[inquiry]

The bidding is not entirely convincing, but we got to a grand slam, that made primarily because of no trump lead. I played Seamon for the heart queen because of that.

There is probably a lot of questions about my choice of bidding 3♥. I generally bid 4♦ with hands like this, but I didn't want to get partner too excited (this is our first real bridge together). In highnsight, 4♦ would have been best, but this worked well for an odd reason.

Partner bid 5♥ over 5♦ which is good, showing an offensive hand (when I HOLD ak of spades). i bid 5♠ and partner made a grand slam try of 6♣. i tried to signoff in 6♠ but barry realized I had to have good spades for this auction, and put me in the grand. The problem was I didn't have good hearts. we were lucky, I misbid.

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This was an unfortunate hand. Seamon meant 5NT as pick a slam, jec took it as GSF for clubs. It is not a bad slam, and in fact is cold. However, we were given a chance to defeat it. A few intersting things about the play.

I choose a deceptive lead of the ♠J. This didn't cause any problems however.

When I showed out on the 2nd round of clubs, JEC can make the hand by ruffing a diamond, and pushing spades through Barry and guessing the diamond Axx instead of a ruffing finesse. Some reason to do so, because I didn't lead the ♦Ace...

He played deadly third round of trumps. Now it looks like he has to go down. Barry threw one too many hearts.

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[mike777]

2 Quick comments I thought Michael and Jec played a basic simple system but even then they had a few hands that the bidding got confused. I thought Michael exercised excellent judgment on board after board that really applied pressure.


I thought board 6 was frought with chances for miscommunication.

We all wondered about 3h bid.

At the time I said if Ben bids 5s/6s....pard will bid 7h after a pause. I found it comical that people wondered why you guys forced to 7h missing the QH. A very very hard hand

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On 18....I saw no alert and thought 5nt was gsf and commented a great judgment bid by Michael. Your comment surprised me that even at this level, 5nt is very very confusing.

A hand I would end up in 6c.

[Fluffy]

5NT seems an obvious GSF, I don´t see why he would want to pick something else than clubs. Specially after having set them as trumps when he had 3♠ avaible.

[mike777]

Fluffy, on 2012-March-02, 01:57, said:

5NT seems an obvious GSF, I don´t see why he would want to pick something else than clubs. Specially after having set them as trumps when he had 3♠ avaible.

obvious but we are told wrong.


Repeat champions of the Res... toughest event in ACBL.....yet we are told not obvious.......

[JLOGIC]

A much easier way to make 7C after spade spade ruff is to simply ruff 2 dimonds and claim... Ruff a diamond, club to the ace, ruff a diamond high, pull trumps claim. JEC had a blindspot and then so did Barry. Such is bridge.

[Phil]

Yes, ruffing two diamonds seems very straightforward. If JEC would have counted his tricks, he would have come to this conclusion.

On a heart lead, the play is quite interesting.

[Phil]

The first grand slam was fortunate and I was hoping this was going to set a tone for the match.

I agree you have a 4♦ call - why would you introduce a four card heart suit unless you thought it was some sort of fit non-jump (ugh). This rightly caused Barmar to get very excited about his hand, although the final decision was a successful stab.

[barmar]

#6: I wasn't really sure whether Ben was suggesting ♠ as trumps, or just cue bidding. Even if he had 3, I naturally assumed he also had 5 ♥ -- with only 4, I'd expect a negative double. The presumed 5-4 suit seems better as trumps than the 6-3 suit, since the latter will provide more discards.

#18: GIB says that Jimmy was doomed after the 2nd round of trumps. He can ruff out my ♦A but he can't get back to hand to enjoy them. As soon as I pitched my little ♥, I realized I'd solved his problem.