Hi all
I’ll start with a small link dump:
Stanley & Natasja in India here.
René & Nira launching Bridge Big in Louisville here.
I’ve mostly gotten used to people abusing cards. But my grief over all the mutilations, the carnage, the hecatomb and the abhorrences people (including myself) sometimes commit has not diminished, it just got slightly less … visible.
Here are two sad, sad cases:
After my partner made his lead dummy proudly put down these cards:
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Can I have a review please?
I ask my opponents if they are playing Canapé or a strong and myself whether I could have blacked out during the the alerts. Nothing. All natural. Well, it sure is an approach, bidding your second shortest suit first then reversing into your longest suit and never get to mention your 
. I’ll let my readers figure it out whether it is a sound or winning approach. [The result was down one when my partner proved to have three trump tricks, and I added the King as setting trick.]
This deal is from the 2nd round in the GNT’s. Must have been that large cow that flew by.
After the auction I ask a couple things, 2 was non-forcing, 2 (false) preference, 4 asked for keycards and West showed one. Well, that’s certainly quite a hand, making a non-forcing bid first and then blasting to slam anyway.
Lead a trump?
No, that might endanger partner’s trump holding.
Any ?
No, for underleading an Ace I’m usually not brave enough in serious matches. And leading the Ace might set up too many pitches for declarer.
The Queen?
Speculative, it’s the unbid suit. It might establish the setting trick. But eventually I decide against it.
I lead my 5th instead.
As you can see, East didn’t really have the combination of cards she promised during the bidding sequence. The contract is reasonably sound after all, but in the end it came down to finding that lovely Queen. [She finessed.]
And this is where I wiped away that swamp of sweat on my forehead. Still a bit trembling for actively considering leading the Queen. Man! It would have resulted in one of the fastest claims ever.
If there’s anybody out there, what were my RHO’s thinking during the bidding?
On the first hand, many older non-duplicate players think that because a reverse shows strength that when they have strength, they must reverse. A bit surprised to find this bidding in the Flight A GNTs, but there it is.
On the second hand East certainly has a problem rebid, having not already chosen to lie by opening 2NT. Reversing into a hearts could be disastrous, no spade raise is right, and no diamond bid is forcing. Classic Bridge World Death Hand. 3NT seems like the best compromise to me, but I can see where someone might think that if they could just get away with 2
and hear one more bid that he would know what to do. Probably someone who’s read too many Al Roth books?
Upon hearing the diamond preference, were both partners sure that 4
was Keycard? Maybe East just thought it was forcing. Tough hand to get right, I think. 6
is great if the 
J were the 
J, and even our relay system is not finding that hand.
I don’t think that reversing with 2
will lead to disasters. The one thing you do not want to hear is partner supporting your fake suit, but in that case he must have four of them and ergo five spades. It will get your strength across and if you play some kind of Lebensohl device over reverses, partner may be able to support the diamonds at the three level while forcing to game.
One word to Jannes, was it a deceptive 5th club? Normally using 3rd/5th leads you would lead your 3rd club holding a 6card suit.
Thanks for your comments, guys.
I didn’t know of that nuance to 3rd/5th leads, I’ll have to read into that (suggestions?). One other approach I have heard of is to lead 3rd from even and low from odd. But what its merits are I don’t know.
One of the merits is that it usually helps to distinguish between a five card suit and a six card suit. Especially if from the bidding (for instance opening 1
or 1
) it is already clear that the lead is from at least 5.