Bid Boldly, Play Safe

Playing in a team game against Jeff Smith and Paul Thurston, Jeff provided an interesting example of the theme popularized by Rixi Marcus, a British women internationalist who wrote a book entitled: “Bid Boldly, Play Safe”.  Her approach was to bid very aggressively and then try to justify her bidding with her exceptional dummy play.  I will give you the auction and the two hands and you can decide who was the “boldest” bidder.

Paul

♠ J82

♥ AK4

◊ J75

♣ A632

 

Jeff

♠ A1054

♥ J9875

◊ K2

♣ K7

Nobody Vulnerable

Jeff	Linda	Paul	Sylvia
	1◊	pass	pass
double	pass	2◊	pass
3◊	pass	4◊	pass
4♥	all pass

It is fun to try to figure out why they kept cuebidding so here are my guesses.  Paul had a good hand but no suit.  I am not sure why Jeff cuebid.  The hand is going to play better from his side.  Paul cuebid back because he still didn’t know where to play the hand and by this time Jeff had run out of cuebids or as Paul said at the time they had no more diamond bidding cards in their box so he had to bid a suit,   4♥. 

The real fun of the hand is the play.  Jeff got the lead of the ♣Q and won this in hand.  The good news is that he knows where the high cards are, by and large.  The bad news is that it looks like he has lots of losers.  Figure out how you would play the hand and then I will just tell you what Jeff did. 

Jeff played three rounds of clubs ruffing the third round with the ♥7.   All followed and on the third round I played the ♣J.    Now Jeff cashed the top two hearts and when I played the doubleton ♥Q Jeff had passed hurdle one.  He still has to avoid four losers in the offsuits.  He now played a spade the the ♠10 and I won the ♠Q.  I wasn’t endplayed yet and I got out the ♠9.  This was covered with the ♠9, ♠K and ♠A.  The rest is a lot easier.  This was the ending.

Paul

♠ 8

♥ 4

◊ J75

♣ 6

 

Jeff

♠ 54

♥ J9

◊ K2

♣ —

Jeff led the ◊K which I won with the ◊A.  I returned the ◊10 and Jeff had no choice but to rise with the ◊J hoping I had the ◊Q.  When the ◊J held Jeff was home.   Well played, Jeff.  Here is the whole deal:

 

	Paul
	♠ J82
	♥ AK4
	◊ J75
	♣ A632

Linda		Sylvia
♠ Q9		♠ K763
♥ Q3		♥ 1062
◊  AQ10964		◊ 83
♣ QJ5		♣ 10984

	Jeff
	♠ A1054
	♥ J9875
	◊ K2
	♣ K7