Another Close Call

I returned yesterday from Orlando after another heartbreaking exit from the Reisinger Teams. My squad ended day 1 with 23.5 wins in 48 boards, which was half a board from qualification for the semifinal.

My favorite hand from the day came against the Diamond squad, one of the pre-tournament favorites. I held:
x
A8x
AT8x
AJTxx
and opened the bidding with 1 Club. My partner responded 1 Spade and I rebid 1 Notrump, ending the auction. My LHO led the 3 of hearts and this dummy came down:
A9xx
KT2
Jxx
Kxx
It looks percentage to play small from dummy, playing the opening leader for honor-9 instead of Queen-Jack, so I did, which fetched the nine from RHO. I won the ace and played on clubs, one to the king and another to the jack, both following. I was up to 9 tricks so I led a low diamond toward dummy, the jack losing to the queen. My RHO returned the queen of hearts which I won in dummy with the king. That left:
A9xx
T
xx
x

x
x
AT8
Axx
I started running my club winners, and my LHO's discards were coming slower with each round. Eventually he discarded spades each time, 2 low ones and the jack. I was pretty confident that he had started with 4-4-3-2 distribution at this point, so all that was left was to play my spade to the ace (LHO followed with the king) and the ten of hearts, which endplayed him to lead into my diamond tenace for 10 tricks. The defense was tough to find...he had to pitch one of his hearts and then follow to the spade with the king, leaving himself a smaller spade as an exit after winning the ten of hearts. The board was a win when the declarer in the same contract at the other table finessed clubs in the other direction and ended with only 8 tricks.

It was an enjoyable trip but was frustrating from a results standpoint...hopefully next year will bring more success at the table.

Slams in Lake Geneva Part 2

Buoyed by the success of the previous hand, Dan and I faced another slam opportunity. I picked up: KTx Tx AT9 AKxxx and heard him open a 15-17 1NT.

Using standard methods, you have 3 main options. The simplest is a direct 3NT--pessimistic, but nothing is perfect. Also you could try an invitational 4NT. Finally you can take the scientific route, starting with a club transfer. If your partner doesn't super-accept, you can bid 3NT, which should show a mild slam invite, albeit usually with 6 clubs (with less you wouldn't bother with the transfer). Over the super-acceptance you have to bid 4NT--a 3NT bid here would be based on good clubs and invitational values...something like xx xxx Jx KQTxxx.

Our pre-game discussions gave me a fourth option here. I could bid 4 Spades as a lighter balanced slam invitation (4NT would be more encouraging). Since my hand provides help in all the suits, I decided to choose this course rather than showing clubs. Dan jumped to 6 Hearts and I corrected to 6NT. This worked out well...partner had:
A9x AQ9xx Kx QJx
He made all the tricks on a friendly layout, which gave us a slam swing.

Slams in Lake Geneva Part 1

I spent last weekend at the regional in Lake Geneva, WI. It was my first time off from work since the summer national and the more relaxed bridge setting provided some much needed r&r. I played the Thursday-Friday knockout with Dan Zagorin, Joe Stokes and Cheri Bjerken. Dan and I had a couple of interesting slam-type hands come up. On the first I held:
x AQxx Jxxx Axxx

I heard Dan open 1 Club--I responded 1 Heart and was raised to 4. How do you approach the bidding from here?

It seems that slam will usually be pretty good. Opposite the wrong hand, we could suffer a diamond ruff and go down in 5...on balance I figured that this hand was at least worth one move so I cuebid 5 Clubs. Partner cooperated with 5 Diamonds and I bid the slam. Actually the play was much more amusing.

LHO led a low trump and I saw:
Kxxx KJxx AK KQ9

There are a few options but it seems right to win in hand to lead a spade up--with the ace onside we can make 12 tricks with the help of 2 spade ruffs in hand. I tried this line but RHO won the king of spades with the ace and returned a spade after some consideration. This presented the extra option of trying to ruff 3 spades in my hand after which I wouldn't have to rely on 3-3 clubs. I decided to trust my opponent to have played back a trump if it was necessary, so I ruffed, crossed to dummy with a diamond and ruffed another spade. When I cashed the queen of hearts, both followed and I winced slightly. Fortunately all was still well--I returned to dummy with a club, drew the last trump, cashed the other high diamond and then the final trump--this would catch RHO in a minor suit squeeze if she happened to hold the queen of diamonds along with club length (remember to play the high diamond first, though, so that you can see your opponent's discard before you have to make a critical one of your own). Clubs were 3-3 all along so we chalked up our slam.

Catching Up...

Regrettably I wasn't able to attend the World Championships that are currently concluding in Philadelphia. Congrats to John Diamond, Brian Platnick, Fred Gitleman, Brad Moss, Eric Greco and Geoff Hampson, winners of the main event! They bested an incredibly strong field of well over 100 teams.

Actually after a flurry of cards in early September I haven't played much. The last month or so I've been focusing more on the Northwestern football Saturdays and some home renovations. The most notable accomplishment from the flurry was a qualification for the North American Pair, to be contested at the March NABC in Louisville. My partner, Sangarapil Mohan, and I finished 3rd in the district. The first and second place pairs receive funding from the ACBL to attend the national event--as third place finishers we are invited to compete but will pay for the trip ourselves (my usual pro-quo for nationals anyway). Congrats to Nik Demirev-Ralph Katz and David Yang-Xiaodong Shi, our district's first two pairs.

The field was a particularly strong one, so Mohan and I were very happy to place so well. I recall several interesting hands, but a lot of the finer details are escaping me (as usual, I have lost track of my hand records). Here is one that we got lucky on...any suggestions for a better auction are welcome.
A
AKJxxx
xxx
AK

KTxxxx
void
AQxxx
xx
Our auction, starting with the North hand, was 2C-2S-3H-3S-4S-5D-6C-6S-P
This was not a great contract but it had the virtue of keeping the diamond tenace protected, which proved crucial. Spades were 3-3 and hearts 4-3, so the play was pretty easy--I won the club lead, ruffed 2 hearts while drawing trumps and hoping for the best...the other high club was left as an entry to the hearts once the spade loser was punched out.

More concerning is the bidding...I took a number of dubious actions, the first being the 2 Spade response, ostensibly showing 2 of the top 3 honors. I thought that this hand would be tough to describe without starting with a positive response. Over my partner's 3 Hearts, 4 Diamonds seems normal, but is it certain to be interpreted correctly? These days introducing minors naturally at the 4-level is not in style...how do you show a good raise to 4 Hearts here? Anyway, I further muddied the waters with 3 Spades and could certainly have passed 4 Spades as well...but things worked out. On the same hand Katz opened only 1 Heart on the North cards and the pair still reached 6 Spades, so perhaps it isn't so easy to stop short of slam.

The Right Time?

Suppose you pick up this hand in 4th seat:
Jxxx AJ98x A54 x
LHO starts the auction with 1 Spade, partner passes and RHO responds 1 Notrump. You make a dubious 2 Heart overcall which is followed by 2 passes. Now RHO reopens with 3 Clubs and is promptly raised to 5 by the opener. What do you lead?


I generally don't have a great flair for the dramatic on opening lead, but this hand seemed worthy of some thought. I figured that the opening bidder would be prepared for a heart lead considering his aggressive raise, so apparently our best hope was to make 2 tricks in diamonds to go with my ace of hearts. My best chance was to find the king of diamonds in my partner's hand, in which case it didn't matter which diamond i led...however, if partner didn't have the king of diamonds, LHO was a big favorite to hold it on this auction (RHO should have a good club suit and something less than 10 HCP). My analysis pretty much ended there and I managed to lead my 4 of diamonds reasonably in tempo. I have to admit that my heart started pounding when i saw the dummy:
AQTxx
Kx
KJ
Kxxx
Declarer took quite a while to play to trick one...I'm still not sure if he was suspicious or just taking his time examining his assets, but finally he played the jack. My partner took the queen and returned a diamond to my ace. I cashed the ace of hearts and continued a heart for a one-trick set. Actually if I had played my third diamond we would likely have scored another trick, for declarer's hand was a surprising:
void
Qx
Txxxxx
AQ98x
His choice of 3 Clubs instead of 3 Diamonds seems a bit odd but isn't crazy and this time it led to a pretty good contract. I'm confident that he would have gotten the diamond right if I hadn't led it right away because I had overcalled.

In fact, I had a small extra edge in coming up with the lead--I was playing last night at the local club where the bidding in general isn't precise enough to locate good minor suit games. My goal was to beat the contract, and it seemed likely that the underlead, if wrong, would cost at most an overtrick. Sure enough, our opponents were the only pair in game!

Which Strain?--Updated

As promised, here is one interesting hand from the recent NABC in New Orleans. It comes from the swiss teams--you are vul vs not and partner opens 1 Heart.
A9xx
K
9xxx
A9xx
The auction begins simply enough--with the opponents silent, you respond 1 Spade, partner bids 2 Diamonds and you bid 3 Diamonds. Now partner bids 3 Spades. Apparently he has a good shapely hand, but is there a range? Could he be 2-5-4-2 without a club stop? And, perhaps more importantly, what do you bid now?

--------
Thanks for all of the comments on this hand. I was planning on updating sooner, but figured I'd let you guys run with it for a while. As stated, I faced this problem in the Swiss. I made a poor bid of 4 spades that had a happy ending when I managed to emerge with 10 tricks. One thing that I did consider that was not brought up in the comments was that hearts could still easily be the right strain. Our stiff king is actually quite a fine holding. My 4 spade bid amounted to a guess, and a bad one, as the comments indicate--although we can control the first round of clubs and will be able to ruff the second round in the shorter trump hand, our trump are not the robust type that you like to have to play a 4-3 fit...not to mention the possibility that partner is 2-5-5-1.

In the postmortem my partner suggested the 4 Club cuebid. Assuming you are willing to give up on notrump at this point (I know that Kenny is!), the cuebid stands out. My partner thinks that 4 Clubs says, "I have a good hand but am not sure where to go with it yet." Over 4 Clubs, partner has an easy 4 Heart bid--his hand actually was: JT7 AQJxxx AQxx void.

To finish the story, 4 Spades needed some luck, including the diamond finesse. We gained an imp on this one when the other table played in 3nt with 9 toppers when the hearts split 4-2...the opposing declarer didn't take the diamond finesse and was duly punished.

Intuitive Bid

My girlfriend Alice and I arrived back in Chicago yesterday morning exhausted from a long weekend of partying in New Orleans. It was a great time, though the partying went better than the bridge for the most part...I'll try to post a few hands in the next few days. I was planning an afternoon sleeping my way out of the daze and then a relaxing dinner/cards night with friends including Dan Wilderman, who is visiting from New York. The sleeping part of that plan was put aside when I heard from Dan that he and Kenny were planning on playing the afternoon game at the local club--Alice and I decided to join in the fun and soon found ourselves sitting North-South at table 3!

Alice has still played less than 10 rounds of duplicate and our convention card includes nothing more than 16-18 notrumps, Stayman, and forcing double-raises. You might imagine my trepidation, then, when I held this hand in 3rd seat with none vul and faced a challenging auction:
AJ9x
Jx
K9
KJ98x
The opponents were silent throughout. I opened 1 Club and Alice responded 2 Diamonds. We had not discussed passed hand jump shifts so I tried to imagine what she had--I came up with a maximum pass with an excellent diamond suit. Going on this assumption, I had a few options--I could pass if I thought we were high enough, I could raise diamonds, or I could mention my spades. I figured that my hand was minimum, but the king of diamonds was likely to be a big card, so I wanted to keep bidding and decided to bid 2 Spades on the way. Alice bid a prompt 4 Spades and again I was concerned, mostly because I thought that I had overbid. LHO led a low heart and Alice produced this fine dummy:
KQT
xx
AJTxxx
Qx
I was delighted to be in the only game contract with a legitimate chance! Normal splits led to making 4--the only +420 in our direction. I was proud of Alice's evaluation of her cards on this one--she could tell that they were all pulling full weight. Well done partner!

Light Negative Doubles

A couple of hands came up while I was playing online last night that presented opportunities to make light negative doubles of a preemptive bid. Are these long-run winning tactics or is it better to "stay fixed" with these hands? Some style is certainly involved, with the daring, gambling type of player favoring the double while the conservative passes without much thought. Here are the 2 hands and situations. Assume neither vul and you are 3rd to act.

QJxx
Kxxx
Qx
xxx
Partner opens 1 Diamond, RHO overcalls 3 Clubs.

QJxx
Qxxx
x
Qxxx
Partner opens 1 Club, RHO overcalls 3 Diamonds.

Too Much Info

Our team emerged from the recent International Team Trial event without distinction, but at least built some experience playing against some of the country's best players. As you all know, the event is concluding as I write, with some 50 boards yet to be played in the final between the Diamond and Fleishcer squads. Congratulations to my friends on the Weinstein team which defeated the powerful Meltzer and Welland squads on their way to a spot in the semifinal. Well done!

The event actually started well for our team--we won our first match and followed with two close matches, putting us above average at the first break. Unfortunately things headed south from there. Here's one hand from the second match where I broke one of my own hard rules--don't give away too much information in the bidding. I held this hand:
Kx
AQxx
KT9xx
Jx
I opened 1 Diamond, heard a game-forcing 2 Clubs from my partner and rebid 2 Diamonds. He raised to 3 Diamonds...your call?

On the auction it isn't totally clear yet what the "right" contract is. One thing that is clear to me now is that making a lot of bids with this so-so minimum, semi-balanced hand is asking for trouble. A practical 3 Notrump bid here doesn't neccessarily end the auction--partner already knows that I have a fair hand with 5 diamonds. At the table, I chose to show my hearts and the wheels started to fall off. The player to my left, who happened to be ACBL hall-of-famer Peter Weichsel, doubled. This came back around to me and now, belatedly, I bid the obvious 3 Notrump. Weichsel found a killing spade lead from Qxx instead of leading from his KJxxx of hearts. We lost 11 IMPs on the hand and the match by 3. (As a side, I've been re-reading Zia's book "Bridge my Way" this weekend and I'm sure he would suggest an occasional 3 Heart bid on my hand if my major suit holdings were reversed--see Chapter 5)

All in all the team trials were a good experience and one that hopefully I will be repeating with more success in future years.

After 2 Way New Minor Forcing

This hand caused me a problem at the regional in Lake Geneva. Playing IMPs I held
Tx
KJx
AQJxx
Qxx
I opened 1 Diamond, my partner responded 1 Spade and I rebid 1 Notrump. Now my partner bid 2 Diamonds showing some game-forcing hand. This is a nice convention because it allows you to pass information back and forth at a conveniently low level to decide on a strain for your game, or perhaps to investigate slam. Still, you can't be lazy with your bids here. This is apparently a very simple situation, but what do you bid at your 3rd turn?


I didn't think much about this one beyond the fact that I held 5 diamonds to the ace-queen-jack and hadn't shown them yet. So 3 Diamonds it was. I failed to imagine my partner's possible problem on this auction...over 3 Diamonds, his 3 Heart bid looks natural here and 3 Spades is definitely natural, so space is suddenly at a premium. Forced into a guess, my partner reasonably went with 5 Diamonds holding Qxxx x Kxxx AKJx. This was a silly contract, down off the top with 3 Notrump cold on most layouts and difficult to defend on the layouts where it is beatable. What was the problem?

On the theory of game before slam, my hand looks very well-suited to notrump play. I have slow honors in both of the unbid suits and really don't want to play diamonds unless my partner suggests it (and insists on it over my 3 Heart continuation). I now believe that I should have continued with 2 Notrump over 2 Diamonds--the auction is still low enough that we can reach diamonds if that is where the hand belongs. I thought this was an interesting problem because it is so easy to get lazy during these auctions--even when it looks like you have plenty of space, you have to imagine partner's problems and make sure you are making the most descriptive, economical bid.

Hero in 3NT?

I faced this hand today in our District GNT event:
Tx
xx
KQ9
AQTxxx

Q87x
AQ
Axxxx
Jx
My partner opened 1 Club in first seat, I responded 1 Diamond and West overcalled 1 Spade. My partner made a support double, passed to me. Now 3 Notrump, what else? West led an attitude spade deuce to East's jack. Think about your line of play before you read on.


Assuming a normal 3-2 diamond spit, you have 8 tricks ready to take. One option is to duck the lead--now if spades are continued, the defenders will not have communication even if the club finesse loses and you will have 9 tricks. An alert East can shift to a heart, though, through your ace-queen and if that hook is off, you are back to relying on the club finesse. The right play both technically and psychologically is to win the queen of spades and run the diamond suit. Assuming the suit divides 3-2, West will come under some pressure and you may well be able to read the position from the way he discards. In fact the hand is cold if West has the king of hearts and few defenders can blank a king in tempo--eventually you will be able to cash 7 winners, stripping West of safe exit cards and throw him in with a spade to lead away from the king of hearts. Was I the hero of this hand? Sad to say, no...this came up towards the end of a 2 day 90-board marathon and my radars weren't close to being ready for the situation. Seeing stars by this point, I seemed to think that my remaining stiff ten in dummy and 87x in my hand would suffice for a second spade stopper. I won the lead and took the club hook for a swift down 1. The hero of this hand was Jeff Schuett, the declarer for our opponents. He played the hand as described for a well-earned 10 imp swing. Well done!

Opportunity in the Auction

I enjoy finding opportunities to use free bids to introduce both a fit and another important feature of my hand. One came up this weekend in a sectional pair game. My partner opened a red/white 3 Hearts in 3rd seat. My RHO overcalled 3 Spades. My hand was:
xx
J9x
AQTx
Qxxx
I was comfortable competing to 4 Hearts with these cards, but it would be a gross shot in the dark to act over the 4 Spade bid that I was sure would come on my left. It looked clear to me that 4 Diamonds was the call, both helping partner evaluate his cards and possibly to help us on defense later. LHO did indeed bid 4 Spades, which ended the auction. I led a heart to partner's ace and he promptly returned a diamond into a dummy of:
QJTxx
x
xx
KJTxx
I cashed my 2 diamonds and we eventually conceded the rest, -420. I lamented that we had missed a rare bird, the red on white save. Partner's hand was:
x
AQTxxxx
J9xx
x
Sacrificing would have netted -200 or +50 if the opponents had competed further. In the recap, though, we scored 28/38 for -420. Apparently many had returned their singleton club after winning the first trick with the ace of hearts, allowing declarer to hold his diamond losers to 1. I was pleased with the result and am glad to get rewarded for making bids like this that have several ways to win and very little to lose. It's a standout if you think about it, but it is very easy to lazily bid 4 Hearts at the table.

Wolff Signoff After 2NT Rebid

A friend from Chicago recently asked me to post notes on the system that I use with Joe after a 2NT rebid. Transfers are popular these days, but I've had decent success with this, so here it:

applies after 1m-1M-2NT start, not after 1H-1S-2NT or 1C-1D-2NT
3C=relay to 3D (usually some slam try but could be to play 3 diamonds)
After opener accepts the relay, responder's bids:
3 of bid major=6+ suit, slam try
3 of OM=slam try in minor not opened
3NT=slam try in opener's minor

3D=checkback for majors (opener bids hearts first)

3 of bid major=signoff, 6 card suit

3 of OM:
over original 1S=5-5 or 6-5 forcing
over original 1H=4/5 forcing, slammish--partner cues clubs with good hand for hearts and diamonds with good hand for spades