Conference turris::bridge

1962.0. "I couldn't have done that!" by SUBSYS::SENGUPTA (Shekhar Sengupta DTN 237-6785) Wed May 07 1997 11:05

    Last weekend I was feeling abandoned by my bridge playing family and
    friends, because everyone was at the 299er regionals, where I was
    not allowed. Since one of my regular partners was teaching a group of
    newcomers how to learn and start playing bridge within the space of
    3 hours, he asked me if I could help preserve order, once his class
    started playing. Being unoccupied during the first hour, I wandered
    over to the playing room and decided to kibitz a team I was friends
    with. Shortly after I sat down, the following deal came along:
    
    The two hands I could see belonged to my friend and his LHO
    
    Dlr. W, Both vul:
    			North
                        Couldn't see
    	West                            East
        Couldn't see                    Ax-AT9xxx-xxx-QT
        		South
    			x-Kxx-AQxx-KJ9xx
    
    West was dealer. The bidding went: Pass-Pass-2H-? While I was scratching
    my head wondering what to do, South, with but a moment's reflection
    issued forth with 2NT! The bidding proceeded:
    
    	Pass    Pass   2H   2NT
    	Pass    3S     Pass 3NT
    
    The HJ was led, and dummy tabled: Jxxxx-Qx-KJx-Axx. Declarer covered
    with the HQ, RHO took his HA. Declarer won the second round of Hearts,
    played the ACE of D, then a low D to the King. A low club to the CJ,
    a diamond to the jack, followed by CA and CX to hand wrapped up her
    contract.
    
    As you can no doubt extrapolate, West, holding KQT9x-Jx-xxx-xxx could
    not have done any better with even a Spade lead.
    
    Needless to say, my friends could not recover from the vulnerable game
    swing and lost. I left the room with the certain knowledge that I
    would have lost too.
    
    Shekhar

    
      Shekhar - even if I selected the overcall of 3C, partner would
     surely take us to game at 3NT, and as the cards lie, it can't
     really go down.  So while the 2NT overcall is a bit odd, the
     contract is reasonably normal for an aggressive pair after a
     2H opening.  Oddly, passing instead of opening two would be more
     likely to result in a partial in notrump, luckily making 3 or 4.
     I don't much like the weak two here, myself.
    
      bb

    I don't know if I would do what you would, BB. Since there seem
    to be some shapely hands at the table AND partner passed, South knows
    that his side has a maximum of 24 points. Under the circumstances, 3C
    might get N-S overboard. Hence I'd pass with the South cards and
    perhaps bid 2N or 3C over North's 2S. Whatever I bid, I'd expect N
    to pass, knowing that we'd both told our story.
    
    Shekhar

I've been quite surprised of last to see how many "under strength" 3NT's make 
after a week two bid. I'm sure that the will be an update to the "law" at some 
point which explains why this is the case.

When I played with Jay, there was the one I posted and two other against us. 
In the other two cases there wasn't an defense.

Based on my "data" I too would have overcalled 3C. 2NT with a singleton spade 
doesn't bother me, but under strength as well-I wouldn't.

    I'm not sure what I'd overcall - 2N or 3C. Chances are both
    W and N have ~10 HCP, so 3N can make if the 5 carder runs.
    Thus 2N at least keeps C secret. Personally I prefer S lead
    (not that it matters here): W is the stronger hand,
    with side entries for S. (We have put down many a 3N by
    *not* leading the weak-2 opener's suit.) Besides, HQ lead
    may give-up a trick. If W had 3 hearts, it would be a
    different matter.