[pescetom]

Board 14 more or less sealed the outcome of the EBL Winter Games yesterday awarding 10 IMPs to Swiss Team with just 5 boards remaining:
See Board 14 here

I'm curious to know what people think about the two different auctions here, both in general and the specific bids.
Were Zia and Meck on the same wavelength about 1NT?
The intention behind Brink's 4♣ is clear, but what exact meaning do you attribute to the bid?
3NTW goes down on the actual layout, but was it unreasonable to try 3NT rather than 5♦ despite the known spades risk?



P.S. is there some way to get handviewer links or strings out of this vugraph_linfetch ? I could not find one.

[Cyberyeti]

3N could easily be right, most likely because it will gain you an IMP or 2 in overtricks.

We end up in 3N by E but that's slightly lucky, our auction:

1♦(4+)-(1♠)-2♦(10+ 4+♦, may have 4M)
3♥(decent 4-6, otherwise I bid an artificial 2♥ asking, or 2N min 4-5)-3♠(got anything in the spade suit ? If I pull 3N it was a cue)
3N-P

[FelicityR]

Who am I to constructively criticise world class players and their bidding? But...

...3NT is unlucky but it's also a leap in the dark. Zia's 1NT promises, in my humble opinion, 8-10 HCPs. His hand could be ♠Axx ♥Qxx ♦xx ♣Qxxxx. With 6-4 distribution I believe it is right to introduce the second suit with 2♥. However, whether that bid would be construed as game forcing is another matter.

The difference between the bidding of Brink/Drijver and Zia/Meckstroth is that of an established partnership with bidding tools at their disposal, and two world class players who haven't had the luxury of playing together for many years.

[pescetom]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-March-07, 09:44, said:

3N could easily be right, most likely because it will gain you an IMP or 2 in overtricks.

I can see Meckstroth thinking that after 1N, plus of course he has faith in Zia's declarer play and knows they have to take chances to recover here.
Would be interesting to see what a simulation based only on EW hands has to say about 3N vs 5♦ though.

[pescetom]

FelicityR, on 2020-March-07, 19:26, said:

Who am I to constructively criticise world class players and their bidding? But...

...3NT is unlucky but it's also a leap in the dark. Zia's 1NT promises, in my humble opinion, 8-10 HCPs. His hand could be ♠Axx ♥Qxx ♦xx ♣Qxxxx. With 6-4 distribution I believe it is right to introduce the second suit with 2♥. However, whether that bid would be construed as game forcing is another matter.

The difference between the bidding of Brink/Drijver and Zia/Meckstroth is that of an established partnership with bidding tools at their disposal, and two world class players who haven't had the luxury of playing together for many years.

Who are we indeed? But I'm sure that somebody here (mikeh?) has insights which will be useful next time we face a similar situation.

I think I do have the right to say that I am puzzled by Zia's 1NT, if for no other reason that my jaw dropped when he bid it so I can't be accused of resulting at least. As I understand it the agreement was that Meck's 1♦ is 5-card (or 3-suit) which is yet more reason to raise, although as you say this is not an established partnership and I guess Zia might ignore or forget that.

I don't think 2♥ would be game force, but I don't see that as a problem, it is clearly forcing and at least a game try.