[Cyberyeti]

We played the national pairs regional final on Sunday, and as we did last year, missed out by one place (although last year we got in due to dropouts). Could we have done better on these.

1.

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Partner opens 2N (good 19-21)

Bid 3N ? Find out if partner has a 5 card major ? find out if partner has 4 spades ?

Partner has

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now where would you rather play, 4♠ or 3N ?

2.

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can either of us double this ? we collected 100 against a line of 140s

3.

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Can either of us double this and stand it which is our only route to a decent matchpoint score ? We don't have any straight penalty doubles available in this auction.

[bluecalm]

1)
I bid 3N and prefer to be in 3N because they usually lead a ♥.

2)
Imo you can't do anything here. I would probably go minus by bidding 4D with N's hand.

3)
I have no idea.

Are you sure there aren't easier hands to find missing fractions of %'s on ?

[Cyberyeti]

bluecalm, on 2012-March-19, 07:34, said:

1)
I bid 3N and prefer to be in 3N because they usually lead a ♥.

2)
Imo you can't do anything here. I would probably go minus by bidding 4D with N's hand.

3)
I have no idea.

Are you sure there aren't easier hands to find missing fractions of %'s on ?

These aren't fractions of matchpoints, all of these are of the order of half a top transitions.

In fact on 1, the hand with 6 hearts will lead a heart, the hand with 5 diamonds will lead a diamond. No clues which is which.

A comedy effort:

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Partner has Qxxx, Qx, Axxx, Axx, 6♣ was rolling, 6♠x only went -1, +100 was roughly average.

[Codo]

1. 3 NT

2. I would bid 4 ♦ too,collecting 110 a much better score then your lame 100.

3. I had raised hearts instead of biding clubs but I had never been able to reach 3 ♠ X.

[Cyberyeti]

Codo, on 2012-March-19, 11:48, said:

3. I had raised hearts instead of biding clubs but I had never been able to reach 3 ♠ X.

Not really our style (4 card heart opener), and a bit more potential defense than I would like.

[bluecalm]

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These aren't fractions of matchpoints, all of these are of the order of half a top transitions.

Yeah, I understand that. I mean, you probably missed the spot by fractions of %'s which were probably donated in simple cardplay mistakes somewhere along the way
Those are interesting hands though I just think not getting them "right" is normal playing luck more or less and they are not the best place to look for errors/improvements.

Quote

2. I would bid 4 ♦ too,collecting 110 a much better score then your lame 100.

I think S would correct 4D to 4S, we haven't climbed to 4 level to play in a partscore after all, both contracts looks down 1 though.

[Cyberyeti]

bluecalm, on 2012-March-19, 12:37, said:

Yeah, I understand that. I mean, you probably missed the spot by fractions of %'s which were probably donated in simple cardplay mistakes somewhere along the way
Those are interesting hands though I just think not getting them "right" is normal playing luck more or less and they are not the best place to look for errors/improvements.

We probably needed one decent size swing rather than a fraction.

The sad thing was we could have got it before we played a board.

Our opps for the first round were late, so we got a 60/40 on one board and played the other. That board was one of those "if you play a weak no trump you will dial something bad" boards. A simple choice to play the other would have sufficed with an average.

[phil_20686]

I think bd 1 is a perfect example of a play with the field hand.

At teams I think its right to bid 3N, but its not totally clear as you have lots of points, and often that points towards playing in 4M. At MP I would strive to do whatever I thought the field would do. In my local club they always bid stayman with a 4cM, so I would do that.

I think you got done on bd 2.

On board 3, even playing acol, its definitely right to bid 2H initially. Your hand is balanced and not very offensive, and not worth more than one bid. A simple raise should be 3-4 cards and 5-9 HCP or so. Partner will have 5 hearts quite often, and its can be a terrible loss when you cannot get your support across early. Playing acol I used to split the cue bid and 2N into three and 4 card raises, with the expectation that when parther has a 4cM he has 15-17 balanced, and a cue is GF opposite that. Here I think your hand is not worth a cue, but its worth considering. Hate xxx trumps.

[Cyberyeti]

phil_20686, on 2012-March-19, 15:39, said:

On board 3, even playing acol, its definitely right to bid 2H initially. Your hand is balanced and not very offensive, and not worth more than one bid. A simple raise should be 3-4 cards and 5-9 HCP or so. Partner will have 5 hearts quite often, and its can be a terrible loss when you cannot get your support across early. Playing acol I used to split the cue bid and 2N into three and 4 card raises, with the expectation that when parther has a 4cM he has 15-17 balanced, and a cue is GF opposite that. Here I think your hand is not worth a cue, but its worth considering. Hate xxx trumps.

I was a passed hand, I would open that hand plus the ♥Q, so partner is not going to go overboard. We do something similar with the raises. I felt this was a working 10 count with the intermediates and K over the spades. It will play well for game opposite xxx, KQxxxx, x, KQx, hence introducing the clubs.

[Statto]

1. 3NT and probably 3NT
2. North (who'll be on lead) can double, gambling on finding partner with ♥A, getting a ♥ ruff, and finding partner with another trick somewhere for the opening bid. But as South I might have ventured 4♠
3. North might double but South will probably bid 4♥

Cyberyeti, on 2012-March-19, 08:01, said:

A comedy effort: ...

Interesting, I've already been shown this hand

[awm]

1. Stayman and 4S. Usually the 4-4 fit makes a trick more even when one hand is 4333. At Imps 3nt.

2. Tough hand. Sometimes opening light fixes the opening side.

3. South should raise hearts. Perhaps 2s or however you show a limit raise on three trumps is better than 2h give your opening style. This sort of competitive auction is a good demonstration of why to support with support.

[bluecalm]

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1. Stayman and 4S. Usually the 4-4 fit makes a trick more even when one hand is 4333. At Imps 3nt.

I don't think it's true if combined strength is in 29+ range.
I first read about it Woolsey's "matchpoints" and my (very limited) experience suggests it's true. I can try running some simulations later to give stronger argument for the case.

[MickyB]

Oh wow, just seen that the same hands were used in all five heats on Sunday. Odd unless you are planning to score it across all five IMO - you could do that with or without the number of qualifiers from each heat fixed. You had a rather better time of it than we did!

3N all day on the first board. 29-30 hcp, 4333 and an honour in every suit? Stayman is unthinkable to me. My guess is that it will lose 80% of the time ♠ are 4-1, break even on average when they are 3-2 and cost a trick 5% of the time that partner doesn't have four spades.

Nothing you could do on board 2.

Only possible route to a good score on board 3 is 2C from S, X from N, P from S, but none of these actions are clear. I don't much like 2C as a passed hand because I'd rather not play there. I agree with playing cue and 2NT as 3- and 4-card raises works very well in an Acol context, thus if you think this hand too strong for 2H you can show you wish to play in 3H opposite a minimum with hearts and 3NT opposite a 15-16 NT. Otherwise, finding a 5-3 heart fit on this auction is basically impossible, as double from opener can just be a strong NT.

[Cyberyeti]

MickyB, on 2012-March-19, 21:05, said:

Oh wow, just seen that the same hands were used in all five heats on Sunday. Odd unless you are planning to score it across all five IMO - you could do that with or without the number of qualifiers from each heat fixed. You had a rather better time of it than we did!

3N all day on the first board. 29-30 hcp, 4333 and an honour in every suit? Stayman is unthinkable to me. My guess is that it will lose 80% of the time ♠ are 4-1, break even on average when they are 3-2 and cost a trick 5% of the time that partner doesn't have four spades.

They used the same hands at all venues last year too.

Would you enquire whether partner had 5 spades and play 4♠ if he did ? Also if partner had 5 hearts, 3N/4♥ ?

[Zelandakh]

My instinct on Hand 1 is just to bid 3NT; Puppet and 4♠ if partner has 5 spades is kind of tempting though.
Hand 2 looks like a system swing; you probably gain far more than you lose by opening light but accepting the odd bad score is normal.
On Hand 3, most better Acol pairs have a way of raising directly with 3. I think that is South's better course if available.

[MrAce]

1- 3NT

2- Nothing i could do w/o resulting.

3- You said 1♥ was 4+ cards. Otherwise i would support. But now i still wouldnt bid 2♣. It is a perfect 1NT response for me, which shows 8-10 hcp and stopper in opponent suit, no direct fit for pd. After that if pd doubles them in 3♠ he can, i wouldnt bet on it though, very painful decision for N regardless of he chooses pass or DBL. If u guys need some good boards i think he may take a shot at it, if u are doing good so far, i dont think he would take such a risk. Now that you started 2♣, perhaps N can dbl, but not really clear.

Will u be mad at me if i use the phrase with my version ? " Preempts works more often than just sometimes "

[Cyberyeti]

What's actually going on with hand 1 is that one hand has ♥Q98xxx and ♦Kx, the other has ♦QJ10xx and ♠Q109.

So against 3N, you get a heart lead, and have the time to knock the spade out, which with the clubs splitting is 11 tricks in NT, same as spades, on a diamond lead you only have 10 tricks in NT, just dumb luck which way round the EW hands were, 4♠+1 was worth about 1/3 of the MPs.