[Zelandakh]

The penultimate round is against a married couple who are somewhat demonstrative at the table. In fact, the lady often does more talking during the hands than afterwards. Before the auction starts, the gentleman sitting East waits a good 20-30 seconds trying to make eye contact with his wife before placing the green card. She in turn goes into a long discussion with herself over 2NT with the word "preempted" easily audible. All of this is obviously AI to you and your partner; and you also know that your partner will sometimes step out in such situations. So the question on this hand is twofold - what call would you make now, and would it be the same without the extraneous information?

---

This is the last hand from this set. I will go back and post the stories and results for all of them at a later time.

[CamHenry]

I think I'm bidding 4♣. It's likely got play, but there's also the chance they'll put a toe over the line in 4♥, at which point I'm hoping for +200 against partscore or +500/800 against game. It gives them more opportunities to go wrong, and pairs who generate this much UI either shamelessly use it (and pickle themselves, e.g. "I knew you had extras for your initial pass because it was so slow") or try hard to be ethical (and pickle themselves, e.g. "your hesitation suggested defensive values so I was ethically obliged to bid on, and it's all your fault").

Note that the "all your fault" clause applies to every auction in this type of partnership

[32519]

For me it's a close call between 4♣ and 5♣. Any positive score is better than a negative score, so I will probably bid 4♣ and not 5.

[Codo]

Is there anybody else out there to whom the symbols in the poll looks more like ♠ then ♣?

[Zelandakh]

Codo, on 2013-May-15, 05:30, said:

Is there anybody else out there to whom the symbols in the poll looks more like ♠ then ♣?

Now I put them in both symbols and words. Should I do that for the other threads too?

[Fluffy]

When will they make colored spades and clubs!

anyway, back to this hand, partner should not be insane, and we should easilly mae 5♣ perhaps more. I bid 5♣ and double 5♥ later

[PhilKing]

I voted 5♣, but it's logical to smack 3♥. If the husband had a weak two available, he likely has exactly five hearts, so partner is probably 5215. It's going to be a real bloodbath if the 1♦ opener has stretched with some sort of fishy 3442 shape, which her comment arguably indicates. It's 1100 opposite partner's ♠Kxxxx ♥xx ♦x ♣Kxxxx (we take 3 diamonds, 3 spades and 2 clubs).

If the hand isn't exactly as envisaged, we will usually pick up at least 200, which rates to score very well even if 5♣ is making, seeing as virtually no one is bidding it. Besides, against this pair, it will be far more entertaining taking a penalty than bidding and making 5♣.

Put me down for Double!

[Zelandakh]

Fluffy, on 2013-May-15, 09:00, said:

anyway, back to this hand, partner should not be insane

Sadly, your partner here is me so insane is a fairly good description. In fact, partner has really gone out on a limb here with ♠QT97 /♥J852 /♦3 /♣9542. My only excuse for committing this monstrosity is that I was influenced by the EI flying around and worried that 1NT might not be recognised as conventional. My partner bid a mere 4♣ but still went 4 down (should be -3 but I can understand it after seeing this dummy). I thought this this might still be a good score but no game their way makes, so the result was 4/14. The big winner would have been Phil's double, which goes for 500 and a clear top.

As for the EI, East did indeed have a maximum pass, a balanced 11 count, while West's musings were based on a balanced 13 count with 3 card support. We could have called them on it of course but this is club bridge so I went for the quiet life. I doubt they even realise that anything was wrong here.

[gwnn]

Thanks for the interesting post (I would never have considered x) but could you stop with with these font size jokes, Phil?

[Codo]

I doubt that you had chosen many of these actions against serious opps, had you?

So, why do you choose them at the club? Is this fun? Or does it teach you something?

Or do you think that this will improve your score?

Just to emphasize it: These questions are simply meant as questions, in no way as an insult or anything like that... I just do not understand your approach to a club game.

[32519]

Codo has a good point here. Your advice in these forums is usually sensible. So why do you adopt a style of play that gets you a string of miserable results?

[PhilKing]

gwnn, on 2013-May-16, 02:59, said:

Thanks for the interesting post (I would never have considered x) but could you stop with with these font size jokes, Phil?

Sorry - I just miss Lurpoa ♥.

[Zelandakh]

These are not so easy questions to answer. I doubt I would have made the 3♥ WJO or the 2NT overcall against good opps; but 2♠ and 4♥ definitely. Playing at the club is for fun (why else) but if I can help us to win then I do. The 2NT was in the penultimate round, by which time I knew we were not going to win. It was a bad choice and I am happy to admit this. The 3♥ overcall was playing a hunch in the first round.

When I was younger, my first bridge partner introduced me to a less conservative style of bridge and making these calls has certainly taught me a lot. I hope it also teaches my partner something too, that you can afford to bid more aggressively than you learn at the beginning. You are right though - I go too far sometimes in this regard and that is not helpful. I can say that bidding aggressively has impoved our score overall, although we do significantly better when both of us are simply (normal) aggressive rather than most of it coming from my side. That is a partnership thing; we had not played for some time together and I knew that it would be on me to take the initiative. It is difficult to do that when the hands do not match.

Also, and it should not be relevant but may have been, I was trying out a new way of counting the hand for the first time and it did not go as well as I had hoped. This is a real bugbear of mine and absolutely on the top of my list of bridge issues to sort out. Unfortunately it will probably detract from my play a little bit while I get on top of it. Really, for far too long I have been interested primarily in the theory of bridge and not paid enough attention to playing better.

As for a string of miserable results, I obviously picked these hands out as being ones where either a strange decision had a noticeable positive effect (#1) or one of us made a decision that did not work out. There were other hands where things went better:

down 3 for 14/14 MPs

---

or

down 1 for 12/14 MPs

---

to give a couple. Of the hands I did give, only 1 and 6 were really crazy. 2 was the normal action that went wrong; 3 was simply bad play; 4 was a normal action and a tough judgement call; and 5 was also the normal action. I do not want to give the impression that we were only playing Micky Mouse bridge. The final position was 5th where we were +3 tricks over par. If I had not had the brain fart (passing partner's forcing bid), had made the 3♠ contract (#3) and had not made the stupid 2NT (#6) then we would probably have been first. It is not easy to win a pairs contest through the auction playing only a simple system (no cue bids, etc) so we are doing some things right. This session was on me though. A little public humiliation is good for the soul sometimes - next time I will do better!

[broze]

Zelandakh, on 2013-May-16, 05:32, said:

Also, and it should not be relevant but may have been, I was trying out a new way of counting the hand for the first time and it did not go as well as I had hoped.

Intriguing. Care to elaborate? It's always interesting to hear how people go about the fundamentals of the game.

[Zelandakh]

I was trying the normal way (again), something which I have never been able to make work. When I said "first time", I meant the first time in live bridge for many years. The way I usually count a hand is to literally remember each trick and mentally replay the hand when I need the information. It is an area of the game I am looking to improve and I would not recommend anyone else to try it this way.

[the hog]

I don't understand these posts at all. They are a waste of everybody's time. I read this nonsense because I thought it was serious. I agree with Roland.

[helene_t]

misread the auction . i wanna bid 5c. not pass of course

[32519]

PhilKing, on 2013-May-16, 05:28, said:

Sorry - I just miss Lurpoa ♥.

♥What happened to her?♥