|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Before we start this month, I should point out that our first question was changed shortly after the October issue was printed. I have a collection of problems that I use in an emergency, but I accidentally reused one that I had also used in an emergency last year. A few readers answered the old question before it was replaced, but I asked them all to come back and re-answer this new problem. For example:
Peter Barker: 1NT. Very strange. When I first printed out the problem I had four hearts and the opps had competed to 2
. I chose to pass on that hand. Now my points have increased and have lost a heart. Despite my 10 points I don't have a major. I prefer 1NT in this situation to be 8-11 rather than 6-9. Even without agreement, I still prefer 1NT where the only distortion is no diamond honour. East's pass gives me hope they don't have five running diamonds off the top.
Ian Patterson: 2
. This is not the hand (or bidding) in the AB Magazine Bidding Forum.
Tania Black: 2. It was 3 in response to the published hand.
Robert Black: 2. My answer for the hand printed in October AB was 3.
Ken Berry: 2. This is a different problem to the magazine.
The new problem comes from the Australia-Wide Restricted Pairs – one of three national events run each year by Australian Bridge Magazine. For the Restricted Pairs event, the players receive a Souvenir Booklet in which the deals have all been bid by the Jack computer software, and I write commentary explaining where Jack went wrong. On this deal, I gave Jack a bit of criticism for his choice of 3.
Ig Nieuwenhuis: 3. Have to show the almost maximum pass. Not happy to have only four clubs.
Neil Silverman: 3. Just a little too much to go low.
Damo Nair: 3. May be I am short a club but if I try 2
I probably won't be able to stop North from bidding the majors.
Nicoleta Giura: 3. I'll be honest. 1NT was a thought.
1NT is an excellent thought, echoed by more than half of the expert panellists and a third of the readers:
Ronald Lel: 1NT. 1NT reflects the value well. If the opponents can cash some diamonds, well there is a lot of rubbish to get rid of.
Alex Kemeny: 1NT. 8 to 11 points, no major. OK, no diamond stopper, but it's only 1NT.
Alexander Cook: 1NT. A distortion without a diamond stopper but everything else seems a bigger distortion.
Cor Lof: 1NT. Balanced and enough HCP.
Peter Vlas: 1NT. Describes the hand best.
Roger Yandle: 1NT. My diamonds aren't a robust stopper but pard isn't going to be enthused with my bid unless he's got a good hand so we should be OK. My alternative bid would be 3 and that could well be a problem if pard is something like 4423.
Alexander Shchennikov: 1NT. At the one-level it shouldn't promise diamond stopper.
That's correct; if partner is interested in 3NT, then he can ask for a stopper, but in 1NT the lack of a stopper should not be a problem. The more diamonds they can cash, the more likely they are to be making 3.
A quarter of the readers felt that the club suit would offer some protection from West's big scary diamond suit:
David Matthews: 2. 1NT is an option but it is better to answer partners double with the suit you actually have. Some bidders may try 1 but that will likely result in being forced in a higher Heart level contract. Lets see what partner does over 2.
Rainer Herrmann: 2. An underbid, but game is not very likely
Hans van Vooren: 2. Any bid can turn out right or wrong, so I'm making the book bid of 2 - if West passes, partner will place me with at least some points. 2 would be nice to show my values, but partner will expect me to have both majors. While I seem to have all nicely working cards for a major suit game, the lack of four trumps and the 4-card diamond suit are a distinct liability: East may be able to overruff if West starts playing out his diamonds.
Carmel Gammal: 2. P could have a big hand - east passing indicates they are weak & not much by way of diamonds.
Tony Treloar: 2. Slight underbid but can't see other alternatives seem too flawed.
Finally, a couple of minority options:
Peter Robinson: 1. With no major fit, game is a long way off (at the five-level), so I'll hold back for now. 2 may be better but staying low gives me a chance to hear what others say, and it's hard for them to penalise.
Ronald Lokers: 2. Maximum hand, no other bid that represents what I have.
Fraser Rew: 2. Then 3 over 2M. I'm a fan of modern off-shape takeout doubles, but this hand isn't a good advertisement for the style (even if partner has the traditional 4414 shape, I can rely on that). I'd like to bid 3, but that'll sometimes mean playing in a 4-2 split. Being a passed hand gives me some degree of protection.
Emil Battista: 2NT. I do have four diamonds! 1NT is wishy washy, and 2 not much better.
The full deal, from the 2024 Australia-Wide Restricted Pairs:
| |||||||||||
Most Souths did not face this problem, as East bid 1NT in front of them.
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
This one is from one of my own rare appearances at the bridge table, and it's one of the hands that contributed to my elimination from the GNOT qualifying. The South player at the other table doubled, and then corrected to 4 when her partner jumped to 4 over West's 2
, scoring 620. Like me, our panel didn't even consider double as a valid option, seeing this as a guess between pass and .
Luckily our expert panel has an odd number of members, and the 17th vote broke the tie in favour of my choice:
Hans van Vooren: Pass. This hand stinks so badly, I'm surprised that all the suits haven't turned green yet - my bidding card certainly has. If we happen to have a heart fit, we will be outbid in spades. The risk-reward ratio is horrible.
Peter Vlas: Pass. Although tempted, I consider the risks too high to take action now.
Ronald Lokers: Pass. Being vulnerable and diamonds behind me I don't dare to bid my hearts.
Alexander Cook: Pass. 2 seems unwise with length in diamonds and a singleton K.
Peter Barker: Pass. Even if West only has three diamonds I don't see too many tricks coming from this source. In the sandwich position partner could expect a better hand than this one if I bid. I will sit this one out.
John R Mayne: Pass. I realize I will now be relegated for the home for the aged and cowardly, but sometimes the pass card is the correct one. The K looks like more defense than offense, and can we really make a heart game? We probably don't need to suggest a lead to ourselves and the downside is too much.
Nicoleta Giura: Pass. If they have a misfit, we have a misfit. If their fit is in spades, so be it.
Damo Nair: Pass. Nothing wrong with passing once in a while. I don't have a great heart suit and I have soft values to entire a live auction.
Ronald Lel: Pass. The hearts are not good enough for 2; the K is possibly useless.
David Matthews: Pass. This is not the hand to put your head on the chopping block.
Roger Yandle: Pass. This looks like it might be a misfit and if it is I don't want to get involved. Also my hand has lots of problems so its not as good as the raw HCP suggests.
Dan Baker: Pass. This was an opening hand, but the auction could hardly have downgraded it much faster.
Cor Lof, Alexander Shchennikov: Pass. Too many points wasted to bid safely.
Quite a few people were planning to bid at a later point:
Neil Silverman: Pass. Bid and you might go for a huge number and bidding most likely will lead to partial even if correct. I might easily get another chance to bid.
Tony Treloar: Pass. Gappy suit and wasted values... I think I'll sit this round out and see what happens
Peter Robinson: Pass. This hand is more suited to either reopening if they stay low or defending if they go high.
Alex Kemeny: Pass. Where is our side going on this deal? Likely nowhere. Too much risk for 2. If 1NT comes back to me, I can consider 2 then.
Ig Nieuwenhuis: Pass. Until they limit their hands this one does not have enough offensive strength to act, though 2 is tempting to indicate a lead.
The readers voted in favour of 2, but again only by a slight margin. Oddly, very few of the 2 bidders included a comment with their bid, so we'll have to rely on the expert panel to explain this choice:
Sartaj Hans: 2. I used to be afraid of making such bids until I observed the likes of Whibley, Edgtton, Hung and Gill who do it all the time and get away with it all the time.
Patrick Huang: 2. It's now or never. Partner could have xxx-Kxxx-Kx-Kxxx or the like to make 4 a good bet. If I pass now it could come back to me in 2 or 3. I will then be forced to bid at an uncomfortable level.
Marc Smith: 2. Of course, it could go badly wrong, but this looks like the normal action.
Fraser Rew: 2. Doesn't feel great, but passing feels worse.
Fraser was in the East seat at my table, but doesn't mention whether he recognises the hand. His team went on to easily win the repechage and eventually reach the GNOT final, losing to the Adelaide team featuring the in-form Phil Markey on a long winning streak.
The full deal, from the GNOT qualifying:
| |||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Another one from the GNOT, and this one is from my teammates' table. When South asked me what I would have bid on the fourth round of the auction, I had trouble answering, because I wasn't exactly on board with the earlier rounds, so I decided to offer this one as a two-parter: (a) what should South bid now, and (b) should South have bid earlier?
The panellists and readers both agreed that the failure to bid 2 over 2 was how we got into trouble:
Gareth Birdsall: 2. I presume the reason I didn't overcall 2 at green is because I thought I was too strong - in which case I should clarify by bidding 2 on the second round. But actually I think you're missing an option - bid 2 on first round.
Alexander Cook: 2. I passed on the previous two rounds?
Ronald Lokers: 2. Now we're in trouble, we can only pass and hope for the best.
Alex Kemeny: 2. Why did I not bid 2 last round?
Nicoleta Giura: 2. I bid 3, under protest.
Robert Black: 2. Now bid 3.
Cor Lof: 2. Partner must be informed that I have six-card suit at a proper level.
Stephen Bartos: 2. Showing the six-card suit earlier in the auction would have been more helpful for partner.
John R Mayne: 2. This should be fun to score. I think competition should be based on shape and I'd want to get the sixth spade out early despite the lack of extra strength; this allows partner to make better decisions. Now that we're here, partner sounds 1-4-2-6 or so – if you want to bid 3 now, that's a reason to bid 2 earlier. If I were confident we were on the same wavelength, I'd try 4 now which is likely ending the auction.
Yes, I make my own life difficult by coming up with these two-part problems that are impossible to score. In practice, I usually just give 100 points to all reasonable options when I run a problem like this.
The next group selected the option "would have bid 3 immediately over 3", but some of them also objected to the pass over 2:
Peter Vlas: 3. Frankly I would have bid 2 at the first opportunity. But after the second double I would have bid it. I don't have a defensive hand.
Peter Barker: 3. I don't know whether to compound my earlier error by passing or bidding 4s. I would go to the latter. 3s might get the points at the table but my hand after the previous 2 passes is much stronger than my bid implies.
David Johnson: 3. on the principle that the weakest call you can make is rebidding your suit, this hand was a bit too strong to bid 2 on the 2nd round, but given that, on the 3rd round it is now considered 'weak'.
Dan Baker: 3. We already showed that we didn't think much of our hand by passing 2. Passing 3 suggests it's beyond trash, and the sixth spade and well-positioned diamond honor make this hand only moderately trashy.
In the absence of an earlier 2 bid, there were a decent number of people who felt that the last double should be penalty interest.
Larry Cohen: Pass. The third double means business.
Mike Lawrence: Pass. North's doubles do not show anything that I can latch onto. I have poor spades and a generally lousy hand. North could have one spade. Perhaps two. He does not have three. I can't see a bid here other than 3 at the end. But partner, having shown clubs and had not bid 2 on his next bid suggesting I don't need to bid 3 now.
Tania Black: Pass. Is partner's third double for penalties, perhaps?
Damo Nair: Pass. North, at best has a doubleton spade & probably doesn't have five hearts. North makes three doubles, I think he wants to get them.
Martyn Rew: Pass. If partner has enough tricks to take this hand to a successful contract, then 3 is going down.
Neil Silverman: Pass. I lead the 10.
Ig Nieuwenhuis: Pass. I'll chance it. With 2.5 tricks and a possible ruff; especially since partner is promising values and diamonds.
Peter Robinson: Pass. Partner reckons he has a good hand, and mine's not bad either. Since he can't even show belated interest in spades, maybe we can beat this.
Emil Battista: Pass. Why not bid 2 over 2 previous round? Better still, why not bid 2 over 1? Gets message across in one bid.
Tony Treloar: 2. Even though this double looks penalty I can't sit it.
I enjoyed the fact that those comments included at least one person who thought the double was for takeout, and passed it anyway, and another person who thought the double was penalty, and pulled it anyway.
For those who chose to simply accept the problem that we've made for ourselves and take out the double, there was no clear consensus:
Ronald Lel: 3. North has shown Clubs and Hearts with the second and the third double. He should know I have only three hearts. 3 is flexible and allows a 3 bid, over which I will bid 3NT to show the diamond stopper.
Roger Yandle: 3. It looks like pard has got hearts & clubs and probably only 1/2 spades. But they must have some values. I'm tempted to pass hoping to get 2/3 defensive tricks (S/H/D) but the downside of that is too great.
Barbara Whitmee: 3. I won't leave in 3 doubled, so now bid 3.
Hans van Vooren: 3. Passing is a big gamble I'm not willing to take: East has seen the vulnerability, too. If partner just wants to know about a diamond stopper, he could have bid 3 in the previous round. With hindsight, it's easy to say that bidding 2 over 2 would have worked better, but passing was reasonable at the time.
Alexander Shchennikov: 3. Too expensive for pass if the contract will done. Parnter have probabbly 2416 and about 12ps with a lot of controls, so their fit 6-4 is a risk.
Fraser Rew: 4. I'm fine with passing on the 2nd and 3rd rounds. I'm balanced, it's a misfit, and the suit is pretty moth-eaten. As for what I bid now, partner could have bid 3 over 2 if all she needed was a diamond stopper, so I try to find our best fit. 3 is pretty cute, but could still lead to a 4-3 fit instead of a 6-2 fit.
David Matthews: 4. Yes I should have bid earlier. I cannot bid less than game now.
The full deal, from the GNOT qualifying:
| |||||||||||
With eight tables in play at this point, there were EW pairs in 2, 3, 4 and 5, all making 11 tricks. In the given auction, South bid 3 for -300. One table scored -100 in 4.
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
The third and final problem from our GNOT match, and this one was mine. I faced this auction in a first-time partnership (my regular partner was having a match off after discovering that he is even more unsuited to morning sessions than I am). I chose a quick and confident 2 (making +110), and later discovered that most of the quarter-final field had made the same choice. Not so with the expert panel, only three of whom agreed with us:
Michael Ware: 2. I have gone off the problem setter!
Phil Gue: 2. Pass seems wrong and 2 may be best, but I think 2 has a chance for more tricks than 2, and it's not the end of the auction. 2NT looks very dangerous.
Sophie Ashton: 2. These misfitting hands are really hard. Your best fit could well be in clubs but with your misfitting hands you cannot explore that option. I'm going to make a weird 2 preference bid and if p does anything more (like bid 2, 2NT or even 3, i will jump to game)
Tania Black: 2. "Preference"; and a six card suit goes begging!
John R Mayne: 2. Been there, done that. 2 works better than anything else here; if it's passed out, that's fine and if partner takes action we can probably recover.
Robert Black: 2. False preference. Should have bid my six-card club suit last time.
Cor Lof: 2. Misfit, get out ASAP.
Ig Nieuwenhuis : 2. Misfit. Get out as soon as possible. It's tempting to pass 2, but partner may have 6 hearts
David Matthews: 2. With a huge misfit I will keep it low and await partners next move, if any.
The reader and expert majority voted strongly for rebidding the spades:
Damo Nair, Ronald Lel, Nicoleta Giura: 2. This looks like a six-card suit to me.
Alexander Cook: 2. 2NT seems wrong with a 6-5 shape. My second choice would be 2.
Dan Baker: 2. A part of me wants to pass now before the doubling starts. But hearts is known to be a better (or at least equal) fit than diamonds, and spades may be better still but at least has suit quality going for it even if it isn't.
Peter Robinson: 2. A problem that arises from time to time. I'm happy that my spades are good enough to stand alone.
Roger Yandle: 2. An underbid, but this looks like a giant misfit so I'm going low.
Hans van Vooren: 2. Even if partner has no spades at all, I may make five trump tricks by ruffing red cards, plus whichever tricks partner happens to have. His red-card tricks are unlikely to be ruffed away.
Ronald Lokers: 2. Feels like a big misfit, do the 'cheapest' bid to sign off.
Tony Treloar: 2. Horrible problem but I think this is the most like partscore to make.
Peter Barker: 2. I have one less spade than what my bid implies but have a preference for the weak hand playing, and it is a good trump suit. So I gave that marginal preference over 2.
Peter Vlas: 2. I think the spades are too good to fold noww with 2.
Alex Kemeny: 2. Not a six-card suit but pretty close. Stay low on misfits.
Alexander Shchennikov: 2. Play on 5-1 with AKQxx is preferable play on 5-1 with unknown heart quality. If we try to show the clubs, we can quickly find ourself at four-level without balance and good fit.
Neil Silverman: 2. This might play better in a 5-1 fit then anywhere else.
Lastly, a surprise minority choice from one of the panellists I expected to be in the 2 group:
Sartaj Hans: 2NT. Feels more practical than the wimpy pass and the heroic 2. 2 is not to my taste.
I'm sure Sartaj would have chosen 2 if the hand had been a half a point weaker, but 2NT is a practical attempt to get around the problem. One person at the table tried 2NT, and his partner raised to a failing 3NT.
The full deal, from the GNOT qualifying:
| |||||||||||
Eight tables played the board. Joan Butts bid 3 and Chris Dibley bid 2NT, both pairs eventually failing in 3NT. Peter Buchen bid 2 (one off) and the other five South players bid 2 (four of them scoring +110).
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
The quality of favourable-vulnerability one-level overcalls in Australia has been well-documented in our magazine, so I wasn't expecting many people to bid game here. About a quarter of the readers chose 4:
Larry Cohen: 4. Sorry to bury my partner for overcalling, but how would he know to bid game with as little as A10xxx-xx-xx-Kxxx?
Alex Kemeny: 4. Six losers. Partner should have no worse than an eight-loser hand. So take a shot at game. Can make opposite this nine-loser hand: AJxxx-xx-xxx-Kxx.
Alexander Shchennikov: 4. To bid 1 without king-queen partner should have 12+ pts with some controls, so there is no reason do not play game in game.
David Matthews: 4. I will take a punt here. May be wrong as partner could be weak. However we may be able to get the club suit going.
Carmel Gammal: 4. Partner could have values in clubs.
The reader majority chose either 3 or 3, with not a lot of information about the distinction between those two bids:
Ig Nieuwenhuis: 3. Even though partner passed last time I think we can make this.
Peter Robinson: 3. I'm not at all sure what strength the cue raise shows, but opposite my one-level non-vul overcalls, this is enough.
Emil Battista: 3. Looks like partner has overcalled with a tram ticket. So, not bidding 4.
Martyn Rew: 3. Partner needs more than the minimum shown for us to be in a spade game.
Neil Silverman: 3. Seems like game is unlikely and will assume 3 bidder has his bid so don't want to risk double at IMPs.
Hans van Vooren: 3. Seems straightforward enough. I'm not willing to defend 3; even with the ugliest of 1 overcalls, 3 is hardly going to be expensive. With a decent 1 overcall, partner can still go on to game. Raising to game myself seems a bit over the top at this vulnerability, and 3 would get the message across nicely.
Peter Vlas: 3. I think this shows the maximum I can do without being game forcing.
I think 3 has to be the maximum, but we don't have any clear guidance on that issue:
Michael Ware: 3. So long as 2 guaranteed spade support, this is last train game-try.
Gareth Birdsall: 3. I don't play double as takeout once we have found a fit. 3 shows an invite.
Roger Yandle: 3. one last try before I give up. I'm assuming double would be penalties.
Dan Baker: 3. Partner might have a trashy enough overcall that game is poor. But I want partner to go with anything extra.
Peter Barker: 3. The question is how good is a non vul overcall at the one level. I would have bid 4 had we been vul even with partner's pass. I originally vacillated between 3s and 4s. I have come up with a bid which probably won't score well and could go wrong at the table. I hope that 3 will help partner decide how far we go in spades.
Fraser Rew: 3. I've got enough for one more go. This should be a last train bid, given the lack of space. Double is for penalties, and anyone who tries it deserves to be -670.
Some harsh words about the double there, from one of my regular partners. Normally for a hand like this I'd do a computer simulation, but it's been a busy month for me, so I'll let that responsibility fall to someone else.
It would be nice to have another diamond, but the chance of them making 3 is low and the upside is quite high, especially if one or both of us has only an eight-card fit. My instinct is that if 670 is a possibility, then I should be able to produce a convincing argument why Fraser should have pulled my double.
Patrick Huang: Dbl. To me this is an action double rather than a strict penalty double.
Sartaj Hans: Dbl. Shows a balanced strong notrump, about what I have. Or at least that's what I'll tell partner when partner passes and they make.
Marc Smith: Dbl. This seems fairly obvious - I've shown three-card spade support, and now I show extra values.
Tony Treloar: Dbl. I'm hoping that partner sees this as a good cue raise with defensive values. 3 seems understated and partner might not rate the hand as good enough with poor trumps. 4 seems too far across from many 1 overcalls which may be made at these colours.
Damo Nair: Dbl. If 2 is a cue raise I surely have a double here with extras.
John R Mayne: Dbl. This double is values, three spades, and two or three diamonds, and I'm glad if partner passes it out. Partner will pull much of the time, and we'll head to our game - I'm not stopping short. I do think this is the book bid (as I join 8% of the readers and 0 panelists and take my 30 points.)
I actually don't remember where I found this problem, but I have a vague memory that it was in Boye's Bridge i Norge magazine, which I read regularly to prepare for a planned trip to Norway in 2026.
Congratulations to this year's Readers' Race winners, Alexander Cook from Sydney and Paul Sontag from Canada. Both players have featured regularly at the top end of our leaderboard for many years.
Thanks again for being a part of our forum. The February questions are available here, and the December magazine should have arrived by the time you read this.
If you aren't already a subscriber to Australian Bridge Magazine, please consider giving us a go. Our subscriptions have taken a huge hit over the COVID period, with many long-time readers giving up the game entirely. If you are an Australian participant in this column, and not an existing subscriber, we are now offering a one-off six-month trial of the magazine (three issues), for the discounted price of $30. All of the people who have taken up the offer so far have gone on to renew their subscriptions. If you're on the fence, please know that the magazine could really use your support. SUBSCRIBE HERE.
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
