Bridge

[jack]

Psyching is hilarious. My hand is: CAKQxxxxxx D7 HKx SAx.

(For those non-bridge players reading along at home, I'll add explanations in italics.

A, K, Q, J and T represent Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Ten; numerals represent numbers, and 'x' represents a small card where it's unlikely to matter which. C=Clubs, etc.

This is a big hand, since it's very probably going to win nine or ten tricks if clubs are trumps. There are only five clubs not in this hand, so very probably if this hand plays the highest clubs first, someone will have to follow suit with the J and T, and then all those 'x's win tricks.

Plus the SA will win a trick, and the heart K will win a trick if (a) I could win a trick in my partner's hand and (b) my right-hand opponent has the heart A. If so, I win a trick in partner's hand and play a heart from that hand: if right-hand opponent plays the ace, I play the small heart, and then win whatever card he plays next, and then win with the heart K, the highest heart left; if right hand opponent doesn't play the ace, I play the king and win.)

I have 9.5 tricks. The only cards I care about are, does partner have the DA, HA or SK? One means we can make five (there are thirteen tricks, and you have to win more than half, thus "five" means "six+five", ie. eleven, ie. all but two. In club, you need to win five for it to be worthwhile; six and seven are much better) clubs. If he has any honour cards at all we might well make five clubs anyway.

(For instance, if he had Diamond ace and king I can lead my diamond, winning his ace, playing his queen and discarding my spade. Then the only cards I lose are the small heart, and the king of hearts if the ace is held by left-hand opponent)

Guess what partner does? Partner has almost no honour cards and no long suits, and psyches bidding one spade.

(A psych is a lie, which is an entirely legal risk. He bids one spade, and then if opponents have a lot of spades they could be successful by making spades trumps, but neither of them wants to because they think my partner has many. It's risky because it's misleading to me too.)

However, in some ways, that's nearly perfect for me. I can bid 4NT, (which by convention doesn't mean No Trumps, but is a way of asking partner how many of the aces and the king of his suit he has.) That's exactly what I know.

However, this is temporarily hilarious to partner and opponents. As soon as as soon as they guess he didn't really have spades, they think my large bids are doomed (They assume I have a lot of spades too, which is only really useful if he really does have four or more spades). In fact, I couldn't care less about his spades, (he probably only has four or five, and I am going to bid clubs as soon as I find out what honour cards he has).

In fact, left-hand opponent has a very nice hand too and bids, and partner, having much less than he'd already said passes. (In fact, we decided we ought to play R0P1 convention, and that would show one ace/SK. But it doesn't make any difference as I need two.) Fortunately he really was really, really weak, as if he'd had one ace and one king, I would probably have wanted him to bid, but he wouldn't have known that, as he would think I wanted him to have all the cards he'd promised, whereas in fact, I didn't care, I just wanted those two :)

Right-hand opponent ends up in five diamonds, and they might have has slam on but in fact, they don't (misled by all of the crazy shit going on, maybe, although likely it didn't make any difference). This hand doubles, and not even five diamonds quite works.

(I can't remember if five clubs would have made. Partner has heart Q and J but nothing else, so not if opponents make all the right plays, but I think it was possible they don't.)

The question

The question is, is there anything else this hand could do in the bidding? It sounds like if there's no spade bid, it should try to find out if there's 6-8 honour card points opposite, and if not give up, and if so assume five clubs is ok, and then try to ask about aces, and bid 5C with none, 6C with one, and 7C with two. But I'm not at all sure, almost anything could be the right answer.

ETA: Oh, hey. Apparently you can lj-cut a close-italic tag. Hm.

Comments

[simont]

Plus the SA will win a trick

At that point, even with your helpful italic explanations, I lost the thread. How do you know the ace of spades will win a trick, if clubs are trumps? Is it not possible that one of the defenders will be void in spades and discard a club triumphantly on your SA?

Or is the point that this is a sufficiently small risk that analysis at this stage of the game can get away in the long run without taking it into account?

[arkannath.livejournal.com]

On the first round of spades, you play the SA. It is possible that one of the opponents starts with a void, but that means the remaining 11 spades are split between two hands. A priori (and on most deals a posteriori) this is unlikely^n.

[emperor]

Tricky - your hand is too strong for a pre-emptive 3C open (you've got 16 high-card points, as well as the killer suit). In the absence of the mis-bid 1S from partner, I think you open strongly, but go quiet once it becomes apparant partner has f-all.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I had a quick experiment with an online random dealer, and it looks like very few hands don't have a good chance at 5C, and very few hands make the grand slam. And partner will almost certainly respond with any hand that makes 5C.

So I can risk opening at the one level, and if partner responds at all, expect 5C and ask about aces to see if there may be a slam. (And if opponents bid, can pre-empt then in 5C to stop them finding any major suit game.)

Unfortunately, we normally play roman key card blackwood, which would tell me about the king of his suit, which I don't care about now. So I'd have to try cue bidding, and then I'd never find out about the ace in the suit he bid. So maybe it doesn't work.

My other concern was that if partner has a diamond stop but nothing else, we should actually play 3NT. But the random deals show that quite unlikely.

So in fact, it looks like one of those awkward hands where you feel it ought to be possible to find out for certain what to do, but in the end, you have to make a best guess and move on.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Sorry, yes, what arkannath said. This is partly why I even tried to explain things to non-bridge-players, because I thought it might be interesting.

In fact, when you're estimating what level to bid at, you generally gloss over risks larger than that (eg. that if you have eight trumps, then the trumps are 3-2 or maybe 4-1 in opponent's hands). Because (a) you are rewarded for reaching a certain level (3NT, 4S, 4H, 5C, 5D or 6 or 7 anything), so it's worth taking a small (or indeed large) gamble to reach that and (b) there are lots of other details you can't predict for sure, many of which might go in your favour.

(For instance, even if left-hand opponent has six spades and right-hand opponent has none and >=1 club, left hand opponent might guess wrong and lead something else instead. And then I can win all my clubs until no-one else has any left.)

Does that make more sense?

[liv]

This is a lovely description and really conveys the shenanigans going on in this game. 5C is going to be very dodgy; I think you're better off defending a doubled game. I think if you didn't get the psych to respond to, you could maybe go straight in with 4C, though it depends on your conventions (and whether I've remembered correctly when you're supposed to do that). It's weird to have a hand that is unbeatable if partner has anything at all, but not quite strong enough if it's genuinely unsupported!

But, um, on the gratuitous pedantry front: your hand has 14 cards!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

This is a lovely description and really conveys the shenanigans going on in this game.

Oh, thank you! Normally when I try to explain things like this, I just get a big pile of words and it turns out I was explaining at the wrong level and most people don't get anything from it at all.

For no particular reason, I find it very sweet that you choose to respond to this post tonight, I'm glad :)

5C is going to be very dodgy; I think you're better off defending a doubled game. I think if you didn't get the psych to respond to, you could maybe go straight in with 4C, though it depends on your conventions (and whether I've remembered correctly when you're supposed to do that).

Agreed, dodgy. I was certainly happy to defend 5Dx. But I'm not sure if I want to defend 4S or 4H or not, if they're bid; if I have 16pts they may or may not make.

4C is a possibility, but I'm not quite convinced. I'm used to a system where an opening pre-empt bid has 2-3 tricks less than it contracts to make, in which case this hand is too strong.

By considering natural actions rather than conventions, I thought of another possibility. Open 1C, and if partner responds, rebid 4C. (FWIW, I'm used to 1C-p-1S-p-3C showing a strong opening hand and a six card suit.) That seems to convey something like this. You're plainly ruling out the possibility of any other suit but clubs, and you wouldn't have bid so high unless you were inviting him to raise to 5C. And 5C definitely needs several aces, or you lose several tricks at once. You really should have two aces for that raise. It should be clear you have very few cards in the other suits, so only A and AK are likely to be useful to him. So he should raise to 5C with one ace and something else, and can probably raise to six with A and AK. Which is more or less what you want.

Hm, I'm not sure, is that a plausible story?

But, um, on the gratuitous pedantry front: your hand has 14 cards!

Whoops. It's just a typo, but I really should have got that right, the length really does matter :) (Edited: unsurprisingly, I got the club 'x's wrong. I was going to write "AKQ xxx xx" but I wasn't sure if that was clearer.)