playing a casual tournament with a good partner, interesting story

vul all

kj3
kqj92
-
98653

p - 1h - p - 4h (weak) - 5d! - p - p - p - DBL

while i suspect hijinks are afoot i stoically pass

i lead the k of hearts and am not encouraged when the dummy comes down

AQ95
AT
A75
Q742

Making 7 when S decides to finesse the 9 of spades on the first trick


Partner shown to have
876
7643
t6
AKJT


S shown to have
T42
85
KQJ98432



In a competive field this wouldn't be an awful result, we would have bid the elusive stripe tailed ape double, and many if not most pairs would have bid the small slam. Making 1370 or 1390 instead of 1150.

As it was, 6 of the other 8 tables were in 5d. 1 was in 3NT and 1 was in 5S.


Just part of the inevitable variance train that comes with good bridge.

also,is that the kind of thing i could petition for an adjustment over?

what bridge law, other than "my opponents bid crazy and it worked", do you believe was broken?

2C

Unless there is some systematic problem with it, I think it is a good idea to bid the suit that holds the majority of your HCP

Systematically it would show a 5 card club suit, one which I don't have...

I would start with 2S, general force in this auction. If partner can squeak a 3H call, I'll go with 3NT. If he retreats to 3D or 3C I might pass

no

You have an extremely healthy 13 count and 4-card suit support for partner. Do not stop below 3NT or 5D.

Partner can have as few as xx, xxxx, AKxxx, xx and 5D depends on a trump break.

Or he is 44 in the minors with no heart stop and we never have 11 tricks in a minor.

This is why I prefer the weak no trump playing precision. When partner opens 1D he will either have real diamonds, or 14-16 balanced. I'm not sure I want to be in 5m opposite most balanced 11 counts opened 1D.

The 1NT range at this vul was 10-12, so pard is either 11+ with diamonds or 13-15 balanced. I think I'm not stopping short of game, but it's tough for me to figure out whether 5m or 3NT is better. I could just say "it's matchpoints" and just bid 3N, but I'm wondering if there is a better line.

That's why dc is right, 2S is the choice this round. That followed by 3NT over a minor will imply doubt about strain; if pard rebids 2NT, a simple raise is correct. If pard pulls that to 4m, you should probably pass.

If you were playing a strong notrump, you might want to stop earlier (as when pard has a balanced eleven count), but you probably won't manage it — stopping on a dime in 3m is hard when you're playing a precision diamond.

Plus, notrump will essentially always play better from partner's side (positional spade stopper, heart stopper, etcetera)

This is a good hand to have the agreement that "game forcing" is forcing to 3NT or 4 of a minor when 3NT seems like it won't work, by the way.

Amusing situation arose Wednesday, one I've seen before:

I held something like AQxx xxx xx Jxxx, not that this turns out to matter. RHO deals, vulnerability was red/white, I think, but again not relevant.

Auction proceeds (1C) P -- (1H) 2H; (P ) to me. RHO asked what 2H was, to which I answered that we have no agreement, which if course was the case.

I'm faced with, as I said, an amusing problem. Partner and I play fairly normal 2/1. Partner just made LM a couple weeks ago, so he's not always conversant with what expert standard is, but he tries. The only discussion we have had about sandwich bids is that we are NOT playing sandwich notrump as takeout (in other words, 1NT by him would be natural). Possibly also relevant is that the reason we're not playing sandwich notrump is that I told him I prefer it to be natural. Other than that, there is no analogous sequence that we've discussed.

I happen to know that expert standard here is that 2H is natural. (For those that doubt that, go look up Bridge World Standard.) I also think it at least moderately likely that partner doesn't know that. For whatever it's worth, I also think natural is the best meaning; I understand the thinking that lots of different cue bids for takeout in this spot is valuable, I just don't agree.

My hand says partner could easily have either hearts strong enough to bid, or some takeout.

Your call?

3H if nothing more than to educate partner what 2H is.

3H bounces the problem back nicely.

if he has got hearts, we have nice support and two likely entries, If he has got spades + minor, I have a hand above expectation

2S for me. Partner should be able to work out that if I had long spades I'd have bid some number of spades over 1C. If he has hearts I've just made a great lead directing raise to 3H. If not, bidding 2S is better than bidding 3H since partner will assume I knew what his bid meant and act accordingly (will raise a freely bid 3S to 4 but it is close.

I chose 3H; in the confusion we managed to get a zero. Pard had solid diamonds and a heart stopper; he was asking for a club stopper. Obviously his choice was wrong (he should have bid 3C), but that's not the point.

I think the problem is even more interesting if I don't have the spade ace. Now my choices are pass and not-pass. I'd choose pass, even knowing it's a moderately likely disaster,because I believe pulling on the assumption that partner doesn't know what he's doing is a bad thing... even even one strongly suspects that partner really doesn't know what he's doing. Nothing in my hand or the auction says that partner can't have Kxx AKJTx x Axxx.

I faced an almost identical problem once in the Blue Ribbon Pairs, with a pickup partner who had about 1500 masterpoints but had shown himself to be less than thoughtful. I had trash, and passed the sandwich cuebid of responder's suit; a zero (and an argument) ensued. I still think passing was right, though.

So you bid 3H, he bid 3NT, and you passed?

Actually more complicated than that (see below if you really care), but it involves, among other things, that I remembered my hand wrong; I decided just to leave it as is. The point isn't the disaster, it's the first decision. Or at least my point was.

Also, as I said above I've faced the same issue before, in the Blue Ribbons (second day). That was a mess.

A bummer you were red/white. Passing 2H is often pretty great if partner doesn't have hearts and you have a 3-count

IMPs, you're playing 2/1.

Pard opens 2

J 9
A K Q J
A 8 7 5
J 6 3

What's the plan here?

if 2D shows a GF hand, I bid that and see what develops

yeah, need to know what our responses mean here

either 2D (some GF hand) or 2H (hearts, 2/3 honors or something) if 2D isn't available would be my choices

i feel like most often when someone posts a 16 count opposite a 2C opener, the opener has something ******ed like AKxxxxxx -- x Axxx

don't listen to wetzel with this "need to know our responses" nonsense. 2D is the only bid with this hand

I remember playing with Nich when he was fairly new. I had a 15 count and he opened 2C. I did think well ****, I guess Nich is screwing this up. But after auction went 2C-2D-2NT I did blast 7NT. Was happy when he actually did have a 22 count.

What they said, just bid 2D. partner will probably bid spades now. If 2S you bid 2N to give him room to bid another suit, which he probably has or rebid spades, after which you set trumps and cuebid. He prolly has some ****** hand with heart void or something, so it is important to hear his shape, support the correct suit and find out keycards. If he has a hand like AQT8xxx, -, Q, AKQ98 you don't want to end up in grand.

It may be hard to suppress your enthusiasm when you have a 16 count opposite a GF hand, but you really must.

sorry, you're playing with some 83 year old and you agreed step responses, you just showed 0-4.