I played in an online tournament last night with my friend Gail. We've had a handful of games together lately, but I didn't have our card in front of me so we kept our agreements extremely basic. 2/1 with very few bells and whistles. Here are a couple of problems I had:
(A) Favorable at IMPs, first seat, you hold:
A9764
KJ
AKT2
T3
A1) Playing 15-17 NT, do you like this for 1N, or do you open 1S? (Or something else?)
A2) Over 1N, pard will Stayman and invite. Over 1S, pard will bid 2S. What does your auction look like?
(B) Here's a hand Gail held in 4th seat, favorable:
T4
AK7
3
KQJT832
(P) P (1D) 2C
(2S) X (4S) ?
(C) This was the final hand of the evening. If I'd gotten it right, we'd have placed a lot higher than 16th out of 217, which was certainly respectable:
Fourth seat, unfavorable, I held:
A97543
4
QJ4
J82
(3H) 3N (P) ?
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
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6 comments:
A. I slightly prefer 1S. Over 2S I'd bid 3S as a general game try. You have a 5-loser hand and if you chose to bid 4S (instead of 3S), I wouldn't think that's crazy.
B. I assume the X of 2S shows hearts, therefore my hand is terrible for defense, so I bid 5C.
C. I slightly prefer pass, but I don't think it's wrong to transfer to 4S -- You rate to make either one.
A. 1s, invite after a single raise
B. 5c, not sure what partner meant double as since that's supposed to be penalty
C. Since partner could bid 3NT on a variety of hands (including those with short spades), it's a clear pass. You're expected to put down about a 6 count so you only have mild extras. Sometimes they've got you.
A. 1S. If partner raises (assuming that is constructive) I make a "trump suit quality" game try... If partner has xxx in spades I don't care what the rest of the hand is -- I don't want to be in game!
B. Well. Since my partner made a penalty double of 2S (probably max pass with 4-4-4-1) I certainly think that I will let them make a penalty double of 4S...
(but if this was a "I have something double" showing heart and club -- something like 5-2) then I bid 5C...
This is not a responsive double -- since by definition responsive doubles are only when the opponents have bid and raised a suit...
C. This is a hand made for some thinking. Partner can still have a lot of spades (since they know this will be the last chance to bid 3N if that is the right place to play...) So I need to keep partner in the decision making process -- I bid Stayman and then 4S. That is a mild slam try with 5 good or 6 spades (just like Stayman followed by 2S is a game invite.)
If p can't stand spades, then 4N is to play over this --- and 5C is keycard for spades (Super Gerber.) But this is a good one to discuss with partner before pulling it out!
On hand B, was the double a snap-dragon-type double?
Hand B is very interesting to consider...
I don't believe it is a snapdragon double here.
*If the 3 calls are at the one level - then clearly it is snapdragon.
*If responders call is in a suit lower ranking than openers then I believe it is best to play snapdragon as well.
In this case, the opponents must retreat to openers suit at the 3-level, which means that if the hand is a misfit, the profit in the penalty could be enormous. Thus, I would not play this as a snapdragon situation.
Also, a passed hand could bid the fourth suit (3H here) and promise a fit for clubs as well. This would promise 9 cards in the two suit.
This does leave the question of what to do with 5H and 3C.
Note: As a passed hand my hearts can't be that great with an unbalanced hand since I didn't open 1H or 2H...
So considering what my hand looks like I am very comfortable with either raising to 3C or bidding 2N to show a good hand with club support (occasionally, but rarely a Hx.)
Snapdragon here would give me the chance to show this specific 5-3 hand type, but I don't feel that my need to express this out weights the advantages of a "you are in trouble double."
Having said all of that, partnership style of 2C and 3C overcalls here -- especially opposite a passed hand -- are important to consider as well...
It appears that Meg (or Gail) may have meant it as snapdragon, but I would suggest that this is not the right agreement to have for double in this situation...
Re: Hand B --
We had no agreements about X here, but Gail definitely doesn't play snapdragon. As a rather inexperienced partnership, there's no partnership style to go on, either.
When I made the double, I meant it as sort of a catch all -- I had a sort of crappy 5-card heart suit, but also club tolerance (Ax, if I recall), and good defensive values.
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