True sleight of hand?

[kenberg]

Yes, but they could refine it some and I can imagine that they take advantage of the opportunity. After 1 - 2 a 2   call could be used to show a hand that could be interested in game opposite a 9 count. I can see the advantage. After a standard 1 - 2 opener could be borderline about making a try. The 2 call could work well with that hand. Then 1 - 2 - 2 could be a don't even think about it call when responder has the simple raise hand. The 2 says I don't care if you have a ten count, we are done.

Added: I looked up a previous post where you noted that declarer's hand was QJ10, Kxxxxx, AK, 8x. Suppose we were playing standard 2/1 and the auction began as theirs did, without the alerts: 1 - 2 - 2 - 3 - 3 NT - 4 NT.  I think I would decline the invitation. But if  - 2 - 2   is not only passable but the weaker of two passable sequences (the other being to bid 2 with a bit more than this and see if pard still signs off in 2 ), then I might well think "Well, he can't be expecting much more than this" and accept. I am guessing that is what happened.

[wackojack]

Opponent's system
I am aware from some of their conversations that declarer has a detailed printed system which responder works to.   In the auction 1  -2  , this bid was alerted as 7-10 3 card  support, or natural game force.  2  was not alerted and neither was 3 .  I did ask if the 3  bid was now a natural game force and this was confirmed by the 3  bidder.  It did not occur to me to ask if there were further artificial bids available to clarify opener's hand.  One must bear in mind that this was not an important match.  We were playing casual bridge in a "casual" club. 

Our system 
I play my partner's profile and we have no further discussions.  Carding is stated as standard.  So as for partner following with the 8  I can only guess the significance if any.  My guess is that partner would be showing 4 cards in diamonds.  I think that this very likely denied the Ace, otherwise she would have played it. 

Does this help me?  Yes I think it should.  I rejected partner having the Ace  , but I didn't reject strongly enough her not having the K  .  So I continued with Q  .  Now after the dust has settled, I think that Kit Woolsey and Michael Rosenburg are right in saying that leading back a spade is obvious. 

Congratulations to declarer in seeing this possible coup.  Has it a name?  If not I could coin the name as the 007 coup. After the count is rectified, partner is squeezed in  and  for 12 tricks. 

This was declarer's hand:
  QJ105
  K9653
  AK
  105


 

[Masse24]

Your were hoodwinked. 

[wackojack]

Oh! And in case any more questions are asked about the opponents' system.  When dummy went down, declarer told his partner that  he should have rebid clubs again rather than 4NT. 

[Masse24]

Oh! . . . he should have rebid clubs again rather than 4NT.

Agreed. 

[kenberg]

Opponent's system
I am aware from some of their conversations that declarer has a detailed printed system which responder works to.   In the auction 1  -2  , this bid was alerted as 7-10 3 card  support, or natural game force.  2  was not alerted and neither was 3 .  I did ask if the 3  bid was now a natural game force and this was confirmed by the 3  bidder.  It did not occur to me to ask if there were further artificial bids available to clarify opener's hand.  One must bear in mind that this was not an important match.  We were playing casual bridge in a "casual" club. 

Our system 
I play my partner's profile and we have no further discussions.  Carding is stated as standard.  So as for partner following with the 8  I can only guess the significance if any.  My guess is that partner would be showing 4 cards in diamonds.  I think that this very likely denied the Ace, otherwise she would have played it. 

Does this help me?  Yes I think it should.  I rejected partner having the Ace  , but I didn't reject strongly enough her not having the K  .  So I continued with Q  .  Now after the dust has settled, I think that Kit Woolsey and Michael Rosenburg are right in saying that leading back a spade is obvious. 

Congratulations to declarer in seeing this possible coup.  Has it a name?  If not I could coin the name as the 007 coup. After the count is rectified, partner is squeezed in  and  for 12 tricks. 

This was declarer's hand:
  QJ105
  K9653
  AK
  105

Thanks. I has not realized you were playing although I might not have looked it up even if I had.

Anyway, playing in IAC I am often unsure of our own agreements let alone the opponent's. But with posted hands we can sit back leisurely and think about such matters. If, as I suspect, the 2 was not only passable (surely it was passable) but also the weaker of two "get out" sequences. Maybe responder should have just passed. Change declarer's J to a K and the slam is unbeatable. But that would then be a good hand for what I  suspect 2 would show: He would have 15 highs and some shape and thus a reasonable play for 4 if responder has 9 or 10 highs and three hearts. If responder can then rule out opener holding that good of a hand then maybe he should just pass 3NT. responder has exactly 8 tricks, so for the slam declarer needs to supply four, and before the opps take two.

To put it another way, suppose over 3NT responder does bid 4 . Meaning what and then what? I suppose they end in 5 but that could go wrong if the opening leader holds Ax in since it goes A, then small to the K and a third might well promote a trump.

I wish I knew just how weak a hand the 2 call described. Passable no doubt, but I would like to know more. But I wish for many things. Trick or treat. 

This is a very interesting hand!

[wackojack]

Thanks Ken for your observations. 

These detailed partnership agreements are a double edged sword against good opponents.  You hinted that when 2  rebid = min and 2  = artificial better than min could give a good defender the necessary information to find a killing defence.  OTOH this extra exchange might prevent the bidders getting into an impossible slam. 

However, at the table in iac this theorising is for the birds.  Most players, even the ones that have an impressive list of conventions in their profile do not know the follow-ups and often use them when they should not. Better just to learn the basics of: hand evaluation, when to overcall, when to double, when to pre-empt, when to support and how far, when to use Stayman and how to follow-up, when to transfer and how to follow up.  Maybe RKB provided that it is understood that this is a final check to keep you out of a bad slam. 
 

[kenberg]

I am much in favor of keeping it simple for IAC, and elsewhere, really.  And for this hand it is all  academic. But then I am a (retired) academic.


After the lead, the to the board and the to the Q we have to decide what to do and there is not much hope unless he accepted on modest values. So we give him the Q, the K and the K that we have seen, and then one but not both  of the A and the K. I guess he would be more apt to accept holding the A while missing the K than he would with if he held the K but was missing the A. So that's an argument for assuming he is missing the K.

Jim pointed out that declarer, with his actual hand, had the option of playing for a squeeze without the count assuming that his Rho held the AK and his Lho held at most two hearts. He takes the K (or maybe, better, the A) at T1 and runs six clubs. Everyone comes down to six cards, with declarer holding QJ / Kxx /  K and Rho holding AK K96 and a spot. He now leads the last , Rho throws a , declarer pitches the top . Now declarer leads the Q from the dummy. As long as declarer reads the position correctly, he is home free. If Rho pitches a , declarer pitches a spade and takes three hearts. If Rhp throws the K, or A, declarer pitches a heart and leads a spade, establishing his high spade. The fact that he didn't do this could be seen as an argument that this line is not available, meaning that he lacks the A, and thus holds the K.

Who knows? I'm now inclined to go along with those who take the with the A and lead another . Not my original view, but I now think it's right. Of course I have now seen the hands.

So when it comes to the play at T4 and 5, knowing whether 2 over 2 would be artificial really doesn't matter. We have to assume opener has modest values if we are to beat this. So it's curiosity. But playing that the 2 could be on 7-10 highs and three card heart support is a convention with  a cost. It means that opener, with a modest hand, cannot go beyond 2 after 2 . For example, with the hand he held here, he cannot rebid 2NT even though both and are stopped, and he cannot rebid 2 even though he has four. Those bids would get them too high if responder had three hearts and an 8 count. I see this as a steep price. So, if I were to play this meaning of 2 then I wand to get something out of it, and using an artificial 2 response seems like the way to do it. I don't know if they do that, but is seems logical. The whole convention is not to my taste, but that's me. Ido indeed like to keep things simple.

[jcreech]

The declarer on this hand also sent the hand to me and discussed reasoning in a second email:

"Probably the technical solution is to run the diamonds and clubs, hoping for AK spades and 4 or more hearts in E.
However, I thought (gambled) East would double then. Apart from this, split honors occur 2x as much.
So i took trick 1 with the King. Then club 10 to dummy and a spade to the Q and ace.
No spade came back and the squeeze was there.
… it’s not easy to play a spade back, possibly giving a free finesse."

I agree that split honors are much more likely, and I have used the philosophy that if the opening leader doesn't know what suit to attack at trick 1, and I need to lose a trick, then lose it to that player again as soon as possible before their partner can get in a signal.  This philosophy worked well on this hand and congrats to successfully executing the squeeze.

[kenberg]

Yes, it makes sense, which is why I didn't say that declarer's line was proof that he held QJx instead of KQx.  It's evidence, not proof. It has to be balanced by asking whether it is really credible that he would accept the invitation on an aceless hand. If the defense decides no, that's not credible, then win the spade and lead a spade back.

Declarer was seriously lucky. He needs Lho to have at most two hearts whichever way he decides to run a squeeze, and then he needs either that Rho hold the KQ if he tries the squeeze w/o the count and he needs Lho not to win the and then play a spade back if he plays for the honors to be divided. I was thinking of trying the bots on both the bidding and the play on the free bot day yesterday but I didn't get around to it. It's better to try it with the dollar buts rather than the cheapies anyway.  I am thinking the bots might well win the spade and lead back a spade but we will see. or we will see if I ever get around to it.

[wackojack]

Use of this convention came up again last night and so I had opportunity to question him in detail.  He confirmed that a rebid of 2 would show extras. Declarer in evangelical mood also stated that everybody should play this convention.  I would like to see if example hands could be constructed where its use could go wrong.

Declarer appears to be a fan of 2 way bids as another one that has come up a few times was the 2  opening bid = either weak with long diamonds or the normal 2  opening bid.  I know that this treatment of an opening 2  bid is extremely popular in the tournament world and I played it for a couple of years with one partner.  It then frees up an opening 2  bid to show what ever turns you on.  A weak 2 in a major usually.  Then opening 2M could show an M+m hand or whatever you like. 

General question: Is the use of such 2 way bids really better at conveying information to enable the correct contract to be reached or a means of bamboozling  opponents to do the wrong thing?. 

[kenberg]

My thoughts about conventions in general are much more based on personal preference than on any well thought out wisdom. But I will make some comments.
 
1. My bad results are most often due to bad choices. Sometimes it's bad luck, I was in a perfectly reasonable heart slam the other day when it went down on spade ace followed by spade ruff. And sometimes, but not often, it's because I am not playing some nifty convention.

2. That being said, there are a lot of good conventions. Often there are features about them that would not appear at first glance. So some discussion is needed. I have the Mike Lawrence disk Conventions. I think that if a pair wants to play a convention, saying "Let's both read ML and play it that way" makes sense.  Doesn't have to be ML of course. There was a time in my life when I played seriously enough so that I would, for example, drive from Maryland to Pittsburgh and stay for several days for a tournament. I don't do that anymore, but when I did I would take an approach like I describe with conventions. We would both read the same description by someone we both trusted and then we would play the convention that way.

3. If I play a convention I like to be sure the opponents are completely aware of what's being done. Take this two-way 2 call. I think the 2 call should then be alerted  and, if 2 would have been an artificial call to show a willingness by opener to go on if responder had bid 2 on a good 9 count with 3 hearts, then I think it should be explained that the 2 call shows a hand where opener does not wish to go on if responder has bid 2 with a 9 count and three hearts.   
Think, say, of reverse Drury: Pass-1 - 2 - 2 . We alert the 2 as well as the 2 .  Maybe the situation is not exactly the same, but it is very similar.   
As mentioned, it did not really matter on this hand because in order to beat the hand we must assume declarer has modest values.  But me, I would alert the 2 as well as the 2 just to be clear. 
 

But mostly I am just not all that fond of conventions. I play them, but I would much prefer play six conventions that we have thoroughly discussed rather than twelve conventions that we have, at most, casually discussed.

[wackojack]

How about this then Ken?

On BBO your partner opens 1  and you have this very ordinary hand:    Kxxx,  Axx,  Qx,  xxxx.  You of course respond 1 .  Should you alert this bid saying "Could have 5 or 6 diamonds"? because you play Walsh responses and 2-way check-back.   If you do you will get all kinds of questions and likely put into the opps mind that you actually have 5 or 6 diamonds and inhibit a killing diamond lead.  Then when dummy goes down the opps are not going to be very happy. 

Another example:  You play Acol 12-14 no trump, and are dealt:  Ax,  AQxxx,  Qxx,  KJx.  You open 1  ,  partner responds 1  and you rebid 1NT showing say 15-16.  Should you alert "balanced 15-16"  or to get all the negative inferences in say "bal 15-16 could  have 4  + 4  or 4  +4    or 3433?  Some Acol players prefer to open a 4 card minor in preference to a 4 card major while others always open a 4 card major if they can. 

[kenberg]

These are tricky questions. The ACBL used to require an alert even if the 1 bidder could be skipping over four diamonds to bid a four card spade suit. Myself, I have been pretty resolute in not becoming an expert on bridge law, it's not how I want to play the game, but I do try to take the full disclosure idea seriously. Sometimes it is not so clear.

Here is something from a club game the other day. I had put it in my above response but then deleted it thinking that my response was getting too long.

The opponents had the simple auction 1 - 1 - 1NT - Pass. I was on lead and I was about to ask about Walsh when my Rho spoke up "I don't think we have discussed this but I think this auction denies a four card major in partner's hand".  I appreciated this. It turned out that she was wrong, her partner had four spades, five diamonds and a 9 count. She had four hearts. She was clarifying for me how she understood the auction and also indicating that she might be wrong about this. Congratulations to her, I could hardly ask for more.

These efforts can go wrong. Back when this ACBL rules was in effect I opened 1 , partner responded 1 , I alerted and they asked. I explained that with modest values he would skip over a longer diamond suit to bid a four card spade suit. They did not understand, I tried my best but they never got it. After the round,as we were moving on to the next table, I heard one of the opponents saying to the other "I don't understand. He said his partner could have five diamonds. His partner didn't have five diamonds." I felt I had really tried, but it was unsuccessful.

Here is an issue I have been concerned about. 1NT - 2 - 2 - 3 NT. A partner and I play that 1 NT - 3 would be Puppet. Moreover we play the version where 1 -NT - 3 - 3 does not promise a four card major, it simply denies a five card major. This can work over a 1NT opening. Over a 2 NT opening 2NT - 3 - 3 does promise a four card major as we , and I think most, play Puppet, but 1NT - 3 - 3 does not. If you think about it, this means that after 1NT then responder, with game forcing values and two four card majors, should start with  2 . If we have a major fit we will find it.  With only one four card major, and good values, he might well start with 1NT - 3 . Over 3 he will then bid the major that he does not have and opener will then either bid game in their major fit if they have one, or bid 3 NT. The advantage? After 1NT - 3 - 3 -3 (showing four hearts)  - 3NT it is clear that opener does not have four hearts but he might or might not have four spades. We make all of this clear when the auction comes up, that's not the crisis. But now 1NT - 2 -2 -3 NT is apt to mean that responder has both majors. If he had just one major, he might well have started 1NT - 3 . Responder is not certain to have both majors, but our Puppet agreement makes it more likely that he does, because with only one he might have used the Puppet option, especially if he had four cards in one major and three in the other. I've decided that at least at the club level any explanation might be more confusing than helpful, it took a while to write this out, so I just let it be.

So I am saying that I want good results to come from good choices, not from a lack of disclosure. I agree this can get complicated. I think most bridge players are generally familiar with Walsh, and so they know to ask. I almost think that Walsh has become so common that I should alert it when, at the club game, my partner and I do not play Walsh. We also might be the only pair playing that the auction 1 - 1NT shows 6 to  a bad 10, not even semi-forcing. I think most bridge payers are not familiar with 1 -2 being on a GF or else on a three card heart holding with 7-10 highs.  It's clear after 1 - 2 there must be a way to get out in 2 . But it is not at all obvious what it is. Again think of Pass- 1 - 2 (Drury in some form but which?). In original Drury, 2 over 2 !c was the way to get out in 2 , while 2 over 2 showed a full opener. In reverse Drury, this is,well, reversed. We alert and explain.  In their system after 1 - 2 , the 2 could be the start of a 2 !h exit. Or, and this would be my guess, both 2 and 2 allow for an exit in 2 but 2 is the stronger of these two. This is not obvious at all simply from saying that 2 could be on three hearts and 7-10 highs, so I think some alerting would be good.

Repeating from an earlier post, my thoughts here are really just that, my thoughts. I have even more thoughts, but I need more coffee.

[kenberg]

Just a thought or two more. After the 1 - 2 I think a double should show clubs. Of course their club bid might well be real so we should be prepared to defend 2 X.  But it is when we have a good club suit, KQJ9x or better, that it is most likely that the 2 will be on the 7-10 hand. If we have good clubs and some values, it is likely that the club bid was the heart support hand and there is a decent shot that we can beat 2 even if not.

The 2 also gives us a chance to come in with 2 although we very much want a good suit for this. Having good clubs is evidence that the 2 was not based on clubs, having good diamonds does not provide as much evidence for this.

Coming in with 2 over 2 could work well, but again we need a good suit and good values, something that we are most apt to have when the club bid was on heart support and 7-10.  It's less necessary to come in here since, if we pass,  the auction might well continue 2 !h - Pass- Pass and then we can balance.

The problem with defending against all of these unusual agreements is that we don't encounter them often enough to make it worth our time to think much about them  Most of us have plenty of undiscussed  sequences in our own auctions and conventions without worrying about odd conventions others are using. I think that playing the X of 2 to be natural, showing clubs, has merit but without discussion partner might think it is for take-out,  Still, we rarely want to come in with a take-out double when the auction begins with a standard 2/1 sequence 1 - 2 .  I imagine most would just let it go by. There isn't time to discuss everything.

But fun to think about on a lazy fall day!