Brian Davies
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I would open 1♦️. The shape makes the hand worth so much more than a 9-count. The suit order gives you a convenient rebid (reverse the minors and I pass). I think that you are too strong for 3♦️ or a weak 2♦️.
Maybe this is a good question for Julian Pottage, now that he has joined?
Hi Nik, this is a fair point. Although on this site, it is probably fair to assume Bernard’s system unless specified. I did provide a note on the 5C response as this is a departure from “Bernard Key-card Blackwood”. 🙂
The lead was the three of hearts.
I like this line Geoff. Even if LHO started with three or four spades, she might easily go wrong in the discards. I think that you need to retain two trumps because you need one as an entry for the fourth spade?
An alternative idea is to draw trumps and immediately cross to dummy to lead the knave of clubs – maybe RHO would duck if holding the ace and not the queen? You fall back on the diamond finesse if this doesn’t work.
Hi Alan, the most important thing is to have an agreement with partner so that you both understand which doubles are to be take-out and which are penalties. The agreement that doubles of suit bids up to 2S are take-out has the merit of simplicity. But it might not be optimum. Partnerships can legitimately have different agreements and from comments made by Bernard, it seems that treat more doubles as penalty than most.
You also mentioned that a double of no trumps cannot be penalty, but it is pretty normal for the sequence (1H)-Pass-(1NT)-Dbl to be a take-out double showing heart shortage and length (3+) in the other three suits.
I think that Bernard explained this well. I don’t like the idea of the 2D cue-bid asking partner to bid NT. This would mean that a likely diamond lead would come through KX, making our holding useless, so We would still only have one stop if partner has bid NT based on (say) JXXX. A non-forcing 3C is not enough and from my point of view you really have to bid NT on this hand type. Whether you choose to bid 2NT or 3NT might depend on partnership agreements. We play that the jump to 3NT in an auction without competition would be based on a running club suit. I’m not sure that this applies once there is interference and 3NT feels like the practical bid.
I have no idea what the computer’s 3D bid at the other table meant. I would play it as artificial and forcing asking partner to do something sensible – e.g. show belated three-card heart support.
The more that I think about this the trickier it feels.
If I got it right at the table it would likely be luck rather than fully thinking it through!
It is normal to upgrade and downgrade and this is only a one-point difference. Partner can continue to announce 12-14 in face to face bridge and any competent director would accept this as normal bridge. If you want to really protect yourself against the less competent directors you might add a comment on your convention card that upgrades and downgrades are possible – but this shouldn’t be necessary as it is really normal and good quality bridge!
The EBU’s White Book defines: “A psyche or psychic bid is a deliberate and gross mis-statement of honour strength and/or suit length. A misbid is an inadvertent mis-statement of honour strength and/or suit length. A deviation is a deliberate but minor mis-statement of honour strength and/or suit length.” I would judge that you would need to have 17 or 18 points to achieve the threshold of “gross mis-statement” – so not near to a psyche!
Hi Stewart, A lot of over-bidding here! If I understand the formatting, West has a balanced 11-count and should pass – second choice is an optimistic 12-14 1NT, but you don’t have enough to upgrade to that and third choice would be a one spade opening (opening a major rather than a minor with four in each). What can I say about the East hand? ACELESSNESS!! I’m downgrading for that and the weak minor suit holdings, which more than balances against the five-card heart suit. Overall, I don’t think that it is an invitational hand and would not bid two clubs and would certainly not raise to 3NT.
Thanks Bernard. Yes, I have seen that a scrambling 2NT seems to be increasingly popular amongst tournament players – almost an extension of Lebensohl type principles to many other auctions. I haven’t played it, but would definitely like to learn more on this.
I am interested that you do this playing teams. Is this because at pairs a 2NT contract will score better than (say) a three club contract? On the other hand, competing aggressively for part-scores is more of a thing at pairs?
Don’t use the LTC to decide whether to pre-empt.
But, if partner has pre-empted and I have trump support I would assume that partner has 7 losers for a disciplined non-vulnerable three-level pre-empt and 6 losers for a disciplined vulnerable three-level bid. If you play a less disciplined style of pre-empts you might add a loser and assume 8 losers non-vulnerable and 7 losers vulnerable.
Hi John, I think that with 17 HCPs you are usually too weak to jump to 3NT. After a 1NT response I will evaluate my hand and:
– Pass with up to 16 if prepared to play in no-trumps.
– 2NT Invite with 17-18
– 3NT with 19-20This does mean that we might miss 3NT if we have 16 and partner is top of the range with 9, but it isn;t always the end of the world. Also, partner might have chosen to respond with a two-over-one with some good 9’s, so partner is likely to be 6-8 about 80-90% of the time. We tend to choose the two-over-one with 9 and a reasonable five-card suit. Also, having good three-card support for partner tends to encourage us to bid the two-over-one with a 9-count.
If playing teams – particularly vulnerable – I tend to push a bit more for game and will often invite with 16.
Hi Ian,
As John indicates, there are very many defences to 1NT and there is no expert consensus.
Here are my thoughts:
– Over-calls of 1NT should normally be based on a good six-card suit or a two-suited hand. Over-calling with a 5332 shape is bad bridge.
– I think that regular partnerships should have some agreed defence. At a minimum, it should include a bid to show hands with both majors and hands with a good six-card major (Landy is the simplest defence and achieves this).
– If they open a weak NT, double should always be for penalties. I don’t like defences that use an artificial double against a weak NT (they might have merit against a strong NT – but then you need to agree two different systems!). The problem with not having a penalty double (apart from missing an occasional penalty) is that an over-call will have too great a range – it is difficult to look for game if partner’s over-call might be 17 points, or might be 9 points.
– You need to understand the meaning of follow-up bids as well as the first bid. John (above) describes Astro as quite easy, but there is more complexity than might be apparent at first sight: you need to discuss sequences such as (1NT), 2D, (Pass), 2NT and (1NT), 2D, (Pass), 3C and (1NT), 2D, (Pass), 2H, (Pass), 2S, (Pass), 2NT and (1NT), 2D, (Pass), 2H, (Pass), 2NT! If the opponents make another bid there are further complications. Whichever system you choose, you need to learn it thoroughly.
– There is a lot of merit in the straight-forward Landy: 2C shows both majors (at least 5-4 either way). Other two-level bids are natural and (usually) show a six-card suit. In response to 2C, partner bids his/her longer major (jumping with invitational values); bids 2D with equal length in the majors and bids 2NT with invitational values without a four-card major.
–The simple answer is no, you shouldn’t treat a void as a key card. There are a couple of problems with showing a void as an ace. The first is that it will cause partner to miscount – say you count a diamond void as an ace and partner has the ace of diamonds this does not mean that you have two diamond aces between the two hands. But also it might cause partner to wrongly assess other holdings in his/her hand – e.g. say partner holds the king and queen diamonds – these will be valuable cards if you hold the ace but worthless duplication if you hold a void.
Voids and singletons are better shown through other slam-bidding methods, such as splinters and cue bids.
I am nervous of mentioning it, but some experts do have methods of showing voids in response to a 4NT inquiry. However these need to be discussed and agreed in advance with partner as they are non-standard and they require considerable judgement rather than simply counting. I do not recommend such methods for less experienced players or players in an ad hoq partnership.
The response structure that I play with my regular partner is as follows:
– 5C shows 1 or 4 key cards.
– 5D shows 0 or 3 key cards.
– 5H shows 2 key cards without the queen of trumps.
– 5S shows 2 key cards with the queen of trumps.
– 5NT shows 2 key cards and a USEFUL void.
– 6 of the agreed trump suit shows 1 or 3 key cards and a USEFUL void.We would only make the void-showing responses if (a) we can tell from the auction so far that enough key-cards are present for a small slam to be playable (i.e, this is a method for helping to find grand slams); (b) we need to be able to tell from the earlier auction that the void will be useful – a void in a suit that partner has bid is never useful and (c) we have at least nine good trumps (a void is only useful if you can afford the trumps for ruffing,
I also did this. Unfortunately we were playing as a pair against two robots and the constant switching of polarity was a bit of a nuisance, but otherwise it worked well.
BBO doesn’t automatically save the hands from a teaching table. I think that you can save them manually, but all you will get in the LIN file that you already had saved.
You will probably remember what you did as you go through the videos. But if it proves a problem, why not play one hand then watch the video together?
