Still a "Young" Bridge Player

For some reason sitting at breakfast today, one of the last mornings in '07, I started thinking about how many times I have heard from an opponent upon arriving at a table, "It's nice to see young people playing bridge." In my early years of playing I heard it so often that, while I smiled politely each time, I was still a little annoyed by the un-originality of the comment. Well, I turn 30 in early '08, and as my grey hairs add up, I'm starting to wonder how many times I'll hear that again. It isn't annoying anymore. While I'm no longer that young in mainstream life, I am confident that I have at least a couple of more years of being called a "kid" at the bridge table. And that feels all right! Happy '08 everybody.

Cue-Bidding Philosophy

Socrates--guest lecturer. :) Actually this was the title of an email my friend Jason just sent to me. He included this hand:
AKxxxx
Qx
Kxx
Qx
He opened 1 Spade, his partner responded 2 Notrump (game-forcing spade raise) and he bid 3 Notrump, which showed no shortness and some extra values, but not as many as a 3 Spade bid. Now his partner bid 4 Clubs. What should he call?

My general style on showing 2nd round controls has always been case by case--do it when it feels right or I can't stomach signing off because I haven't shown enough with my previous bidding (or when responding after partner has opened 2 Clubs and is likely to hold the ace in the suit I'm cue-bidding). Any suggestions out there for concrete times to show 2nd round controls when bidding towards a slam?

Killing D

Season's greetings! Since this time of year always brings to mind bridge books (my favored form of Christmas present), I thought I would include a hand from one of the books I have been reading recently. It is Hugh Kelsey's sequel to the famous "Killing Defense at Bridge" aptly named "More Killing Defense at Bridge." You are East and hear the following auction:
S--------------N
1 D----------- 2C
2NT(15-16)---3NT
Your partner leads the deuce of hearts and you see:
QJ8x
K63
T
KQJ7x
-----T9x
-----AT8x
-----KJ9xx
-----x
Declarer wins your ten with the queen and plays a spade to the queen and another to his king and partner's ace. partner returns the jack of hearts to the king and your ace, declarer following with the 4. How do you continue?

Matchpoint Dilema

Playing matchpoints last weekend with my friend Carl i held this unimpressive collection:
Q9x
JT
xxxx
QTxx
We play a 12-15 1NT opening and inverted minors. Carl opened 1 Diamond red in 2nd seat and it went pass to me. What would you do?

Pass seems obvious but really with the two tens, the nine and 4 diamonds I felt that my hand was pretty decent and would play okay opposite partner's likely 16-18 notrump and of course if partner was unbalanced I didn't think he'd be disappointed with my diamond support. Fortunately I had started thinking about all of these possibilities before the auction started and was able to respond 1 Spade in tempo. I figured I would survive as long as partner didnt have a really strong hand with 4 spades. Anyway, partner's next move was a 4 Club splinter. My goose was cooked at this point, so I signed off in 4 Spades. West led the ace of diamonds and this was the dummy:
AKJx
x
KQJxxxx
x
We had arrived in the only game with a legitimate chance! Alas, West shifted to a heart and East played another heart. I thought for a while about whether I should ruff, but if I didn't, E-W could easily play clubs and force dummy anyway, beating me at least 2 when trump were 4-2 so I went ahead and tried for the maximum. West was pretty annoyed that it took me so long to make the "obvious" play of ruffing and playing trump, but soon she was in on the joke. In fact after I played my 3rd trump from dummy West, who showed out, packed up her cards in disgust...it was a little amusing to graciously concede the rest of the tricks. Down 6 was not such a hot result, but I like the logic of my action in some ways. I admit pass probably has more going for it, but it is fun to mix things up a little and a pass would have ruined this story...any thoughts?

From the Home Game...

I'm trying to get more home games going, getting friends together from the chicago area and playing for a few hours on a weekend afternoon. Hopefully we can end up doing it as regularly as once a month (or more). I see it as a great way to work on one's game--we are all pretty serious players and it takes a lot of focus to keep up. To me it is much more useful practice than a club game where many of your mistakes go unpunished...and it's far more enjoyable. We just played this past Sunday and this hand came up--
I forget the colors, but we were playing imps and at our table the auction went 1 Spade by west, 2 Diamonds by North, pass, 3 Notrump by South (me). Here are the north-south hands:
K
Axx
AJxxxx
8xx

AQxx
KTx
Kx
QJT7
the opening lead of a small heart went around to my ten. I played the king of diamonds, west pitching a spade. fortunately, things were still under control--there are 9 easy tricks by knocking out the two club honors, which i did and basically claimed the game. With every IMP being important (or suppose you are playing matchpoints), though, what is the real correct way to play this contract for all your tricks? I'll send out another post later with the rest of the hands and my opinions.

Up and running...a deal from the Reisinger

Well I've thought about doing this for quite some time...it will be nice to have a forum where i can post interesting deals that come up and other general ramblings about the game. As long as I'm making my first post, I may as well include one of my favorite hands from the recent North American Bridge Championships in San Francisco. This deal came up in the second qualifying session of the Resinger Board-a-Match Teams. My partner Kenny and I were playing against Rosenberg/Zia with neither vul and South dealer. I was East, holding:
void
AQJxxxx
xxxxx
x
I began waiting patiently for the bidding to come around to me so that i could bid 4 hearts, but quite a bit of action occured first. Zia opened 1 Spade, Kenny overcalled 2 Clubs and Rosenberg cuebid 3 Clubs showing a good spade raise. No matter, i had my chance so i bid 4 Hearts as planned from the beginning. Kenny threw a monkey wrench into things by alerting. Zia asked for an explanation and I learned that I supposedly had clubs as well as hearts--we play fit-showing jumps in a lot of situations and evidently this was one of them (oops). Zia bid 4 Spades, Kenny bid 5 Clubs and, not surprisingly, Rosenberg doubled. Putting on my best poker face (still not that good tho), I passed and Zia thought long and hard before passing also. Rosenberg led a spade and my dummy was exposed...fortunately it was good for a ruff and Kenny eventually escaped for down one (he had 7 clubs to the AKQ in his hand). Zia's comment, "you had a club fit of sorts" was met with hilarity around the table. We actually achieved the "par" result on the hand because 4 Spades just makes North South and East-West have 10 tricks in hearts. Unfortunately justice was served--we lost the board when our teammates didn't get trump going early enough to prevent a diamond ruff in 5 Hearts Doubled at the other table. Cmon guys, you can't let us down like that! :)