[inquiry]

Team bbo might have been getting tired on this one, so too for team jec.

At both tables, 4♠ was the final spot. At the other table the auction was weak two, a two spade overcall, and my hand jumped directly to 4♠. I thought a strong invite via 3♥ was more appropriate, but the contract was the same.
Double dummy, 4♠ can make via cashing your club before you start ruffing them. Both declarers missed this play.

During play, the contract can never make, if south simply ruffs the fourth round of clubs. As you can see, JEC missed ruffing it at this table, AND bbo's south at the other table (playing last to the club queen) also didn't ruff. IF we ruff over there, it is down two! At this table, after jec allowed us to steal the club trick, barry just needs to exit with the jack or nine of trumps to endplay north.

This hand was, as the title says, a comedy of errors.

Any comments on my choice of 3♥ as compared to the direct bid of 3♠ or 4♠?

There were two more big swings, boards 27 and 28, one for us, one against us. Mbodell has covered those I think.

---

[gszes]

change your hand to
Qxx xxxx AKxxx x
and I would bid 3h (or 4c splinter if allowed)

your current hand seems much more suited
to a 3s bid (remember p is counting you for 7
when they bid) so a simple raise should show
around 9-10.

[mgoetze]

For some reason it looks like an obvious 4♠ bid to me. Are you saying you were going to pass if Barry bid 3♠ over 3♥?

[barmar]

Singleton kings are always tough to judge. Change my minors to ♦Q ♣Jxxxx, and now his hand is not nearly as good a dummy.

If you think Ben should jump straight to game with his hand, then do you think that wouldn't be an appropriate hand for me to bid 2♠?

[mgoetze]

barmar, on 2012-May-20, 14:38, said:

Singleton kings are always tough to judge. Change my minors to ♦Q ♣Jxxxx, and now his hand is not nearly as good a dummy.

If you think Ben should jump straight to game with his hand, then do you think that wouldn't be an appropriate hand for me to bid 2♠?

What I think is it doesn't pay to be pessimistic in vulnerable game bidding at IMPs. Otherwise I might be asking - what if Ben had ♦Kxxxx ♣A, are you sure your hand is an accept? (Actually I'm not sure it is but that might be related to the fact that I think East has a 4♠ bid.)

[barmar]

There were two reasons I accepted:

1) The ♥AQ.

2) I actually expected a little better hand from him for 3♥ -- I think he's about minimum for it.

[gnasher]

I wouldn't regard ♥AQ as a good feature. They might be worth two tricks, but they're not setting up any other winners. Look how much better game would have been if you'd had AKJ9x xx x QJxxx, where I've replaced your AQ with a king and a jack in the long suits.

[barmar]

Good point. Maybe the way to say it is that the well-positioned ♥AQ makes up for the deficiencies in the other suits. I figured a ♥ lead was likely, so it would help with timing as well. With 2 small ♥, they can get a force going right away,

[inquiry]

mgoetze, on 2012-May-20, 13:41, said:

For some reason it looks like an obvious 4♠ bid to me. Are you saying you were going to pass if Barry bid 3♠ over 3♥?

Yes, I am going to pass if Barry bids 3♠. He knows we are vulnerable and all about the importance of bidding games with marginal chances vulnerable. There is a number of issues with bidding light games. I would strive to keep the auction alive with spade support just in case he has a really good hand. That is why 3♠ as a bid is clearly wrong with this hand. With a sound game invite, I considering the vulnerability, I would just bid game. With something in-between, I would issue the stronger invite of 3♥.

Clearly, the star at the other table considered this hand a "strong invite" and just bid the game. So is this a "sound invite"? It is close, but it has only 3 card support, which is a detriment, if i had a 4th spade and only 4 diamonds or 3 hearts, I would have jumped to 4♠. Partner rates to have clubs (since I am long in the red suits), so a 4th spade (or higher spades) would be a plus. I decided to give Barry an out in case he overcalled light. Seems like my 3♥ bid must be just about absolute minimum, and if he signed off knowing we should bid close games, that rates (on average) to be right imho. And a side issue, I can't very well cue bid then carry on to game over a signoff, as that shows a whole hell of a lot more than what I hold, and might (although unlikely) get my partner who tried to sign off in 3♠ to try for more.


So far, we have two votes for 4♠ with my hand, one for 3♠ and mine for 3♥ (I didn't take Barry's defense of my 3♥ bid as necessarily support for it, and i counted the direct 4♠ bid at the other table as a vote for the jump to 4♠).

[gnasher]

I think 3♥ is right.

4♠ would be a ridiculous overbid, given that we have two ways of raising to 3♠. Maybe the pair at the other table had only one way to raise spades.

[han]

It is not clear to me that Barry made a mistake at trick 11. He doesn't know the position of the fourth diamond, so he also doesn't know whether south has 1 or 2 spades. The fact that south didn't ruff the club is very strange, but given that there are no holdings for which it is right not to ruff it is hard to draw conclusions. Also, Cayne will easily preempt with another king, even when white against red.

Playing the ace and another is right when spades were 3-2, or when south has the stiff king or ten.

Compared with that, playing the jack will lose when south has K or Kx, but win when south has a small singleton.

Similarly, playing the 9 will lose when south has 10 or 10x, but win when south has a small singleton.

So if we can completely disregard the Cayne blooper it seems like playing the king is the best line.

However, even though it is hard to guess what goes on in the mind of a Caybe, it seems likely that Cayne would have ruffed holding the singleton 10 or especially the singleton king. If we remove these possibilities then the different lines at trick 11 seem exactly equal (notice that we don't have to take the relative likelyhoods of 1642 vs 2632 shapes into account since the diamonds split 4-3 in either case and we are counting specific spades distributions).

All in all it seems a difficult guess, and even though it looks very silly in retrospect I don't think this "mistake" should be included in this comedy of errors.

[barmar]

Not only did Cayne not ruff the club, but he didn't OVERruff any of the earlier clubs that I was getting rid of. So if he has any trumps, I think they have to be tiny. Or he could have Kx, so he has a natural trump trick once I use up dummy's trumps, in which case it doesn't matter how I play spades at the end.

[chasetb]

I follow the Mike Lawrence way - partner expected us to have 7 HCP, we have 9. I'll give an extra point to the King singleton, for 10 points. We only have 3-card support, and I always expect RHO to have 4 trump. Therefore, I bid only 3♠, though I am a maximum for it. 3♥ should promise a 4th trump (or 13+ points), and 4♠ is more of a distributional bid.

[han]

barmar, on 2012-May-23, 09:59, said:

Not only did Cayne not ruff the club, but he didn't OVERruff any of the earlier clubs that I was getting rid of. So if he has any trumps, I think they have to be tiny. Or he could have Kx, so he has a natural trump trick once I use up dummy's trumps, in which case it doesn't matter how I play spades at the end.

I forgot about that. In that case it seems clear to play him for the stiff 3.

[barmar]

han, on 2012-May-24, 03:57, said:

I forgot about that. In that case it seems clear to play him for the stiff 3.

See, I told you I played it like an idiot!

[han]

Regarding your comment about the AQ, I do think that holding AQ tight behind the 2H opener is quite a good holding. I don't find the fact that a perfectly fitting 11-count makes game better a strong argument that AQ tight behind the 2H bidder is not a plus.