Loading ...a quick one
A crazy busy weekend capped off with the cross-town doubleheader. We caught the White Sox win over Boston in the afternoon and were there to see the Cubs spank St. Louis at Wrigley in the evening. My pal Southpaw stopped by to say hello and the Subecks caught it on film.
Photo courtesy of Stan & Suzi Subeck.
Had a tough bidding problem yesterday, I wonder what you all think. Playing Matchpoints, vulnerable against not, you pick up:
S Axx
H AKQJ9x
D Kxx
C x
Partner opens 1S and we bid the obvious 2H, forcing to game. Partner bids 3D (which by agreement shows an unbalanced hand without six spades, with four or more diamonds, says nothing about extra values). Do you bid 3H or 3S? What’s your general plan for this hand?
August 12th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Bid 3S which establishes the trump suit.
Regardless of partner’s next bid you bid blackwood and then bid 6 if partner has 2 keycards plus the queen, 7 if they have 3 plus the queen.
There are some hands which makes 6 or even 7 diamonds and make less in spades where the diamonds run and you can pitch spades on your hearts.
Unfortunately I don’t know how to construct an auction to figure that out.
August 12th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Over 3S, Partner bids 4S (refusing to cuebid, from which we infer she holds some minimum opener with five spades and four or five diamonds). We bid 4NT, keycard for spades and partner shows two without.
So Bob, 2 without wasn’t one of the possible scenarios you mentioned. What do you do now?
I find it fascinating, incidentally, that you are willing to look for a grand slam in the pointed suits; is Hearts not also a possible place to play? What about your six solid do you devalue?
August 12th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I am of a different mindset.
I rebid hearts. This is an awfully good suit and an awfully good hand in light of partner’s bids.
If partner raises to 4H, I bid keycard for hearts.
One way or another, unless we are off two keycards, I am going to drive to slam in hearts. This suit will often play OK opposite a void.
August 12th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Over 3H, Peg, Partner will bid 3NT. Now is 4S keycard for Hearts or a delayed raise?
August 12th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I think that 4S is a preference for spades - and 4NT is keycard for hearts.
If I had wanted to make a quantitative showing on a notrump hand, I could have bid 4NT over 3D.
Since I supported neither spades nor diamonds, IMHO 4NT ought to be keycard for my own suit.
August 12th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I did not give this enough thought the first time around.
We have a hand where we can preusme that hearts run. The worst partner can be is void (not likely) and even then any 4-3 works or a 5-2 with the 10 falling doubleton.
We can make slam opposite numerous hands including for example Kxxxx, x, Axxx, KQx. We can pitch a spade on a club, ruff a spade and then pitch the diamond loser on a spade.
So if we bid 2H followed by 3H then 4N over 3N should be keycard for hearts.
If partner shows the maximum 2 keycards without the Q of trump, we can now bid 5N, meaning we have all the keycards and the Q of trump.
Now if partner has a source of tricks such as KQJxx of spades he can bid 7 no trump.
If partner has a hand with the K of clubs then he will bid 6C and when you bid 6D he will be able to bid 7N if he holds AQJxx of diamonds or AQJx of diamonds together with the spade K.
If over 5N he bids 6H then you pass.
August 12th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
BTW - very cute pic, Red
August 13th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Stacy, so what was the actual hand?
August 13th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Partner had KJ9xx / x / AQTx / Qxx, ours was Axx / AKQJ9x / Kxx / x.
August 13th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Interesting, partner’s hand, Stac - and partnership style.
In most of my partnerships, 3D would show extra strength OR length - neither of which this hand has. IMHO, 3D preempts the auction a bit.
Of course, all that being said, 6H is not the world’s worst contract. I surely have been in worse - and very recently, I might add - alas!