Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Some Hands from the Sectional: IMPs

Here are some of the problems we faced during the two (successful) team events from this weekend's Sectional. All problems IMPs. Tales from the table will be in the Comments.

(A)
AQJ5 732 Q65 T96, all white.
RHO opens 1D. Man or mouse?

(B)
KQ6 62 QT974 A53, favorable.
First question: Do you open in second seat? I decided to pass. LHO opened 1H, pard jumped to 2S, and righty (friend and sometimes-teammate Mullet) doubled. What's your call?

(C)
QJ752 J62 AT A84, all white.
This time you decide to open your minny, and partner splinters with 4C. Are you proud enough of your hand to cue 4D?

(D)
A8 KQ743 KQ4 A93, all red.
Another splinter decision: over your 1H, pard jumps to 4D, wrecking a good bit of your hand. Pros: It's still a nice hand. Cons: There are no below-game slam tries available. What's your decision?

(H)
JT9 QJ63 QT8 J65, unfavorable
The opponents bid uncontested: 1D - 2D! - 2S - 3C - 3N [! = limit raise or better]. Your lead.

2 comments:

McKenzie said...

(A) I was a "man", and overcalled 1S, getting the opponents to a good 3N rather than the normal 5-3 4S contract, off three trump tricks and an ace. Nuts.

(B)Our style of favorable jump overcalls opposite passed hands is tactical, rather than weak. Partner could have any hand from seven spades to the jack and out to AJT98 xxxx Axx x. So I blasted to 4S to put on maximum pressure. This passed around to Mullet, who made the very reasonable decision to reopen with 4N on his good 1255. I doubled this, and the 5C runout, and we went +800.

(C) I decided that if pard couldn't make another move over 4S, slam couldn't be cold, so I bid and played 4S. Pard had a nice hand, and I was able to draw trumps, strip the minors, then lead a low heart from my Jxx towards dummy's AT8x. I stuck in the eight, hoping to endplay Mullet with any heart holding not including the nine, but it wasn't to be. I'm sure pard would've automatically bid the slam with AT9x rather than AT8x of hearts.

(D) Somewhat inconsistently, I cued 4S on this hand, and got us to a subpar slam (we needed a finesse and not 4-0 trumps on my left).

(H) Meg tabled the jack of spades, but I think the three of hearts is slightly better. This seems like an attacking hand rather than a passive one, and neither opponent seem to have much in hearts.

Noble said...

(A) mouse

(B) I'd open 1d. In the auction you gave I'd bid 3.5 spades (I can't bid that? Ok I guess just 3 then, maybe I'll bid 4 next round).

(C) no, yuck, but I would cue if playing two-way splinters or if cA was in another suit and i had xxx clubs

(D) see previous comment about two way splinters. sign me up for 680

(H) boring heart, but its an autospade lead if it had gone 1d-2d-2h-2s-3n