03.17.10
Interesting Bidding Problem
Sorry I have been away, but health issues have hampered my ability to write. It is hard to type when you cannot see straight (not that I am much better right now, but I have to write something!!!).
I just had an interesting hand on-line which was not bid well and I misplayed because I misclicked on trick 1 because I couldn’t see straight.
I picked up:
AQJTxx
KTxx
—
A9x
In first seat, I open 1S. The bidding is uncontested. Partner bids 2C, which we play game forcing. I bid 2H, followed by 3H from partner, which is stronger than a jump to 4H. We now have suit agreement, so I bid 3S, which is a cue bid, not promising a 6th spade. Now the bidding goes awry. Partner simply bids 4H, which I raised to 5H, which asks if she has 1st or 2nd round control of diamonds (on his auction, it should deny 1st round control because she could have bid 4D after my 3S bid with the A of diamonds, but my head was spinning and I wasn’t sure how she would take the 5H call, but I didn’t want to give up on 6H yet). Partner passed.
Partner’s hand was:
Kx
QJxx
AKx
QJxx
Partner should have bid 4D after my 3S call, showing me the diamond control. Now, I am more confident that if I have a club loser, I can park it on the diamond, so my real concern is trump quality. I can now bid 4NT, Roman Keycard Blackwood (1430 version in our system) and find out I am off 1 keycard, probably the A of hearts. Since partner had shown me extra values by bidding 3H instead of jumping to 4H, it is a safe conclusion that partner has the Q, if not the QJ of hearts. Therefore, I probably only need spade finesse to make 6H, so I will probably bid 6H. A bit of a leap of faith, but if I ask for the Q of hearts, then I am probably committing to 6H anyway, so I may as well bid 6.
Anyway, at trick 1, I got a club lead. I played the Q from dummy, RHO played the K, and I clicked on the 9!!! A club was returned for a ruff. I still had to lose the A of hearts, so I went down 1 instead of making 6!!
It has been a long day.
