(A) Red vs. white
J83 K4 AJ4 AQT86
(3H) P (P) ?
(B) Red vs. white
none KQJT4 J9862 T42
?
Am I the only one in the world who would think of 2H here? How about at other colors?
(C) White vs. red
AKJ73 QT98763 9 none
1H (P) 1N [forcing] (P) ?
Or would you have opened 1S? Or passed?
(D) All white
2 AKJ754 Q65 A85
(1D) X (3D) [weak] ?
(E) All white
K985 543 62 AJ42
(1S) 2D (P) ?
Assuming you pass here, the auction goes
(1S) 2D (P) P
(2H) X [1] (P) ?
[1]: Takeout.
(F) All white
KJ9632 5 KJT54 8
You pick this up first in hand. Do you open? If not, what do you need to add to the hand to make it worth a one-bid?
Posts
4 comments:
(A) I overcalled 3NT. Double may be better, but I thought if we were ever getting to 3N, it had to be here. LHO (the preempter) led the deuce of spades and pard laid down:
AQT95 T3 92 K742
I played a low spade from the table, but righty won the king. Curtains! But no-- RHO cashed the HA and played another one. Making 5. LHO hld 7642 QJ98765 Q7 none.
(B) I decided against the weak two, but at any other colors I would've been in there. Pard held:
KQJ87654 5 QT4 Q
The auction went
P (1C) 3S (4S);
P (5C) [all pass]
We got two hearts and a spade for a great score, as most other pairs were going very minus in 4S doubled. Good decision on Paul's part to take it easy.
(C) Paul held this hand and forced to game, showing four spades and seven hearts rather than going with the other systemic option of showing five spades and six hearts. Quite reasonable, but not the way I would've done it... but I certainly agree with forcing to game. His LHO held AKJx of hearts, but he had no side losers and kept trump losers to three.
(D) Paul held this hand as well. It's very close to a cuebid... close enough that with this hand, I'd just jump to 4H but if the majors were switched, I'd cuebid, hoping partner would bid 4H so I could correct to 4S. Paul jumped to 4H and my hand was:
KJ7 QT863 2 KQ2
Not much of a double, I know.
(E) I passed pard's 2D, but when 2HX came back to me, I bid 2S to show some life and something in the spade suit. Lefty wasn't done, though... he was in there with 3S. This was passed around to me, and I had an easy pound. Double-dummy, this can be set three, but the defense was hard to find. We settled for the sure down one.
(F) Paul and I play that hands with lots of playing strength can open at the one-level with as few as 8 HCP (especially with long spades), so this was a no-brainer, but I would open this 1S with most other partners, too.
(A) Double
3n (the alternative) is doubly flawed (poor hand, poor stopper). Pass is either overthinking or underthinking, not sure which.
(B) 2h
Pressure is the key to winning this game.
(C) 2s
I've never heard "7-5, be conservative"
(D) 4d
Hardest problem in the set. 6 could make opposite a minimum, or 5 could go down. I sure wish I had a forcing way to bid hearts.
(E) pass
See my answer to (B). I'm not going to hang partner here.
(E2) 2
Showing a spade piece and a decent hand. If partner bids 2n I'll bid 3c. If partner bids 3c I'll raise, and if partner bids 3d I'll just pass since clubs is just a 4-4 fit.
(F) 3s
Change either jack to a queen and it's a 1-bid.
(A) I double here. I feel like anything pard can bid next will be the right place for us to play. 3N is too much of a gamble.
(B) I bid 2H every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Even if we don't buy the contract, the opps aren't going to play me for a hand like this, so I bet we get at least one gimme trick on defense.
(C) 2S. Playing strength more than makes up for lack of HCP. If pard tries to sign off in 3N, we'll play 4H.
(D) This is hard, because I want to force to game and also not sign off. Any forcing bid I can make here implies spades, and pard rates to have better spades than hearts. So my choices are 4H or...5H? Since 4H can be xx AKJx Qxx xxxx, and I'm much, much better than that, I'm going to lay it out there with 5H and hope pard knows what I'm trying to tell him.
(E) Not interested. Pass.
(E1) 2S, showing I've got some stuff. If pard bids 3C, I'll raise, but over 2N I'm probably not going anywhere.
(F) This hand has both a lot of playing strength and a lot of holes. Place the AQ's over me and I'm screwed. Pass, await further developments. I'd need more solidity in at least one of those suits to really want to open this.
(A) 3NT. How else will you get there?
(B) pass. Maybe partner will bid and then I'll know what to do. So I'm an incurable optimist.
(C) 2S. Is this a trick question?
(D) 4N. I'll bid 6H if he shows me a bullet. Why so pessimistic? Even with that rag 5H is cold...
(E1) pass. Where would I go with this?
(E2) 3C. Again, where would we be going? 3NT? Seems unlikely. So I'll have a little more than pard expects... makes for nice change. ;-)
(F) pass. See (B)
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