Bidding challenge: switch the S & E hands. Now the best contract for EW is 6C. Do you see any way of getting there?

Back in town from Gatlinburg. I must be getting better, much better. In 2 days of play I outscored a team having over 200,000 masterpoints among the 6 players in 3 days of play. They were 1 KO win and 3 KO losses in the first 3 days.
Names omitted but you are a good guesser. 😉

Please don’t ask my total points won.

Not sure what I am missing in David’s question. Why isn’t 6S the best contract?

I don’t play precision but I would open the south hand one diamond also. Partner would pass over the double and now it is up to east. I agree with bidding one heart. If I hold the south hand I pass as I have nothing extra and west can bid one spade. Now north has a decision to make, but his hand has little of value except four diamonds, which are not going to break well more than likely. Let the opps play their partial. If they make it, good for them. I have to wonder why Joe’s partner put him in three hearts. Joe promised nothing when he bid one heart, and nothing is about what he had, right?

Hi David,

How about: (only EW bidding) W. 1 spade, E. 2 clubs, W. 2 hearts, E. 2NT, W. 3 Clubs, E. 3 Spades, W. (ace asking, probably 4NT), E. (answer depending on agreement), W. 6 Clubs, E. Pass?

EW system: 2 over 1 GF with 1NT response over a major limited to 12 HCPs, allowing partner to pass 1NT with a 5-any 3-3-2 minimum 12-13.

West takes the bit in his teeth, knowing at least that declarer will be able to ruff one or 2 (maybe even 3) cards in the short trump hand and expecting partner to have a good suit (although this time only 4 cards).

That is why I have always suggested that the major difference among the very best world wide players is superior imagination, usually taking the form of visualization of how the two hands will mesh (West realizing that East, although basically restricted to only a doubleton spade on the above suggested bidding MUST have Kx or else he would have preferred either 3NT or accepting clubs with more length. with only Jx or less in spades).

Obviously partnership experience comes much into play, but you get what I am trying to say when a partnership gets there.

A possible amusing sidelight would recount my many years of experience in which my recollection would be that a so-called partnership mesh might and seems to occur often between two people who have very little else in common except seeing the ultra important qualities of bridge judgment the same way, but most all other aspects of life differently.

We live and hopefully learn.

Hi Bill,

Well, congratulations for what you won in Gatlinburgh. The pride you gain for doing better during a phase of the week than such a well endowed masterpoint team will make up for any not as high moments also present (only if there were a few).

All any of us can do is what was dealt to us and that encompasses how we played, how good our partner and teammates were, how little experience we had with this group and a host of many other variables. The above usually adds up to more than we can handle, at least in the consistent winning of events, but all of that needs to be taken in stride.

Good luck and please continue shocking the world (at least, how the world applies to Gatlinburg).

Hi Jeff,

Six spades requires either 3-3 spades or the jack dropping while six clubs only basically requires no worse than 4-2 clubs.

I think you will agree that stretches from around (slightly below) a 50% contract to perhaps a 75+% one, a rather large difference in success probability.

Yes, we are taught early in bridge to search out our longest trump fit, but the above discusses an exception, not a very rare case which applies often enough to take notice.

Hi Jane,

Thanks for the accurate assessment of what might result in the entire bidding. The sticking points is whether North should ever raise diamonds (certainly not opposite a Precision 1 diamond opening) and just how high West should take Joe’s response of 1 heart?

Remember West should have the right to expect that Joe possessed at least 4 hearts
for his response and if somehow he had as many as 5 and maybe 1 HCP (jack of spades) EW might have a heart game.

The above is only to set your keen sense of bridge imagination working and helping us all realize what a far reaching, yet unpredictable game we all love to play, where a predictable jack can be of immense value and other knaves totally worthless, depending on the match-ups.

Why is average to high-level bridge an immense challenge? Just the type of imagination which befell West as the partner of a player who turned out to have the worst possible hand for his bid, contributing to making this partnership looking foolish for getting too high.

Thank you, Jane A, for your always excellent contributions to our discussions.

Jeff: In addition to the spade distributions listed by our host, N could drop the 9 or J when declarer would start to draw S, and he would have to guess whether it was a singleton or doubleton J9 or even J9x.

Hi David,

Thanks for the added discussion on guessing cards, since clever defensive players are good at creating enticing alternatives to trap a this time, gullible declarer.

I remember in perhaps the early 1950’s and playing in a Regional in Houston against one of the better players in Texas, John Mothershed by name, when as a defender and looking at the dummy on my right holding AQ108x when declarer led the king from his hand and I, holding J9x dropped the jack. Since I looked innocent, (so young) the ruse worked when declarer then finessed the 8 on the next round of that suit. It was a super thrill for me, but the bad news is that now, some 60 years later, I do not remember either falling, not falling or defending that way since, signifying, not much.

Fun is fleeting, but exciting bridge experiences live on for a lifetime, at least in the mind of that one time winner.