[VM1973]

Out of curiosity, since partner was 2-3-4-4 why didn't he open 1♦?

[Antrax]

I think it's a style issue, in Israel they teach you to open the lower of two four card minors, and we both stayed with that. Is there any real advantage to either style?

[FrancesHinden]

I want to get away from the original question slightly to address the debate on matchpoint tactics. Whenever you play in a tournament, you need to decide on your objective. Broadly speaking this is going to be "to win", "to improve" or "to have fun"

The field you were playing in was clearly very weak (with 22 opposite 12 only 2 pairs got to a making slam out of 8 table). So if you are playing to win in that sort of field you shouldn't bother bidding grands at all, you should just take your 90% board for 6NT. Similarly never bid delicate small slams, just make more overtricks and get your good bad that way.

If instead you are playing to improve, whether that is to practice your system, or to get experience playing more, or play with a teacher or whatever, then you should bid and play differently. You should try and get to the 'right' contract, either for a high-standard pairs event, or if you are practising for teams, for an IMPs match. This means trying to bid the right grand here. It's different from trying to win in a weak field, because you might experiment with bids where you aren't sure what they mean (for example, bidding 3C over 2H on this hand).

If you are playing for fun, well it depends what you find as fun, but e.g. I would never pass a board out, I would be more likely to bid a dodgy slam because it's more interesting as a play problem, I might try out some obviously unsound matchpoints tactics and see what happens... in practice it doesn't take long until you discover that playing to win and playing for fun are often much the same.

I'm not suggesting any of these is a better objective than the others. Depending on your standard and the event all are quite viable.

[FrancesHinden]

VM1973, on 2011-August-29, 07:35, said:

I guess I don't get it. So I'll just ruminate a little.

You got a top. That should mean something.
You figure you're cold for 11 tricks opposite partner's 7 count (♦A, ♣K). Since he's opened (theoretically 13 HCPs) surely there must be two more kings (or the equivalent) in there somewhere. Shouldn't that be worth 2 more tricks?
You have 43 ZPs opposite partner's promised 26 ZPs that puts you at 69 ZPs so statistically you're cold for 13.4 tricks.
Partner's most likely shapes are 4-4-3-2 or 5-3-3-2, both of which are more likely than a 4-3-3-3 shape. If partner has ♦A and ♣Kxxxxx that's probably enough for 7NT and he must surely have something more than that in the hand.

Edit: The only way 7♥ beats 7NT is if you need to ruff diamonds in dummy. So you'd need partner to hold:
♠QJ10x
♥Jxx
♦AJ
♣Kxxx

Except he can't hold that because he'd have bid 1♠ over 1♥ and even if he did there must still be play for 7NT considering clubs might go 3-3, you might have a squeeze, or you could fall back on finessing the ♦J.

Anyway I don't get why 7♥ is safer than 7NT. Couldn't hearts go 5-0 or a club lead get ruffed?

7H is safer than 7NT opposite a hand such as

KJ
J10x
Axx
Kxxxx

7NT is safer than 7H opposite a hand such as

Kx
xxx
AQx
KJxxx

It's going to be extremely difficult to find out which jacks partner holds.

After 1C-1H-1NT-2C-2H I might try 3C on your hand. It's a good test to see if partner agrees it is forcing, for one thing, and if partner has a very suitable hand for clubs (such as KJxxx) he'll raise.
It looks odd to bid 3C rather than 3D, but it's harder to construct a hand where 7D is right. If partner has 4 diamonds he must be 2=3=4=4 (given you open 1C, as you explained) and now I can't think of a hand where 7D is better.

[FrancesHinden]

Antrax, on 2011-August-29, 11:15, said:

I think it's a style issue, in Israel they teach you to open the lower of two four card minors, and we both stayed with that. Is there any real advantage to either style?

There's an advantage to both you and partner playing the same style. Other than that there are some small points one way or the other, but nothing that's going to make a huge difference; it also depends a bit on what you open with a balanced hand without a 4-card minor.

[Antrax]

Better minor on 4-4-3-2 or 4-3-3-3 with the four cards in major suits.

My goal is definitely to improve. We play that game to practice our system. You get a hand booklet in the end, so it's easy to later go over tricky hands, close decisions, see whether we blew tricks on defense, etc. The problem with that game is that as declarers we can often get away with way too much, which skews our bidding to the highly optimistic end.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

vuroth, on 2011-August-29, 09:03, said:

I had the same feeling about 4NT, but since 3H isn't forcing here or in NMF, I really don't know what the right bid is over 2♥

3♥ is forcing after going thru NMF or checkback, because the invitational sequence with a 3♥ bid would be:

1C - 1H
1NT - 3H jump

"All jumps are invitational ( or weak depending an prior agreement ) "..
"All GF sequences go thru NMF ( or checkback ) first " ...

[han]

I don't believe in playing to improve. Whenever a game is involved, trying to win is the best mentality for improvement. For many people winners mentality is something that needs to be improved as well.

[Antrax]

I have some experience playing other games competitively, so I'm guessing my skill level at Bridge is far behind my winner's mentality. That being said, training sessions are always a key factor in improving, and since I don't have a trainer, I have to rely on club-level competitions.