[daveharty]

Here's the scenario: you are playing in a club game with a reasonably solid, if unimaginative, pickup partner. You are playing 2/1, 5cM, strong NT with no complex agreements. Your opponents for this round are the only pair in the room playing Precision. You are quite familiar with them; they don't play particularly well, but if left to their own devices they will usually get to the right spot. On the other hand, they are pretty reliable about going off the rails if presented with problems. On the first board of the round, both vulnerable, you pick up:

---

Your partner deals and passes, as does RHO. Now, this hand might or might not rise to your personal threshold of opening vulnerable in third position, but before you make your decision, you notice that LHO is sitting extremely still, mesmerized by whatever he has picked up. You know him well enough to know that he has a good one.

Is this a chance to cause some mischief? If so, would you deviate just a smidge (open 1D or maybe 1C), or a little more with 1M? Or is it just silly to do anything with this hand? EDIT: and would your answer be different at favorable vulnerability?

[masse24]

Does partner have a sense of humor?

No matter...I'm still passing.

[wyman]

If I'm gonna mess around, I think my best bets are 1H and 2D, each of which is only a card shaded from minimum expected in this seat.

But vulnerable with LHO holding a monster, I'm gonna just pass and deal with whatever comes. Even if they don't rip it, it's gonna be ugly if partner has a limit raise and we play in a 3-3/4-3 with this shape at the 3-level vul.

[fromageGB]

Quite safe to open 1♣ if you play transfer walsh, because partner is not going to bid high unless it is safe to do so. Certainly I will bid this if I feel LHO has a good hand.

[Phil]

You mean I can pass and they produce their own disaster without my assistance? Wonderful!

I pass anyway. I don't have a lead I like. 4333's suck. This is a POS.

edit: Maybe Han would open.

I need to make my contract to get any matchpoints, since -100 is worse than their -90 and -200 is hari kari.

[nige1]

1♦ = 10, 1♣ = 9, pass = 8, 1♥ = 4. but partner may not appreciate your messing around

[gszes]

lets assume your ability to read the opps is unparalled
(almost good enough to piture the cards in their hand).
Assuming your p lacks the same ability about you what
do you possibly expect to gain no matter what you choose
to open with this hand. give me xxx xxx Axxx KQJ and you
can talk me into a 1c opener. Here you have nothing but
information to give the opps or horrific info to give to
poor unsuspecting p who has a great chance of being on lead
or making a preemtive raise of your only lead directing bid (H).

You have a tremendous gift--try to curtail its use to hands where
you have a reasonable chance to benefit w/o all the risk. For
heavens sake try to talk these opps into some friendly low stakes
games where you can use your ability to help fill your wallet.

pass

[masse24]

If I open 1♦ do Nancy Sinatra and her high steppers appear? If so, can I change may vote?

[MrAce]

nige1, on 2012-May-31, 11:45, said:

1♦ = 10, 1♣ = 8, pass = 8, 1♥ = 4. but partner may not appreciate your messing around

My + vote was for the video my man

I pass

[nige1]

MrAce, on 2012-May-31, 14:18, said:

My + vote was for the video my man I pass

Well I respect your judgement in music

[JLOGIC]

This is just not the hand. You have too much D. Pass.

[daveharty]

gszes, on 2012-May-31, 12:00, said:

...what do you possibly expect to gain no matter what you choose
to open with this hand.

Obviously there is no safety valve here, if the opps can figure out even remotely what's going on, you're toast. So any gain would have to come in the form of messing with their auction, maybe by picking off their suit.

One of the areas of my game where I would like to improve is in recognizing opportunities to be tactically unpredictable. It didn't occur to me to psyche at the table, it seemed like the wrong sort of hand (plus I never psyche); only in hindsight did I think "I knew LHO had a moose, maybe I should have tried to muck up the works."

[Cthulhu D]

Am I the only one that would make a 'normal'*, 1C opening (playing a short club) in any seat at any vulnerability holding that lot? Most people's ability to show a monster in contested bidding is significantly reduced. My chance of going for a number in 1CX is nil, and it picks off their strong club opening (what LHO was presumably going to bid), which means they have to rely on whatever their system for contested bidding is to get to the right spot. These tend to handle monsters much worse.

* normal in the sense that partner would ask me in the post mortem why I didn't open if I passed, not in the sense that I expect everyone to do it.

[JLOGIC]

Yes imo it is very bad to open this in normal circumstances (without a read on LHO). You are vulnerable at matchpoints with a terrible hand and a lot of D, there is no reason to try stealing from them on this hand, you have 11 points. There is very little reason to fear a passout, if it's passed out it's probably just as likely to be good as bad.

The risk of bidding is not that you will play 1C X, it is simply that partner will make normal bids and just go down 2. Sometimes it just goes 1C 1M X p 1N AP, all completely normal and you are in 1N vul with this hand opposite partners 7 count or whatever. Usually you want to be in there competing for the partscore and whatever but this is the exact opposite of a hand like that. I would love for them to just declare something.

Opening does indeed hurt their slam bidding a lot but opening 1C is not going to change their game bidding too much. And obv with this hand we don't think they are likely to have a slam, or even that likely to have a game.

I view opening this hand as extremely low upside with a reasonable amount of risk.

[JLOGIC]

And btw I would open this in first seat if that was what my agreement was (eg open all 11s), but I would never open it in third seat. If you open light, then you should certainly pass in 3rd seat since you won't have 11 opp 11 and have a passout.

[CSGibson]

I'm opening 1♦, but I don't feel strongly about it.

[mr1303]

When deciding whether or not to open light, the lead is all important. Jtxx doesn't cut it imo.

[fromageGB]

mr1303, on 2012-June-01, 08:08, said:

When deciding whether or not to open light, the lead is all important. Jtxx doesn't cut it imo.

The whole point is that when opening 1♣, which is maybe a low doubleton, there is no lead direction implied at all. Partner will make a good lead or a "safe" lead or whatever he would have done if you had passed.

This is certainly a borderline open any seat - I am not persuaded that it is worse 3rd than 1st - and my partners have opened hands like this. I like a 12 count, but this is very tempting, and I may do it normally if one of the tens had a higher honour. In the scenario given, I do open, but only if playing twalsh.

[Phil]

fromageGB, on 2012-June-01, 12:51, said:

The whole point is that when opening 1♣, which is maybe a low doubleton, there is no lead direction implied at all. Partner will make a good lead or a "safe" lead or whatever he would have done if you had passed.

If partner reads you as opening light, which is frequently the case, your 1m opening should definitely be lead directing and not just noise.

[fromageGB]

Phil, on 2012-June-01, 13:04, said:

If partner reads you as opening light, which is frequently the case, your 1m opening should definitely be lead directing and not just noise.

No, I don't often open light, but I can't see how you can play 2 systems, one for when you open light, one for when you open soundly. If your 1♣ open can be a low doubleton, by system agreement, it cannot be lead directing.