♠ District 8 Solvers Forum -- September 2024

            by Nate Ward, Champaign IL
 

Participants from the web site Bridgewinners.com are our "virtual panelist". More than 50 readers -- the majority of whom are experienced players -- voted on each problem, and the plurality's choice is included as a panel vote. Each vote grid shows the percentage of Bridgewinners voters who chose each call.

1. IMPs, NS vulnerable              

What is your call as South holding:  ♠9765432   ♥Q5   ♦3   ♣J94 ?

Welcome to another round of the District 8 Solvers Forum. 

We start this set of problems with what I thought would be a near-unanimous vote, but the panel proved me wrong. What do you do when you have seven little spades and not much else after partner has made a takeout double?  The standard meaning, I thought, was expressed by a slim majority of our panel:

WALKER: 3S. A double-jump advance of partner's takeout double is a preempt, not a "stronger than a single jump" bid. This is the standard meaning. Although I’d like for my only queen to be in the trump suit, this is a virtual classic hand for this bid.

ROBINSON: 3S. Shows a weak hand with long spades, which is what I have.

LEWIS: 3S. Preemptive with long spades. Partner will decide what to do if the opponents bid again.

HEINS: 3S. With the plethora of available moves I have with spades, I hope this will be read as weak length.

Others wanted to stay as low as possible and await further developments:

SPEAR: 1S.  I will not pass, but I have no high-card strength to bid more at this turn.

JONES: 1S. If everybody passes 1S, I will be surprised.  Otherwise, I will calmly await developments.

And some wanted to make sure we got to game, vulnerable at IMPs:

BERGERUD: 4S. Weak with long spades. No slam opposite 18/19 notrump. The 7th spades dictates a jump to 4S, Many upsides and few downsides. May make, be a good save or push opponents too high in diamonds.

HINCKLEY: 4S.  Close between 3S and 4S (both weak bids). 4S is usually down 1 opposite ♠Axx  ♥Axxx  xx  ♣Axxx , but they will often take a phantom sacrifice at 5D.

BAKER: 4S. I'd cue with a strong hand. This just shows a truckload of spades. Might not work out well if partner has a moose without spades, though.

Baker brings up the biggest danger, outside of overstating your hand, of bidding 4S. What are we going to do when partner has a big balanced hand or a strong one-suiter with clubs?

What is your call as South holding:  ♠J754   ♥Void   ♦KQ102   ♣K7543 ?

Next we go from red at IMPs to red at matchpoints. The way this auction has developed, we are probably wishing we had passed 2D, especially at this form of scoring.

A 4-3 spade fit is not going to play well with ♠Jxxx in the long hand. 3NT with a heart void won't be much fun either, nor will 4D on a trump lead. Despite all these potential problems, the panel was fairly split between trying to score a game bonus and hoping to get out in a making partscore.

Seeing that line and hoping for a big score:

WALKER: 3NT. I'm not playing in 3S with this suit, so it's 3NT or 4D. I suspect 4D is safer, although trump leads could kill that contract. At matchpoints, though, I feel compelled to try 3NT if it has a chance and I think this one does. Even with just one stopper, the fifth club makes it less likely the opponents can take more than three club tricks.

HINCKLEY: 3NT. Second choice 5D, but the marked trump lead would often cause 5D to fail.

BAKER: 3NT. Sounds like partner is 3-5-4-1. A Moysian (ruffing clubs in partner's hand) may work well, but feels like we'd have an awful lot of spade losers.

LEWIS: 5D. Spades are too weak for 4S to be playable on a 4-3 fit.

Alternatively, trying to save the plus score or at least go down less:

KNIEST: 4D. Woe is me.

ROBINSON: 4D. My king of clubs is opposite shortness so I will go conservative. I could have passed 2D, so partner should expect me to have at least what I have.

SPEAR: 4D. This hand is unsuitable for play in notrump and poor for play in spades.

BERGERUD: 4D. 3NT doesn't looks so attractive so I slow down in 4D.

In my view, for 3NT to be right, you need partner to be all prime and close to 17 points. But with a hand like  ♠KQx   ♥AKxxx   ♦AJxx   ♣x , partner may well have upgraded over your 1S response and made a jump shift, especially considering the proclivity to bypass a weak 4-card spade suit over a 1H opening bid. You are more likely to catch the same hand minus the spade queen, and 3NT is not going to be fun at all.

 * Constructive, not forcing

What is your call as South holding:  ♠AQJ976   ♥AQ   ♦5   ♣K985 ?

Our next hand raises the importance of having agreements in competitive auctions. We have a monster hand for making a one-level overcall, and now have serious questions about strain and level.

Not sharing the opinion on hand strength, a few of our panelists went rather conservatively:

KNIEST: 3S. 3H could be right . . . but passing probably isn't.

SPEAR: 3S. We are definitely worth another bid, and want to describe our good playing strength for spades.

Without this dim view, how do we proceed? Do we just make the choice ourselves and hope it is right?

WALKER: 4S. I’d like to bid 4D to say “pick a major”, but I have to admit that until this problem came up, I had never heard of that use in this auction. It sounds like a strong raise of hearts, and I suspect that’s how partner would interpret it.

HEINS: 4H. Anything could be right here. If I thought pard might bid spades over 4D when appropriate, I would bid that.

LEWIS: 4H. With this much strength and both opponents bidding, I expect partner's bid is based on long hearts, so ♥AQ is good support.

If we wanted to involve partner in the decision, what is the best way to do this? When I had this hand at the table, if I knew partner would take double as extras. It would have been the clear choice, as it would potentially allow me to cuebid next round. I might also want to get ready with the apologies when partner decides to pass holding a 1-5-3-4 hand.

BAKER: DBL. Good hand, no clear direction. I want to be in game but not sure where.

BERGERUD: DBL. I want to indicate a nice spade suit and a good doubleton in hearts because it's all about game or slam, in either spades or hearts. 4D may be interpreted as confirmation of hearts as trump?

HINCKLEY: 4D. Pick a major. Close to committing to spades since in 4H, diamond leads will tap our heart honors.

JONES: 4D. Too good for just 4H. Pard needs little if anything beyond ♥KJxxxx and an ace to have a play for slam.

ROBINSON: 4D. Partner, you make the last mistake. Hopefully, he has either two spades or six good hearts. 

What is your call as South holding:  ♠Q   ♥AK63    ♦K10754   ♣1042 ?

Our next problem again outlines the need for a clear agreement. Is partner showing doubt about notrump -- or just showing a strong hand that is maybe interested in more? Roughly half of the panel chose the former and decided to go low:

BAKER: Pass. Not clear what partner's cue-then-notrump sequence means -- probably a balanced hand with concerns about the stopper? In that case, my stiff ♠Q will probably be enough to help.

KNIEST: Pass. I think I've told enough about my hand and won't second guess pard's auction.

LEWIS: Pass. I would bid more with a club honor.

RABIDEAU: Pass. Does this auction show doubt about a notrump contract, e.g. half-stopper? That makes the most sense, but in any case, my ♠Q should be helpful. Because it's a misfit, I'm giving up on slam.

The rest of the panel suspected that partner had long clubs on this auction. They decided they needed to make another move:

JONES: 4C. This must be a slam try and show this pattern.

BERGERUD: 4C. Too strong for Pass and partner has likely a nice club suit, so I think the best move forward is to show my distribution with club support and a singleton in spades. 3NT may indicate half-stopper in spades?

ROBINSON: 4C. Partner has shown a very good hand with probably with three hearts. We could easily have slam.  ♠Kxx  ♥Qxx  ♦Ax  ♣AKQxx  has play.

SPEAR: 4C. We have a good hand for the auction, and partner has advertised a very good hand. We want to communicate our shortness in spades with support for clubs.

WALKER: 4C. Partner is showing a powerful hand and since it's not based on a heart fit, it has to be a big club suit. Hoping he can Blackwood over this, but if not, we should still be able to find a slam if it's right.

I don't really buy the stopper concerns. Is partner really concocting this sequence with a balanced hand with ♠Jxx or ♠JTx ? That seems to me a very narrow and unlikely focus, especially when we consider that partner had no other way to show a game-forcing hand with long clubs.

   * Forcing 1NT     ** 3+ clubs

What is your call as South holding:  ♠86   ♥AQ9   ♦862   ♣AJ764 ?

Next, we have a hand where some may have started with 2C and forced to game, based on the honor tricks.

If you're wondering about that lone vote for 2D and why it got 100 points: As he has pointed out in the past, Bud Hinckley reminds us that Bridge World Standard employs the Bart convention in this auction:

HINCKLEY: 2D. Bart (part of BWS), followed by 3C to show a very strong club invitation.

Sadly, the rest of us either forgot this agreement or didn't know it, so we are left with some unpalatable choices. Do we bid 2NT with no diamond stopper, or do we make an over-strength raise?

HEINS: 2NT. Here, with the form of scoring and vulnerability, I like the possibility of 3NT too much and I want to make sure I invite that as strongly as possible.

WALKER: 2NT. I think this hand is too strong for 3C, which could be a courtesy raise with less strength. I'm not all that excited about playing in a 5-3 club fit.

LEWIS: 2NT. This could get us to the possible 3NT vulnerable game.

BERGERUD: 3C. An underbid, but I don't want to bypass 3NT. I'm not so comfortable with 2NT even though the opponents didn’t bid diamonds.

KNIEST: 3C. Surely 3NT should be played from pard's side.

SPEAR: 3C. We are worth an invitation with our 5-card support and extra high cards. The next move is up to partner.

ROBINSON: 3C. Shows club support with about 10 points. Partner could have  ♠KQxxx  ♥Kx  ♦Ax  ♣xxxx and 3C would be where we belong.

While I know there is a game bonus, especially red at IMPs, partner does as well. Karen also mentions a courtesy raise (see problem 2 from this set), that does introduce a problem with wide ranges in two very similar auctions. Here we have 2.5 quick tricks and a fifth trump for our raise. On problem 2, we had only 4 trumps and a questionable 9-count. Given all that, I'd argue this hand is much closer to a raise of partner's second suit.

6. Matchpoints, EW vulnerable       
 

Action	Score	Votes	% BWinners	% Solvers
Pass	100	8	65	42
2NT	70	3	4	18
3C	60	1	21	24
2H	50	1	0	10
2D	50	0	6	2
3NT	30	0	4	5

West	North	East	South
	1D	Pass	1H
Pass	1S	Pass	1NT
Pass	2C	Pass	???

What is your call as South holding:  ♠A10   ♥KJ982   ♦J7   ♣9754 ?

Our last problem leaves us with a typical matchpoint problem. Do we go low and preserve the plus, or do we try for an uncertain game? The majority of the panel decided to protect the plus score:

KNIEST: Pass. Keep it low and go plus.

HINCKLEY: Pass. No confidence 2NT will make, otherwise I'd try for 120 to beat 90 or 110.

ROBINSON: Pass. Partner could have 4-0-5-4 minimum hand. He could also have 4-1-5-3 hand. He didn't jump.

WALKER: Pass, only because it's matchpoints. Could well be wrong, as I think partner should have at least moderate extra values for this auction. If I were going to bid again, though, it would be 2NT, as raising to 3C sounds like I'm worried about my heart stopper.

The club raise, chosen by almost a quarter of the Solvers, drew only one vote from the panel.

JONES: 3C. We have found a home. Game seems remote. I strongly considered Pass, but I will give a courtesy raise, just in case.

This is yet another use of the minor-suit "courtesy" raise discussed in Problems 2 and 5 in this set.

The other advancers on the panel chose to invite game in our favorite strain:

SPEAR: 2NT. Partner has a good hand, and we have good value with hearts well-stopped. We are hoping for a better score than playing in clubs.

HEINS: 2NT. Partner shouldn't bid like this if weak, so I am assuming 4-0-5-4 with at least better-than-minimum values

BAKER: 2NT. Most of my value is opposite partner's shortness, so I'm not terribly optimistic. But partner should have a good hand (else just pass 1NT).

While there is some disagreement about whether or not partner is showing extras here, I don't think they can have a minimum. But even given that, considering that half our strength is opposite partner's shortness, I don't see game being likely.