[Cascade]

I thought I would post a few of the hands from last weeks vugraph.

Scoring: IMP

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West North East South
Ackerley Balicki Burrows Zmudzinski
 -     1♥    2♠    3♦
 4♠    5NT   Pass  7♦
 Pass  7♠    Dbl   Pass
 Pass  Pass  

H3 HQ HK H2
D7 S2 D8 D2
S3 S7 SK H4
S6 H7 SA S5
S4 S8 SJ H9
C3 CT CK C2
C4 C9 C5 CJ
CA C8 D3 C6


Some of the discussion here by the commentators centred around my 2♠ overcall.

My first inclination with this sort of hand was to bid 4♠ but there are a number of flaws that I thought suggested that I did not make that bid.

1. The suit is not that great AQ10 although the 9 bolsters it a bit;

2. Nil vulnerable - I'd be happier and favourable vulnerability to try 4♠;

3. Three small hearts - the opponent's suit. These are dubious until we know whether the opponents have a fit. Partner's actual holding Q J x is exactly the sort of thing I was worried about.

This third factor was the clincher for me in not going with 4♠.

My actual choice of 2♠ was criticized by some but I think they probably did not realize that we were playing intermediate jump overcalls. Having eliminated 4♠ I had a choice between 2♠ showing 10-14 and a six-card suit or 3♠ showing around 6-9 with a seven-card suit (ok sometimes I would pre-empt with only six*). I decided to make the more constructive call. It could have been our hand.

Maybe a pre-empt would have worked better but I imagine Zmudzinski would introduce his diamonds at a higher level and Balicki would have driven to the Grand.

[han]

This is not close to what I consider an intermediate JO. Maybe if 2S and 3S were both off and you couldn't stomach 4S then you could have bid 1S?

Tough for the commentators to have a useful discussion if they don't know what 2S meant.

[Cascade]

Hannie, on Feb 4 2008, 10:54 AM, said:

This is not close to what I consider an intermediate JO. Maybe if 2S and 3S were both off and you couldn't stomach 4S then you could have bid 1S?

Tough for the commentators to have a useful discussion if they don't know what 2S meant.

It seemed middle of the road to me. An extra spade compensating for two or three hcp.

Do you think it was it too good or too bad for an intermediate jump?

[655321]

Cascade, on Feb 3 2008, 06:17 PM, said:

Hannie, on Feb 4 2008, 10:54 AM, said:

This is not close to what I consider an intermediate JO. Maybe if 2S and 3S were both off and you couldn't stomach 4S then you could have bid 1S?

Tough for the commentators to have a useful discussion if they don't know what 2S meant.

It seemed middle of the road to me. An extra spade compensating for two or three hcp.

Do you think it was it too good or too bad for an intermediate jump?

On the actual deal it doesn't matter - you will probably have to save in 7♠ regardless.

(1) AQT9xx Axx x Kxx
(2) AQT9xxx xxx - Kxx
(3) AQT9xxxx xx - xxx
(4) QJT9xxxxx x - xxx

Hand (1) is probably an intermediate jump. But I don't think it is valid to say that as the HCP decrease, extra spades compensate for them.

The actual hand looks to me like a choice between 1♠ and 4♠

[han]

Cascade, on Feb 3 2008, 06:17 PM, said:

Do you think it was it too good or too bad for an intermediate jump?

Too bad, I don't think the extra trump compensates for the missing ace. But I don't play the intermediate JS's as wide ranging as you do. I haven't tried it, but I would think that it puts a lot of pressure on partner if you can bid 2S with AKJ10xx xx AQx xx (which I think is about a maximum) as well as the hand you had.

The word intermediate is used for different ranges, a friend of mine thinks it shows 16-18 HCP (don't ask for names). If you systemically bid 2S with AKJ10xx xx Qxx xx then the hand you had is definitely not too weak. But again, I think that's quite a large range.

[Codo]

I think this was a perfect hand for a 10-14 jump to 2 Spade.
And Han's example (AKJ10xx xx AQx xx) is intermedeate just for HCP counters.
Great suits, queens behind the opener. This is way too strong.
Make it AKxxxx,xx,Ax,QJx and you are maximum for 10-14.

JMTC.

[gwnn]

I think it's a perfect ijo - a hand that's (almost) all about spades and fair playing strength. You may belong to hearts some 5% of the time, but getting your hand off your chest seems warranted.

[Cascade]

gwnn, on Feb 5 2008, 07:00 AM, said:

I think it's a perfect ijo - a hand that's (almost) all about spades and fair playing strength. You may belong to hearts some 5% of the time, but getting your hand off your chest seems warranted.

You won't belong in hearts 5% of the time when that is the suit that the opponent opened.

[Cascade]

Hannie, on Feb 4 2008, 12:58 PM, said:

Cascade, on Feb 3 2008, 06:17 PM, said:

Do you think it was it too good or too bad for an intermediate jump?

Too bad, I don't think the extra trump compensates for the missing ace. But I don't play the intermediate JS's as wide ranging as you do. I haven't tried it, but I would think that it puts a lot of pressure on partner if you can bid 2S with AKJ10xx xx AQx xx (which I think is about a maximum) as well as the hand you had.

The word intermediate is used for different ranges, a friend of mine thinks it shows 16-18 HCP (don't ask for names). If you systemically bid 2S with AKJ10xx xx Qxx xx then the hand you had is definitely not too weak. But again, I think that's quite a large range.

An extra ace instead of the 7th trump would make the hand maximum or near maximum in the 10-14 range. Say AQ109xx Axx x Kxx or AQ10xxx xxx x AKx. As I stated above I thought my extra trump evaluated the hand somewhere mid-range in the 10-14 range. If partner had invited I probably would have bid game but with no strong conviction.

We agreed for intermediate to mean around 10-14 NV and 12-16 Vulnerable. Other partnerships are free to agree whatever range they like.

The range 10-14 is no wider than our weak two range 5-9. In fact in my normal partnership the weak two range is wider as we play our weak twos as 5-9 but include five or six card suits.

[han]

Cascade, on Feb 4 2008, 01:34 PM, said:

The range 10-14 is no wider than our weak two range 5-9. In fact in my normal partnership the weak two range is wider as we play our weak twos as 5-9 but include five or six card suits.

This is a very poor argument in my opinion.

An intermediate jump overcall is different from a weak two. It has less preemptive value (as the opponents have already exchanged information), so I would be less eager to bid it on a wide range of hands. It is also more likely that the opponents are able to jam the auction quickly (here 1H-2S-4H for example) so it would be great for partner if your hand is better defined.

Again, I was not saying that your 2S was off, I was only saying how I play intermediate jump overcalls with Arend. For us an intermediate jump overcall is a hand that would like to rebid 3S after 1S-1NT but is just shy of it. The nice 14-count that I gave fits that description well, you'd like to bid more than 2S but 3S is a bit much. Your 9-count with 7-spades does not fit that description at all.

[gwnn]

Cascade, on Feb 4 2008, 08:24 PM, said:

gwnn, on Feb 5 2008, 07:00 AM, said:

I think it's a perfect ijo - a hand that's (almost) all about spades and fair playing strength. You may belong to hearts some 5% of the time, but getting your hand off your chest seems warranted.

You won't belong in hearts 5% of the time when that is the suit that the opponent opened.

oh lol, I thought RHO opened 1♦... interesting...

anyway, then the comment was "might bury ♣'s 1% time when playing clubs will be right" I suppose.

[han]

Codo, on Feb 4 2008, 03:23 AM, said:

And Han's example (AKJ10xx xx AQx xx) is intermedeate just for HCP counters.

Thanks a lot.

[nige1]

Cascade, on Feb 2 2008, 06:21 PM, said:

I thought I would post a few of the hands from last weeks vugraph.

Dealer: North Vul: None Scoring: IMP

♠   ♥ AKT974 ♦ 9754 ♣ AJT ♠ KJ6 ♥ QJ5 ♦ Q2 ♣ Q7653 ♠ AQT9432 ♥ 862 ♦   ♣ K84 ♠ 875 ♥ 3 ♦ AKJT863 ♣ 92

West North East  South Ackerley Balicki Burrows Zmudzinski -    1♥    2♠    3♦ 4♠    5NT  Pass  7♦ 7♠    Dbl  All Pass

IMO 2♠ = 10, 4♠ = 7, 3♠ = 4.
I presume it was Wayne's partner not an opponent who found the brilliant 7♠ bid

[Cascade]

Now that you have given my 2♠ bid 10 out of I presume 10 and described the 7♠ bid as brilliant I will take full credit.

I converted the files using my LinConverter program and encountered a problem with the auctions not coming through when they were interspersed with comments from the commentators. This meant I had to do a bit of manual massaging of the files.

The correct auction is shown below:

Scoring: IMP

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West North East South

 -     1♥    2♠    3♦
 4♠    5NT   Pass  7♦
 Pass  Pass  7♠    Dbl
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

H3 HQ HK H2
D7 S2 D8 D2
S3 S7 SK H4
S6 H7 SA S5
S4 S8 SJ H9
C3 CT CK C2
C4 C9 C5 CJ
CA C8 D3 C6