FEBRUARY 2020 MSC

Deadline: January 10 at 9:00 a.m. (ET)

Submit your February responses here: The Bridge World - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB

BWS 2017 System: BWS 2017
BWS 2017 POLLS, CHANGES AND ADDITIONS: BWS 2017 - Polls, Changes, and Additions

• Bridge World Standard 2017 (BWS or BWS2017) is effective beginning with the January 2017 Master Solvers' Club problems. This page shows (1) the results of the panelist polls that were used to adjust the system; and (2) the changes in and the additions to Bridge World Standard 2001 (BWS2001) that were made.
  In the listings of the questions and answers, an asterisk indicates the BWS2001 agreement; the proportion of the expert votes for each item, rounded to the nearest percent, is shown in brackets.

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IAC Forum MSC Scores

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PROBLEM A: IMPs
North-South Vulnerable
You, South, hold:
AKJ973 — 972 AKT8

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
1	Pass	1NT	2
??*

*BWS: Double = Takeout
What call do you make?

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PROBLEM B: IMPs
East-West Vulnerable
You, South, hold:
AK5 2 AK9642 A43

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
1	Pass	1	Pass
??

What call do you make?

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PROBLEM C: IMPs
Both sides vulnerable
You, South, hold:
2 AQ42 AKJ Q7532

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
??

Which of these plans do you prefer?
(a) 1 - (Pass) - 1 - (Pass) -?
(a1) 1 NT (a2) 2 (a3) 2 (a4) 2 NT
(b) 1 (c) 1 (d) 1 NT

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PROBLEM D: Matchpoints
Both Sides Vulnerable
You, South, hold:
— AQT5 J873 AQJ63

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
—	—	—	1
??

What call do you make?

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PROBLEM E: Matchpoints
Neither side Vulnerable
You, South, hold:
J AT754 642 A963

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
—	—	1	Pass
1NT	Pass	2	Pass

??

What call do you make?

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PROBLEM F:Matchpoints
East-West Vulnerable
You, South, hold:
Aj83 53 Q63 A932

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
—	1	Pass	1
Pass	1	Dbl*	Pass

??

*BWS: Strong hand – length in diamonds
What call do you make?

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PROBLEM G: IMPs
Neither Side Vulnerable
You, South, hold:
AKJ5 9 Q8 AKT843

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
—	1	Pass	1NT
2	2	Pass	Pass

??

What call do you make?

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PROBLEM H: IMPs
East-West vulnerable
You, South, hold:
T54 Q987 T76 J73

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
—	—	—	1
Pass	1	Pass	2NT
Pass	6NT	All Pass

What is your opening lead?

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Good luck everyone!

DECEMBER MSC

Deadline: November 10 at 9:00 a.m. (ET)

Submit your November responses here: The Bridge World - MASTER SOLVERS CLUB

BWS 2017 System: BWS 2017

BWS 2017 POLLS, CHANGES AND ADDITIONS: BWS 2017 - Polls, Changes, and Additions

• Bridge World Standard 2017 (BWS or BWS2017) is effective beginning with the January 2017 Master Solvers' Club problems. This page shows (1) the results of the panelist polls that were used to adjust the system; and (2) the changes in and the additions to Bridge World Standard 2001 (BWS2001) that were made.
  In the listings of the questions and answers, an asterisk indicates the BWS2001 agreement; the proportion of the expert votes for each item, rounded to the nearest percent, is shown in brackets.

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PROBLEM A: Matchpoints
East-West Vulnerable
You, South, hold:
643 Q72 K64 KQ95

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
—	—	—	Pass
Pass	Pass	1	1
??

What call do you make?

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PROBLEM B: Matchpoints
Neither Side Vulnerable
You, South, hold:
6 KQ Q8742 K9763

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
—	2	Dbl	3
?*

*BWS: 4NT = Takeout

What call do you make?

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PROBLEM C: IMPs
Neither side vulnerable
You, South, hold:
T2 AT64 K7 AKT94

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
—	1	Pass	Pass
?

What call do you make?

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PROBLEM D: IMPs
East-West Vulnerable
You, South, hold:
AKQ943 KQ95 9 J5

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
1	3	Pass	Pass
?

What call do you make?

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PROBLEM E: IMPs
North-South Vulnerable
You, South, hold:
T82 AKQ7 J87 Q82

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
—	—	1	Pass
1	Pass	1	Pass

?

What call do you make?

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PROBLEM F: Board-a-Match
Both sides vulnerable
You, South, hold:
QJ KT84 2 QJT543

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
—	—	1	2
Pass	Pass	Dbl	Pass

?

What call do you make?

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PROBLEM G: IMPs
East-West Vulnerable
You, South, hold:
K AQJ97 A85 KJ42

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
1	Pass	1	Pass
2	Pass	2	Pass

?

What call do you make?

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PROBLEM H: IMPs
Both sides vulnerable
You, South, hold:
A2 QT92 AQ7 JT94

SOUTH	WEST	NORTH	EAST
1	2	Pass	3NT
Pass	Pass	Pass

What is your opening lead?

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Good luck everyone!

Your are dealt the following hand:

      KJ5 QT5 KJ862 64

Partner opens 1 and you respond with a forcing 1NT, intending to show a 3-card limit-raise over partner’s rebid. But partner rebids 2 . Now what? Do you continue your plan to show a 3-card limit-raise by bidding 3 ? Or do you revalue and, knowing of the 9 card fit, push to game? I’ve seen it done both ways and have done it myself.

Your initial plan intended to bring partner in on the decision. What has changed? Quite often, I’ve seen responders rebid 3 in this auction with invitational values but only two-card support. Which is fine. Lacking a better rebid and knowing partner has 6+ make 3 a relatively safe rebid. But partner does not know how many you have in support. Is it two, or three?

Change your original hand to this:

      KJ5 QT KJ862 764

Assuming the same auction that begins 1 – 1NT – 2 do you rebid 3 showing invitational values? Or possibly 2NT denying support, potentially missing a known (to you) 8-card fit?

There is a solution.

Simply expand your definition of an Impossible 2 to include this auction. Therefore, when you have the first hand your rebid is 3 , showing a 3-card limit-raise--which is what you intended to show in the first place. A rebid of 2 —Impossible!—denotes the 2-card limit-raise. Partner is now in a much better position to determine how to proceed.

I saw two hands recently that could have made use of this Impossible 2 . We all learn it as part of a forcing 1NT structure in 2/1 to show a good raise of opener’s minor suit rebid. This is simply an extension. I learned this years ago in a Billy Miller lesson. Miller suggested that the doubleton be Qx or better. You can tack on additional complexity over the 2 rebid to ask for and target shape and honor placement.

Definitely requires agreement. But it is simple. A cool gadget.

OCTOBER MSC

Deadline: September 10 at 9:00 a.m. (ET)

Submit your October responses here: https://www.bridgeworld.com/indexphp.php?page=/pages/msc/mastersolversmainpage.html

BWS 2017 System: https://www.bridgeworld.com/indexphp.php?page=/pages/readingroom/bws/bwscompletesystem.html

BWS 2017 POLLS, CHANGES AND ADDITIONS: https://www.bridgeworld.com/indexphp.php?page=/pages/readingroom/bws/bwspolls2017.html 

• (This page shows (1) the results of the panelist polls that were used to adjust the system; and (2) the changes in and the additions to Bridge World Standard 2001 (BWS2001) that were made.
     In the listings of the questions and answers, an asterisk indicates the BWS2001 agreement; the proportion of the expert votes for each item, rounded to the nearest percent, is shown in brackets.)

Good Luck!

P.S. Panel answers and scores are usually published the same day as the deadline.

Counterintuitive



Another in the “What means what” series. I saw this auction while kibbing a recent IAC Spur Team Match. North/South were playing a standard 2/1 system with a forcing notrump. At both tables, North opened a heavy 1 . (Some may choose to open this hand 2 , but I am fine with 1 ).
South responded 1NT, intending to show a three-card limit-raise over partner’s rebid. But opener threw a wrench in the works by jumping to 3 , unequivocally a game-force. So how does responder now show what he initially intended to show?

We all learn the following early on in developing our bridge knowledge—once a game force has been established, to show more, go slowly. But there are exceptions. This is one of them.
Assume that, as responder, you have this hand:
Q8
9742
32
KQT83

The common default here is that 3 merely shows preference. It DOES NOT even promise three of partner’s suit! So with very little in the way of strength, and even less in the way of support, the “expert standard” call with the above responder’s hand is 3 . Counterintuitive!

The responder in the IAC Spur Match, with a 3-card limit-raise, correctly jumped to 4 . Again—counterintuitive! Unfortunately, even with the massive hand that north had, 4 was passed. My guess is that north was not aware of what it showed.

I believe continuations after opener’s jump-shift to be a very difficult area of bidding, and one that is often undiscussed. With discussion, I believe a viable overloading of responder’s 3M bid could be accomplished, including both the “showing preference” garbage bid and the 3-card limit-raise. But knowing the “expert standard” continuation is where the discussion begins.

Any ideas?

Another Bidding Forum, if anyone is interested.




AUSTRALIAN BIDDING FORUM: Australian Bridge Bidding Forum



Responses to this month are due tomorrow, March 26.

I recently (two years ago) started subscribing to The Bridge World, the world's leading bridge magazine.

One of the more enjoyable aspects of my subscription is the monthly MASTER SOLVERS CLUB. The Bridge World's MASTER SOLVERS CLUB is the world's longest-running and most popular bridge feature. New problems in bidding and sometimes play are presented each month. The great thing about the MASTER SOLVERS CLUB is that it does not require a subscription to enter. The contest is free and is open to all.

Each month there are eight new problems that require careful consideration. Usually they are extremely difficult bidding problems and you, the bidder, are asked to find the best, most descriptive bid. The highest scoring bid is very often doubling, cue-bidding, or bidding a three card suit.

Recently, I started a back-and-forth e-mail exchange of MSC ideas with two other IAC members. While I have done well on my own, twice making the "Honor Roll," I find the "discussion" stimulating. By starting this thread, I thought we might expand the "discussion" to others who might also enjoy the difficulty of the problems, but especially the discussion!

The link to the MSC problems is here:  https://www.bridgeworld.com/indexphp.php?page=/pages/msc/mastersolversmainpage.html

The deadline for replies is the 10th of each month at 9:00 a.m. EST.

Unfortunately, that is in just a few hours, so we will not see much participation due to time constraints. But maybe going forward we could generate a monthly discussion?

P.S. The reason I put this post in the 2/1 folder is that the MSC uses Bridge World Standard, a basic 2/1 system often used as a beginning template of agreements by experts. On most problems, the system used does not necessarily come into play. The problems are generally bidding judgement problems with more than one (sometimes several) viable answer.

P.P.S. I have not yet submitted my July answers, but I intend to do so later tonight. I'll post my thoughts on this month's problems soon.

I was going to reply to your "WELCOME" post, Oliver, but I see it is locked.

I think this forum is a great idea! And the occasional announcement (like we all received when we logged on today) about the forum will hopefully boost attendance and contributions. Well done!