[BudH]

Scoring: MP

1♦ 2♣
2♦ 2♠
3♥ 4♣
4♠ Pass

---

Average club matchpoint game. East-West are playing 2/1 game forcing.

Apportion the blame for being in game when 7NT makes on normal breaks. What were the worst calls of the auction?

[mikeh]

I see nothing to criticize in the first 2 rounds, but 3♥ puzzles me. It devours space without saying anything intelligible...why not 2N?

Amongst other matters, 2N allows partner to pattern out if he has Hx(x) in diamonds, for one thing....admittedly irrelevant on the hand but still a strong reason for 2N.

And if it were an attempt to get to notrump, surely it is ill-conceived on AJx.

It is apparent that the wheels fell off from that point on. We can't even tell if East took 3♥ as showing something...he bid as if West had shown something like xxx in hearts, looking for a stopper or xxx in East.

West then bid as if he were completely confused by his own bidding as well as East's....all this undescribed strength and he makes a passable call? He bid as if he held AKx xxx AQJxxx x.

Since west might easily have that hand, East is screwed even tho he has that undisclosed diamond K.

So I blame West 100%. He made a silly, ambiguous and unnecessary call in a situation where he had available a perfectly fine natural call (intending to raise a 3N response to 4N).

[hanp]

Agree with mikeh, 3H was unnecessarily space consuming and made the rest of the auction unclear. The auction is still not easy after 2NT, but at least 3C by east would be clearly natural. Now the west hand is too strong for 3NT and might stall with 3D. At some point one of the two (most likely west) would have to show extra values and the other will be able to move to slam. Getting to the grand is quite difficult as both black jacks are important.

[JLOGIC]

Agree with the above posters that 3H is very poor. I think 3H should typically be 3352 with no heart stopper (because with a heart stopper you bid 2N, with 3 clubs you bid 3C, with 6 diamonds you bid 3D, with 4 spades you bid 3S, and probably with 4 small hearts you just bid 2N).

That one bid killed the whole auction. Signing off in 4S is very pessimistic with 18 though. After 4C I think west should just drive to 6C. It could work badly, but you're already past 3N and you do have a prime 18 with the club jack and partner GFed over 1D.

If west had chosen to bid 4N, east would show 2 with the queen, and west would bid 5N, and grand would be easy (if not 7N then 7C planning to ruff out the diamonds).

[mike777]

BudH, on Aug 27 2010, 03:59 PM, said:

Scoring: MP

1♦  2♣
2♦  2♠
3♥  4♣
4♠  Pass

---

Average club matchpoint game.  East-West are playing 2/1 game forcing.

Apportion the blame for being in game when 7NT makes on normal breaks.  What were the worst calls of the auction?

tough hand......


As others said starting:

1d=2c
2d(shows 6 for me)=2s
2nt=3c

seems clear..

now Maybe?


4c?=4d(rkc for c)
4h(0-3)=4nt(shows KD;grand try) or 5d asks for specific k's and grand try
5s(Ks;deny kh)=?

[Codo]

Besides the funny 3 Heart bid: West showed a hand with around 12-14 HCPS and 6 diamonds, no heart stopper and 3 spades. Oh well.

[Free]

West gets all the blame for me. 3♥ is the worst choice, and later on bidding a NF 4♠ in a known 4-3 fit after partner forced game is behind my comprehension.

[pooltuna]

There was no methodolgy in place to show that a hand has extras if 2♦ is acceptable then 2NT would have to show extras. Out of curiosity what sort of hand would a 3♦ call show in lieu of 2♦s

[ArtK78]

pooltuna, on Aug 30 2010, 09:47 AM, said:

There was no methodolgy in place to show that a hand has extras if 2♦ is acceptable then 2NT would have to show extras. Out of curiosity what sort of hand would a 3♦ call show in lieu of 2♦s

Jump rebids by opener after a 2/1 game forcing call should show a solid 6+ card suit. Normally the opener's suit is a major suit and the jump rebid sets the trump suit, although 3NT is a possibility. When opener's suit is diamonds 3NT is always a possible contract.

Whether opener's hand should contain extra values in addition to the solid suit is a matter for partnership agreement. In my opinion, the jump only shows a solid suit and does not imply (but does not deny) extras.

[Cascade]

After

1. Opening the bidding
and
2. Responding at the two-level

neither player made any clear attempt to make a quantitative bid to show their significant extras.

In so much as west has more extras he gets more of the blame. In particular west has more aces and kings and usually i find in missed slams that the hand with the surplus controls is the one that should have done more.

Good slam bidding on misfit hands requires quantitative bidding in a similar way to quantitative raises over no trump openings. Although accurately bidding a grand may require luck or the appreciation of the value of a stray jack (as the ♣ here) to fill out partner's suit.

An old fashioned standard auction (not 2/1) would start 1♦ 2♣; 3♦ and the quantitative information in 3♦ would ensure that the partnership stopped no lower than the six-level and probably in at least 6NT.

Its not even clear that either player made a good attempt at showing their suit lengths. West's 2♦ may have been five and even 4♣ might not be six - what does east bid with a small club moved into the heart suit over 3♥?

On the old fashioned auction 1♦ 2♣; 3♦ ... east may now bid 4♣ and the qualitative information in freely bidding past 3NT would help west appreciate the value of his ♣J.

Without knowing the intention or partnership style for the 3♥ bid its hard to intelligently criticize it other than to say that it appears to have have used up an entire level of bidding without providing any useful information to partner. Certainly partner has not appreciated that west has extra strength nor that west has a heart control or stopper.

[neilkaz]

100% blame to west for his poor 3♥ bid. I also don't care for west's 4♠ bid.

[gszeszycki]

Dealer: West
Vul: E/W
Scoring: MP
♠ AKx
♥ AJx
♦ AJ8xxx
♣ J

♠ QJTx
♥ xx
♦ K
♣ AKQ8xx

1♦ 2♣
2♦ 2♠
3♥ 4♣
4♠ Pass

Do not beat yourself up too badly for missing the 7 level. It depends on the
singlton club J a card that is virtually impossible to identify. The real problem
here is that neither side was able to easily show extra values and possibly it was
because of the way the auction began. we dont always have to begin 2/1 with a long minor especially when we have extra values here a go slow approach will work wonders.

1d

1s

2h (what me wory about 4h?) if p bids 4h i can convert to 4s they have to have at
least 5 spades for this bidding

3c forcing

4s now p probably has a REALLY good idea we have around 17 and are probably very short in clubs.(vs 3s which might be something like Axx AKxx AQJx xx and we didnt want to rebid 2n with our xx in clubs)(with 4 spades and short club we probably would not waste time with 2h bid just jump to 4c)

It would not be out of line with such superb spades to just bid 4n and when p shows 4 just bid 7s (the problem being if p shows only 3 is best sport spades club or nt (who knows) if you do not have the courage for that then try the following.

5c showing long clubs and forcing to slam (with say 4117 and weak after 2h i bid 5c) (with intermediate hand I would have tried 3n somewhere)

6c hand LOADED with controls but still hard to imagine singlton J as enough to consider a grand even though in context it is much better than expected. The single Q of clubs might convince me to try for 7c just cant pull trigger with J.
note that with better dia (AQJxx) I would have bid 5d and we might still have had a chance to bid 7)

With this bidding both sides were able to show power easily and reaching slam is not too hard and with the misfit looking type distributions some caution is advised when thinking about bidding 7.

I know it goes against the grain to NOt bid 2c right away when playing 2/1. Just making a case for saving our 2/1 for hands that are more single suit oriented.

[aguahombre]

After the recommended mark-time 2NT:

----3C
4N-6N.

[ahydra]

Quote

After the recommended mark-time 2NT:

----3C
4N-6N.

You'd have to be supersupersure of partnership methods to play 4NT as natural and strong there I'd imagine "99%" of players would play that as RKC in clubs - but of course, technically it SHOULD be natural and strong, since 4C is available to agree clubs and start cues.

I like this solution the best so far.

ahydra

[aguahombre]

There are many complicated auctions where 4NT might be confusing. But when you have "4NT is never RKC for a minor", the world seems a simpler place.

[Vilgan]

99% would treat 4NT there as RKC for clubs? I doubt that. Many B/C certainly would but not even 99% of them would treat it as RKC let alone higher level players.

As for the bidding, pretty clear that 3♥ was terrible here. It seems like W has no clue how to show strength bidding 2/1, maybe they should learn precision?

[kayin801]

3♥ = horrendous.

I liked aguahombre's auction, but I could also see:

1♦-2♣
2♦-2♠
2NT-3♣
3♠-?

And then it gets tricky from there? I can't even think of something reasonable to get to 7NT unless someone fakes agreeing a suit intending to correct to NT later (maybe in lieu of 3♠ too). I'm likely to end up in 6NT.

[junyi_zhu]

BudH, on Aug 27 2010, 08:59 PM, said:

Scoring: MP

1♦ 2♣
2♦ 2♠
3♥ 4♣
4♠ Pass

---

Average club matchpoint game. East-West are playing 2/1 game forcing.

Apportion the blame for being in game when 7NT makes on normal breaks. What were the worst calls of the auction?

1D 2C
2H(extra, 5 or more D) 2S
2N 3C(6C)
3D(6 diamonds) 4C(strong C suit)
4D(RKC) 5C(two KC with CQ)
5S(SK, no holes in trumps) 7N(piece of cake)

[W Kovacs]

EDIT: Apparently I can't count to 6! This auction is only valid with a 7 card club suit.


Partner and I get there using a Precision auction, but I seriously doubt we get to the grand using standard or 2/1.

1C! - 3S!
4C! - 4H!
4S! - 5C!
5S! - 5NT!
7NT

1C = 16+ HCP
3S = 7 card suit headed by AKQ
4C = outside controls?
4H = 1 control (King)
4S = Control ask in spades
5C = third round
5S = length or strength
5NT = Strength

And if the opponents didn't double that 4H bid for a lead, I'd be surprised. Almost disappointed.

[aguahombre]

So you get there by deciding the Spade Jack is as good as a 7th club --- with the first response?