H. 5c, they are missing a ace, and if its club ace, they are down immediately, and no guarantee I will get that Q of trump
MAY GUESSES - (all preliminary):
PROBLEM H: !H J. Partner has nothing. Partner knows it. I know it. But declarer does not know it. If declarer has the !H T (or even partner), and no shortness in the heart suit, might this look like a shortness lead? If so, would he be more inclined to play the trump suit for a drop of the Queen? I don’t know, but I sure do hate lead problems!
Slow learner.MAY GUESSES - (all preliminary):
PROBLEM H: !H J. Partner has nothing. Partner knows it. I know it. But declarer does not know it. If declarer has the !H T (or even partner), and no shortness in the heart suit, might this look like a shortness lead? If so, would he be more inclined to play the trump suit for a drop of the Queen? I don’t know, but I sure do hate lead problems!
I see someone has not learned their lesson about leading singleton against slams!
PROBLEM H: Club 5 - still think they could be off an ace. 9 card trump fit usually doesn't mind missing queen.
NAME | BW-SCORE | RANK | MPs |
CCR3 | 720 | 1 | 30 |
MarilynLi | 700 | 2 | 15 |
Masse24 | 690 | 3 | 10 |
. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . | . . . . |
Holy Mackerel! the May awards are full of real head-scratchers.As I start thinking about how to summarize, I have been struck with similar thoughts.
Starting at the bottom, notice how they practically gave up on handing out BAD scores on the lead problem. That's fine, except that leading ANY diamond should be punished about as severely as the K!D lead was, IMO...Right – there are nine leads that score 80 or above. How can that be a legitimate lead problem. A lead problem should be that there are something like three strong contenders, and maybe a couple more that might get the wild hair vote.
ON problem A, where bidding onward was voted in by a 23-5 margin, the double of 3D scored 80-- not bad for the "loosing side"-- by a landslide, especially considering 3 Diamonds will be cold 40% of the time....I am more puzzled by the 4 !S getting 100. Unless there is a great fear that the 2 !D jump overcall preempted our side out of finding a 4-4 major fit, I cannot see that sort of plurality for 4 !S. If the fit is the Moysian 4-3, you are taking the tap from the wrong side. With a jump overcall, the opponent’s spade split is much more likely to be at least 4-2 and possibly worse, so the second round of diamonds would shorten the long hand – oops!
It's worse with problem B: any bid above 3NT can be called 'a looser' EXCEPT FOUR SPADES which is tantamount to driving to slam yet got the fat 90. That's fine by me, as I just BID the club slam [awarded 20 :( ] but the bulk of the panel is against bidding this hand up-up-up, so what's so better about the cuebid? Can hardly wait for the quotes of wisdom on this....And while I see potential with the South hand, partner only made a negative double, and both opponents did bid (albeit, the direct seat was preemptive). Personally, I don’t like committing to the five-level without knowing what our fit is. Perhaps, 4 !S is putting the onus on partner to make that choice, but is partner going to make the club choice with three? No, it is obvious that partner will bid diamonds, since you are looking at only the stiff Q; what else can partner do starring at five or more? And as Blu says, we are now committed to a slam, but with no idea which is right.
The one that really shocked me was Problem C.
!S 96532 - !H -- !D K - !C AJT9854
Auction was:
1 !H - (P) - ?
I understand the winning choice of 3 !C which we all considered (especially due to the helpful system hint) and both Marilyn & Pat picked. But in second place, 2 !C? GF? Really? :o
I'm curious to see the rationale behind that call. Maybe a tactical choice to later bid spades twice? Intending to live or die in a black suit contract?
[R]evisit the comments of the cue-bidders, if they say anything juicy, . . . ?
Here is a quote from the moderator that breaks my heart, regarding problem B:
Bart Bramley makes it clear: “Cutting to the chase. The hand is so strong that South should be driving to slam, which might well be cold and will rarely be worse than a finesse.” So why is my answer of "6C" worth 20, which considering how many 90's and 80's Bramley handed out might as well be minus 20? Could it be that I have blown by the chance to reach 6 HEARTS-- c'mon, gang that cue-bid [4S] will not get ME to a heart slam as I wouldn't dare raise a 5H response, nor even pass it. I WANT an 85 for 6 clubs, zero panelist-votes be damned.
P.S> Jim could you revisit the comments of the cue-bidders, if they say anything juicy, as well as 3NT bidders that may have strong misgivings?