Recap Of 4/6/2015 28 Board IMP Individual
Only 3 double digit swings this time. Two red games bid/not bid and one slam bid/not bid. All swings this time were in bidding judgment – this seems to be my usual conclusion as I review the results.
‘Everyone’ knows ‘bid red games’ – but the IMP odds really only make it advisable when you are down only 1 if the contract fails and the likelihood of making is 38% or better. With 25 HCP and stoppers in every suit, 3NT seems reasonable – certainly can’t fault the bidding. But with both hands balanced, where do you get tricks? I’m not exactly certain how to compute the likelihood of 9 tricks, given the NS hands with EW passing throughout.
If clubs are 4-4, you still figure to lose 3 club tricks plus a heart and one or more spades. On a different layout, you might get a heart lead and lose 3 hearts a spade and a club. But, when a club is led in this layout and the ♣AQ are in the slot, and spades are 3-3, and you guess the spade layout, 3+0+4+2 gets you to 9 tricks before the bad guys get 5. This game doesn’t seem to clear the 38% threshold, but…it made. So, lose 10 IMPs.
Well, what can I say. I don’t like partner’s “1NT forcing” and I would like to blame this disaster on him…but I can’t. What can he have? Either some hand with 3 card support that he considered a limit raise (but then my club bid improved his hand) or else he had some game hand that decided to bid go through 1NT anyway. If the former, the ♣KQ and ♠Q are not enough to bid like that, and even if that was all he had, the 5 level is rather safe. I can’t come up with any reason why I failed to apply RKCB other than I was asleep at the switch. Sorry partner/teammates. 13 IMPs away for missing this cold slam.
Game for NS didn’t have to work as well as it did (5♦ 4♠ and 3NT are all reasonable).
In 5♦ – cross ruff your way to 11 tricks, perhaps trying a few finesses along the way
In 4♠ – draw trump and either lose 1 trump and 2 diamonds or 2 trump (depending on how the opponents cards are divided) and then guess the diamonds for one loser
In 3NT (find 9 tricks somewhere – rather easy when 3 kings are all onside)
I don’t know which game is superior, all provide reasonable shots at game, and all make game. Do they clear the previously mentioned 38% hurdle for a red game? I think so, but hard to compute.
There can’t be much to recommend my 1♥ bid other than it was my turn to bid. EW never bid at the other table and it is hard to say how/why my bidding got my opponents to game and/or how no EW bidding kept my teammates out of any game at the other table. In any case, our opponents got to game, our teammates did not, lose 10 IMPs.
In summary, all 3 swings had nothing special to the play, lead or defense – bidding was everything.
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Bridge-related
Considering #7:
I like to distinguish between non-slammish game-going hands by making the leaps Fast Arrival picture bids. North’s hand has too much slam potential to go through forcing NT, where you are pretty much locked in to bidding game on the second round. I’d bid 2c over 1s – an alertable GF bid this is either natural or balanced (2 of a red suit would be 5+-c). This is the way to show a GF hand w 3-c support, which you show on the next round of bidding. Now opener knows for sure you have 3-c support and you’ve preserved room for exploration for the slam. Partnerships then should discuss opener’s second bid. I think 2M is 6-c (or 5-c that will play opposite xx) and 2NT is intentional. This leaves 2d as sometimes being 3-c. Notice that with both the 2c and 2d bids you have preserved maximum space. (This all fits fairly well w playing 1M-1NT as semi-forcing.)
#7 Looking at N’s hand, your KNOW you want to be in a spade game after the opening bid, especially playing IMPs. What better way to show your hand than to make a reasonable 2/1 bid and then fast arrive. I see nothing wrong with a 2D response, rather than keeping partner in the dark. Sure Bob COULD have “come to the table” but why make life difficult?
With others, I think North on #7 had a 2D response. Change the CQJ to the Cxx and I would agree with the 1NT response. Might still make 6S even opposite xx, but I could live with that miss. After start of 1S-2D; 3C (extra value high reverse)-3S, reaching 6 is much easier.
I would also prefer different auctions for responder on #28. Prefer second round diamond jumps by responder.