[benlessard]

Scoring: IMP

---

Pass------2H------2S---------4H
4S-------P---------P-----------X

9 of clubs lead. declarer won with the A and played low s, north didnt go up with the A, making.

At the other table (EDITED)

P---------P---------1S-----------2D
3C-------P----------3D----------Pass
3NT

3C by a passed hand is showing S tolerance.

Down a couple after the H lead.



Comments ?

[jtfanclub]

Am I reading it correctly? with 12 semibalanced, a player overcalled 2♦ and then bid 3NT without any bids from partner? Or is there a pass missing somewhere?

[jdonn]

jtfanclub, on Jan 21 2009, 07:17 PM, said:

Am I reading it correctly?  with 12 semibalanced, a player overcalled 2♦ and then bid 3NT without any bids from partner?  Or is there a pass missing somewhere?

I was able to determine that north passed and east bid 3NT.

My main observation is that north against 4♠X was at least partially unlucky, if not totally unlucky. Obviously his defense was best if his partner had the K or KQ of hearts, and not a singleton diamond with two spades. Supposing declarer was 6403?

[JLOL]

jdonn, on Jan 21 2009, 07:32 PM, said:

Obviously his defense was best if his partner had the K or KQ of hearts, and not a singleton diamond with two spades. Supposing declarer was 6403?

If North trusts partner and partner actually played a LOW club at trick 1 then he should get this right. I will admit that I don't trust most of the people I play with enough to do this, but playing with a good partner north definitely gets a charge.

If North was playing with an untrustworthy partner I think in the real world he *might* get it right anyways because declarer probably didn't take too long to play this hand and happily played a trump at trick 2. If he had nothing in hearts he probably would play a diamond at trick 2, or at least agonize for a while.

FWIW I don't like a style where one opens the south hand with a weak 2 2nd seat r/w, and I hate the 2D overcall at the other table.

[benlessard]

I surely didnt like my 2H opening, we are very liberal about our preempt since we dont care too much about ODR and LOTT. But this hand is clearly short for strenght as in 2nd seat R preempt are constructive, next time ill pass. Note that not bidding 2H and youll probably never 4H here. (probably going down on a top club lead a H swith and play the A on dummy) .

For better or worse we are also playing that a passed hand that bid at the 2/3 level is showing either a tol fit in partner suits or a 6-4 shapes with an unbid majors if partner is passing.

Rest of the bidding seems normal, some1 suggested that 5H is a possibility but i prefer X.

Stiff club lead is IMO automatic. Ive played a discouraging card wich mean that i can tolerated a switch. Wich can only mean im ruffing D or have the Q.

At trick 2 I think its not too tough to play A♠,A♦ followed by 2 ruffs.

[ceeb]

benlessard, on Jan 22 2009, 03:00 AM, said:

I surely didnt like my 2H opening, we are very liberal about our preempt since we dont care too much about ODR and LOTT. But this hand is clearly short for strenght as in 2nd seat R preempt are constructive, next time ill pass. Note that not bidding 2H and youll probably never 4H here. (probably going down on a top club lead a  H swith and play the A on dummy) .

Stiff club lead is IMO automatic. Ive played a discouraging card wich mean that i can tolerated a switch. Wich can only mean im ruffing D or have the Q.

At trick 2 I think its not too tough to play A♠,A♦ followed by 2 ruffs.

"I surely didn't like my 2H opening ..."

Me neither. As an indication, on hearing the double of 4S I would have a considerable sense of foreboding.

"Note that not bidding 2H ... never get to 4H ..." which would make if ...

There's always a justification of some sort. The other justification is that it pushed the opponents into a precarious contract, though as it happens it requires genius defense to defeat it.

"Stiff club lead is IMO automatic. Ive played a discouraging card wich mean that i can tolerated a switch. Wich can only mean im ruffing D or have the Q."

Third hand, especially at trick one, has time to think. Nonetheless the analysis here is garbled. Firstly, it implies that a large club would ask partner, who has just led a singleton, to lead more clubs. Secondly, having shortness OR the Q isn't the same has having shortness.

"At trick 2 I think its not too tough to play A♠,A♦ followed by 2 ruffs."

As second hand (such as partner here at trick 2) I always feel I should play in tempo. It takes a hell of a defender to take into account declarer's possible heart situation, judge to go counter to the instinct to duck this card combination, and correctly judge the best chance to defeat this contract -- especially all in tempo. Maybe the Garozzos of the world are entitled to expect their partners to think that crisply but from those of us whose own thinking is sometimes fuzzy, it's an unreasonable expectation.

Charles

[JLOL]

Charles, in this situation there is no reason to feel the need to make your decision about whether to duck the spade or not quickly.

You are not ducking to try to get declarer to misguess spades, since he must be at least 90 % to have the queen himself, and even if he doesn't he will always go up with the king on this auction anyways.

You are deciding whether to win and try and give partner a ruff or duck to maintain control in trumps so that declarer cannot pull trumps and run a suit before you cash some hearts.

In this situation you should definitely take your time and think everything through rather than ducking blindly. That being said, if you think about it and decide that

1) Partner should give suit preference at trick 1 and played small and
2) Declarer would probably not play this way with nothing in hearts, especially if he had a stiff diamond himself (where he would lead a diamond at trick 2 since a trump is silly)

you can probably get this right without being Garozzo.

[ceeb]

JLOL, on Jan 22 2009, 03:57 AM, said:

Charles, in this situation there is no reason to feel the need to make your decision about whether to duck the spade or not quickly.

You are not ducking to try to get declarer to misguess spades, since he must be at least 90 % to have the queen himself, and even if he doesn't he will always go up with the king on this auction anyways.

...

In this situation you should definitely take your time and think everything through rather than ducking blindly.

I agree JLOL that it is not difficult to realize that playing slowly here isn't likely to help declarer. But that largely misses my point. I worry about revealing to my partner. Then we may have the kind of UI situation that no one ever complains about out loud, but that subtly and magically elevates the stodgy second tier pairs above their just station. As one who, at least on paper, aspires to be a class defender, I try to be inferior to Hamman because I think of less in the same time, not because I think of a little less in much more time.

Do you recall the decisive hand in the World Championship a few years ago, where Hamman and Soloway stumbled through the defense of 5♦ x'd, only to luckily defeat it in the end when the Italian declarer carelessly played the wrong card from dummy? At trick one Hamman, third to play, gave a signal which on analysis was the wrong one. Why? He didn't think it good form to think too long even in that situation, so he played a card to send the message that was clear to him right away ("Don't underlead.").

By the way, on the present hand, on reflection [EDIT] I'd consider the defense of taking the spade and playing a heart.

Charles

[JLOL]

Ceeb, I applaud your efforts to be ethical, but they are misguided efforts in this case. It is true that if you think in this situation you are telling everyone (including you partner) that you have the ace of spades. There is no crime in that, however. There are some situations where you can tell that you are likely to be giving partner useful unauthorized information with a hesitation, and in those cases you are best off deciding in tempo what to do.

These situations almost always involve signalling, but can also involve ducking an ace when partner has led a doubleton, or ducking slowly when declarer has led up to something (so if partner has the other honor he now knows not to duck...) etc. I also agree with you that these cases of UI often go overlooked and there's no director call, especially at the lower levels where people probably don't even know what's happening and people gain a lot of unfair advantages this way. In fact my biggest pet peeve ever is slow signalling, and it is one of the main reasons I don't play smith echo for instance.

If you are an honest player I agree that the best you can do is signal in tempo and live with the consequences.

In this case however, you are going to do something definitive and it is super unlikely that the UI you are giving is going to atter to partner. You can see that this is basically the defining play of the hand, it is where you committ to a defense, and it is thus the most important play you are going to make this hand. You are either going to try to give partner a ruff or you won't but it will make no difference that partner or declarer knows what your problem is.

I don't know how often you play top level bridge, but these are the type of situations that are often met with 10 minute tanks, and there is really nothing wrong with that. This is not the type of situation where black magic is going on. Part of the reason that Mr Hamman and others make few mistakes is that they will always take the time to figure out what to do in these important decisions, and you are really disadvantaging your side if you won't.

If something really obscure happens where partner is in a position to take advantage of this information, I'm sure he will bend over backwards not to. You are welcome to call the director on yourself if you feel strongly that a situation might have arisen where the UI mattered on this hand. I think it's clear that on this hand if you are an honest pair the times that you hinder partner from being able to make a play because you are giving UI are so rare and the times that you hurt yourself by trying to make the key play too quickly that it is clear that you should take your time and think. That is definitely standard practice.

I mean really this is the equivalent to the times in the auction where partner has shown a limit raise and you're deciding whether or not to bid game. Take all the time in the world, you are telling everyone including partner that you have a tough decision but it is not going to hurt partner at all and it is an important decision which you should think through.

Bridge is a tough game and sometimes, especially if you are playing at a high level, you need to take a lot more time than normal to decide what to do. You should be mindful that you might be giving UI, and in cases where it might make life on partner since he has to be ethical you should sacrifice some accuracy to bid/play in tempo so that partner can do his thing also, but you are not committing a crime if you do take a lot more time than normal, and you should do so when it will help you a lot and will be unlikely to hurt partner.

[ceeb]

"I don't know how often you play top level bridge"

Of course not. That's why I told you what Hamman said. I don't know you either. Nonetheless, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Charles