The Challenge. by Jos van Kan. It all began when Carl Hudecek told one time too many what was wrong with the world: 1. 1SA 15-17 (insane, should be 16-18) 2. Five card majors openers (putrid) 3. Bypassing a Diamond suit to respond 1 of a major to a 1C opener (Walsh). I forgot the adjective, but this also could not carry the approval of Carl. (And I'm putting it mildly). ******************************************************************************* CH: The only thing that is worse than a diamond bypass is a heart bypass. :-) ******************************************************************************* 4. Overcalling and preempting on cheese (i.e. suits with a lot of holes), I forgot the adjective. ******************************************************************************* CH: Bidding on cheese? I believe that is the Swiss convention. ******************************************************************************* He was taken up on this by Kathy O'Connell who proposed to play a 64 board IMP match of a 2/1 team versus a team that would play Carl's methods. (good 4 card majors, 16-18 NT, no bypassing nothing, sound preempts and overcalls.) After some minor hassle they agreed to play 48 boards. Fifth chair also benefitted from this match, that generated (the promise of) many donations towards it. Of the 48 boards of the match due to technical difficulties only 24 boards have been recorded. Since almost every board of this exciting match contains one or two interesting points, I plan to cover the first half of the match in four instalments, each about 6 deals of the match. This will fit in nicely with the purpose of thinking bridge: not about system, but what is essential, since in principle both methods are eminently playable. To be sure, 24 boards are no way sufficient to establish the superiority of one set of methods over another, but that won't be the point. We'll just see how the methods will operate and what their weak and strong points are. Interspersed are some comments by the players. I give these comments "as is" even if I do not agree. It is not a matter of who is right or wrong, but what are points to think about. They are marked by lines of asterisks like this: ******************************************************************************* RD: I think; therefore I am. ******************************************************************************* The 5's: Peter Schwartz (farouk), Andre Oberg (andre), Miriam Harris-Botzum (QofH) and Donna Rogall (RogueGal) The 4's: Carl Hudecek (CarlH), Robin Wigdor (rwigdor), Lorne Russel (lorne) and Sandy Barnes (sandybar). IMPs north TN.IMP Board 2 Dlr: East andre sandybar Vul: N-S S QT942 west north east south H KT4 rwigdor andre chudecek farouk D Q85 C 87 pass 2C west east pass 2D pass 3D rwigdor chudecek pass 3S pass 4C QofH RogueGal pass 4D pass 4H S 63 S KJ85 pass 5D pass 6D H Q872 H J9653 (all pass) D J976 D T C 932 C QJ6 south Opening Lead: C6 farouk lorne Result: +6 S A7 Score: 1370, IMPs: 16.00 H A D AK432 C AKT54 west north east south QofH sandybar RogueGal lorne pass 2D pass 3D X 3H pass 3S pass 4C pass 4D pass 5C pass 6D pass 7D Opening Lead: S6. Result: -1 Score: -100, IMPs: -16.00 The 5's delivered a severe blow on the very first board of the match when they stopped in an excellent small slam, where Sandy and Lorne climbed all the way to the grand. Both here and in a couple of other deals it was clear, that they were a pickup partnership. Apparently they were playing strong two's and clearly there was some misunderstanding about how the bidding should continue when Diamonds had been supported. One school of thought says, as soon as a suit has been supported, that's what we are going to play, and the rest of the auction are cue bids for slam. The other says, that when the supported suit is a *minor* then 3NT is still an option, and anything below that is a NT probe. And Lorne and Sandy unfortunately did not belong to the same school. As the hand lies, the grand is not good enough. Basically you need C 3-3 and D 3-2 or a minor miracle (C doubleton in W together with exactly 9x(x), Tx(x) or xx(x)). (About 25%). The Clubs behaved, but the D didn't and that was 16 IMP to the challengers. As Robin Wigdor wryly remarked: the real bad luck was, that 6D *did* make. Just joking of course: 6D was vastly superior to 7D. 5's 16 4's 0 ******************************************************************************* LR: After 2D-3D Sandy and I had completely different interpretations to his calls 3S was 3NT try by him, I took it as the King of spades, 4D was nothing more to say by him, I took it as no more controls forward going, 6D by him was, "well i've got the King of Hearts, give it a go" whereas I took it as I loved your 2nd round club control. I thought he might have something like K????,???,QJxx(x),xx . At any rate, we were on a different wavelength on that one too, as with his hand I would bid 4H over 3H to show the king, then make minimum calls for the rest of the auction. Que Sera Sera. SB: I would make 2 points about the auction: First: My hand was limited to less than 3 Roman controls (ie. I have 1 or 2). Second: even if you misunderstand 3 spades, my 4 diamonds says "I have nothing more to offer". Partner fell into the "modern" trap of expecting it to mean "I have more interest" (slow arrival), therefore he read a lot into my 6D call, where I thought I was "stretching" after his repeated try. In addition, we were warned of a possible bad trump break from the auction, when RogueGal doubled 3D. ******************************************************************************* 1) How do you plan the play in 7D, assuming you do not know the EW hands? S lead. 2) How do you plan the play in 6D? (H lead) IMPs north TN.IMP Board 3 Dlr: South andre/sandybar Vul: E-W S 2 west north east south H AKQJ32 rwigdor andre chudecek farouk D K854 C AQ 2S west east 2NT X (all pass) rwigdor /QofH chudecek/RogueG S AK85 S T74 Opening Lead: HA H 987 H 654 Result: -4 D AQJ D 76 Score: 1100, IMPs: 13.00 C K63 C T9874 south farouk/lorne west north east south S QJ963 QofH sandybar RogueGal lorne H T D T932 pass C J52 1NT 2H pass pass X! XX 3C (all pass) Opening Lead: HT Result: -3 Score: 300, IMPs: -13.00 If you ever heard of the rule of 2 and 3 you may be amazed by this weak 2 of Peter (farouk), the putridness of which stank to high heaven. And shouldn't you have a 6 card? Look at the vulnerability: not vul against vul, also called INvulnerable. Then you can take some leeway. Robin was caught in the crossfire when he, not unreasonably stepped in with a natural 2NT and found his RHO with the rest of the deck. Andre knew exactly what to do and observe that Peter sat for it as he reasoned that he had not promised a single defensive trick with his weak two. Looking at all four hands maybe you feel that Carl Hudecek should have moved to 3C, but such a move often gets you from the frying pan into the fire. North started out with 6 heart tricks, on which declarer threw 2 spades and a club, and south threw one spade and all his diamonds. North exited with his S2. Declarer could not avoid the further loss of two clubs and a D trick and was down 4 doubled. In the replay it looks as though Sandy just didn't believe his eyes. If you have the N hand and you are faced with LHO's strong NT opener you don't get your strength across with an overcall of 2H. So X, followed by some strong action in Hearts, if the necessity arises seems indicated. As it was, Miriam could have sold out to 2H (-170 or so) but not unreasonably thought that maybe they had something in the face of opps silence. They hadn't and it could have been costly, but apparently 3C was hard to double. That could have saved a bundle, though. In the play S led HT which held. He then switched to a D for J and K and he could dump 2 diamonds on partner's Hearts. When declarer now tried to pitch her S loser on the 3rd D S ruffed and declarer had to lose two more trumps for down 3. 5's 29 4's 0 ******************************************************************************* SB: This was a case of bidding what I thought I could make. If I stop off to double 1NT, I will be looking at either 2 Spades or 3 Clubs when the auction comes back to me, and partner will have no clue what my hand is. Game must be remote, unless partner holds xx in hearts and Qx in diamonds, and they don't lead a spade followed by a trump switch. Since I expected no game, I had planned to double a balancing 2 Spades, but was happy to collect a plus against 3 Clubs which I expected to be much better than my expected heart part score. If we had been playing my favorite structure over 1NT, Transfer Overcalls, double would not have been an option (transfers to clubs). The difference is however, that I could have made a game move after the transfer. DR: Although we agreed to play negative doubles after natural overcalls of our 1nt openers, we had not discussed when the 1nt bidder should reopen. My personal opinion is that you should only reopen with a xx, not with 3 or more in their suit. Responder cannot hold a game-going hand (it isn't workable when opener often doesn't reopen) so opener is just sticking their neck out when they have length and reopen because you are much less likely to find values or a fit in responder's hand. This system gives up on some penalty doubles in order to compete more effectively when one hand is short in the overcall suit. ******************************************************************************* IMPs north TN.IMP Board 4 Dlr: West andre/sandy Vul: Both S 72 west north east south H 32 rwigdor andre chudecek farouk D QJT9 C K8652 1H pass 2C pass west east 2H pass 3NT (all pass) rwigdor/QofH chudecek/RogueGal S QT65 S AJ9 Opening Lead: S3 H AKJT98 H 65 Result: +6 D A72 D K83 Score: -690, IMPs: 0.00 C C AJT43 south west north east south farouk/lorne QofH sandybar RogueGal lorne S K84 H Q74 1H pass 2C pass D 654 2H pass 3H pass C Q97 4D pass 4H (all pass) Result + 6 Score: -680, IMPs: 0.00 Both teams missed an opportunity on this deal which offers quite a reasonable play for 6H. As the hands lie, you require either HQ(xxx) or SKx(x) on side. The 4's never sniffed at the slam, but the 5's had a chance. After 2C (game force) Miriam showed her 6 card and 3H presumably showed some tolerance, if not genuine support. After the 4D cuebid it is not quite clear why Donna threw in the towel, because she has quite a good hand. It all depends on whether 4D showed extras: if it did one feels that E should have made one more move. This looks like the first deal where (in my humble opinion) 2/1 had a superior sequence to standardish. Nevertheless it was too difficult: no score. ******************************************************************************* CH: I believe W's rebid should be 3H not 2H, despite his club void. The heart intermediates are too good and the hand has too many winners to bid it like A93 AQ742 Q62 53. DR:The reason it is difficult to find slam on this hand is because neither hand can know how perfectly they fit. Light on high card points (14 opposite 13), a good fit needs to be established before looking for controls for slam. Opener cannot know that responder's 2/1 club suit opposite her void is headed by the ace, provides a critical pitch and does not contain too many totally wasted values. This hand is sooo perfect.. imagine switching responder's J and 9 of spades with her 8 and 3 of diamonds... now slam is perfectly ugly just with this impossible to detect minute difference. At our table, playing 2/1 gave us the better chance to investigate slam because I was able to establish our fit in hearts at the 3 level and still be forcing. Then, Miriam was able to q-bid 4d. However, my hand although willing to cooperate with a strong slam-going sequence because of its aces and kings, is still on the minimum end of a 2/1 game-forcing response. (We open light shapely 10 and not so shapely 11 counts.) It has already been described fairly well as far as shape... clubs and 2 or 3 card heart support. Partner was not able to q-bid in my suit (a king can be q-bid when a second suit has been shown) and all in all it would be an extreme INSANE overbid for my hand to go beyond game to the five level. So, in this particular case the extra space 2/1 GF gave us was for nought. Frankly, as most of my partners will tell you, I am not shy in the bidding... (I tried an underbid once a few years ago and will never go there again :) .) ******************************************************************************* IMPs north TN.IMP Board 5 Dlr: North andre/sandybar Vul: N-S S Q west north east south H KJ7 rwigdor andre chudecek farouk D 953 C AK8752 1C pass 1S west east pass 2C (all pass) rwigdor/QofH chudecek/RogueGal S AT62 S J754 Opening Lead: S4 H AT8 H 5432 Result: +3 D KQJ4 D T2 Score: 110, IMPs: 0.00 C 93 C QT4 Playing time: 5:03 south farouk/lorne QofH sandybar RogueGal lorne S K983 H Q96 1C pass 1D D A876 pass 2C pass pass C J6 X pass 2H 3C (all pass) Opening Lead: DT. Result: +3 This deal shows a Walsh 1S response from south (farouk) for the 5's instead of the up-the-line 1D like lorne's. It made no difference on this deal. What *did* make a difference was W's decision when N's rebid was passed around to him/her. Robin Wigdor decided to defend 2C, but Miriam Harris-Botzum took the more aggressive course and contested the partscore further with a take out X. This landed the partnership in a shaky 2H contract that probably would have gone down, but lorne took the push and pressed on to 3C. In a club contract declarer has a comfortable 9 tricks, because 1 diamond loser will disappear on a S. That is, unless the defense starts Diamonds, because then they have 5 tricks, before declarer has 9. Against 2C a spade was led and that was that. 110 to NS. Against 3C however, Donna led DT! Now the stage was set for down 1, but declarer took the Ace and immediately played a small S towards his lone Queen. At this point it was difficult to visualize that the contract was down already and Miriam, not unreasonably, decided to duck. Thus a Spade trick evaporated and no score. 5's 29 4's 0 ******************************************************************************* DR: You seem surprised by my DT lead. The logic is that pard with values did not double directly, therefore she is off-shape and more surely holds diamonds than a major that I might decide to lead. I am leading through the dummy and even if I don't find her with the great jewels she had here, declarer may very well finesse in trumps and I might be able to score a diamond ruff as well. Our aggressive system should have paid off here. (The tricks count out from the bidding and lead.) We pushed them up to where we could beat them and the luck of them not playing Walsh and bidding diamonds got me off to a good lead. CH: I think Lorne has a clear-cut penalty double of 2H with his K98x Q9x A87x Jx with his pard opening 1C and opponents who could not compete earlier. 2Hx is down 500 off the top, and could go for a bigger number if the H10 was in front of Q9x. LR: I was wondering how long it would take before someone brought that up. I for one hate to bring -470 to my teammates on a hand like this. JvK: Note for novices: there has been a shift in meaning lately to the expression "down umpteen off the top". It used to mean "we can cash out for down umpteen", but it gradually has become "there is a double dummy defense for down umpteen", if not "there is a double dummy defense that only requires one declarer error for down umpteen". On a different tack: if you double opponents into *game* in IMPs you take odds of 6 to 1 against, if you double for down one. (Just do the arithmetic of what you stand to gain against what you stand to lose.) So you must be fairly certain that you have it down two if you double. ******************************************************************************** IMPs north TN.IMP Board 6 Dlr: East sandybar/andre Vul: E-W S 963 west north east south H K932 QofH sandybar RogueGal lorne D 763 C Q52 1D 1S west east (all pass) QofH/rwigdor RogueGal/chudecek S Q2 S JT8 Opening Lead: D5 H J876 H AT4 Result: +2 D K852 D JT94 Score: 110, IMPs: 5.00 C 864 C AKT south west north east south lorne/farouk rwigdor andre chudecek farouk S AK754 H Q5 1C 1S D AQ X pass 1NT (all pass) C J973 Opening lead: S5 Result: +1, Score +90 EW On this deal some strange things happened. Donna opened her 4-card D and EW found their 4-4 fit, but S stole the contract in 1S, either because W thought herself too weak to raise D or had doubts about the reality of the D suit (an inherent weakness of 5c Major systems). So a triumph for the 4's? Well, in a way, because Carl choose to *suppress* his 4c D and opened 1C! This lured W into the weakest of all weak negative doubles over the 1S interference and EW rested in 1NT. Carl had little difficulty with this contract when DQ proved to be favorably placed. He made 1S, 1H, 3D and 2C tricks. At the other table D5 was led which blew a D trick. Declarer already had 4 spade and 2 D tricks and could always develop a H trick. In the fullnes of time he also made a club and had an overtrick. So the 4's scored a partscore at both tables. 5's 29 4's 5 ******************************************************************************* DR: I would have made a negative double with Miriam's cards because I can go back to diamonds if pard doesn't have hearts with me... and because I am an aggressive bidder and our system comes naturally to me. ******************************************************************************* On deal 7 both sides made 3NT with an overtrick, for a stand off. =============================================================================== summary of Results boards 2-7 ------- -- ------- Board andre's team sandybar's team Score ----- ---------------------- ---------------------- ----- TN.IMP 2 6D (N) 6 = 1370, 7D (S) -1 = -100, 16 IMPS TN.IMP 3 2NT-X (W) -4 = 1100, 3C (E) -3 = 300, 13 IMPS TN.IMP 4 3NT (E) 6 = -690, 4H (W) 6 = -680, 0 IMPS TN.IMP 5 2C (N) 3 = 110, 3C (N) 3 = 110, 0 IMPS TN.IMP 6 1NT (E) 1 = -90, 1S (S) 2 = 110, -5 IMPS TN.IMP 7 3NT (W) 4 = -630, 3NT (W) 4 = -630, 0 IMPS Total andre 29 IMPS, sandybar 5 IMPS ******************************************************************************* 1) In 7D (S 6 lead) your best play probably is ST (J, A) followed by CA, CK and a C ruff. You basically need C 3-3, but on a sunny day W has only 2 clubs and *not* both T and 9 of trumps. Then you can ruff *two* clubs. (Line suggested by Sandy Barnes). You'll always need trumps 3-2, so on the actual hand you'll go down. 2) In 6D after a H lead you lack the entries to do anything fancy with dummy's S suit. I think the best play is to take DA and DQ and toss a S on HK. Now play A, CK and ruff a club. This will win you the contract if C are 3-3, if W holds 3 trumps or if W holds a doubleton C. If trumps are 4-1, you'll need C 3-3.