Friday, January 16, 2009

Misadventures In Manhattan

The guy I play with on Thursday nights had his routine radically disturbed one way or another over the past few weeks. So when I sat down to play with him last night, it wasn’t just our first game of 2009, it was actually the first game with him for a month. And the computer seemed to want to celebrate by giving us some weird stuff.

The obligatory punt had to wait for the second half.

N    E    S    W
1♠   pass 2♣   pass
2   pass 3NT  pass
6♠   all pass

It’s your lead from:
♠7 6  10 6 3 2   K J 8 6 4 3  ♣ Q

So what’ll it be? (The full hand is a bit further down).

In the first half we seemed to be trapped in a world of clubs. Five times the contract was 3♣, and on a sixth board it was 5♣-2 and arguably we should have been in 3♣. That’s a quarter of the boards in one contract – definitely odd. In the third round, one of the non-3♣ boards was when we doubled the opponents in 4.

N    E    S    W
Pass pass 1   3
3♠   pass pass 4
?
You hold:
♠10 7 6 3 2  ♥ K 10 6  ♣ A Q J 8 4

You’ve mouse-trapped yourself, of course. If you had bid 4♣ over 3, you would be bidding 4♠ like a shot. Now you’re somewhat stuck. But you have an ace and a king; partner opened, and he doesn’t usually get too frisky in third seat; you have a void in trumps, and West hasn’t bid like someone with a nine-card suit (although bidding again is a bit suspicious), so maybe partner has a nice surprise in the trump suit. So you whack them.

And as usual, West does indeed have a nine-card suit, solidified by his partner’s singleton queen. And the 1=9=1=2 distribution delivers a tenth trick when dummy has the ♣K – if the doubleton had been somewhere else, even a nine-card suit wouldn’t have been enough.

Even more droll is the traveler – you open it, and announce “flat”. -590, -590, -590 – what a start.

Now back to that slam. I’m going to call this my slam try – you bid the slam, then try to make it.

N-S Game, dlr N

           ♠ A K Q J 9 8 5 2
           Q J 8 4
            -
           ♣ 10
♠ 10 4 3               ♠ 7 6
K 9        [ ]       10 6 3 2
10 9 7               K J 8 6 4 3
♣ A J 6 5 4            ♣ Q
           ♠ -
           A 7 5
           A Q 5 2
           ♣ K 9 8 7 3 2

N    E    S    W
1♠   pass 2♣   pass
2   pass 3NT  pass
6♠   all pass

West clearly shouldn’t lead a major suit on this bidding. I think it’s pretty obvious that if North has a loser outside the majors, you need to try and cash it at trick one. Maybe North was encouraged by a club fit, so West led a diamond, which might have been correct. But it wasn’t, so the club loser disappeared and 6♠ rolled home. Pretty brutal, really.
   

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Defensive conventions

There are a few competitive/defensive treatments that need to be documented.

Flannery is an opening 2D bid that shows five hearts and four spades and 11-15hcp. The idea is that such hands pose the most difficulty for systems that use 5-card major openings with the 1NT response forcing, because they are not strong enough for opener to reverse, and so over 1NT he may be forced to rebid 2C on a doubleton – hardly descriptive. If such hands are separated out of the 1H opening, they can be bid conveniently, while the forcing no-trump complex becomes cleaner. (While this is true, the cost – using up the 2D opening – really doesn’t appear worth the benefit, to most experts).

There are variations: some play that the Flannery bid includes 4-6 hands. It is also possible to play Flannery as a non-forcing 2H opening, rather than a forcing 2D opening. Neither variation poses any additional problems for the defence.

While we don’t meet Flannery very often, we should have a defensive approach defined. As per Elwood, over 2D we play
• Double – shows diamonds, equivalent to a 2D overcall of a 1H opening
• 2H – take-out of hearts, showing support for the other three suits (including spades), equivalent to a double of a 1H opening
• 2S – both minors, equivalent to 2NT against a 1H opening
• 2NT – natural, equivalent to 1NT over a 1H opening, but a bit stronger, say 17-19hcp
This is straightforward, really, although the only time (so far) it has come up playing with Elwood, I forgot. That’s the main reason for getting it down in writing.

Unusual over Unusual is a more commonly-occurring treatment.

Over a one-level opening, a 2NT overcall is the Unusual No Trump, showing the two lowest unbid suits, at least 5-5. Since opener has bid one suit and the opponents have shown two, responder only really has three active courses of action: to attempt to penalize the opponents, to support opener, or to show the fourth suit. The intent to penalize the opponents can be demonstrated by doubling the 2NT bid. This should indicate a willingness to make a penalty double of at least one of overcaller’s suits, and implies not too much fit with opener’s suit.

When it comes to bidding our suit(s), there is a problem in that it would be nice to have both a merely competitive raise and an invitational raise, but we have been crowded to the three-level. However, by way of compensation, we have two cue-bids available. In the ordinary overcall situation, an immediate raise to the three-level is pre-emptive, and a cue-bid of the overcall is limit+. For example, 1H – (2C) – 3H is pre-emptive, and 1H – (2C) – 3C is a limit raise of hearts (or better). In the Unusual situation, the lower cue-bid shows the lower of our suits, and the higher cue-bid shows the higher suit, while direct bids are merely competing. Examples:
1H – (2NT) – 3C is a limit raise or better of hearts
1H – (2NT) – 3H is pre-emptive
1H – (2NT) – 3S is not forcing
1H – (2NT) – 3D shows spades and a tolerance for hearts, invitational-plus strength.
1D – (2NT) – 3C is a limit raise or better of diamonds
1D – (2NT) – 3H shows spades and a tolerance for diamonds, invitational-plus strength.

This treatment can be extended to use against any overcall method that specifies both suits. For example, Michaels over a minor suit opening to show both majors:
1C – (2C) – 2H is a limit raise or better of clubs
1C – (2C) – 2S shows diamonds and a tolerance for clubs, invitational-plus strength
1C – (2C) – 2D, 1C – (2C) – 3C, and 1C – (2C) – 3D are all just competing.
When only one suit is exactly specified, it doesn’t apply. For example, Michaels over a major:
1H – (2H) – 2S is a limit-plus raise of hearts, but there is no second cue-bid available because overcaller’s minor suit is not known.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Weak Two Bids

Happy new year everybody. Let's start with some more system notes.

There are some bids that “everybody” plays, so you might wonder what needs to get documented. In ACBL-land, weak twos, especially in the majors, fall into that category. Playing with Elwood has opened my eyes.


The standard for opening a weak two varies wildly, depending on who you ask. Some people treat the bids as purely destructive, and are willing to open on almost any garbage, even not-that-great five-card suits. Some people are quite strict, imposing restrictions on suit quality and other features of the distribution. Elwood runs closer to the wild side than I do, but is more disciplined than many I know. He regards two-bids as belonging in the spectrum of pre-emptive hands, and judges whether to open based on likely tricks and losers, taking into account the vulnerability and so on. That means he doesn’t have hard and fast rules about suit length or suit quality or point count, but on the other hand, if he judges correctly, you aren’t likely to make a killing off a penalty double of him either. I am a bit more old-fashioned, and consider the openings more like the bottom tier of constructive bidding. Therefore I will have prospects of a defensive trick, and I generally try to follow the old standard of “two of the top three or three of the top five”, at least in first and second seat. I have been known to open on a five-card suit, but the few times I’ve done it, it was a very good suit, AKQxx or better, and the strategic situation seemed to call for extra effort. I think I’ve opened two on a seven-card suit, also, but that would be even rarer. (I usually take any excuse to open a weak three-bid, and at that level I tend to be much wilder than Elwood).

When I first played weak twos, many moons ago, we played step responses that are known these days as Ogust. Most common now seems to be the idea of using 2NT to ask for an outside feature, defined to be an ace or a king. Rather than choose between these methods, Elwood plays both. So we have that 2NT asks for a feature, and a 3C response is Ogust: opener rebids
• 3D = bad hand, bad suit
• 3H = bad hand good suit
• 3S = good hand, bad suit
• 3NT = good hand, good suit
Responses in a new suit, other than the 3C ask, are natural and forcing. Direct raises are to be considered as raising the pre-empt, and opener should not be encouraged.

When the opponents interfere, we use an approach generally known as McCabe. After 2x – (dble) - ?, a new suit is lead-directing, and opener is expected to return to three of his own suit. This hasn’t come up yet, but it sounds like a useful weapon. After some discussion, we decided to keep 2NT as a feature-ask. The alternative was to use it for a relay, with the idea that responder is running to a suit of his own which he deems a better idea than staying with opener’s suit. It’s a close call – neither use seems likely to come up, to be honest. The other call to be defined is a redouble. Elwood had a little menu of possible meanings, and I chose the one he didn’t expect. Redouble shows Ax or Kx in opener’s suit, and a good hand. I picked that meaning because it seemed to me to fit the lead-directing strategy – responder is really telling the opener that it’s OK to lead small away from his suit.

Now all we need is some aggressive opponents.