Jennbridge: Prepping for Philly

Jenn and I are going to Philadelphia soon to compete in the World Mixed Pairs, which is part of the world championships being played there starting October 2. For more information about this, here is a link to their website: http://www.worldbridge.org/tourn/Philadelphia.10/Information.htm.

We decided to practice our matchpoint game on-line. Last night, we got into a matchpoint tournament and I picked up this hand:

♠ K75
♥ A92
♦ KJ85
♣ AQ3

Jenn dealt and opened 1 Spade. With a strong hand and 3-card support for a major, our approach is to bid 2 of a new suit to create a game force, then show our support the next round. So I bid 2 Diamonds, she rebid 2 Spades, showing a 6-card suit, and I bid 3 Spades. Jenn now bid 4 Spades, showing a minimum opener. What now?

I decided that with 17 HCP, a known 9-card or longer fit, and such good controls, there was a good chance we had the cards for slam. So I bid 4NT, RKC. She replied 5 Diamonds, showing one or four keycards. I bid 5 Hearts, which asked if she had the spade queen. She now made the nice reply of 6 Hearts, which showed the spade queen and also the heart king. What now?

We were missing a keycard, so we had to play at the 6-level. I decided that it was best to bid 6NT rather than 6 Spades. Jenn had the king of hearts, so I knew we had a second heart stopper. It was matchpoints so No-Trump scores more. But I would have made the same bid at IMPs, since it could have been important to have the lead come up to me with tenaces in both minors and we were missing an ace.

This worked out well, as I looked at:

♠ QJ10943
♥ KT
♦ AQ9
♣ 96

♠ K75
♥ A92
♦ KJ85
♣ AQ3

I got a heart lead, knocked out the ace of spades and scored 12 easy tricks. We got over 94% of the matchpoints. Note that 6 Spades will go down if they lead a club and the king is offside (it was).

Good luck!

Jennbridge: Searching for Matchpoints

Jenn and I were trying to make up some ground recently in the Great American Open Pairs when I picked this up in third seat, our side vulnerable:

♠ AK3
♥ 1087642
♦ AQ9
♣ 10

Jenn dealt and opened 1 Club. I bid 1 Heart and she rebid 2 Diamonds, a reverse. This is a nice hand, surely worth at least game and maybe slam, with uncertain direction. I didn't like my heart suit, so I made a forcing bid of 2 Spades. We hadn't discussed just what this meant after a reverse. We had agreed that anything but 2NT would be game forcing, and that the fourth suit was an artificial game force when needed, so it wasn't clear just what this meant. Jenn now rebid 3 Clubs. I tried 3NT (Hamman's Rule), but Jenn removed this to 4 Clubs. What now?

I considered what Jenn had for this sequence of bids. She didn't have much in diamonds, couldn't support hearts and didn't like no-trump. I decided that she had to have 7 or 8 solid clubs to have enough for a reverse, so I pictured her hand something like void/x/KJxx/AKQxxxxx. One thing was certain: she had to have a good hand to remove 3NT. So I decided to bid 6 Clubs. I was rewarded when the opponents led a spade, and she held:

♠ Q
♥ Q
♦ KJ42
♣AKQJ943

♠ AK3
♥ 1087642
♦ AQ9
♣ 10
She made 7 easily by pitching her losing heart on my spades. We got 32.5 out of 38 matchpoints.

Good luck!

Jennbridge: A Leap of Faith

By Bob Klein:  This hand is another in a series demonstrating how it pays to bid aggressively with distributional 2-suiters. In an on-line IMP match, I dealt, with both vulnerable:

♠  void
♥  J43
♦  AJT86
♣  KT875

I wouldn't always open this hand, but I felt feisty and liked my intermediate spots, so I bid 1 Diamond.  Partner bid 1 Spade, I rebid 2 Clubs, he rebid 2 Hearts (artificial game force), and I had an easy rebid of 3 Clubs.  Partner now leaped to 6 Clubs!  I passed, and LHO doubled.  Now I wasn't so happy that I opened the bidding. He led the king of hearts, and I looked at:

 ♠  K6432
♥  A96
♦  void
♣  AJ963

♠   void
♥   J43
♦  AJT86
♣  KT875

Here I was in slam with 21 combined HCP, not all of them pulling their weight.  Partner sure believed in 5-5, come alive!

How was I to find 12 tricks with this collection?  With only 2 quick tricks outside of trumps, I needed either 10 trump tricks or another trick or two someplace.  Now if this were the Spingold or a serious KO event, I might take 10 minutes or so to try to find the line with the best chance.  But this was on-line bridge, where that would be impossible; the opponents would keep asking me to play, and would be wondering if I fell asleep! 

I decided that 10 club tricks would be hard without the queen, so I looked around for other tricks.  The jack of hearts might be a trick, or the fifth diamond or spade king.  I decided to duck, hoping that either LHO would continue hearts or a possible squeeze might develop.   LHO cooperated by continuing hearts, which I ducked to my jack.  Now I started the cross-ruff by playing ace and another diamond, ruffed a spade, played a heart to the ace, holding my breath. It held. I ruffed another spade and another diamond.  Only low cards appeared.  I ruffed another spade and a fourth round of diamonds.  On the last diamond, the king and queen appeared.  Now I had to guess the ending.  I was now looking at

S  x
C AJ

D J
C KT

If LHO had all 3 clubs, I had to ruff the spade with the king and play a diamond, overruffing him.  This loses if he doesn't have the queen.  Or I could just play the ace and king of clubs, playing for any 2-1 split, and taking the last trick with the jack of diamonds.  I finally decided that LHO didn't need Qxx of clubs for his double, and in fact with that holding he might be reluctant to double for fear of giving away his holding.  With KQT of hearts, Kxxx of diamonds and the ace of spades, that would be enough to double.  If he had the queen of clubs also, he might have competed over 1 Diamond.  I decided to play for 2-1 clubs, the slam came home, and our team was +1540.  At the other table, they got all the way to 3 clubs for +150, so +1390 was worth 17 big IMPs. 

Good luck!