[TheoKole]

Scoring: IMP

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I was sitting East on the following hand in a Teams game qualifying tourament for the nationals of my country


The bidding has gone:

North East South West
3 ♣-----X---Pass---3 ♥
Pass---4NT--Pass---5 ♣ (3041 Ace Answering)
Pass---5 ♦--Pass---Pass
Pass

A couple of questions:
Do you agree with the East-West bidding?
If not, what other bids would you recommend?

South leads a small club to Norths Q ♣ and your A ♣
2 rounds of trumps clears them, ♦ are 2-2 (J ♦ does not fall on 1st round)

Plan the play. Enjoy

Theo

[cherdano]

I see nothing better than playing the preempter for 7 clubs, his partner for ♠A, and guessing the distribution in the majors:

Run all trumps, discarding the clubs and two spades from dummy. On the last trump, keep the same shape in dummy as LHO. Lead a spade, and hope that he has to give you a third heart trick (if he kept 4 hearts) for the spade king (if he kept two spades).

Arend

[han]

I think that the bidding was a complete failure, in the sense that very little information was exchanged and that a far from optimal contract was reacched. I'm surprised that 5D was passed, do you not play this as queen ask? I don't want to suggest that you cheated, but if my opponents had this auction then I would suspect that they did, especially if east thought for a long time before bidding 5D.

I think that I would bid 4NT directly with the east hand. I play 4D as diamonds plus a major, and 4C as the majors, so 4NT has to be natural (right?).

[luke warm]

agree with han, how can 5♦ be passed?

[TheoKole]

Hannie and Luke Warm, after the preempt, I had a few choices most of them which seemed to be wrong at the time.

3 Diamonds and 4 Daimonds would be natural but would be much weaker hands. With the actual hand after the lead if partner had the Ace of Spades, the 6 Diamond slam would have been laydown as I could have forced out the K of Clubs and dummy's 10 of Clubs would allow a heart pitch. Partner could also have had the Q of hearts.

I felt I had to double to indicate a strong hand in the first place and then ask for Aces.

4NT directly after a preempt in our system would be a strong 2 suiter so that was out.

Our rule for these situations is that we MUST be ready for any answer given to 4NT and either have real support or a self supporting suit. So I can't ask for the Q hearts in this situation. At the other table the bidding went 3 Clubs -> 5 Diamonds
-> All Pass.

I must admit that my partner looked a little surprised when I bid 5 Diamonds as he thought hearts were trump at first, but I bid in tempo and he remembered our rule about a self supporting suit and passed.

As for the play, I played North for the distribution of 3-1-2-7 without the Ace of Spades, if he had 2-2 in the majors I probably wouldn't make as these are very good defenders. (If north had 2-2 or 1-3 in the majors he would have the Ace of spades or the heart honors)

North's preempt style is pretty solid, and since I have to play him not to have the Ace of Spades, he would have some other cooressonding honors in spades or hearts.

I ran all the diamonds but one and the Ace of hearts in order to drop a singleton honor in North's hand, keeping: (if I run the last diamond dummy is squeezed in the majors for the endplay on South)

Kx spades, and 1087 hearts in dummy
x spades, Kx hearts, x Diamonds, J clubs in my hand

Then I played the small spade towards the King and South was trapped,
he won his A spades and returned the the Q hearts to my King and I returned my small heart towards the 10 his J winning.

He had falsecarded during the run of diamonds but by that time I knew he had a spade and a heart left and he had to put me into dummy for the pitch of the club J.

Theo

[Trpltrbl]

I don't think hat 5♦ can be passed. After your pd's 3♥ 4♦ should be good hand and forcing with ♦. 4 NT should be RKC for ♥ and therefor 5♦ asking for the Q.
I don't think you can switch systems in the middle of the auction because it is going the wrong way.
Thinking 1 or 2 steps ahead in the auction seems to help

GBB

[Trpltrbl]

TheoKole, on Oct 16 2005, 01:26 AM, said:

Partner could also have had the Q of hearts.

So your pd could have the keycard that you needed, even though it wasn't an ace.
And you have the tools to find.
5♦, I wonder if your pd would have showed it if he had it
Very doubtfull bidding.

GBB

[mike777]

Ya passing 5D on this hand makes my skin crawl.
Note 4nt was Kcard for hearts not old fashion blacky.

[Fluffy]

Poor me would had just bid 3NT playing there