As anyone reading this has probably noted, I think the way to get the most out of the lesson hands is to bring them up for discussion afterward. Jim provided us with some interesting hands yesterday, here is one of them
http://tinyurl.com/y2m7n3oxhe hand is cold for 6 !c, that's true. Nonetheless, I think 5
is fine. So that's where the philosophy comes in.
First philothought:
More often than not, when the opponents open the bidding we will be competing, if we are bidding at all, for a part score. Sometimes a game. On occasion a slam. Once, long ago, the opponents opened and we were cold for a grand. We did get to 6 on that hand, partner wanted to discuss how we could have gotten to 7, I thought any such discussion would be of abstract interest only due to the infrequency. In this case we have a 12 count facing an 11 count. Yes, everything is right, but that's hard to see. And in fact it everything is even righter than I first thought. In the post-hand discussion I noted that a trump lead at T1 would hold us to 11 tricks, but in fact that's wrong since the diamonds can be set up. Win an opening
lead in hand, play
Q to A and ruff a
, back to the boar with the
K, play the
T tossing a heart, ruff another
, back to the board with the
A, and cash the last 2
throwing the last of your hears. So, on a trump lead, you can take 13 tricks. But I would not want to bet on it.
Second philothought:
It was mentioned that Joe believes that over my 3 !h a bid of 4
must be forcing since playing in 4m is seldom right. I mentioned that I am a dissenter from that view. My dissent is part of a more general view that most bids, unless discussed beforehand, should be interpreted in a fairly naive.way. On the hand in question, partner has a 7 card
suit and a stiff
both of which are useful of neither of which are needed to justify the 2
overcall. But of course she also could have a stronger hand. I think it is useful to have the 4
call mean "I overcalled 2
, don't expect all that much more than that." If that's not enough for my taste, I can pass. With more strength, she can make some forcing bid. With the hand she has, meaning one that is not a bare minimum for an overcall but also not filled with values, she chooses. I have perhaps more than I need for my 3
, so I raise 4 !c to 5
. It's true that it makes 6, but as noted above a
lead might have set 6
accept for the magic of the
holding.
Third philothought:
I was asked to alert my 3
so I did, but outside of alerting it, what can I say? I have a good hand, and bidding 3
must surely show a good hand, but that's about it. I had not yet decided what I would do if partner bid 3NT over my 3
, I would think about it. If partner were to bid 3NT and then I were to pull to 4
, I would regard that as a very strong sequence. My 3
wasn't a request for partner to bid 3
with a
stop but of course partner might well decide to do so on some hands. Presumably I have some sort of
fit for my 3
since if I don't it's hard to see why I would want to enter the auction with an artificial bid at that level. But I do not think that there is all that much I can say except that it shows a good hand. Some cue bids have specific meanings, this one doesn't, at least not for me.
So that's a lot of philosophy. The brief version: If the opponents open the bidding and you find your way to 5
on a combined 23 count, don't fret all that much over the fact that it makes 6. Maybe Meckwell can have a precise auction that gets them there, but I am not Meckwell (neither half of them).
These were an interesting set of hands. I was around for the first seven of them, I often need to leave around 6:15 edt on Thursdays.