[akwoo]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-February-21, 17:49, said:

https://www.bridgewe...ub=youngchelsea

I tried to do that tonight (board 8) and I was told that I shouldn't do that.

---

I held 17 HCP 4=4=3=2 and pulled it to 2H, as they were likely to have an 8-card fit and I was told that it was a bad bid because I didn't have 5 in the suit.

You should compete over 2♣, but there is a better way than bidding 2♥. Instead, you double for takeout, asking partner to pick one of the other suits. Partner is supposed to prefer a major over a minor, and they also can pass with good enough clubs to think that 2♣ is going down.

Quote

On board 15, we bid 4H at red, they bid 5D at green, I bid to 5H and ended up down 1 as I thought they would make, but the fact was that they would have gone down 3.

---

I held 2 small ♦, partner held 1, how the heck would we know 5D would get down 3?!

They have 10 diamonds. You have 8 hearts. You pretty much know this.

That makes 18 total tricks. According to the Law of Total Tricks, if they make 5♦ (11 tricks), you only take 7 tricks and go down 4 in 5♥. (Sometime the Law is off, but not by that much...) So bidding 5♥ as a sacrifice is out at the given vulnerability. You might bid it to make, but I don't think that's too likely either.

You have more than half the points in the deck, including what looks like 2 sure club tricks (probably not 3). Do you really think partner with an opening hand doesn't have an A or a KQ somewhere that will take a trick?

[mikl_plkcc]

smerriman, on 2025-February-21, 20:40, said:

You received a ♥T lead to the J, Q, and A? Your ♥9 is a stopper so the opponents can't run hearts if the club finesse loses (though they also can't even in your line, so I'm not sure what went wrong.)

What I did was to cash all 3 As and attempted to run the ♣, which failed, that's why I only had 5 tricks at the end. I couldn't think of another way to make the contract as I assumed that the weak 2 bidder had 6, so he would start playing KQ to drive out all the remaining ♥ if he regained the lead.

akwoo, on 2025-February-21, 21:21, said:

You should compete over 2♣, but there is a better way than bidding 2♥. Instead, you double for takeout, asking partner to pick one of the other suits. Partner is supposed to prefer a major over a minor, and they also can pass with good enough clubs to think that 2♣ is going down.

Our agreement regarding double is that all doubles after our natural NT bid is penalty, so I couldn't use one here.

P.S. I think it is textbook standard that a double is penalty when opponents remove their double against our 1NT to a suit contract. It suggests that the 2♣ bidder is a bust.

Quote

They have 10 diamonds. You have 8 hearts. You pretty much know this.

That makes 18 total tricks. According to the Law of Total Tricks, if they make 5♦ (11 tricks), you only take 7 tricks and go down 4 in 5♥. (Sometime the Law is off, but not by that much...) So bidding 5♥ as a sacrifice is out at the given vulnerability. You might bid it to make, but I don't think that's too likely either.

You have more than half the points in the deck, including what looks like 2 sure club tricks (probably not 3). Do you really think partner with an opening hand doesn't have an A or a KQ somewhere that will take a trick?

1. How do I know they didn't have 11 ♦ with some singletons around, that I could only take 1 and partner could only take 1 trick?
2. We only have 8 trumps and my 4♥ bid was based on strength, what's the implication?

[awm]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-February-21, 17:49, said:

In particular, on board 3, RHO opened weak 2H at the first seat, partner balanced to 3C and I bid 3NT, as I had Axx in ♥.

I assumed that the weak 2 opener had 6, so his partner must had 1 and duly played the A at trick 1, and tried to play for the drop of ♣Q, as I couldn't afford RHO having it and gaining the lead again. It didn't happen, LHO got the ♣Q, and surprisingly he had a second ♥ which he duly returned to RHO and ran it, and our 3NT got -4 where the other tables made.

---

I had no idea how I could play better at all without risking a club finesse which may put the weak 2 opener on lead if it failed.

On board 3, you have to consider the hand as a whole. After winning the first heart, if you cash the diamond ace and then lose a club, the opponents will be able to use the diamonds for transportation and you will almost surely go down a lot. If you play clubs without touching diamonds and lose a club, you have only eight tricks (six clubs, heart ace, spade ace) since you cannot get back to hand. Putting these together, it's hard to see how you are going to make if you lose a club trick. So your goal is to figure out how to run the clubs without losing a trick. This requires clubs to be 3-2 (there is no holding you can pick up with clubs 4-1); your play does not matter if the 2♥ bidder has three (either the club queen is protected always or it's doubleton onside) but if the 2♥ bidder has two, he is less likely to hold the queen (40%) so finessing is the best play.

I understand that you're trying to keep 2♥ opener off lead, but this is a bit of an illusion here because you're not going to make unless the clubs come home regardless.

[awm]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-February-21, 17:49, said:

On board 15, we bid 4H at red, they bid 5D at green, I bid to 5H and ended up down 1 as I thought they would make, but the fact was that they would have gone down 3.

---

I held 2 small ♦, partner held 1, how the heck would we know 5D would get down 3?!

If you listen to the auction, it's clear that opponents are not making 5♦. East bid only 3♦ at first turn (rather than a stronger bid or higher preempt) and West bid only 4♦. Either of these could easily be passed out; if the opponents really thought they had a chance at making 5♦ they wouldn't have both made non-forcing bids at a lower level. They are also white against red (the best colours for sacrificing).

You shouldn't really be thinking about "what if the opponents make 5♦?" on an auction like this -- it's very unlikely. The question is whether you can make 5♥. While not completely clear, two small diamonds is the worst holding for bidding five over five (you could have two diamond losers pretty easily) and you also have weak trumps and most of your strength in a side suit where partner is not likely to have length (so your honours may not help much on offence but will usually cash on defence). As is often the case, "the five-level belongs to the opponents" and you should double and defend.

[akwoo]

You know the full version of the Law of Total Tricks: your trumps + their trumps = your tricks + their tricks? It's not 100% accurate all the time, and there are a few known adjustments that improve the accuracy (but not to 100%), but it's a good start.

[smerriman]

 awm, on 2025-February-22, 05:30, said:

Putting these together, it's hard to see how you are going to make if you lose a club trick. So your goal is to figure out how to run the clubs without losing a trick.

If you take a club finesse at trick 2 and it loses to South, aren't you cold barring a 4-1 break? If South returns a diamond, you have 9 top tricks; if South plays a heart you have 10, and if South returns anything else, you also have 10 when you lead a heart to the 9 after cashing the clubs.

Edit - you may have missed the ♥T lead which wasn't specified in the OP but was in the traveller.

[smerriman]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-February-22, 04:42, said:

Our agreement regarding double is that all doubles after our natural NT bid is penalty, so I couldn't use one here.

P.S. I think it is textbook standard that a double is penalty when opponents remove their double against our 1NT to a suit contract. It suggests that the 2♣ bidder is a bust.

This doesn't seem to make logical sense. How can you have a penalty double when your partner has remained silent opposite your very limited hand? Double has to be takeout.

[mikl_plkcc]

smerriman, on 2025-February-22, 13:10, said:

This doesn't seem to make logical sense. How can you have a penalty double when your partner has remained silent opposite your very limited hand? Double has to be takeout.

It also doesn't seem to make sense that a double is not penalty when we have shown a balanced hand and the opponents shown that they are a bust.

[mikl_plkcc]

Anyway, I turned up at another bridge club today as a visitor and played with the host, and I finally broke even for the first time this year, at 54.2% MP in a 9-table 2-winner Mitchell truncated to 8x3-board rounds.

https://www.bridgewe...&club=wimbledon

I have marked a few boards which I want to discuss:

Board 4

---

I collected +500 for a top.

I bid 3♠ to strength, but I started to unsure if 4♠ would make as I held marginal game values. Was my 4♠ bid right? Should I doubled their 4♥ instead of risking a 4♠ that would be doubled?

Board 9

---

Lead was ♠7. Partner returned a ♦. No one led a ♥ for the whole deal resulting in unnecessary overtricks as all the ♥ could be discarded afterwards. Who's fault?

Board 20

---

I played the ♥Q, then J, both times partner followed small (encourage) then T and blocked the suit, so the contract ended up making instead of -1. How should I know both honours are in my partner's hand, not the declarer's?

Board 25

---

Unfortunately playing with a host, we didn't go through what 3♠ meant after a 2NT opening. We agreed to use Stayman and 4-suit transfers over a 1NT opening and I hoped that my partner would interpret this bid to mean something about the minors, which I plan to pass any of 3NT, 4♣ and 4♦. Unfortunately the result was the bidding go wild, and I ended up down 4 with a misplay as well after I miscounted the trumps (it broke 5-1 but at the end I drew trumps a trick too early, causing me to lost control completely).

4♣ making was the best DD result, although half of the field made at least 9 tricks in NT when DD said that only 7 tricks were available. (A singleton ♦ lead was the only killing lead for 3NT, and no one found that out, which involves winning with the missing ♦A and finessing against declarer's ♥K)

What's the fool proof way to play in 4♣ or 4♦ after a 2NT opening, considering that a direct 4♣ bid is Gerber?

[smerriman]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-February-22, 14:05, said:

It also doesn't seem to make sense that a double is not penalty when we have shown a balanced hand and the opponents shown that they are a bust.

With the hand you had, any time your partner has a 4 card major, or 5 diamonds, or a hand that will pass for penalties, a takeout double will get you a better score than defending 2♣, so there is a huge advantage in having it available.

Conversely, what hands would you want to make a penalty double on, knowing your partner can't have many values either? I can't think of any.

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-February-22, 14:32, said:

Board 20

---

I played the ♥Q, then J, both times partner followed small (encourage) then T and blocked the suit, so the contract ended up making instead of -1. How should I know both honours are in my partner's hand, not the declarer's?

Your partner has an easy overtake of the ♥J, though they have at least 7 top tricks regardless of what you do, so it should never go down..

[mikl_plkcc]

smerriman, on 2025-February-22, 15:09, said:

With the hand you had, any time your partner has a 4 card major, or 5 diamonds, or a hand that will pass for penalties, a takeout double will get you a better score than defending 2♣, so there is a huge advantage in having it available.

Conversely, what hands would you want to make a penalty double on, knowing your partner can't have many values either? I can't think of any.

So how should we rewrite our agreement about penalty double situations?

For example, if we want the sequence
1NT - (/) - / - (X)
/ - (2C) - / - (/)
X
to be takeout,

How about
1NT - (X) - / - (2C)
/ - (/) - X
as well? I believe this sequence should be penalty.

The only difference is if the NT bidder or the partner doubles. What should be the agreement?

[Stephen Tu]

smerriman, on 2025-February-22, 15:09, said:

Your partner has an easy overtake of the ♥J, though they have at least 7 top tricks regardless of what you do, so it should never go down..

Traditionally, when you want partner to unblock the suit so you can run it, on the second card you lead the low card of your sequence (or just a low spot if the signal is such you are sure partner has Hx remaining) not the remaining highest. So from qjt9x your second card led should be the 9 not the J.

Leading the Q then the J is supposed to be from something like QJx hoping to hit partner's suit, so partner was correct to not overtake the J, from his perspective he would be turning 4 tricks into 3. Q then J means you are unblocking for partner; partner should not be unblocking for you.

[pescetom]

mycroft, on 2025-February-17, 19:38, said:

It's one of the reasons we stratify events in the ACBL - expecting people to aim to "win in A or nothing" leads to a lot of people deciding "nothing" is better. Being recognized for doing well *for you* is not a bad thing.

Having said that, the Spikes in the room (even the C Spikes) will not be satisfied with "first in C", nor should they. Improvement is a lifelong thing - if that's your goal.

MP tournaments are not stratified in Italy: due mainly to cultural resistance, although with current numbers it would hardly make sense any way.

The only sport where I did encounter stratification (other than age group categories, which are not the same thing) over here is amateur cycling, where the As and Bs usually race together and in that case with consolation prizes for the top Bs. What I found hilarious is that the better Bs would sometimes deliberately avoid winning these open races to avoid being promoted to A and find life harder, plus also that they also proudly participated in a national B final

[smerriman]

 Stephen Tu, on 2025-February-22, 16:01, said:

Traditionally, when you want partner to unblock the suit so you can run it, on the second card you lead the low card of your sequence (or just a low spot if the signal is such you are sure partner has Hx remaining) not the remaining highest. So from qjt9x your second card led should be the 9 not the J.

Thanks, my mistake. Realised after posting QJx was possible and always forget that myself.

[mycroft]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-February-22, 15:27, said:

The only difference is if the NT bidder or the partner doubles. What should be the agreement?

I don't know the answer to your question (I know *my* answer to that question, but that's in the context of my other agreements and partner's tolerance for 800s).

However,

• One hand is very carefully limited in strength and shape (whether it's 15-17 or 12-14 or...)
  
• The other hand has certain shapes that won't exist (5+M, bad or barren 6+m, three-suited without clubs,...) but is effectively "any semi-balanced or three-suited hand 0-game invite" (whether that's "decent 8" or "9", or "good 10-11", or...)

Can you see why, whether it's the right decision to make, a double by the first hand knowing "nothing" about the second can't be "obviously" penalty, whereas a double by the second hand, knowing pretty much exactly what the first hand has, could confidently say "they're not making this, partner"?

[blackshoe]

I discovered today how hard it is to defend a hand when your partner is in to lead three times (including the opening lead) and never once leads the suit you bid during the auction. :-(

[jillybean]

blackshoe, on 2025-February-22, 21:59, said:

I discovered today how hard it is to defend a hand when your partner is in to lead three times (including the opening lead) and never once leads the suit you bid during the auction. :-(

He was void?

[blackshoe]

jillybean, on 2025-February-22, 22:02, said:

He was void?

She had Axxxx in her suit, and two of my suit, in which I had KQJTx. She led her suit 3 times for one trick. Thing is, when she's on her game, she's much better than this.

[jillybean]

It sounds like she is your partner for other than purely bridge reasons.

[akwoo]

Board 4: I think you should make a game try with 3♦, not 3♠ (or whatever bid you've agreed shows a game try with good diamonds). Now partner knows that your game try is based on a double fit and can judge accordingly. You can pass 4♥ knowing partner has the information to do the right thing. Note 4♠ was indeed not a good contract, though not hopeless. (It's probably good double dummy, but you have to guess right on both the spades and the diamonds.)

Board 9: I'll point out that you both knew that dummy's spades were good after partner takes the Ace of spades and that those spades would be good for several discards after trump are drawn. What to do about that is not so easy especially at matchpoints - actually I suggest you file this hand away for a year until you actually have enough brain space at the table to calculate.