[AL78]

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MPs, playing Benj Acol weak NT.

The auction was fine up to the point North rebid their suit at the three level. Wishing to initiate slam investigation I cue bid the diamond control, to which partner cued their heart control. At this point I decided that North must have a lot of spades and for some reason decided not to come in with 3♠ the first time. I put partner with a high chance of a singleton, maybe even a void and it was a 30 point pack with no spade wastage, so I punted 6♣ expecting it to have a fair chance.

This was the full deal:

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Two down -200. I didn't anticipate that layout. We even got 75% for this nonsense. Here I was bidding slam expecting a decent chance to make whereas in reality, I was sacrificing against the cold 4♥ the opposition had failed to find which was bid at six tables.

[DavidKok]

North is a joker and West had a great opportunity to bid 2NT on the previous round, depending on what 2♠ shows. I would probably also have gotten to slam on this hand on this start to the auction, though I wouldn't have jumped over 4♥.

[AL78]

DavidKok, on 2022-August-19, 12:34, said:

North is a joker and West had a great opportunity to bid 2NT on the previous round, depending on what 2♠ shows. I would probably also have gotten to slam on this hand on this start to the auction, though I wouldn't have jumped over 4♥.

Yeah this is the problem with the clubs I play at. Sometimes people make baffling bids and it can be very difficult to counter them sometimes. The session didn't start well having to defend on all three boards against a pair that said they don't play reverses, which makes defence a bit more tricky than normal.

I didn't really like jumping over 4♥ but I can't find out anything else useful without going past 5♣ so decided to punt slam on an educated guess partner would have a spade control, plus partner has to have some useful values for her opening, and they are not in her club suit.

Good point about West bidding 2NT next time. I would likely settle for 3NT which makes, although if North decides to bid 3♠ over that, I would likely swing the axe.

[mycroft]

"Well" done North. By coming in over 3♣ with that awful bid, they managed to get you to a horrible contract.

Well, in quotes, because rebidding QJxxx and missing an 11-card heart fit can't be good bidding. I assume he didn't double the first time because "hiding a 5-card suit", and he didn't double the second time because he was concerned partner would leave it in (? After a strong auction like this?)

I think, at matchpoints ("5m is an invitation to 6") that your call is 5♣; "I was looking for slam, even opposite your minimum, but I don't have a spade control". But that should get 6 by partner looking at the AK, so I don't think it helps much. Would have been even worse if the ♦A was on the other side.

But I expect most will find the hearts, and get [forced to] game/5, and will happily lose the ♥A and the ♦K for 450/650/worst-case 690, or will double 6 clubs for 500. So, go you!

[bluenikki]

AL78, on 2022-August-19, 11:38, said:

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Didn't west's 3♣ guarantee a minimum opening? If so, why is 6♣ a likely contract?

[LBengtsson]

Judgement is not the problem but distribution and mirror hands. Personally, I would have opened 2♥ as South. I guess where the bidding go from there?

[akwoo]

If West can't bid 4N RKCB after East's 4♦ bid, you have no business being in slam. (Yes - West should bid RKCB.)

[Gilithin]

As South, I would have opened 3♥.
After 2♠, it seems to me absolutely clear for West to bid 2NT. In a minor suit fit, the most important feature of the hand is a stop.
North's 3♠ is an appalling call.
After 4♦ East has shown their hand. If West cannot push on past 5♣ after this then East should respect that.

In short, South could do better, West is an idiot and North is a complete idiot. If you play with idiots, you cannot expect to learn any sort of judgement based on the plays and calls from the other players. This can, in truth, very easily cause your level to go down rather than up. If you want to learn judgement in competitive auctions, my advice would be to find a regular partner whose bidding you can trust and to try to get some regular opponents who at least have some semblance of a clue about the game.

[helene_t]

Against opponents that bid like this, it becomes extra important to know what your doubles mean. If double is not strict penalty then a double on 3♠ can do no harm, and in this case W doesn't even have to agonize about what the double might mean.

[Gilithin]

helene_t, on 2022-August-20, 06:39, said:

Against opponents that bid like this, it becomes extra important to know what your doubles mean. If double is not strict penalty then a double on 3♠ can do no harm, and in this case W doesn't even have to agonize about what the double might mean.

Generally in auctions like this at the 3 level, X replaces the cue bid. Since West already denied a full spade stopper, I would think that it would suggest holding a half-stopper if, as would be most common, looking for 3NT. Whether that is really a good bid on this hand then becomes a little dubious. More to the point though, the OP wanted to show slam interest and in this case bidding 4♦ and then handing the matter over to partner seems like a sensible way of doing that. Whether that is actually a good decision at MP, where bidding 5m can very often be a disaster, is in itself worthy of a full discussion. If West had bid properly earlier, these decisions become much easier.

[AL78]

Gilithin, on 2022-August-20, 06:20, said:

As South, I would have opened 3♥.
After 2♠, it seems to me absolutely clear for West to bid 2NT. In a minor suit fit, the most important feature of the hand is a stop.
North's 3♠ is an appalling call.
After 4♦ East has shown their hand. If West cannot push on past 5♣ after this then East should respect that.

In short, South could do better, West is an idiot and North is a complete idiot. If you play with idiots, you cannot expect to learn any sort of judgement based on the plays and calls from the other players. This can, in truth, very easily cause your level to go down rather than up. If you want to learn judgement in competitive auctions, my advice would be to find a regular partner whose bidding you can trust and to try to get some regular opponents who at least have some semblance of a clue about the game.

Yes I accept I am not going to get better playing in the circles I play in currently, but there are few options in my part of SE England for a quality game of bridge. One of my local clubs that I have played at for nearly 20 years is going down the road of morphing into a beginners/improvers club since the pandemic. The club I joined earlier this year (because I want to play F2F) has turned out to be a very mixed standard, which increases the randomness factor. The EBU seems to be suggesting bridge clubs need to go down the road of attracting new people and having a thriving beginner section in order to survive, which may mean getting a good game of bridge at a club will become rarer in the future. It is almost impossible to get a game with a genuinely strong player as they have their own strong partners and want a quality game of bridge, so they are unlikely to have the time for me. As such I have now accepted I am unlikely to get too much satisfaction out of bridge from the gameplay and now play primarily for the social aspect.

[pescetom]

AL78, on 2022-August-20, 09:26, said:

The EBU seems to be suggesting bridge clubs need to go down the road of attracting new people and having a thriving beginner section in order to survive, which may mean getting a good game of bridge at a club will become rarer in the future. It is almost impossible to get a game with a genuinely strong player as they have their own strong partners and want a quality game of bridge, so they are unlikely to have the time for me.

Kudos to the EBU who have their eyes open then. A thriving beginner section does not necessarily mean it will be harder to get a good game of bridge, even in the short term - beginners who are younger than the club average can soon hold their own (and later on raise the bar) with good teaching and partners available. I seemed to understand from your earlier posts that you were involved in this cycle? We all like to play to win with a partner who is stronger than we are at our own level every now and then, but it is also fun and useful to play with a beginner once a week (and the repeated need to give accurate explanations of basic things will reinforce certainties rather than breed doubts).

[AL78]

pescetom, on 2022-August-20, 15:34, said:

Kudos to the EBU who have their eyes open then. A thriving beginner section does not necessarily mean it will be harder to get a good game of bridge, even in the short term - beginners who are younger than the club average can soon hold their own (and later on raise the bar) with good teaching and partners available. I seemed to understand from your earlier posts that you were involved in this cycle? We all like to play to win with a partner who is stronger than we are at our own level every now and then, but it is also fun and useful to play with a beginner once a week (and the repeated need to give accurate explanations of basic things will reinforce certainties rather than breed doubts).

Somewhat OT, but in my primary club, we have always had a strong teaching element which has successfully kept the club strong in membership for many years. My only mild criticism is that since the pandemic which threw the club calendar up in the air, I feel the club has moved a bit too far in prioritising beginners/improvers, to the point where there is now little opportunity for experienced players to have a solid game at the club. It has moved from having beginner/improver aimed sessions along with sessions where experienced players dominate to having all standards mixed together, so the randomness element has increased (you can see examples from some of my past posts), and there are signs of some animosity between inexperienced and experienced players (a them-and-us attitude is one of the less desirable human cognitive biases, and it is the inexperienced players that seem to do this), with reports of one or two inexperienced players complaining about lack of friendliness. I don't know the details of all cases but one complaint I suspect was indirectly referring to me (I am on the committee so heard the complaint and who made it) because I made a claim on the last board of a round when we were behind in time and the move had been called. Over recent years I have changed my focus on trying to be competitive at the club (I used to be but no longer) to trying to enjoy the game and help less experienced players, which is why I partner one of the improvers once a month.

Friday evenings at the club have always had a reputation for being aimed at strong players (although this has never been the club policy) and so inexperienced players have steered clear. A decade or two ago it used to be well attended. This year it folded because the attendance dropped to one and a half tables after what has been a slow decline over the last five or six years, and because this was the random teams monthly competition, it was eventually deemed unviable and dropped.

[Douglas43]

The main club where I play has quite a few newer players. It started a scheme now picked up by our "county" of running seminars and mentoring for improvers. This avoids any "them and us" and the improvers genuinely improve

[AL78]

Douglas43, on 2022-August-21, 02:42, said:

The main club where I play has quite a few newer players. It started a scheme now picked up by our "county" of running seminars and mentoring for improvers. This avoids any "them and us" and the improvers genuinely improve

This is kind of what I do. I got friendly with an improver who is very keen and during the pandemic when the club was entirely online, I used to try and give her advice after looking at her bad boards (e.g. missed games were common and it was due to poor bidding). Whilst doing this over time, I realised that because she was partnering other improvers, it would be very difficult for her to improve as her partner's bidding was very erratic. Hence I offered her a once a month game to give her some practice opposite more sound bidding (I'm not saying I am perfect but I can bid better than the beginners) and defence. She does seem to be getting better slowly, she seems to know when she has made a mistake soon after making it, so we need to work on slowing down a bit and identifying a mistake before making a bid/playing a card so it can be avoided.

[pescetom]

Douglas43, on 2022-August-21, 02:42, said:

The main club where I play has quite a few newer players. It started a scheme now picked up by our "county" of running seminars and mentoring for improvers. This avoids any "them and us" and the improvers genuinely improve

We don't have a formal scheme of mentoring but we do strive to partner beginners and improvers with more experienced players at least once a week. Unfortunately the pool of more experienced players who are both willing and capable of mentoring is limited, about five which is less than the pool of improvers. Many others are too selfish or impatient to mentor.

[pescetom]

AL78, on 2022-August-20, 16:28, said:

Somewhat OT, but in my primary club, we have always had a strong teaching element which has successfully kept the club strong in membership for many years. My only mild criticism is that since the pandemic which threw the club calendar up in the air, I feel the club has moved a bit too far in prioritising beginners/improvers, to the point where there is now little opportunity for experienced players to have a solid game at the club. It has moved from having beginner/improver aimed sessions along with sessions where experienced players dominate to having all standards mixed together, so the randomness element has increased (you can see examples from some of my past posts), and there are signs of some animosity between inexperienced and experienced players (a them-and-us attitude is one of the less desirable human cognitive biases, and it is the inexperienced players that seem to do this), with reports of one or two inexperienced players complaining about lack of friendliness. I don't know the details of all cases but one complaint I suspect was indirectly referring to me (I am on the committee so heard the complaint and who made it) because I made a claim on the last board of a round when we were behind in time and the move had been called. Over recent years I have changed my focus on trying to be competitive at the club (I used to be but no longer) to trying to enjoy the game and help less experienced players, which is why I partner one of the improvers once a month.

Friday evenings at the club have always had a reputation for being aimed at strong players (although this has never been the club policy) and so inexperienced players have steered clear. A decade or two ago it used to be well attended. This year it folded because the attendance dropped to one and a half tables after what has been a slow decline over the last five or six years, and because this was the random teams monthly competition, it was eventually deemed unviable and dropped.

I can relate to that. Overall we are in a healthier position, but many of the problems and trends are the same. Our Tuesday evening sim was traditionally the night for the big boys and only the bravest of intermediates, but post covid a a series of factors changed that: the federation temporarily dropped entry fees (a huge error), my club dropped playing for money prizes (a good idea, but at the wrong moment) and the intermediates were now used to playing the sim online. The result is an "all in" that disconcerts the more expert players and can be traumatic for the intermediates too. But at least it's more challenging and useful to direct, and in the long term I'm sure the overall level of play will gain too. We're also running more tables than pre-covid which is some kind of national record (similar clubs are struggling to reach 3 tables and cannot justify a director).

[michel444]

Gilithin, on 2022-August-20, 06:20, said:

As South, I would have opened 3♥.
After 2♠, it seems to me absolutely clear for West to bid 2NT. In a minor suit fit, the most important feature of the hand is a stop.
North's 3♠ is an appalling call.
After 4♦ East has shown their hand. If West cannot push on past 5♣ after this then East should respect that.

In short, South could do better, West is an idiot and North is a complete idiot. If you play with idiots, you cannot expect to learn any sort of judgement based on the plays and calls from the other players. This can, in truth, very easily cause your level to go down rather than up. If you want to learn judgement in competitive auctions, my advice would be to find a regular partner whose bidding you can trust and to try to get some regular opponents who at least have some semblance of a clue about the game.

biding 3 heart with 7♥ to the Jack is not my style ..
IMHO North can over call with 1H

[Gilithin]

michel444, on 2022-September-14, 20:52, said:

biding 3 heart with 7♥ to the Jack is not my style ..
IMHO North can over call with 1H

Then I recommend you read Partnership Bidding at Bridge, which is available online without cost. You might still decide not to change your style but it will at least give you some insight as to what the big boys are doing. Overcalling a QT62 suit rather than a higher ranking QJT87 suit is just bizarre.