[Cyberyeti]

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Dealer South, NV, IMP pairs

Have just come back from one of the most frustrating weekends of bridge I've ever been involved in, not playing well and getting no luck, the above was one of the few we got right. If you get to 6♠ by N, plan the play on a club lead.

More typical of how the weekend went was this:

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Our opponent decided that not only was this worth a 2♣ opener but drove it all the way to 5♠ with zero encouragement from partner

This was the dummy: 10xx, Qxxx, xxx, xxx

Well this weekend if the only way you can make a contract is for the 10 of spades to appear in dummy and me to hold ♣ KJ doubleton, well no problem, and 6 IMPs in for them as a number of people played 1♠+4 instead of the lots out they deserved.

[Fluffy]

I would bid like this:

1♥-1♠ (actually 1NT inversion)
2NT-3♠ (2NT is GF normally 19 balanced, but might have some semibalanced hands)
3NT-4♣ (3NT shows no interest in 6♠, 4♣ is still slam interest)
4♦-bla
bla-bla
6♠

I would play this way:

♣A, ♥A, ♥ruff, ♠Q, and heart from dummy

If RHO has heart I will ruff with ♠A and draw trumps.

[Cyberyeti]

Our auction also used a GF 2N

1♥-1♠
2N(GF unbal)-3♠(an artificial 3♣ is mandatory without 7♠ or a second 5 card suit, so I know pard has 7)
4♣-4♠
4N-5♥
5N(spec K)-6♠(nope)

[mike777]

don't play that 2nt toy so perhaps:

1h=1s
2c?!=4s
4nt=5h=
5nt=6s
p

2c=as someone once said if I can just get past this
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hand 2 is yet another example of the long running forum discussion of when to open 2c with a 2 suiter.

with a 3 loser hand I don't mind opening 2c but expect many to disagree.

[JLOGIC]

In standard there is a lot of guess work, I would probably bid:

1H 1S
3C 3S
3N 4S

I find the most questionable call to be 3N, I don't know what else to bid but 3C. North would never be thinking slam after 1H/3C/3N , he would be hoping 4S would make lol.

[PhilKing]

JLOGIC, on 2014-February-23, 18:05, said:

I find the most questionable call to be 3N, I don't know what else to bid but 3C.

I think 1♥-1♠-3NT should show this type of hand: six hearts, circa 20 points and stops - it shouldn't promise great, or even decent hearts. Since loosening up the requirements for this bid, I have seen about 10 good hands for the treatment, none for a tighter style, and it cleans up our jump shifts in a suit.

[Fluffy]

Cyberyeti, on 2014-February-23, 16:45, said:

Our auction also used a GF 2N

1♥-1♠
2N(GF unbal)-3♠(an artificial 3♣ is mandatory without 7♠ or a second 5 card suit, so I know pard has 7)
4♣-4♠
4N-5♥
5N(spec K)-6♠(nope)

I think you should loosen up requirements for suit rebid, you have 3NT as slow down response, so any suit that plays fine opposite honor doubleton or 3 small should qualify, wheter it is KJxxxxx, AQ9xxx or AKJ10x

[Cyberyeti]

Fluffy, on 2014-February-23, 16:18, said:

I would play this way:

♣A, ♥A, ♥ruff, ♠Q, and heart from dummy

If RHO has heart I will ruff with ♠A and draw trumps.

Not sure whether this is better than what partner did.

A♥, ♥ruff, ♠ to Q, ♣ruff, draw trumps and hope to view the diamonds if trumps are 3-2 and the ♥ don't break.

He wins when trumps are 4-1 and ♥3-3, you win when trumps are 3-2, ♥4-2 other than QJ and he fails to bring in the ♦

At the table with ♠3-2, ♥3-3 pretty much anything will work, partner scored 1010, you get 980, not many bid it.

[Fluffy]

I was thinking that against weak opposition ruffing the next heart low could be good in practice, specially if RHO encouraged clubs loudly, they don't know about club count yet as they couldn't discard, and also even if they found out, it is unlikelly that thye switch to ♦K if they have it.

You are overlooking that when hearts are 2-4 I win also against spades 4-1 as RHO will show out before ruffing.

But going for 2 diamond tricks is also a powerful option, I misscounted my tricks earlier, 2 tricks from A10x vs Qxxx is easy as even a missguess will see you home when the other honor is doubleton. And they have to make discards...

[Cyberyeti]

Fluffy, on 2014-February-23, 18:58, said:

I was thinking that against weak opposition ruffing the next heart low could be good in practice, specially if RHO encouraged clubs loudly, they don't know about club count yet as they couldn't discard, and also even if they found out, it is unlikelly that thye switch to ♦K if they have it.

If you get overruffed, and he switches to the K♦, you win the A and play small to the ♦Q9 intending to play the 9 unless the J appears, if the lead is from Kxx or Kxxx, you're still OK

Quote

You are overlooking that when hearts are 2-4 I win also against spades 4-1 as RHO will show out before ruffing.

true

Quote

But going for 2 diamond tricks is also a powerful option, I misscounted my tricks earlier, 2 tricks from A10x vs Qxxx is easy as even a missguess will see you home when the other honor is doubleton. And they have to make discards...

Possession of the 9 gives you some extra options also.

[Cyberyeti]

Fluffy, on 2014-February-23, 18:52, said:

I think you should loosen up requirements for suit rebid, you have 3NT as slow down response, so any suit that plays fine opposite honor doubleton or 3 small should qualify, wheter it is KJxxxxx, AQ9xxx or AKJ10x

Partner gets some very descriptive bids over the artificial 3♣, all GFs with a 4 card fit go through 2N also, so it's usually better to hear the response (which would be 3♥ here showing at least a good 6 card suit) then bid 3♠.

[Fluffy]

perhaps you codified them better, but for me 3NT is a likely response over 3♣

[Cyberyeti]

Fluffy, on 2014-February-24, 02:02, said:

perhaps you codified them better, but for me 3NT is a likely response over 3♣

3N shows a clubs second suit.

3♦ = 6♥/4♦
3♥ = at least 6 good ♥ and no other 4CS not 3♠ this solves the standard "BBO death hand" problem along with 3♠ of being too good to rebid 1♥-1♠-3♥
3♠ = 6♥/3♠
3N = 6♥/4♣
4♣ = 4531/4621
4♦ = 4513/4612
4♥ = 4522
4♠ = 4711

The hand also needs to be really big for the 3♦/3N rebids as we play 1♥-1♠-2m as forcing if you had a normal response.

[Fluffy]

it shows 18-19 bal for me hehe, you got rid of th most likely shape for me

[Zelandakh]

1♣ = 15+ nat/bal or 18+ any
... - 1♥ = GF with 4+ spades
1♠ = relay, usually 18+
... - 2♣ = 4+ diamonds
2♦ = relay
... - 3♠ = 7141
4♣ = relay
... - 4♦ = min
4♥ = relay
... - 5♣ = 3 controls
6♠

Playing from the South side disables the club lead so a slight advantage over 6♠N. With North as declarer I would be tempted to play a diamond up to the queen at trick 3 (probably the only losing line).

[Cyberyeti]

Fluffy, on 2014-February-24, 06:17, said:

it shows 18-19 bal for me hehe, you got rid of th most likely shape for me

We play a wide range 15-bad 19 1N rebid with a weak no trump, which is actually easier to deal with than you might think. A while back, we played a 10-15 NT with a 16-19 1N rebid, that was fun.

[Cyberyeti]

Zelandakh, on 2014-February-24, 06:30, said:

Playing from the South side disables the club lead so a slight advantage over 6♠N. With North as declarer I would be tempted to play a diamond up to the queen at trick 3 (probably the only losing line).

No, you really struggle to go off in this, that works too.

[Fluffy]

Cyberyeti, on 2014-February-24, 06:55, said:

We play a wide range 15-bad 19 1N rebid with a weak no trump, which is actually easier to deal with than you might think. A while back, we played a 10-15 NT with a 16-19 1N rebid, that was fun.

I am not a theorist but I heard in the past that 4 point ranges in 1NT opening where unplayable, you have a 5 point range?, I understand that being a rebid you have a little extra info to use, but still sounds incredible to me, I am sure you upgrade most 19 counts then. I am not sure of the percentages but I think 15 & 16 have higher frequency than 17, 18, 19 all together, and that is already accounting for bad 15 being downgraded from time to time.

[Cyberyeti]

Fluffy, on 2014-February-24, 07:39, said:

I am not a theorist but I heard in the past that 4 point ranges in 1NT opening where unplayable, you have a 5 point range?, I understand that being a rebid you have a little extra info to use, but still sounds incredible to me, I am sure you upgrade most 19 counts then. I am not sure of the percentages but I think 15 & 16 have higher frequency than 17, 18, 19 all together, and that is already accounting for bad 15 being downgraded from time to time.

We almost never downgrade 15s, we upgrade 19s fairly frequently and play a good 19-21 2N, we also upgrade some good 21s. The 2♣ enquiry then sorts out the ranges with 15-16 being rebid at the 2 level, 17-19 at the 3 level, we do downgrade bad 17s. You'd be surprised how often bad 19 opposite 6 doesn't make game, we actually show a plus playing these in partscores even at teams, the downside is playing some games with decent 17 opposite 7, but that's usually got some play.

A really wide range opening NT requires special methods, when I played one with my previous partner, we used 4 card inv+ transfers and some other weird stuff (you need both X and 2N as different range lebensohls for example). It worked great, my favourite scenario was the auction 1N-PPP at pairs, dummy has a random 8 count and you had to work out in defence whether you were trying to beat this by 2 or prevent the second overtrick, it got misdefended often. The biggest upside though having learned the system was the 15-20 1N overcall (11-16 in protective) which was a huge winner.

[gnasher]

Cyberyeti, on 2014-February-23, 18:55, said:

Not sure whether this is better than what partner did.

A♥, ♥ruff, ♠ to Q, ♣ruff, draw trumps and hope to view the diamonds if trumps are 3-2 and the ♥ don't break.

If you follow this line you should cash all but one trump, coming down to

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If West has the hearts and ♣K, he is forced to come down to two diamonds, so you can't misguess. This gains similarly if East has the hearts, ♣K and both diamond honours.