Grande Opening

Last week I was lucky enough to be able to attend the grand opening at the Boca Grande Duplicate Bridge Club in Boca Grande, FL. An impressive twenty tables were in play - fifteen in the Open game and five in the 0-20 game. Congratulations to Jay and company for getting such a fabulous game going!

Everyone's favorite hand from Wednesday was Board 23, in which East held one of the most powerful hands I've seen at the table in a while:

Board 23	S-AQT983
Dlr: S	H-
Vul: Both	D-98
	C-K8642
S-642	N	S-KJ5
H-754	W     E	H-AKQJ63
D-632	S	D-AQ5
C-JT93		C-A
	S-7
	H-T982
	D-KJT74
	C-Q75

              
If E-W had the auction to themselves, it would probably go something like this:

2C [strong, artificial, and forcing] - 2D [waiting; no good 5-card suit to show];
2H [natural and forcing] - 3C [cheapest minor showing a really awful hand];
3NT [offer to play] - Pass [yes, there's a heart fit, but with no ruffing value and no tricks, it's best to stay at a low level].

In modern bridge, one almost never has a hand this nice all to himself. Somebody will preempt, or open light, or overcall your 2C opening. As it happened, I held the North cards and opened 1S in third seat. [Incidentally, I think this hand is an opening one-bid in first or second seat also. A good main suit, great shape, and defensive tricks all add up to an opening. At favorable vulnerability, I would probably open 4S in third chair.] East had an easy double on the first round. South passed, and West showed her suit with 2C. I bid 2S [I still really like my hand!] and East had a tough call, but finally came out with 4H. We defended this well to set it two tricks.

Here's what I would be thinking with the East hand:

OK, my right-hand opponent has opened 1S in third chair. I have an easy double.

Now partner's shown a bad hand (surprise!) with some club length, and righty's bid his spades again.

 4H seems like the automatic bid here, but could anything be better?

Well, pard seems to have length in my shortest suit. That's not so good. And on the auction, I doubt he has as many as 4 points.  Bad things could happen in 4H as well - I don't have the ace of spades, and if my LHO is short there, they could get some ruffs in. So 4H may not be the right spot.

How many tricks would I have in notrump? Well, six hearts and two minor-suit aces are pretty sure. If South is a good partner and leads North's suit, I now have nine tricks with the king of spades as well. North probably has the queen of spades, too, so if he continues the suit I can take the jack of spades too! Looks like nine pretty sure tricks. What could go wrong? Well, if they knock out my ace of clubs and partner doesn't have a second club stopper, I might go down. But since partner's bid clubs and my RHO has bid spades, I think it's pretty likely that a spade will get led. It's not perfect, but I think this has the best shot. 3NT!

The important lesson here is: Try to mentally play out the hand during the auction. You'll be amazed at what you can come up with.

Next time you're in SW Florida, pop down to Boca Grande - it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and some of the friendliest bridge players I've ever met.

A couple of nice auctions from the club

Board 11 Dlr: S Vul: None	QJ8652 A8 AK3 AT
3 9762 65 K87543		K9 Q3 QJ987 QJ92
	AT74 KJT54 T42 6

We were N-S and bid this one uncontested:

P - 1C [16+ any];
1N [8-10, 5+H] - 2S [natural];
4C [splinter raise; usually 4531 or 4621] - 4N
5C [one keycard] - 6S (all pass)

Making 7 easily on the trump finesse and hearts coming home. Only three of 22 pairs bid this 26 HCP slam.

Board 18 Dlr: E Vul: N-S	6 K32 Q64 Q97642
KQ43 JT98 AJ92 8		AJ8 65 KT8753 A3
	T9752 AQ74 KJT5

This time we had opponents to deal with:

(1D) X (1H) 2C;
(2D) 3C (3D) 5C (all pass)

With trumps breaking 2-1 and spades setting up for a heart pitch, 5C was easy. [5D is a maker if they guess trumps correctly.]

All Red

Is there a better way to celebrate your first anniversary than to go down to the bridge club? I suppose there must be, but we settled for the club. Toward the end of the game, with no one vulnerable, I picked up this hand:

-- AK9743 KQT8632 --

I don't believe I've ever held this distribution before, and certainly not this strength. Before I say what happened, what's your plan for this hand?

I was still weighing my choices between 1D and a strong 1C when righty, the dealer, took those choices away from me with 3S.

This actually made my hand much easier to show. I bid 4N, which is a 2-suited takeout. When Z bid 5C, as I suspected he would, I leapt to 6D, showing my strength and making my two suits known. With Axx of diamonds, he had an easy raise to 7D, which was a laydown when my righty doesn't have any voids.

7H actually would've been the better contract (McKenzie held QTx in that suit), but bidding a making grand is usually good enough for all the matchpoints at this club, anyhow. Anyway, I thought I described my hand pretty well, and left the decision to my partner. McKenzie thinks I had a better way to show my hand. How would you have proceeded over 3S?

Playing in bad contracts strengthens your declarer play.

Last night at the bridge club, playing against an unusually strong pair for this five-table game, I picked up the unspectacular holding of

♠ J974 ♥QT82 ♦Q4 ♣T87

Nobody was vulnerable, and my RHO dealt and opened 1D. I passed, of course, and surprisingly, LHO did too. Partner doubled, and RHO passed. I had my first decision of the hand. The bridge books will tell you to bid up the line in all situations with 4-4 in the majors, but I feel strongly that this is an exception. Lots of times your partner will cuebid 2D over your 1H holding something like

♠ AQT3 ♥AJ3 ♦A5 ♣KJ94

and you won't know whether to 'reverse' into spades trying for your (possibly nonexistent) 4-4 fit there, or to rebid 2H to try to get out cheaply. So I advocate starting with 1S on this handtype, leaving yourself an easy 2H call on the next round. Here's a good rule that I always try to follow: Don't make your first bid until you've planned your second bid.

So I bid 1S, LHO passed, and partner leapt to 3S. I figured I had a lot more than I could on this auction, so bid the game. LHO led the nine of diamonds, and I saw

♠ AKT6 ♥ A ♦ K732 ♣ KQ52

♠ J974 ♥ QT82 ♦ Q4 ♣ T87

Pard had a great 19-count with a side stiff and four-card support, but I'm still not cold for 4S. Maybe this should make me rethink my "automatic" raise to 4S... but first I have to think about making this hand. From the lead, it looks like diamonds are 2-5. I have a diamond and probably two clubs to lose on top (LHO most likely wouldn't pass 1D with the club ace, so unless RHO has AJ tight, I have a second loser there). There's also a possible trump loser, and then there's the problem of it all adding up to ten tricks...

I played low from dummy at trick one, and RHO played an encouraging diamond spot (pretty much confirming the 2-5 break there). I won with the queen in hand and led a heart to the ace. It seemed like the best way to get up to ten tricks was to ruff diamonds in hand. In order to avoid a trump loser, I'd need the doubleton queen in opener's hand. So I led a low diamond off the table. RHO won with the ten (LHO following with the eight) and led a low diamond (usually the right play-- he didn't want to lead the ace, have me ruff high, then draw trumps and get a pitch on the good diamond king). I played loser-on-loser, pitching the seven of clubs. LHO ruffed in and led a club to the king and ace. Now RHO played the ace of diamonds to squash the king. I ruffed with the jack and was thrilled to see LHO pitch a club. Almost home! I led a spade to the ace (three, eight) and led two rounds of clubs. RHO followed to both of them, so I ruffed with the nine -- LHO pitched again. So clubs were 3-3 and the little club on the table was good. All that was left was to try to draw trumps-- low, low, king, queen! My two small black cards in dummy were good. Making four. Here's the whole hand:

Dealer E Vul None Scoring MP Lead ♦9	♠ AKT6 ♥ A ♦ K732 ♣ KQ52
♠ 532 ♥ K9543 ♦ 98 ♣ 643		♠ Q8 ♥ J76 ♦ AJT65 ♣ AJ9
	♠ J974 ♥ QT82 ♦ Q4 ♣ T87

When I started out declaring this hand, I certainly wasn't planning on ruffing out my 4-3 club fit for my tenth trick...

The hard way

The other day I played my first game of real, live bridge in nearly a month. We played my partner's normal system: old-school Schenken-style forcing club with four-card majors. Sadly, the system didn't come up very often.

We had a great time. On two separate occasions we went +500 the hard way.*

The opponents had the uncontested auction 1C - 1S - 2C - 2NT - 3NT. I was on lead with:

♠ AJ86 ♥A2 ♦K542 ♣752
What would you lead? I decided that as little as the ten of spades and an entry would help my spades run, so led the six of spades. Dummy came down and I saw:

♠ none ♥ QT3 ♦ J97 ♣ AQJ9643
	♠ AJ86 ♥ A2 ♦ K542 ♣ 752

A heart was pitched from dummy. Partner won the king and pushed back the ten of spades. Declarer covered with the queen, I won, and a diamond was pitched from the table. I had a problem. If pard had the spade nine, as the ten would suggest, I should cash the jack and lead the eight back to him. But if declarer had it, as the quick cover of the queen would suggest, I should switch to whatever partner's entry would be. After some thinking, I switched to a low diamond. My heart sank when this ran around to the queen. I thought I'd blown it-- it looked like declarer now had the AQ of diamonds and seven clubs for her contract.

Declarer led a club up to the queen, and partner won the king! We might be setting this after all... Partner played a low spade through declarer. I won the eight and cashed the jack. The nine dropped from declarer. Partner had made the fine play of the ten of spades from KTxxx! I cashed the ace of hearts and led a hopeful low heart. Pard won the king, cashed his long spade, and exited a heart. Declarer had to give me a diamond at the end for a satisfying down five. Here's the whole hand:

	♠ KT752 ♥ K652 ♦ T8 ♣ KT
♠ none ♥ QT3 ♦ J97 ♣ AQJ9643		♠ Q943 ♥ J987 ♦ AQ63 ♣ 8
	♠ AJ86 ♥ A2 ♦ K542 ♣ 752

*The hard way is down five vulnerable, undoubled. Down ten nonvul, undoubled is the really hard way.

Quiet Sunday at the Club

My mom asked me to play bridge with her this afternoon in our local club game. Playing with her is always an adventure. If the cards cooperate, we can have a really good game. The problem is that my mom plays a really incomplete convention card. So when those funky hands come up, there's often no bid. Our card is basically SAYC only not SA -- 2/1, and the only real conventions we agreed on were Jacoby 2N, weak jump shifts, and Cappelletti. Everything else was super basic.

All problems matchpoints, table results in the comments:

1. Favorable, 4th seat, you hold:

A65 8 AJ8743 AKQ

(P) P (P) 1D
(P) 2H (P) ?

2. Favorable, 4th seat again:

AKT96 76 K83 872

(1H) 2C (2D) ?

2a. Let's assume that no matter what you bid, the auction continues
(3H) 4C (4D) ?
How high do you plan to compete, and what, if anything, will you double?

3. Unfavorable, 2nd seat:

KJ4 5 QJ76 K6543

(P) P (P) 1C
(P) 1D (P) 1H
(P) ?

Do you agree with 1D here? Remember, no inverted minors or carnage raises or anything fun like that.

4. All white, 2nd seat:
K863 J64 KJT98 A

(1C) X (2C) X
(P) 2D (P) 2H
(3C) ?

Mom doesn't really know responsive doubles, so the X after 2C is open to interpretation. What do you think pard has shown you, and where do you go from here?

A few hands from Monday night

On Monday, I directed the local 199er game. An odd number of people showed up without partners, so I sat in with John. We came in first by less than half a matchpoint -- sorry, Colvilles! [I'm not eligible to win masterpoints in this game, but my partner is.] There were a few very interesting hands.

First, I held

none

QJ985

AKQJ64

T8

at favorable vulnerability. There were two passes to me. I opened 1D, LHO doubled, pard redoubled, and RHO bid 1S. It didn't seem right to beat around the bush here, so I just threw out 4H, hoping he'd pull to 5D with short hearts. It worked well... he held

A5

7642

85

K9542

On a spade lead, I pitched a club and lost only a club and two hearts.

Then came this hand:

K52

A7

A

AQJ9873

I opened 1C at all white, and partner bid 2NT. I wasn't sure how to find out if 6N would be any better than 6C, so I just shot out 6C. Everyone passed, and LHO led the jack of diamonds. I saw:

Q7

KQT3

Q963

KT2

K52

A7

A

AQJ9873

I was relieved to see that 6N would be down on a diamond lead. Twelve tricks were there for the taking -- seven clubs, three hearts, one diamond, and one spade -- but at matchpoints, garnering an overtrick can be very important. So I tried to find a thirteenth trick while making sure to not give up my twelfth.

I won the diamond in hand with the stiff ace, and led a trump to the ten [both opponents following - now there's only one left out]. I led a low diamond off the table, and RHO played the king! There's one hurdle crossed. I ruffed high in my hand (safety first! I severely doubt RHO made this play from seven diamonds to the KT, but you never know) and went back to the king of clubs, drawing the last trump. I cashed the queen of diamonds (RHO showing out) pitching a spade, and led out all of my trumps (throwing spades from dummy). Here's the position when I led my last trump from hand:

none

KQT3

9

none

K5

A7

none

A

So I led the last club. I knew LHO had the diamond ten left, so when she threw away a heart, I could safely pitch the nine from dummy. RHO looked rather uncomfortable, and I knew I had them. RHO also pitched a heart, and I led out the top hearts dropping RHO's jack for making seven. RHO needed to keep Jxxx of hearts and the ace of spades for her last four cards, and that's certainly impossible!

This isn't a true double squeeze, in that my LHO wasn't squeezed at all -- but if she'd had the heart length instead of her partner, she would've been squeezed between Jxxx of hearts and the ten of diamonds.

It's possible that this ending wouldn't produce 13 tricks if LHO had the ace of spades to go with the ten of diamonds and RHO had sole control of the heart suit, but in that case, I would've just had the twelve tricks I started with!