Thursday, October 9, 2008

Oregon Grinders: Day Four

Paul and I continued in the pairs on Thursday of the Seaside Regional. We didn't make the overalls, but scratched a bit, so we felt pretty good about it.

All problems matchpoints; read the Comments section below for what happened at the table.

(A) Red vs. white

AK -- KQJ73 KQ9742

You open 2C (do you?), pard bids a game-forcing 2D, you rebid 3C, and he surprises you with 3D! What's your bid / plan?

(B) All white

K98 K86 AK 96532

LHO opens a 10-12 1NT. Partner passes, and RHO bids a "to play" 2H. This is passed around to partner, who balances with 2S. Should you move over this?

(C) All red

Bid these two hands to slam:

South opens 1C, and rebids clubs at his first turn.






5 comments:

McKenzie said...

(A) Paul held this, and bid 4D. I cued 4H, and he bumped to 6D. I suppose I'd bid a seventh if I held both minor suit sticks... but I think this is a good hand to pull out Exclusion Keycard. 5H sets diamonds as trumps and asks for keycards excluding the heart ace.

(B) Paul also held this, and made a conservative pass. The more I think about this hand, though, the more I agree with him.

(C) We failed to reach slam on this auction:

(1C) 1H (P) 1S [forcing]
(2C) 2H (P) 3D
(P) 3S (P) 4H
(P) P (P)

RoboJenny said...

A) Ugh. This hand is perfectly easy to bid opening 1C and I don't expect to be passed out.

B) Well with the way I play, p has denied having 10-15 hcp with 5+ spades by his initial failure to bid 2S directly (and denied 16+ by his failure to double initially)? I still expect him/her to have a 5 card suit for this though, so probably a 5 card suit and a good 8-9 count. I don't move over that.

C) 1C-1H-p-1S; 2C-3C-p-3H; p-3S-p-4nt; p-5C-p-5d; p-6h-p-6s//

Does that work or did I cheat my way there do you think? I think I can see myself bidding that way as either side.

Noble said...

(A) 4d
Followed by 4NT (RKC) over 4h, 5s (showing 1st round control in both majors) over 5c, and pass if partner bids 5d (since even if he has dA, there may be a club ruff or if he has cA, there may be a club ruff if he doesn't have dA).

(B) 3h
This is a little too good to stay silent. I'm bidding this in case partner has AQxxx Axx xxx xx so we can reach 3NT.

(C) This obviously starts (1c)-1h-(p)-1s-(2c). I think the rest of the auction should be -2h-(p)-3c-(p)-3s-(p)-4c-(p)-4d-(p)-4NT-etc

Noble said...

I strongly disagree with bidding 5h over 3d. What if partner has 0 aces? Even if he just has one ace you could still be down in slam.

I would certainly use 4h Exclusion -- which is what it would mean if you ARE playing Exclusion but you are NOT playing Kickback (I don't know any pair that does this)

Meg said...

(A) 5H exclusion; hoping to bid 7 on this.

(B) That depends -- what were pard's options directly over 1N? Given that he couldn't find anything to say, I'm content to pass.

(C)
(1C) 1H (P) 1S
(2C) 3C (P) 4C (because 3H might be to play?)
(P) 4D (P) 4H
(P) 5H (P) 6S