Weekly Hand Analysis - Vic Johnson - Monday, August 2, 2021 - Did they stop bidding too soon?

 

Question: Opener stopped bidding too soon. Who needed to “carry the ball”? This hand made 7.

Vic:

South

An opening hand to be sure & 1C was the proper opening bid. Rebidding clubs is a good second bid over Responder 1H. An aggressive South would probably rebid 3C instead.

Either rebid promises a six card club suit. A rebid of 2C implies a standard opening point count. A rebid of 3C promises a stronger than standard opening point count (16-17 points).

North

Holding 15 HCPs, North knows as soon as South opens that the auction should continue to at least game. North is responsible for making sure that happens.

A club rebid by South promises a 6 card club suit. It also denies four hearts (holding four hearts South should support hearts). It also denies four spades (holding four spades South second bid should have been 1S).

In the absence of a heart or spade fit & holding a gangbuster club fit North should be imagining game (or maybe even slam) in NO TRUMP. Remember, there are three suits in bridge (Spades - Hearts - No Trump). Clubs are for the golf course. Diamonds are for your finger.

Given that North holds all the heart honors plus the diamond King & the club Queen, it is difficult to imagine that South does not hold an honor or two in spades. North should not worry about their three small spades.

North needs to continue to force the auction to/towards game. How they go about that will depend on their partnership agreement. The easiest way would be to simply bid 3NT on their second call. That would have the unfortunate result of putting East on lead. East would probably lead a low spade forcing South to make a 1st trick critical decision. If they go up with the spade King, they make their contract. If they play the spade Jack, they deserve to go down.

A second call of 3NT by north might also have the unfortunate result of ending the auction short of slam. 

Weekly Hand Analysis - Glenna Shannahan - Monday, August 2, 2021- Opening Leads

 

Question: 

This board brings up the question of opening leads. Should W have lead high – A-K of S or shortness – singleton D.  With the singleton lead the hand made 7

Glenna:

  I could not receive a better question as I have always believed anyone can read a book and learn how to play a hand and 2 people can sit down and decide what to play, BUT the most magical part of bridge is DEFENSE. Defense is challenging, never ending and when successful, the most exciting.

  So to understand the concept of good opening leads, let’s look at what we know about the hand. Opener has 16 points, responder has 10 or more in order to bid game and the opening leader has 9+ so how many points can his partner hold???? Not many and therefore, the outcome of this hand is really depending on the opening lead.

  1st: The Q ♥️ is a potential trick and you hold the AK ♠️ and you now have a good chance to beat this contract. If partner has just one filling card somewhere this hand is going down. If you lead a singleton, how is partner (with few points) going to get in to give you a ruff. And you have a natural trump trick so ruffing a ♦️ does you no good!!! You are simply trading a ruff for a natural trick. You are setting up his ♦️ suit for him to discard losers!!! Look elsewhere. With the AK ♠️  I would lead those  cards. Partner might be able to ruff the 3rd ♠️ or declarer will have to ruff and maybe promote a trick for your partner.

  Also, you will beat all the people who lead a stiff if you cash your 2 ♠️ and wait for your ♥️ trick or for partner to have a little something.  Holding a game to the contract is better than giving them an overtrick every day of the week.

Hope this helps. If I made a list of opening leads in order of best results, leading a stiff would be the last one on the list. It works about 5 to 10% of the time, but people seem to think it’s great.

See You At The Tables,

Glenna

Weekly Hand Analysis - Glenna Shannahan - July 26, 2021- Overcall, Take out Double, or pass

 

Question: Should west have overcalled with the 4 card Heart suit, bid a takeout double or pass?

Glenna:

  Glad to have a chance to discuss the differences between take out double (TOX) and overcalls. We overcall when we have 5 or more cards in a suit. We make TOX’s when we have 3 or more cards in a suit. An overcall promises 7-17 points with 7+ at the 1-level and 11+ at the 2-level. When we make a TOX, we are showing 13+ points and 3-card support for the unbid suits.

  On the hand submitted, S should open 1 ♦️, W should make a TOX (need 5-card suit to overcall), N should bid 1 ♠️ and E must pass. S will bid 2 ♣️ showing a 5-4 hand and N should correct back to 2 ♦️.

  A couple of things are important to remember: Always take partner back to 1st suit and don’t raise or leave in 2nd suit without 4!!!! Partner is usually showing a 5-4 hand. You can raise partner’s 2nd suit WITH 4!!!! 

  This hand has all the necessary points and shape to get partner to 2 ♦️!  Hope this helps.

gk

Weekly Hand Analysis - Vic Johnson - July 26, 2021- Why did 3NT go down?

 

Question: We bid this to 3NT and went down, was there a better place to be and how do we get there?

Vic:

Light opening bids in 3rd seat are a modern day trend. From that perspective, 1he 1C opening bid by West with a hand that meets “Rule of Twenty + Two” standards is certainly acceptable. Other than that opening bid, however, EW should be Passing not Bidding. Unfortunately, EW did not start passing & drastically overbid their hands. They deserved to go down.

Given the vulnerability, my suggestion is that North should have Passed as well. North, however, opted to overcall 1S. Did they really want partner to lead spades should they end up defending? Their spade suit is pathetic.

Both sets of partners hold weak hands. My DealPro analysis program advises that EW deserves to take 7 tricks playing a heart or spade contract & NS 7 tricks playing a club or diamond contract. That is the best either side can do versus good defense.

Subsequent to the actual 1S bid by North, I would argue that East should Pass, crossing their fingers that NS end up in a spade contract, ideally DBLed by West. Even a one level spade contract played NS deserves to go down.

The only player in this auction who gets credit for bidding their hand properly is South who Passed 4 times.

Weekly Hand Analysis - Vic Johnson - Monday, July 19, 2021-Rolling the dice

 

Vic:

Question: Is 4H a good defensive bid?

Answer: Yes, BUT.

Comment: East has 5 losers & could expect to lose all five, should partner prove to have nothing. A bid of 4H (Doubled - Not Vul - Down Two) would result in a NS score of plus 300 which is more than NS would earn for making a part score in either spades or clubs.

Comment: East could actually be considered to have an opening strength hand (Rule of Twenty). Give West the heart King plus one of the missing Aces & game in hearts looks cold. Give West the heart King plus two of the missing Aces OR all three missing Aces & slam is possible.

Comment: It looks as if game is possible for NS in  either spades or clubs. The question is will NS be able to find game or not.

Possible Auction: East opens 4H. It is hard to imagine that South will not Double. Whether the DBL gets taken out (probably to either 5C or 4S) or left in for penalty depends on the NS partnership agreement.

Possible Auction: East opens 1H.  Again, I would expect South to DBL (Takeout), West should Pass. I would expect Advancer (North) to bid either 3C or 2S. At this point West could consider a defensive heart bid. One possible result of any defensive bid would be to push NS into a makeable game they would not have bid on their own & give them a better score than if West had simply Passed.

Conclusion: Looks like best case scenario for EW on this hand might very well be for NS to play the hand in a part score contract.

Defensive bids, especially those that fall into the sacrifice category, are a dangerous practice for inexperienced players. When (highly) experienced players make a defensive bid, they know what they are doing. When inexperienced players make a defensive bid, they generally do not understand all the ramifications of doing so & are simply rolling the dice (Ho Chunk bridge), because they have seen experienced players make those bids & think maybe it is something they should do. A dangerous practice, as I said.

Ain't bridge a great game?

Weekly Hand Analysis - Glenna Shannahan - July 19, 2021 - 21 Points

 

Glenna:

  I normally open a hand with 2 ♣️ if I have 22 or more points. But this hand is so strong, that I would open it 2 ♣️ with only 21! East holding 2 A’s, a 6-card ♥️ suit should make a positive response of 2 ♥️.  West will ask for A’s and finding the partnership has all 4 should ask for k’s.  In the end I would bid 6 NT, but 6 ♥️ is safe and a nice contract. There will be several different final contracts depending on opener’s style.  

   Hope this helps,

   Glenna

Weekly Hand Analysis - Vic Johnson - July 12, 2021 -2C or 3C?

 

Vic:

East should not open either one of those two bids. 

The overwhelming majority of modern day players have a partnership agreement that an Opening Bid of 2C promises a 22+ point hand. Be that the case with the EW pair above, East should clearly not open 2C. Weak Two bids promise exactly a 6 card suit. That means 2C would not be an appropriate bid if East were trying to show a weak hand either.

 Preemptive three level bids promise exactly a 7 card suit which is what East is holding. The problem is that the East hand is NOT weak. East has a (bottom of line) opening bid point count. That means 3C would not be an appropriate opening bid either.

 One alternative possibility would be for East to open 1C which would give them the option to rebid clubs later in the auction to show a 6+ card suit.

 Another alternative possibility, given that East has reason to believe South has a big hand, would be for East to open 4C or even 5C in an attempt to keep NS (who might very well have a major suit golden fit) out of the auction. EW are not vulnerable which lowers the penalty for going down. Looks to me like NS can make slam in hearts or spades which would give EW a much worse score than going down a few tricks in a club contract.

 Question: The hand record above indicates that West was dealer which apparently means that West & North both passed. North has a 13 point hand with 2.5 quick tricks & a very nice club singleton. I would expect North to bid 1H which eliminates the question of what East should "open".

Weekly Hand Analysis - Glenna Shannahan - July 12, 2021 - 2 Club Opening Bid

Glenna:

  Yes, whenever we have 22 or more high card points, we must open 2 ♣️! Partner MUST get us to 2 NT, 3 of a Major or 4 of a minor on the theory that 22+ points often needs only one trick from partner to make a game.

  There are several methods people use to respond to 2 ♣️:  One is that partner always bids 2 ♦️ as a waiting bid or 3 of a Major with 9+ points and a 5-card suit and 2NT is 9+ points with a balanced hand.

  My favorite method: 2 ♦️ promises an A or a K, 2 ♥️ can have points but denies having an A or a K, and 2NT promises a GOOD 5-card ♥️ suit. Why do I love this method? Because If partner bids 2 ♥️ with no A or K, I know right then that we don’t have slam. If he bids 2 ♦️, we MIGHT have a slam and I can explore.

 Not knowing the bidding style of the people playing this hand, I would make this suggestion: Open 2 ♣️ and regardless of partner’s bid, bid 3 NT. You have 9 tricks in your own hand and on this board N will lead her 4th best ♠️ and now you have 10 tricks. Sometimes we try to be scientific and we end up making mistakes or having misunderstandings. When you have 9 tricks in your hand, bid 3NT. Your partner will recognize the bidding and if they have more, they can look for slam.

 Hope this helps,

Glenna

 

Weekly Hand Analysis - Glenna Shannahan - July 5, 2021 - Interpret Results from competitive playing at Bridge Club of Madison at Todd Drive

If you decide to play competitively or are curious about playing competitively, you should know that you will receive a computer analysis of the  results of each hand you play in an email message after you complete the session at the Bridge Club of Madison.  The results are different from the Bridge Base Online (BBO) results and so I supplied a hand to Glenna and asked her to interpret the results.

Glenna:

Not sure where this double dummy info came from, but it’s not accurate. Double Dummy says what’s possible to make IF you can see all 4 hands. Looking at all 4 hands, NS cannot make 6 ♣️ , 5 ♦️ , etc.

    NS must loose 1 ♠️, 1 ♥️, 1 ♦️ and 3 ♣️.  EW must loose 2 ♠️, 1 ♥️, 2 ♦️ and 3 ♣️.

The only accurate comment is that par (what most results would be) EW can make a couple of ♦️.  Usually the sheets are more accurate, so I’m sorry this is so off for everyone.

Glenna

Weekly Hand Analysis - Vic Johnson - July 5, 2021 - Interpret results from competitive playing at Bridge Club of Madison at Todd Drive

 If you decide to play competitively or are curious about playing competitively, you should know that you will receive a computer analysis of the  results of each hand you play in an email message after you complete the session at the Bridge Club of Madison.  The results are different from the Bridge Base Online (BBO) results and so I supplied a hand to Vic and asked him to interpret the results.

Vic:

Double Dummy refers to a computer analysis of makeable contracts. Following is how I understand what the numbers are showing. But you need to ask someone who is more concerned about stuff like this than I am. 

Playing in a club contract, there is a line of play that will allow EW to make 4C (that leaves 3 tricks for NS).

Playing in a diamond contract, there is a line of play that will allow EW to make 7D (that leaves 0 tricks for NS).

 Playing in a heart contract, there is a line of play that will allow EW to make 1H (that should leave 6 tricks for NS - why they are only showing 5 tricks for NS I do not know).

Playing in a spade contract, there is a line of play that will allow EW to make 6S (that leaves 1 trick for NS). 

Playing in a NT contract, there is a line of play that will allow EW to make 6NT (that leaves 1 trick for NS).

Whether human partners would ever find a way to bid and/or make any of the above contracts, who knows. In each case it could be either likely OR unlikely OR somewhere in between. Computers do not have to follow any rules of bidding or play. They simply try every possible combination & go with what works. 

I have never understood the concept of Par nor do I have any particular desire to.