally: +55 imps in 172 hands: 44 hands with Sean, 13 w/ Val, 30 w/ Carol, 8 w/ Harlan, 19 w/ Ramesh, 17 w/ Gideon, 12 money hands with robots, 21 w/ Bob, and 28 w/ Emory. And this time the best results were with Emory (+69 imps in 28 deals), as should be the case. In addition, much time was spent at the partnerhsip bidding table testing out new methods for our canapé system and sort of teaching it to others.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
My favorite bid in bridge: the takeout doubler makes a subsequent double which is penalty. Generally this only happens against me and one or both of the opponents has a misguided idea of what the doubles mean. And often times I get doubled by such opponents when we have an actual fit but I go down 1 and get a bad score.
An example of this is 1D-X-2D-P; P-X-P-P; P. OR 2H-X-3H-P; P-X-P-P; P.
If you make a takeout double, and then later double the same suit again, it is not a penalty double. I've seen this work both ways. One where the doubler's partner bids and the doubler thinks his 2nd double, with something like a 15 count and 4 good trumps, is penalty. And I've seen it where the doubler's partner leaves the double in with a nothing hand, thinking it was a penalty double, but in fact the doubler has an appropriate 17 count.
An example of this is 1D-X-2D-P; P-X-P-P; P. OR 2H-X-3H-P; P-X-P-P; P.
If you make a takeout double, and then later double the same suit again, it is not a penalty double. I've seen this work both ways. One where the doubler's partner bids and the doubler thinks his 2nd double, with something like a 15 count and 4 good trumps, is penalty. And I've seen it where the doubler's partner leaves the double in with a nothing hand, thinking it was a penalty double, but in fact the doubler has an appropriate 17 count.
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