Playing matchpoints at the club, all white, you pick up:
K9743 AQJ6 94 82.
After counting your cards, you realize that the hand is already sorted. You are in second seat and there is one pass to you. What goes through your mind here?
To me, this looks very much like a hand that has been passed out. This presented me with a bit of a dilemma, both ethical and strategic. It's only 7 losers, and it doesn't even have rebid problems, but it's not a hand I would typically open in first seat. It doesn't meet the rule of 20, so I know none of the other players in this game are opening this hand. But I've got the spade suit, and on top of that, I'm playing against weak opponents, so I don't think I want this to get passed out.
I have UI from the fact that my cards were pre-sorted, but it's not necessarily reliable UI, and the UI certainly isn't my fault. What's the best thing to do here?
Monday, October 20, 2008
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5 comments:
It depends on how ethical you want to be, or more to the point, how unethical you allow yourself to be, but if you normally wouldn't open this hand, you have all the more reason not to open it now.
I would always open this hand, but that is a question of personal belief and needs to be discussed in your partnership.
Martin
I'd just pass. 1s-1n-2h is an auction where partner is going to try for game very aggressively; that is a reason not to push on this one.
It's not UI to pick up a sorted hand; there's always the 1-in-13! chance that the cards are that way randomly; the same chance that they are in the exact [unsorted] order in which you found the previous hand, and will [probably] find the next hand. Your speculation that the hand was passed out at the previous table may be all wrong.
I'd treat the hand just as if I had to sort it, and deal with it as per partnership agreements, table feel for the opponents, etc -- just like any other hand I'd pick up.
BTW, for this particular hand with most partners, that's the green card.
I would probably always open this hand playing with any of my regular partners, just because we systemically open these hands and we have brakes bids available to stop it getting too high.
As to the ui, I would probably call the director, before I opened and get his opinion. The fact that the ui is not my fault is irrelevant, it is also not the thought of the opponnents.
So playing with a pick up or a partner that would not normally open this hand I woud tend to lean towards passing.
In my system this is a full 2D opener (weak with both majors); I'd be so excited to have a hand within range that it might not occur to me that there was a problem about the hand coming sorted.
My partner and I are pretty quick at the table, and it is very common for us to take the hands out a second time, after the round has been called, for the purposes of learning something. I don't always shuffle the hand before inserting it back into the board, it's totally random.
I sort of figure the hand sorted thing is a lot like trying to read opponent hesitations -- caveat emptor.
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