[AL78]

Another evening, another lousy 45% score. It seems my declarer play was lacking.

https://tinyurl.com/yhxerncv

Partner misclicked so we ended up in 4♥ instead of 4♠, double dummy I can make 4♥ but am likely not going too. Once the 5-1 trump split was revealed I was in a terrible mess and just scrambled for as many tricks as I could see. I'm sure there is a way of escaping for less than three off though.

https://tinyurl.com/yfdxlptl

Not convinced I played this right at the time (it didn't feel like it). Double dummy says I should be held to nine tricks, but others made more. 27.8% for that effort.

https://tinyurl.com/yzfx5ags

Again there is a way to make this and I didn't find it. All but two of the other tables got a club lead into the AQ which makes it easy. I ended up ruffing a club and hoping I could throw one on a diamond which works if they are 3-3 or 4-2 and the one with two had only two spades (not happening). I had entry problems back to hand.

https://tinyurl.com/yf5ry4w8

A dumb line of trying to ruff clubs which can't work except on a very unlikely layout. Should have made 12 tricks, only made 11.

The boards where I declared (five of them) were collectively worth a very poor 31%. Must do better.

I had no clue how to bid on this hand:
https://tinyurl.com/yfvgmtnk

We missed the game that almost everyone else bid. I didn't visualise game with 7-8 losers opposite a partner that could only dredge up a simple raise, and I had lied about my spade length. This is a hand for the double-shows-any-opening-hand players.

As a bonus, here is a ridiculous hand:

https://tinyurl.com/yj2gvcok

How often do you make game in the opponents contract in defence? Wasn't even a top, someone was allowed to make 3NT our way.

There were several other bad scores that I can't see how I could have done anything better.

[Stephen Tu]

hand 2:

---

At the point you led diamond to your ace to cash the hearts, this made no logical sense. It's not like this allows you to cash out for 9 tricks while the opps have 5 tricks ready to go if you play on something else. You still need a black suit trick, so it makes zero sense to open up diamonds and create diamond tricks for them while you still have black suit aces to knock out/score past. The natural play is a club, which will at least set up your 9th trick for certain and may set up a tenth depending on where the SA is and how the play continues.
I'll comment some on the other hands in separate posts later in the day.

[smerriman]

AL78, on 2021-July-07, 12:58, said:

https://tinyurl.com/yzfx5ags

Again there is a way to make this and I didn't find it. All but two of the other tables got a club lead into the AQ which makes it easy. I ended up ruffing a club and hoping I could throw one on a diamond which works if they are 3-3 or 4-2 and the one with two had only two spades (not happening). I had entry problems back to hand.

Your plan actually works fine; you just did things in the wrong order. If you save the club ruff for after you've drawn trumps / set up the diamonds, then you can use it to cash the 4th diamond.

AL78, on 2021-July-07, 12:58, said:

I had no clue how to bid on this hand:
https://tinyurl.com/yfvgmtnk

We missed the game that almost everyone else bid. I didn't visualise game with 7-8 losers opposite a partner that could only dredge up a simple raise, and I had lied about my spade length. This is a hand for the double-shows-any-opening-hand players.

I'd just overcall 1NT A stopper is absolutely required for a major, but less so for a minor (especially 1♣).

But 4♠ is probably worth a shot anyway, given you know you have an 8 card fit and partner is likely to have some club shortness. You should probably also discuss the meaning of an immediate 3♣ bid by your partner, which normally shows this type of hand.

[Stephen Tu]

---

So after the diamond hook wins you should be counting on 4 spades, 4 diamonds, club, club ruff. But playing the hand out in your head you should be able to see that going on your line involves leaving the CQ out as a loser with the opponents still having a trump and needing 3 diamonds to cash without a ruff in to get 2h+C. Since you only need one ruff, your idea should be to pray for 3-2 spades, and just cash two ending in the right hand to repeat the d hook, then just play diamonds until they ruff in with the last trump. Then you can ruff a club at your leisure, and they can't cash CK on you in addition to the ruff and 2 hearts. Or if they refuse to ruff any diamonds, just pitch a loser and ruff the club yourself.


Note the bidding is pretty weird, I would just bid 2h as west and FG, you might have better contract in hearts. Bergen normally is for 4 cd support hands, though I suppose if you are putting 3cd distributional limit raises in there that's OK. Seems weird to me not to FG on this hand though, and in fact she did after you declined, which means 3c was a mistake to begin with.

[Stephen Tu]

Bidding board 5:

- I don't see any reason to overcall 1S rather than double. You aren't doubling solely because you have an opening hand, you are doubling because you have support for all the unbid suits, and don't have a 5 cd major to overcall at the 1 level. You don't want to end up in spades when partner has 3 cd spades and 5/6+ hearts. Save the 4 cd overcalls for when you feel you have to get in, but have length in opps suit and a short outside major (so doubling easily backfires), and are unsuited to overcalling NT.

I'm not a fan of 1nt like smerriman; if I decide to overcall 1nt w/o a stopper it's because I have some awkward hand with say doubleton in a major.

- partner's bidding is incredibly feeble with 4 cd support and 6-4 shape. The shape easily upgrades this into an invite.

- you can't let 4c go at MP, you have to hit it. You have 3 bullets, partner can come up with something. If they make 4c, 4c-dbl is unlikely to be a lot worse, 4c making undoubled is likely low score already. But 4c-1 vs 3S making is a disaster for you, you have to protect your score. Plus a down 2 will now be a top.

[mikeh]

On the first board, the 9 by north was a weird play….you’d duck in dummy with 10xx or even 10x, so he could easily have been giving you an undeserved trick.

But then you didn’t take enough time to make a plan.

Now, you might worry that north has the spade Ace and that south can win an early club and be able to tackle diamonds, but that’s a low frequency combination. South rates to hold the spade Ace for the lead, even if you think North might play the 9 from A9x, which would be an unlikely play in any game, let alone a club game.

Hearts will usually not be 3-3. A 3-3 break, all else being equal, is 35.5%

If you have trouble learning basic percentages, remember this: when you are missing an even number of cards, an even split is relatively unlikely. When you are missing an odd number, the most even split is the most likely…3-2 is a priori far more likely than 4-1, while 4-2 is slightly more likely than 3-3.

But, as Stephen points out, even if hearts are 3-3, that doesn’t get you to 9 tricks. Plus, if they are 3-3, they’ll still be 3-3 if you delay playing them.

So club to the King. If that holds, play the club 10 next.

If they win either club, you now have 3 clubs, 2 presumed spades, 3 hearts or more and a diamond, for you nine tricks, with chances to do a lot better. Note also that going after hearts right away ruins your entries to enjoy the clubs.

If they duck both clubs, you have heart entries to allow you to set up your third club winner anyway, but most club level defenders will win the Ace early.


My suggestion: use the BridgeMaster hands on BBO. And try to learn from them….don’t play any card on any hand until you’ve mentally played out several scenarios.

This is hard work. It’s easy to play quickly, get it wrong, and look at the solution, but doing that destroys any benefit you’re going to get, at least if you do that consistently.

Doing it on BM means you’re not delaying the action when you’re playing online.

Btw, one of many reasons I prefer imps to mps and long matches to Swiss is that I’m not at all afraid of taking five minutes or more to play to trick one if the hand is important and the best line not immediately clear.

As declarer, you get back what you put into it.

I’m willing to bet that you hadn’t thought at all about a path to 9 tricks….so SLOW DOWN!

Don’t worry if it takes time to solve the BM hands even at the low levels. The best declarers in the world had to start somewhere. You’ll get there if you put in the effort. This is because, unlike bidding or defence, you can practice declarer play by yourself.

[Winstonm]

I'm going to agree that your declarer play needs a little help - but to me it looks like your problems are mostly in timing the play. I suggest the Bridgebase Bridgemaster - it's free and helpful.

The bidding problem is a clear cut double - plenty of extra strength to make up for the imperfect shape. It would be more difficult if you had been 3-3 in the majors.

[Stephen Tu]

mikeh, on 2021-July-07, 18:13, said:

Hearts will usually not be 3-3. A 3-3 break, all else being equal, is 35.5%

They definitely won't be 3-3 since you have a 6-2 fit

[mikeh]

Stephen Tu, on 2021-July-07, 18:32, said:

They definitely won't be 3-3 since you have a 6-2 fit

Lol. I did exactly what I was criticizing😀

[smerriman]

Stephen Tu, on 2021-July-07, 15:56, said:

I'm not a fan of 1nt like smerriman; if I decide to overcall 1nt w/o a stopper it's because I have some awkward hand with say doubleton in a major.

Usually when you reply after me, I end up agreeing with you and not my own post, and this is no exception. Not sure why I even said that and no double, I think I somehow had a blind spot after the OP decided not to use it either..

AL78, on 2021-July-07, 12:58, said:

https://tinyurl.com/yf5ry4w8

A dumb line of trying to ruff clubs which can't work except on a very unlikely layout. Should have made 12 tricks, only made 11.

This one is interesting. I agree with your first sentence, but if you're saying "should have" based on what double dummy says or what other tables did, that's a really bad habit.

On this layout, you make 12 tricks with one club ruff by running all of your tricks outside of hearts; South gets squeezed as they can't hold onto both the club winner and heart length.

You can tell South has the club from the lead, but this line only works if you know South has 4 hearts, since you need to save the heart as an entry.. it seems better to me to hope the queen drops in 3 rounds with AK + a ruff. That only takes 11 tricks on this layout, unless someone can think of a better line? If not, then 'should have' is incorrect.

[mw64ahw]

AL78, on 2021-July-07, 12:58, said:

https://tinyurl.com/yf5ry4w8

A dumb line of trying to ruff clubs which can't work except on a very unlikely layout. Should have made 12 tricks, only made 11.

The boards where I declared (five of them) were collectively worth a very poor 31%. Must do better.

I think there is an argument here for adapting the Jacoby 2NT to allow differentiation between an 8 & 7.5 looser hand to allow for the marginal slam tries.

AL78, on 2021-July-07, 12:58, said:

I had no clue how to bid on this hand:
https://tinyurl.com/yfvgmtnk

However you play I would have thought a 1NT or Power Double is much more descriptive than 1♠ with a flat hand

[DavidKok]

The other commenters have covered the most important spots, here are some of the minor dregs:

https://tinyurl.com/yhxerncv I think it is more common to play that 3♥ promises 5 on this auction, and hands with 5-4 start with Stayman and then bid 3M (natural or Smolen, your choice) over 2♦. I don't know your opponents, but on this auction I would be hesitant to lead away from minor suit values, making club queen offside a favourite.

https://tinyurl.com/yzfx5ags Has been mentioned above, but I think 3card Bergen raises do not make much sense. And the West hand is easily a GF, so it does not belong in a Bergen raise to begin with.

https://tinyurl.com/yf5ry4w8 Jacoby 2NT also promises 4(+) for a large number (a majority?) of players. Personally I would evaluate the East hand as a non-minimum opposite GF 4(+) spades, though if 2NT only promises 3 you have no choice but to show the lack of HCP.

https://tinyurl.com/yfvgmtnk Double as mentioned by others, West also took a rather morbid view of their hand. I would have bid 3♥ over 1♠ (fitbid, 5(+) hearts, 4(+) spades, invitational or stronger), but in the absence of that agreement 2♥ intending to rebid/raise 3♠ or 2NT/3♣ showing some invitational raise is appropriate (again, depending on agreements). Also you cannot let them play in 4♣ undoubled on this auction, regardless of the earlier mistakes.

https://tinyurl.com/yj2gvcok There is an argument for doubling with the East hand, but it's close. I guess NS were playing weak NT and 4cM (or maybe the lovely 5444)? Quite a freak board.

[Stephen Tu]

DavidKok, on 2021-July-08, 03:33, said:

https://tinyurl.com/yf5ry4w8 Jacoby 2NT also promises 4(+) for a large number (a majority?) of players.

More like 100% of players who are any good, not merely a majority. It makes it impossible to play in any other suit so you want to have 4+; reasonably often if there is another 4-4 or 9/10 cd fit in addition to just a 5-3 cd fit in the opened major, the other fit can take more tricks and slam is only possible or much better percentage in the other strain. Also 4+ is important for hand evaluation purposes.

Quote

Personally I would evaluate the East hand as a non-minimum opposite GF 4(+) spades, though if 2NT only promises 3 you have no choice but to show the lack of HCP.

Good god how light do you open if East's hand is non-minimum? Semi-balanced 11 count with no aces is a non-minimum? If you lower any of the honors a peg IMO it's not an opener anymore.

The standard J2nt sucks and it's inefficient to have to jump to game with such minimums but there's no choice if that's your agreement with this hand.

[Cyberyeti]

The 5th hand with ♠Qxxx ♥QJ10xxx is worth miles more than 2♠, I would bid 3♥ fit opposite partner's 1♠ overcall.

[AL78]

Stephen Tu, on 2021-July-07, 15:15, said:

Note the bidding is pretty weird, I would just bid 2h as west and FG, you might have better contract in hearts. Bergen normally is for 4 cd support hands, though I suppose if you are putting 3cd distributional limit raises in there that's OK. Seems weird to me not to FG on this hand though, and in fact she did after you declined, which means 3c was a mistake to begin with.

This version of Bergen is one she picked up from a book, going through 3♣ is 8-10 HCP with 3 card support, going through 3♦ is 7-11 HCP with 4 card support, leaving a jump raise as pre-emnptive. I don't think this is the standard definition of Bergen.

[AL78]

Cyberyeti, on 2021-July-08, 05:06, said:

The 5th hand with ♠Qxxx ♥QJ10xxx is worth miles more than 2♠, I would bid 3♥ fit opposite partner's 1♠ overcall.

I admit it was much better than expected when I saw it after the play. I was expecting some semi-balanced rubbish with four card support failing to provide any help in the defence, which is why I lacked the courage to double. I was expecting opener to have a singleton or maybe even a void spade (as it happened dummy had the shortage) and was concerned about conceeding 4♣X= on some fantastic NS layout (which wouldn't be the first time). I was expecting North to have a stronger hand than that to go to the four level on their own vulnerable.

Partner doesn't do fit jumps.

[DavidKok]

Stephen Tu, on 2021-July-08, 04:08, said:

Good god how light do you open if East's hand is non-minimum? Semi-balanced 11 count with no aces is a non-minimum? If you lower any of the honors a peg IMO it's not an opener anymore.

A fair point, the hand is a minimum for my opening. I would still open if you swap out a minor suit king for a queen (or even a jack), but that's my limit.
But opposite specifically GF with 4(+) the hand has improved a ton. The KQT in spades are worth their weight in gold and we have a second-round control in both minor suits (note that we will be declarer in an eventual 6♠). Furthermore it is very likely partner has some values to support us in clubs. Swap out a few cards for, let's say, ♠KQTxx, ♥Qx, ♦Qx, ♣QJ8x. Nominally a point stronger, but absolute and utter garbage for slam purposes. The actual hand is a lot more fitting if you want to explore a sharp 6. Additionally there's plenty of room to sign off in 4♠ on the second round. Opposite a standard Jacoby 2NT I would give one mild positive response, and then apply the brakes the rest of the way.

AL78, on 2021-July-08, 06:06, said:

I admit it was much better than expected when I saw it after the play. I was expecting some semi-balanced rubbish with four card support failing to provide any help in the defence, which is why I lacked the courage to double. I was expecting opener to have a singleton or maybe even a void spade (as it happened dummy had the shortage) and was concerned about conceeding 4♣X= on some fantastic NS layout (which wouldn't be the first time). I was expecting North to have a stronger hand than that to go to the four level on their own vulnerable.

Partner doesn't do fit jumps.

That's perfectly fine, they're very rare anyway. But then your partner should have made some invitational raise or bid the hand in two rounds. The crux is not so much how you show this hand in one bid (this hand happens to be a good fit for some agreements) but the realisation that West should force to 3♠ at least, and show values and/or shape along the way.

[AL78]

Stephen Tu, on 2021-July-08, 04:08, said:

The standard J2nt sucks and it's inefficient to have to jump to game with such minimums but there's no choice if that's your agreement with this hand.

I understand, but this partner is not open to taking on new conventions or modifying existing ones*. With a different partner we did agree to try a modified Jacoby that may have been linked from a post in this forum, but we ultimately went back to the standard version. The problem is Jacoby comes up so infrequently that we don't get anywhere near enough practice with it to commit the modified version to memory. How do you practice a convention that only comes up a few times a year at most?

*She plays Lebensohl opposite TOX of weak twos, but won't play it after interference over our 1NT opening. Not a big deal given the situation where it would be useful comes up once in a blue moon as well.

[Cyberyeti]

AL78, on 2021-July-08, 06:06, said:

I admit it was much better than expected when I saw it after the play. I was expecting some semi-balanced rubbish with four card support failing to provide any help in the defence, which is why I lacked the courage to double. I was expecting opener to have a singleton or maybe even a void spade (as it happened dummy had the shortage) and was concerned about conceeding 4♣X= on some fantastic NS layout (which wouldn't be the first time). I was expecting North to have a stronger hand than that to go to the four level on their own vulnerable.

Partner doesn't do fit jumps.

I prefer 4♠ to 2♠, or 3♣ if mini splinter. Would bid 3♠ otherwise, may depend on what sort of rubbish you overcall on..

[AL78]

mikeh, on 2021-July-07, 18:13, said:

On the first board, the 9 by north was a weird play….you’d duck in dummy with 10xx or even 10x, so he could easily have been giving you an undeserved trick.

But then you didn’t take enough time to make a plan.

Now, you might worry that north has the spade Ace and that south can win an early club and be able to tackle diamonds, but that’s a low frequency combination. South rates to hold the spade Ace for the lead, even if you think North might play the 9 from A9x, which would be an unlikely play in any game, let alone a club game.

Hearts will usually not be 3-3. A 3-3 break, all else being equal, is 35.5%

If you have trouble learning basic percentages, remember this: when you are missing an even number of cards, an even split is relatively unlikely. When you are missing an odd number, the most even split is the most likely…3-2 is a priori far more likely than 4-1, while 4-2 is slightly more likely than 3-3.

But, as Stephen points out, even if hearts are 3-3, that doesn’t get you to 9 tricks. Plus, if they are 3-3, they’ll still be 3-3 if you delay playing them.

So club to the King. If that holds, play the club 10 next.

If they win either club, you now have 3 clubs, 2 presumed spades, 3 hearts or more and a diamond, for you nine tricks, with chances to do a lot better. Note also that going after hearts right away ruins your entries to enjoy the clubs.

If they duck both clubs, you have heart entries to allow you to set up your third club winner anyway, but most club level defenders will win the Ace early.


My suggestion: use the BridgeMaster hands on BBO. And try to learn from them….don’t play any card on any hand until you’ve mentally played out several scenarios.

This is hard work. It’s easy to play quickly, get it wrong, and look at the solution, but doing that destroys any benefit you’re going to get, at least if you do that consistently.

Doing it on BM means you’re not delaying the action when you’re playing online.

Btw, one of many reasons I prefer imps to mps and long matches to Swiss is that I’m not at all afraid of taking five minutes or more to play to trick one if the hand is important and the best line not immediately clear.

As declarer, you get back what you put into it.

I’m willing to bet that you hadn’t thought at all about a path to 9 tricks….so SLOW DOWN!

Don’t worry if it takes time to solve the BM hands even at the low levels. The best declarers in the world had to start somewhere. You’ll get there if you put in the effort. This is because, unlike bidding or defence, you can practice declarer play by yourself.

I've tried the BM hands before, I'll go through them again. I couldn't do most of the Expert and World Class hands, they were too deep for me and some involved techniques I am, not familiar with. The only disadvantage of BM is that you are supposed to play the hands like IMPS where you have to find the best line to make the contract, not worrying about overtricks. It is sometimes not clear to me whether it is best at MPs to take a safe line which guarentees the contract, or take a risk which will result in an extra trick or two if it works, but goes down if it doesn't. An example would be declaring 3NT, you have an easy nine tricks, do you take a finesse for an overtrick if you go down when the finesse loses?

You are right that I need to slow down and think more at trick one. Trouble is I'm impatient by nature and occasionally we come under time pressure if the opposition have been slow.