(no subject)
Oct. 23rd, 2008 11:50 pmWent along to the university bridge club for the first time in ages. It was quite good. I played with Ben, who's very confident, but was very sleepy this week; but that probably worked out well as I hadn't played in a club for ages, and so without a lot of fussing about details we generally seemed to know what the other was doing as well, and to guess if not the right contract, at least a good guess at it, most of the time.
* Early hand. 2H. 4D. p. 6D. p. p. p. Ben bids 4D, forgetting 2H is weak. I know not, tonight, to expect him to have picture card points tightly restrained to the range I expect, but correctly interpret his hand as weak, with many diamonds, and don't really care how weak. I have five diamonds and five clubs, and four aces and a couple of kings, and the bidding is already in quite a weird situation. My responses are expected to be "it's all doomed" or "can we make game?" but in fact, with this hand, the question is, "can I make slam?". However, we plainly can, and I bid 6D. Which is a really fast auction.
Of course, Ben lays down the hand on the first trick, claiming every trick. (So we could have chanced bidding all seven, although in fact, unsurprisingly, opponent not-on-lead has a void, so could trump clubs if they were led. There were a lot of fun 7 and 8 card suits tonight.) And everyone's bidding ended up in the same place in the end, I was just pleased that we were able to get there with a good guess in a weird situation, which is always very valuable.
* Late hand. Ben opens 3NT, a conventional "gambling 3NT". (If you don't know, the convention is that one doesn't need to open 3NT to show a hand with balanced suit lengths and 25+ high card points, since most people can do so by making an artificial strong bid of 2C, and rebidding 2NT. So 3NT is assigned to mean hands with AKQJxxxx (approx) in one suit, and nothing else. Then partner should know which suit is meant, because it's the one she doesn't have any picture cards in. And (a) if she has enough high cards in the other suits to stop opponents taking the first five tricks in that suit, pass, and play in 3NT, winning whatever suit the opponents play, and then scoring ~eight tricks in the big long suit or (b) if not, bid something else.) In this case, I have Qx in spades, not enough if opponents play A and K and then three more. So I bid 5 diamonds, which is a good place to be. But 3NT happens to be better because partner actually does have Kxx in spades anyway. But I'm mainly excited that I'd never actually seen a gambling 3NT before, and it works as it was supposed to.
* Early hand. 2H. 4D. p. 6D. p. p. p. Ben bids 4D, forgetting 2H is weak. I know not, tonight, to expect him to have picture card points tightly restrained to the range I expect, but correctly interpret his hand as weak, with many diamonds, and don't really care how weak. I have five diamonds and five clubs, and four aces and a couple of kings, and the bidding is already in quite a weird situation. My responses are expected to be "it's all doomed" or "can we make game?" but in fact, with this hand, the question is, "can I make slam?". However, we plainly can, and I bid 6D. Which is a really fast auction.
Of course, Ben lays down the hand on the first trick, claiming every trick. (So we could have chanced bidding all seven, although in fact, unsurprisingly, opponent not-on-lead has a void, so could trump clubs if they were led. There were a lot of fun 7 and 8 card suits tonight.) And everyone's bidding ended up in the same place in the end, I was just pleased that we were able to get there with a good guess in a weird situation, which is always very valuable.
* Late hand. Ben opens 3NT, a conventional "gambling 3NT". (If you don't know, the convention is that one doesn't need to open 3NT to show a hand with balanced suit lengths and 25+ high card points, since most people can do so by making an artificial strong bid of 2C, and rebidding 2NT. So 3NT is assigned to mean hands with AKQJxxxx (approx) in one suit, and nothing else. Then partner should know which suit is meant, because it's the one she doesn't have any picture cards in. And (a) if she has enough high cards in the other suits to stop opponents taking the first five tricks in that suit, pass, and play in 3NT, winning whatever suit the opponents play, and then scoring ~eight tricks in the big long suit or (b) if not, bid something else.) In this case, I have Qx in spades, not enough if opponents play A and K and then three more. So I bid 5 diamonds, which is a good place to be. But 3NT happens to be better because partner actually does have Kxx in spades anyway. But I'm mainly excited that I'd never actually seen a gambling 3NT before, and it works as it was supposed to.