[kenberg]

OK, just your run of the mill hand.

Matchpoints

---

Now? If you think that the answer, whatever it is, is obvious feel free to say so.

Added: As far as inferences from non-actions go, a double by partner, instead of his pass, would have been responsive, asking me to choose a minor. Other than that, I can't think of any agreement that we have that might be relevant.

[Winstonm]

My partner is quite likely 3433 and we cannot beat 2H. This sucks as minus 110 is sure to be bad. I think the only way to get out of this trap is to double again and hope partner bids his 3-card spade suit and the opps take the push to 3H. Gross overbid or simply gross bidding: either way, I double again. Ugh!

[Phil]

I look across the table and confirm my partner is breathing. Then I look at my opponents and make sure they have a pulse.

It seems like partner has a 6-7 count and no good call. xxx Axxx Qxx xxx looks about right. My opponents can either x me off in 3D and I've accomplished nothing except put an average board at risk.

[kenberg]

Phil, on 2016-March-24, 15:05, said:

I look across the table and confirm my partner is breathing. Then I look at my opponents and make sure they have a pulse.

It seems like partner has a 6-7 count and no good call. xxx Axxx Qxx xxx looks about right. My opponents can either x me off in 3D and I've accomplished nothing except put an average board at risk.

Everyone appears to be conscious. Having checked their pulse, you pass?

[Phil]

kenberg, on 2016-March-24, 17:01, said:

Everyone appears to be conscious. Having checked the pulse, you pass?

Yup.

[Fluffy]

I think pass is obvious as well

[kenberg]

OK. I thank you very much for this, I had an ulterior motive. I again doubled, which under ordinary circumstances could just be bad judgment. But partner had definitely hitched before his second pass. The opponents objected, the director upheld my X, perhaps(?) partly because (I like to at least think) I have a reputation of not bidding my partner's hesitations. I would like to keep that reputation. I really thought, at the time, that it was warranted. Support for all suits, stiff heart, non-vul. But afterwards I started to rethink it. I still don't think I should have all that much more, but probably more.

Thanks.


What actually happened after my double? Let me skip over the details, but the opponents could easily have adequately punished us but failed to do so. I will report the opinion here to the director. In hearts makes 110, and 140 if we are not careful.

Anyway, in these hesitation auctions I bid on only if I think it is clear to do so, I thought it was, I was wrong. Thanks.

[rmnka447]

Pass!

I'm looking at a very poor 12 count. Partner can't find a bid over a 2 ♥ raise.

Some possibilities come to mind:

- partner has a poor hand and both opponents are just short of pushing on,

- partner has sort of a heart holding and no good suit to bid, or even,

- one of the opponents has misbid.

Part of the art of matchpoints is to pick the spots where you choose to compete. I don't like the prospects for this hand.

[robert2734]

As a director, the director may of upheld your bid because it should of been punished at the table. Not because there are no plausible alternative that other ACBL members may have been chosen. And when the opponents slip on defense they own their result. They can't then come to director and get bailed out.

[Winstonm]

Fluffy, on 2016-March-24, 17:17, said:

I think pass is obvious as well

I agree with everyone's assessment that this hand has no business bidding on - but I still bid again as I cannot remember the last time 2H making 2 by the opponents was anywhere near an average board or even average minus. On a 12 top, letting the opps play 2H on this auction rates as about a 3-.

[kenberg]

robert2734, on 2016-March-24, 19:00, said:

As a director, the director may of upheld your bid because it should of been punished at the table. Not because there are no plausible alternative that other ACBL members may have been chosen. And when the opponents slip on defense they own their result. They can't then come to director and get bailed out.

Yes, so I understand it is sometimes done. This runs up against my intuition. I can see sticking them with the bad result since it really was clear the defense should have prevailed. So I could see giving them the negative score that they got by inadequate defense. But if my X was deemed to be not acceptable after partner's hitch then it seems we should not get a good score no matter how bad the defense went. Our opponents, after all, are the other NS pairs. As it turned out, the result on this board does not change the rankings at all.

It's a friendly game but still serious enough. I am now convinced my bid was light.

Some time back I had the following happen. In a similar situation I was convinced that had partner (a different partner) not hesitated I would have bid. But I decided I did not really want to try to convince anyone of this, so I passed. Which gave us a fine result. In a weird sense, taking into account partner's hesitation, and thus thinking I must pass, gave a plus. Not likely here.

Again, thanks.

[robert2734]

Your partner's hesitation is perfectly legal and even when you then make a bid that would not be chosen by your peers, I make no insinuation that you did anything unethical. So you don't "deserve" a bad result. You make an usual bid and it happens to work out, that's duplicate bridge. Your opponents mess up the defense so you get a good board and because it is a zero sum game the other N-S get a bad board, that's the way duplicate bridge is. To the extent I can can figure out that your bid was influenced by the long time partner thought about it, rather than just the fact he passed, I can adjust the score.

[kenberg]

robert2734, on 2016-March-25, 08:04, said:

Your partner's hesitation is perfectly legal and even when you then make a bid that would not be chosen by your peers, I make no insinuation that you did anything unethical. So you don't "deserve" a bad result. You make an usual bid and it happens to work out, that's duplicate bridge. Your opponents mess up the defense so you get a good board and because it is a zero sum game the other N-S get a bad board, that's the way duplicate bridge is. To the extent I can can figure out that your bid was influenced by the long time partner thought about it, rather than just the fact he passed, I can adjust the score.

Yes, i assume that opponents believe, until I give them ample reason to think otherwise, that my bid was based on my judgment. But the rules, as I understand them, are that once there is a hesitation it no longer is all that important how confident I am that I would have doubled without the hesitation. I would not have done it unless i believed I would have done it w/o the hesitation. That's a fact. But it seems to me that if I can't do it after the hesitation, then I can't do it regardless of what happens next (unless, as should have happened the result is bad for us) . That's my intuition on how things should be, I realize that directors see things differently. No matter which side of the fence I am on, I have never understood this.

[billw55]

Winstonm, on 2016-March-24, 20:57, said:

I agree with everyone's assessment that this hand has no business bidding on - but I still bid again as I cannot remember the last time 2H making 2 by the opponents was anywhere near an average board or even average minus. On a 12 top, letting the opps play 2H on this auction rates as about a 3-.

I was thinking similar and would probably double again, seeing several ways to gain. -100 via down 1 doubled or down two undoubled, or maybe they bid 3♥ and go down, or they misdefend, or even we make 2♠ on a moysian. In general I strive to avoid defending 2 of a major at matchpoints (when they have a fit) because it is so often a bad score anyway.

Admit I was somewhat surprised at the strong majority for pass.

[kenberg]

billw55, on 2016-March-25, 08:53, said:

I was thinking similar and would probably double again, seeing several ways to gain. -100 via down 1 doubled or down two undoubled, or maybe they bid 3♥ and go down, or they misdefend, or even we make 2♠ on a moysian. In general I strive to avoid defending 2 of a major at matchpoints (when they have a fit) because it is so often a bad score anyway.

Admit I was somewhat surprised at the strong majority for pass.

2H sometimes went down, but that was in the C section and they are not scored against us. So -110 would give us -1.5 out of 7. There were three pairs in hearts. They are +140, +110. -50. Everyone else is in something our way, all going down, all minus less than 110. It isn't totally trivial to hold them to 8 tricks. -140 gives us 0.5. There was a 2NT our way, off 1, for a good score. Pard took my double as showing a bit (I understate) more than I had so he bid 3NT. Bad news / good news / bad news. 3NT is not where you want to be / unless you make it / and if my call is allowed to stand. And then more good news, the director let my call stand. Except I am not so happy if my call doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

The dismal result we would get for letting them play 2H may partially support my choice of X. But next time I pass, at least if there is a hesitation. .

[akwoo]

Now that I see this for a second time, I think this is the kind of thing you should have a general partnership agreement on. Do you, in general, take more aggressive actions in direct seat, or do you balance more aggressively, or do you have some other way of dividing the responsibilities for acting aggressively?

[kenberg]

akwoo, on 2016-March-25, 21:59, said:

Now that I see this for a second time, I think this is the kind of thing you should have a general partnership agreement on. Do you, in general, take more aggressive actions in direct seat, or do you balance more aggressively, or do you have some other way of dividing the responsibilities for acting aggressively?

Yes, that probably could use some discussion. There should be a way to contend with 2H without either passing it out or playing in game.. Presumably pretty much everyone is more aggressive in the pass out seat, but there are limits even to that, and there seems to be a fair consensus that I went beyond the limit. Thus certainly beyond the limit with the hesitation. The fact that partner has some values is clear, hesitation or not. I have a 12 count and the opponents have not even made a try for game.

So the hesition business is settled. Next time I pass. We still need to decide how strong my second double is when pard passes in tempo. I accept that it should be more than it was, but I think not much more. As you say, it is something to discuss.

[robert2734]

Back to my player hat. If partner knows we aren't getting any matchpoints for defending 2H, I trust her judgement and pass. If partner passes any six point hand, I bid 3C hoping to push them to 3H.

[robert2734]

Back to my player hat. If partner knows we aren't getting any matchpoints for defending 2H, I trust her judgement and pass. If partner passes any six point hand, I bid 3C hoping to push them to 3H.

[kenberg]

This is one of those very impure situations. In fact the best we can do, or so I think, is 2H making 2 for -110. We have to hope the opponents do not play optimally to do better than the lousy 1.5 in 2H. If pard plays in 2NT undoubled, and if they lead a small heart to the stiff Jack on the board, holding the trick, then declarer can run six tricks for -100. If he tries to make it, they can make him regret it. So 2NT X is bad, if they get it right. I think 3C also goes down 2, or it can. Again they need to first double and then defend well. But the defense is easier this time.

For a 2H contract, it is best if I lead the spade J. Declarer would like to lead hearts toward his hand, but he first needs to play a top heart to drop my Jack. He also needs to lead a club toward his Kx. Dummy has KQ tight of spades, so if I start a spade and pard hops up with his ace when the club is let and plays another spade, we hold 2H to 110. Or so I think. We cannot stop declarer from getting three spades, four hearts and a club, but the job is to keep him from getting five tricks in hearts.

Here are the hands.

---

Let's look at 2H first. Say I start with a spade and a club is led from the board. If pard ducks, declarer lays down the ace of hearts and goes back to the board with a spade. Heart from the board. he will play me for a stiff heart on the auction. If pard plays small he takes the 9, cashes a spade, ruffs a spade which can be over ruffed but he has his three spades and a club, and he will be taking all five hearts. No better if pard splits. Go up, spade spade ruff, over ruff, hearts are good.

That's the best we can do against 2H.

Playing in NT, a low heart is led. In 2NT undoubled, now taking four diamonds and a club is a fine idea. In 3HT doubled it went club to A, small club. This could be seriously bad: spade to Q, heart through, if declarer rises then spade to K, heart through, ouch. Declarer can play small and hold it to down 3 by playing small a T3 but it doesn't matter.

So why did thins not happen? From East's viewpoint, instead of QJxx of diamonds, S could perhaps have held Kxx in spades. In which case underleadin the ace of spades would go small J Q K, spade back.


Seems to me that on the second club, W needs to plunk down the club T. Maybe E should get it right, but a little help can't hurt.

I wasn't planning on posting the full hand since I imagine everyone has a bit to regret, but there is a point: Pard has more than I can reasonably expect, and still we want to let them play it. Unless they err. Well, people do err, and it is matchpoints, so we live dangerously.

There was a 3D off 2, a 4D (???) off 1. 3C off 2. A 2NT off 1. All not doubled. I have not thought through optimal result on all of these.


Btw: In 2NT with a small heart lead, if declarer decides to settle for six tricks and runs his diamonds, he can make 7 tricks, at least if he has x-ray vision.