Competitive Bidding by Michael Donnelly [email protected]
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Competitive Bidding by Michael Donnelly [email protected] Dealer: South return costs West a heart trick, while a club E-W Vulnerable lead allows declarer to ruff in dummy while discarding a losing heart. ♠ K J 9 8 THE BOTTOM LINE: After an intervening ♥ J 10 9 2 overcall, a cuebid by the responder shows ♦ A K J limit raise values or better along with three ♣ J 7 or more cards in support of partner’s suit. The cuebid immediately sets the trump suit. ♠ 5 ♠ 4 3 2 While the cuebid may be made with a slam- ♥ K Q 3 ♥ 7 6 5 going hand, the opener initially assumes ♦ 10 9 4 ♦ 8 7 6 5 that partner holds only limit raise values ♣ A K Q 4 3 2 ♣ 10 9 8 until shown otherwise. ♠ A Q 10 7 6 Dealer: West ♥ A 8 4 Vul: Both ♦ Q 3 2 ♣ 6 5 ♠ K 6 5 4 ♥ K 9 West North East South ♦ K 7 6 1♠ ♣ A 9 7 6 2 ♣ 3♣ Pass 3♠ Pass 4♠ All Pass ♠ A 10 9 7 ♠ 2 ♥ A J 10 8 2 ♥ 6 5 Contract: 4♠ by South ♦ 5 ♦ Q J 10 9 8 4 2 Opening Lead: A♣ ♣ K J 10 ♣ 8 4 3 BIDDING COMMENTARY: North’s cuebid ♠ Q J 8 3 of 3♣ shows a limit raise or better in spades. ♥ Q 7 4 3 Partner assumes a limit raise and bids 3♠, ♦ A 3 saying that facing a limit raise he does not ♣ Q 5 2 wish to be in game. Holding more than a limit raise, North bids game. An initial leap West North East South to 4♠ by North would have been preemptive, 1♥ Dbl 3♦ 4♠ and the partnership might miss a slam, All Pass which is why North did not bid 4♠ directly. In effect, the cuebid could be the beginning Contract: 4♠ by South of a slam try in spades. Opening Lead: 5♦ DEFENSE COMMENTARY: After cashing two clubs, West should exit safely with the BIDDING COMMENTARY: After his partner’s 10♦, hopefully awaiting two heart tricks. opening bid is doubled, East’s jump to 3♦ PLAY COMMENTARY: Win the diamond shows fewer than six high-card points shift in either hand, draw trump, strip the coupled with a large potential source of diamonds ending in dummy, then run the tricks in diamonds. East’s primary intent J♥. West wins but is endplayed. A heart Please see page 24 22 Sunshine Bridge News Who Calls The Director? by Lynn Berg [email protected] The bidding so far: I would accept that argument. However, just glibly claiming a “mechanical” error won’t East South West North work if the hand doesn’t justify it. 1♥ 2♣ 1NT Fourth, North has to be offered the option of accepting 1NT if the error was mental North: “That’s insufficient.” rather than mechanical. This would give him West: “We’ll, I’ll just make it sufficient.” the chance to bid at the two level, so he might South: “No, let’s call the Director—my welcome the opportunity. But if the error partner has some options.” was mechanical, it wasn’t a true insufficient East: “You can’t say that! You’re telling bid and the next bidder has no options; the your partner what to do. Besides, it’s not error is just corrected without penalty. your turn to bid!” Fifth, if North does not accept the West: [Finally!] “Director, please!” insufficient bid, now the Director would have to find out whether or not 1NT is forcing By the time the Director gets to the table, in the E-W agreement. If it is, then making tempers have flared and a lot of ill-will has the bid sufficient with 2NT would have a been generated. substantially different meaning. That’s when First, saying that a bid is insufficient is not this ruling becomes hard to understand for saying whether or not it will be accepted; many players. What if the auction had been it’s just acknowledging that there’s been 1NT—2D—2C. Now 3C would have essentially a problem. At that point, someone should the same significance in the auction—a good have called the Director. hand with a club suit. That’s clearly natural, Second, South was not out of line in where the forcing 1NT and the free bid of pointing out that his partner had options, 2NT have very different meanings. though he would have been better just to When the meaning would be the same, call the Director instead of just saying that the corrected sufficient bid allows the the call should be made. Once a problem auction to go on as if none of this had has been identified, anyone may call. That happened. When the meaning is different, includes the dummy during the play of the the partner will be barred for the remainder hand. of the auction. Why? Because otherwise he Third, West did not have the option of will have had the advantage of getting two making the bid sufficient unless he could pieces of information from his partner in one convince the Director that he had intended round of bidding—a truly unfair advantage. to bid 2NT all along and that he’d just When the insufficient bid is in a suit and physically pulled the wrong bidding card. the bidder who erred decides not to bid Now, if he had 10-12 HCP and the KJx of clubs, Please see page 24 Lynn Berg has been an ACBL member for over 50 years, a club director for 40 and a tournament director for over 10. She’s also done quite a bit of directing on cruise ships and is a teacher trainer for ACBL and for EasyBridge. Lynn says: “I am of the firm opinion that we can adhere to the rules, be completely ethical and still have a great time (and even win!). Civility and good humor go a long way at the table.” July/August 2015 23 Opening Light- Rationally by Paul Dennis [email protected] Apparently folks like to bid more than impose restrictions concerning defensive or was formerly the case, judging from the quick tricks - I like to have at least one quick hands that get opened these days. Long trick (A or KQ) gone is the old Goren standard of thirteen Hands such as the following then high card points with 2 1/2 quick tricks, equate to opening one bids replaced by any random eleven. Sorry, but even I don’t consider QJ, J9652, KJ,QJ85 to be 1) AJ7654, KQ76, 4, 75 - open 1♠ worth an opening bid. 2) QT75, 7, AT8753, A - open 1♦ That said, there are certain minimums 3) –, –, A87642, AT98762 - open 1♦ or 1♣ that I would regard as being mandatory 4) KQ874, KQ942, 43, 7 - open 1♠ opening bids. Those are hands that are light on high cards but heavy on distribution. Having opened the bidding, be sure to The basic criterion I use, often referred to as follow through on your rebids and hand “The Rule of Twenty” is this: evaluation. Any of the above hands are Take the number of cards in your two good hands, but possession of a five card or longest suits. Add the number of high cards longer major is golden. If I received a limit (Ace =4, King = 3, etc) raise (promising four card trump support) If the sum adds up to twenty, open on hands one or four above I would bid the bidding. You may or may not wish to game. Donnelly Berg is not so much to buy the contract as it the suit at some time in the auction, there is designed to obstruct the opponent’s can also be a playing penalty when his side communication, forcing them to guess at defends. a higher level. Holding extra values, along Because his partner knows he was with four card spade support, South guesses thinking of bidding the suit even though wrong by jumping to game, instead of there was no legal bid, the Declarer could bidding a more conservative 3♠. For East, it require or forbid the lead of that suit the all amounts to mission accomplished. first time the offender’s partner has the lead. DEFENSE COMMENTARY: After leading his If the insufficient bid was artificial? Then singleton diamond, West’s primary objective it would depend …if it promises a specific is avoid being endplayed in the black suits suit(as a transfer bid does, for instance), the in such a way that he provides declarer with penalty would be for the suit promised. If it’s extra tricks. The likely result will be a two an insufficient forcing NT when no particular trick set. suit is indicated, the Declarer gets to pick the PLAY COMMENTARY: After the diamond suit he’d like to ban or require. lead, declarer has too many obstacles to Sound complicated? You bet. That’s fulfill his contract and will be lucky to go why we have Directors who are supposed down only one trick. to remember the rules and apply them THE BOTTOM LINE: Preemptive weak jumps correctly. Rather than trying to remember can be truly annoying to the opponents and or guessing, just call the Director. It will save greatly rewarding for your partnership. time and be fair to everyone at the table. 24 Sunshine Bridge News My Journey to Grand Life Master by Bernace DeYoung I learned about duplicate Bridge while During this decades long journey I lost I was in my second year at the University my home in Hurricane Andrew and was a of Miami Law School, it was 1978.