2021 MSC Honor Roll
The Bridge World publishes a yearly honor roll. IAC members making the published list are below.

BBO NAME	NAME	RANK	YEARLY-TOTAL
CCR3	Pat McDermott	9	8280
JCreech	James Creech	30	8080
Masse24	Todd Holes	44	7970
Babs	Babs Giesbrecht	53	7920
KenBerg	Ken Berg	93	7630
. . . . . . . .	. . . . . . . . . . . .	. . . . . . . . . . .	. . . . . . . . .

Good job! On to the new year. May it be a good deal better than 2021.

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These are hands from a Star Challenge.  I thought they posed interesting decisions for both the South player (the star and I) and our bot partners.

Bd 1 None vul

You hold KT 32 J932 AKJ62 and it goes two passes to you.  12 HCPs and 2 spades, so only 14 Casino points; do you bid?  And if so what?

At one point, I would have opened 1 so that I would retain the easy rebid of 2 after 1 .  The lack of a heart stop can be of real concern, but I have come around, particularly when the choice of suits is Jxxx vs. AKJxx.  I now feel it is less of a lie to rebid the clubs or bid NT than it is to bid both minors. 

So at my table, it continued with a 1 overcall, 2 cue-bid showing club support, the heart game bid by East and I carried on to game.  Should the South hand bid or defend against 4 ?  This is one of those gray areas where it is not entirely clear whose hand this is.  One rule of thumb says that the five-level belong to the opponents.  With partner showing a club fit, I felt we must have 9-11 clubs, and therefore most of my defense may easily disappear quickly.  To me, it felt like we have a better chance trying to make our game than trying to set theirs.  So I bid.  As it turns out, we have a 23 point sacrifice for their 17 point unbiddable slam.

The final result was a four IMP gain when the star decided to begin with 1 , and then the auction was identical except substituting diamonds for clubs.  The problem, though, was more luck than skill.  I only had to contend with a 4-0 trump break on a 5-4 fit; the star had a 5-0 break with a 4-4 fit.  The contract went down five tricks, compared to the two I went down.`

The full hand can be seen by clicking this link:  https://tinyurl.com/yk5cdkeu   


Bd 4  All vul

On this board, you could say that the star and I made the same bids, just in a different order.

The auction began with two passes to 1 , you hold T9 AK2 A72 KQJT8.  Your choices are essentially double and an overcall.  If you had a spade stop, there would be a third choice of 1NT, but with doubleton T9 it is better to remain among the mundane.  I chose to overcall.  To me, the suit was excellent, and with 3-3 in the reds, I preferred to back into those suits with a double later.  Little did I realize how the auction would progress.  West bid the spade game, and this was passed back to me.  Now I felt that 5 would be too unilateral, and that double would bring everything into view; my defense, that my suit was good, and I could reasonably support either red suit.

So let's now move to the other side of the table.  You hold 6 Q7654 Q3 97532, partner has overcalled in one of your five-card suits, and suggests support for your other five-card suit, and the only defense you have are two queens.  Should you pass and defend, or bid one of your suits?  Personally, I would run to clubs where we have a 10-card or better fit; I just cannot imagine a hand where it would make more sense to pass than play when a double comes around to me.  What did the bot do?  It passed.  And the opponents wrapped up the double with an overtrick.

The star began with a double, West bid 4 , and this was passed back to the star.  What do you do?  Personally, I probably pass, but I can understand the decision to bid on.  The worst you can normally expect to lose is five tricks; if the opponents have a game, that is not much of a loss doubled, and they may not double having shown weakness.  Moreover, if partner has a cover card, even doubled it becomes a small potential win.  So bidding 5 is reasonable, even if it is not my cup of tea.  It might have been more interesting if the vulnerability had been white vs. red.  Then with many partners, I would be willing to bid 4NT saying I have at least two places to play opposite the takeout double.  That would easily get us to 5 , though it might draw a double, as it sounds weak.

I can't say that the overcall is definitively better than the double, but I think it will pay more dividends in the long run than the double.  It helps set the defense by providing a great lead director.  It helps keep your side from finding a 4-3 fit (whether it is right or wrong); certainly there are a lot of declarers that hate not having an eight-card fit.  And it may make it easier to find a fit-based sacrifice.


Nonetheless, it is also important to remember who is sitting across the table from you.  While a human being is unlikely to sit for the double, taking it for cooperative with takeout tolerances, the bot is much more likely to sit with a big fit and nothing to speak of in defensive values. 

A link to the full hand follows:  https://tinyurl.com/yf3rxetq


Bd 6  E-W vul

You hold A8 A2 K9875 AK74, and the auction goes one pass to you.  Too strong for 1NT and not strong enough for 2NT, you open 1 .  Partner raises to 2 , inverted, showing 10+ with diamond support.  West jump overcalls with 3 , and it is now your bid again.  Your room to explore has suddenly disappeared, what do you bid? 

Personally, I would love to pass if I was certain that partner would treat that as forcing.  It has the potential to obtain the most information about partner's hand while conserving the most space.  But, would the bot pass 3 ?  The middle of an auction is not the time to experiment. 

With great controls and partner raising my five-card suit that could have been as short as three are pluses.  We are looking at a minimum of 29 HCPs a nine-card fit and  first-round control of all of the side suits.  The question is how much of partner's hand is wasted in the trump suit, and how much might be useful cover cards in the other suits.  The problem is, you really only have RKC available, and it is of limited usefulness. 

To buy time let's say you bid 4NT and partner responds 5 , showing 1 or four keycards.  Now what?  5 would ask about the queen and responses could tell you about the first-held king.  But what does that tell you?  The queen is actually a bad value if you have a 5-5 fit, because it is not helping in a side suit.  Ideally, you would like to see both major-suit kings, the diamond ace and either the club queen or a doubleton club.  Is there a way to ask all of that?  No!  So at some point you have to guess where to place the contract.

I decided to play partner for a minimum with substantial wastage in the diamond suit.  I made this decision partly on the fact that East bounced in red at the three-level, so I felt there should be some values outstanding to take that risk - that turned out to be a faulty assumption.  Partly on the fact that partner should have 4-6 diamonds, and that increased the chances that a substantial portion of the hand was in the diamond suit - which turned out to be a good assumption.  And partly on the fact that I needed five cover cards for a grand slam - that seemed a bit much, but if I make a slam move, and partner has that sort of hand, there should be no way we stop short of the grand -  this may not have been a fully thought-out assumption, that is, I may need to ask about the queen to get partner to feel certain that we have all of the keycards.

Anyway, I chose to bid six, while the star chose to bid seven.  I happened to be right, and the star wrong, but it could have easily be reversed.  Swap the red queens (keeping the jacks), I would have liked my chances until East did not really have it's bid.

The full hand can be seen by clicking on this link:  https://tinyurl.com/yf9p4n9t

In my mentoring sessions I talk about understandings and keeping on the same page.  I do not often play Flannery, but I do have some partnerships where the other player feels quite strongly about using the convention.  Here is a hand where I think I have the correct perspective on what my rebid means, but my partner clearly felt otherwise.

All red and the auction goes P - P - 1 - 2 ; X (negative)- P - ? and you hold:
  9853  AKQJ62  K7  A

Our agreements about Flannery include that it is permissible to open with a 6 card heart suit, the range is 11-15 and that if responder to Flannery bids 1 , it shows five or more spades.

Given those understandings, I argue that 2 is clearly shows 16 or more HCPs.  If I had less, I would have opened Flannery.  If I had a minimum with only 3 spades, I am more likely to rebid hearts, clubs or NT depending on the nature of my hand.

Now I also put this up as a bidding problem on Bridge Winners.  Clearly, my thinking is not the thinking of the players that have responded so far.  By and large, those responding to the poll think the appropriate rebid is 4 (73%).  Although some of the rationale has to be to right side this hand and protect the  K, but since partner made a negative double, you are doing that by bidding spades (so that would be short-sighted thinking).  I also think that a 4 call is a very unilateral bid - it accurately describes the quality of the heart suit but does not take into consideration that partner is stiff or void in the suit and totally disregards the secondary fit that partner has just made known.  This is a partnership game, and if you are going to bid like this, why not play with a robot or open 4 to start with.

The next poll choice was 3 (20%), so again, these are people who are not using the inference that I did not open 2 (Flannery). 

Granted, how bids in a system work together and the inferences are not the things that a lot of players think about, but it is something I try to do whenever I am trying out a new convention, or working back in an old convention that I haven't used for a while.

Am I off base on my thinking here?  I would hate to think that this is just a pointless rant.

The link to the full hand is here (you will have to copy and paste into a browser - otherwise you will see a blank hand):
https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|South,West,North,East|md|1SKQJTHT7D32CK7654,S62H9843DJT54CJ98,S9853HAKQJ62DK7CA,SA74H5DAQ986CQT32|sv|b|rh||ah|Board%207|mb|P|mb|P|mb|1H|mb|2D|mb|D!|an|responsive|mb|P|mb|2S|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|H5|pc|H7|pc|H8|pc|HA|pc|CA|pc|C2|pc|C4|pc|C8|pc|S3|pc|SA|pc|SK|pc|S2|pc|C3|pc|CK|pc|C9|pc|D7|pc|SQ|pc|S6|pc|S5|pc|S4|mc|11|

I was a kibitzer on this hand.

Vul N-S
Dlr E
                    AKQ9862
                    A94
                    6
                    72

T3                                J4
JT873                          2
QT92                            K875
95                                KJ8643

                    75
                    KQ65
                    AJ43
                    AQT

At one table, I do not think there is any way to get to the grand.  E-W were silent and the auction went 1NT-2 (trans); 2 -6 .  North may have been concerned that 4NT would be treated as quantitative, but even with all RKC agreements fully understood, a critical piece of information was missing; where might the 12th and 13th tricks coming from.  You might be willing to gamble that partner has something that will turn into number 12, but not all the way to 13, so the jump to 6 is not at all unreasonable.

But at the other table, there was more information.  East opened 3 and South overcalled 3NT.  Now what do you do with the North hand?  Again, it is important to be on the same page with ace asking agreements.  North tried 4 (described as Gerber), South responded 4 (described as hoping partner is asking about majors) - oops, it doesn't sound like they are in sync here.

In my more well-discussed partnerships, I don't really have the ability to directly ask for aces.  4 is Stayman and 4NT is quantitative.  If I were to use Stayman and get 4 as the response,  I might be inclined to try RKC at that point.  Two with the Q in hearts gets mt to certain 12 tricks with at least two possibilites for a 13th, would be worth bidding 6 or 6NT (both of which are now right-sided from partner's side).

Vul Both
Dlr S
                    J3
                    KQ542
                    T9875
                    2

98765                          K2
A93                              T76
Q6                                KJ4
T87                              QJ643

                    AQT4
                    J8
                    A32
                    AK95

1 - 1
2NT - 3 (no description, I assumed New Minor Forcing, but looking at hand it coculd be either natural or NMF)
3 - 3NT (3 described as denying 3 herts)
P

If you look at GIB before the opening lead, there is no lead that allows this hand to make.  My opponent led the Q, I let it hold, now GOB says only a small heart will defeat the contract.

How things change so quickly!  What would you shift to?  I think that when faced with a diamond suit that could be set up, I would want to attack entries to that suit.  So I would shift to a heart.  Which heart?  I think it is clear to lead a small heart with plans to take the second heart.  Why?  Well, in part because declarer announced fewer than 3 hearts.  But there is another reason; if declarer lied and has three hearts, there is no way to defeat this contract.

I got lucky and LHO shifted to the 9; even though RHO ducked the king, I need that card with RHO.  As declarer, along with the K, I need the diamonds to break 3-2, and if they do, I have 9 tricks with hearts as my entry - I just have to be willing to overtake the jack.  3 spades, 1 heart, 3 diamonds and 2 clubs.  This was the path I took.

Now the result was reasonable for the event 66.7%, but given the difficulty, I was hoping for more.  So what beat me?  Four players found their way into the 5-2 heart fit, making 4 or 5 depending on the defense, but one was in 3NT making six.  How did that defense go?  It started with the 9, ducked in dummy and up went the K, won by declarer.  Declarer shifted to the J, up went the ace and lets shift to a club.  Now declarer tried the hearts while there was still a spade entry.  They worked, so cash the J, pitching all small cards except the 9.  Meanwhile RHO is pseudo squeezed and guesses wrong at the end.  On this defense, declarer is always getting a top by making either 5 or 6 depending on RHO's last pitch.

This hand rotated came up in yesterday's Survivor tourney (Dlr: S, Vul: Both):

  KQT2
  Q876
  AQ7
  97


 
  AT53
  83
  AKQT432
1      2       X        P
3        P       4      P
6        P                        (X was negative showing hearts)

The first question, is would you want to be in this slam?

The second question is, how would you play this in slam?  The lead was the A.

I was on defense on this hand, and was guilty of putting declarer a less than desirable position.  The auction at the other table was 1 - 2 - 4 - All pass, so declarer did not have to think much about how to play the hand. 

At our table, as East, I bid 5 and South carried on to 5 .  Now you have to think about how to avoid a third loser. 

  T6543
  AT87
  6
  965


  AQJ72
  KJ4
  K8752
  -

Lead: A

This is a hand where chances can be combined. 

1.  There is a two-way finesse in hearts, as well as play for Qx.
2.  You can either finesse the K or play for the drop.
3.  You can play for the A to be onside and the suit to break 4-3 or you can play for the Axx on either side (ducking the first trick completely).

In many ways this is a challenge for Ken - to identify the best combination of chances - but it is a challenge for others to select the best combination with essentially only the tools you would have at the table to select a line.

I will go first, and try to remain objective despite having seen the full hand.

My plan would revolve around a line where a specific player has at least one of the three critical cards.

If I were to play West (the overcaller) for at least one of the three cards, then:
1.  after winning the lead, I would lay down the A, hoping for the stiff K;
2. if that did not work, then I  would duck a diamond, planning to ruff out Axx in West - if trump broke 3-0, then I would use trump as transportation;
3. if that did not work, then I would play the K, then finesse the Q.

If I were to play East for at least one of the three cards, then:
1. after winning the lead, I would cross to dummy with the A to finesse in trump;
2. if that did not work, then I would cross to dummy to lead a diamond toward the K, then ruff two diamonds - using the K and the fifth diamonds for heart pitches;
3. if that did not work, then I would cross to dummy once more to finesse the Q.

I think the percentages work better for playing East for at least one critical honor, but I think that the overcall increases the chances that West actually has at least one of the critical honors, but will it really matter unless it includes at least one of the following:
1. stiff K on either side
2. Axx on either side
3. Q

So even though I think that West is more likely to have all three missing honors, I feel like the percentage are with playing East for at least one.

What are your thoughts? 

(And Ken, I would at least know which of my two lines is better, as well as what line is best.  Thank you.)