[Phil]

Weak club game

QJx
xxx
JT987
xx

KTx
AQJx
Void
AKJxxx

1D x 1H p
1N 2C AP

D2 lead, Q, ruff. You try a spade to dummy which wins.

You lose a club finesse and they play a 2nd diamond and draw trump, RHO having 3 (but you were expecting that, right?).

You try to sneak a spade but LHO hops and plays a spade back. You are in your hand with the hearts and a small trump.

Make 4 of the 5 remaining tricks.

[Phil]

Well I didn't think the hand was that tough!

[ahydra]

My first thought was that RHO must have the HK since otherwise he has only 9 HCP for his opening bid. From the play so far it seems he is 3253, so I play HAx to drop the doubleton King and claim.

ahydra

[FrancesHinden]

The thread title totally lost me

[Phil]

FrancesHinden, on 2016-August-16, 14:56, said:

The thread title totally lost me

If you drill down the hand isn't terrible difficult is it?

[661_Pete]

Phil, on 2016-August-16, 18:50, said:

If you drill down the hand isn't terrible difficult is it?

Maybe it would be 'easier' if you clarified who held what and who was bidding what?

In particular, north's opening bid is a mystery to me. Unless it was a psych? I'm not familiar with "weak club game".

[Zelandakh]

661_Pete, on 2016-August-18, 00:38, said:

Maybe it would be 'easier' if you clarified who held what and who was bidding what?

In particular, north's opening bid is a mystery to me. Unless it was a psych? I'm not familiar with "weak club game".

North passed twice - does that seem so unreasonable? The auction starts with East and progresses clockwise, declarer doubling, etc. So RHO has bid 1♦ and 1NT, LHO 1♥. For "weak club game", think Acol Club in BBO. About the same.

For the hand itself, look at the heart suit in isolation. We have 7, LHO has shown 4+ and RHO has shown 2+. And from the points we can place RHO with ♥K. At the point of the question we hold ♥AQJx plus a trump and need to score 4 tricks without an entry to dummy. You can probably work out the correct line yourself from this point.

[ahydra]

Zelandakh, on 2016-August-18, 03:39, said:

North passed twice - does that seem so unreasonable? The auction starts with East and progresses clockwise, declarer doubling, etc. So RHO has bid 1♦ and 1NT, LHO 1♥.

His point was that the OP didn't specify the dealer - it takes some effort to figure out that the auction starts with East, for example by realising that the X-then-2C bidder had to be South. I'm sure Phil already knows this, but the hand diagram editor is your friend

ahydra

[gordontd]

ahydra, on 2016-August-18, 04:28, said:

I'm sure Phil already knows this, but the hand diagram editor is your friend

And yet here we are.

[Phil]

gordontd, on 2016-August-18, 06:04, said:

And yet here we are.

When they create a hand editor for my android I'll be the first on board.

[Phil]

By the way it's not tough to figure out the heart situation but this hand was particularly annoying to watch from dummy.

Forget about the lack of awareness of the bidding.

When declarer was in the endgame, it's quite easy to simply play hA, LOW heart since hearts known to be 42.

Yet, the protagonist played hA, hQ. +110.

/rant

[kenberg]

Phil, on 2016-August-18, 07:17, said:

By the way it's not tough to figure out the heart situation but this hand was particularly annoying to watch from dummy.

Forget about the lack of awareness of the bidding.

When declarer was in the endgame, it's quite easy to simply play hA, LOW heart since hearts known to be 42.

Yet, the protagonist played hA, hQ. +110.

/rant

Maybe the moral of the story is that you should expect weak play in a weak club game?
Metaphor: Think of bridge as a car with a self-driving option. This allows the driver to go to sleep if he wishes. Some wish.

That being said, I can take a snooze as well as anyone. At the recent Regional, we were playing against a very congenial young couple. The guy asked us afterward "How good are the two of you?", describing themselves (I think with excessive modesty) as newcomers to the game. How to answer this question? I said I was good enough to be embarrassed when I made a mistake, bad enough to frequently suffer that embarrassment.

But yes, your partner might have given the matter a moment of thought.

I picked up Fred Gitleman's book Master Class. The deals inside illustrate very well what can be accomplished with thought.

[661_Pete]

Zelandakh, on 2016-August-18, 03:39, said:

North passed twice - does that seem so unreasonable? The auction starts with East and progresses clockwise, declarer doubling, etc. So RHO has bid 1♦ and 1NT, LHO 1♥. For "weak club game", think Acol Club in BBO. About the same.

For the hand itself, look at the heart suit in isolation. We have 7, LHO has shown 4+ and RHO has shown 2+. And from the points we can place RHO with ♥K. At the point of the question we hold ♥AQJx plus a trump and need to score 4 tricks without an entry to dummy. You can probably work out the correct line yourself from this point.

No, sorry, it doesn't make sense at all. I had assumed from the 'diagram' that North had opened the bidding with a psychic 1♦.

And please clarify exactly what is meant by "weak club game" if you don't mind please... ?

[Vampyr]

661_Pete, on 2016-August-20, 02:32, said:

And please clarify exactly what is meant by "weak club game" if you don't mind please... ?

It's pretty subjective, isn't it?

[661_Pete]

Vampyr, on 2016-August-20, 06:58, said:

It's pretty subjective, isn't it?

I think I get the message. Indeed I 'got the message' good enough from reading the post which I quoted.

But I honestly thought the OP was referring to some obscure bidding convention. Think "blue...", "precision..." etc etc....

Sometimes I wonder why I bother myself with this flea-bitten apology for a 'forum', rather than play bridge. But occasionally it turns up some gems.

[Phil]

Pretty hard to tell which hand made a takeout of 1D and then competed to 2C.

Sorry for poor presentation.

[Vampyr]

661_Pete, on 2016-August-20, 10:25, said:

I think I get the message. Indeed I 'got the message' good enough from reading the post which I quoted.

But I honestly thought the OP was referring to some obscure bidding convention. Think "blue...", "precision..." etc etc....

Sometimes I wonder why I bother myself with this flea-bitten apology for a 'forum', rather than play bridge. But occasionally it turns up some gems.

I think these forums could just about manage without you.

[Trinidad]

Vampyr, on 2016-August-20, 12:05, said:

I think these forums could just about manage without you.

That was not necessary... I suggest you delete your post.

So, Pete got confused because of the word "club". I admit that until he figured out his confusion himself, I didn't understand what he was confused about. But I concluded that this was because of my lack of imagination.

In hindsight I can easily understand Pete's confusion and I will recognize that he has more imagination than I to be able to jump to the other meaning of the word "club".

Rik

[Vampyr]

Trinidad, on 2016-August-20, 12:52, said:

That was not necessary... I suggest you delete your post.

You think so? 661's post was a reflection on you, me, and everyone who posts here.

[chasetb]

I was able to figure out the auction, but only because that South hand.

Phil (or anyone else), if you can't use the hand editor, for future reference use parenthesis for the opponents' bids. That 'seems' to be universal. Or, you can specify who Dealer is, and that works.