How did that work out for you?

Colin and I played a match on Tuesday with a lot of the “usual” crowd.  Well at least the other 7 played.  I was mostly wandering around on the planet Mars or maybe it was Jupiter.  I didn’t really notice. 

I have this idea that in a bridge match we make a lot of decisions, reasonable decisions but some work out well and some badly.  It’s worth it to go back and analyze the good and the bad results.  Here is a decision that Colin and Sondra had. 

With everybody vulnerable in first chair do you bid:

K J86 3  KQ987532

 

Do you bid

a)3  b)4 c) 3NT if you play that as a broken minor preempt (as we do) d) pass e) other

  K
J86
3  
KQ987532

 

What should you open in first chair with a broken eight card minor suit.  

With an eight card minor the opponents could easily be on for something and a bid at the four level will completely disrupt their auction.  But then again it still could be you hand and you have now bypassed 3NT.  I have no obvious answer to this question.  Colin and I would open the hand either 3NT if we wanted to open at the four level since we used this bid to show a broken 8 card minor preempt. 

Bidding either 3NT or 3 appears to work best at the table.  If you make either of these bids you will end in 3NT.  Bidding 4 leads to 5 which looks pretty grim when dummy came down on the lead of the A.

Isabelle/Linda

AJ92
Q5
AKJ7 
J106

Sondra/Colin

  K
J86
3 
KQ987532

 

3NT has a decent play even on a heart lead but 5 the contract that was reached by Isabelle-Sondra looks to have very little play after a heart lead.  (A club lead is no better and even a diamond lead needs the finesse).  But wait the A is singleton and the defense could not cash out their winners!    Which brings me to my second and third theme, one that has made some partnerships very successful.  Bid game, maybe it makes, if it doesn’t let them beat it.   If all else fails hope for good luck or as Ray says it’s smarter to be lucky than it’s lucky to be smart (whatever that means).

What’s Sondra did wasn’t wrong but it did lead to the wrong contract.  On a different layout it might work out best.  But it is worth thinking about, how will it usually work out.  I prefer Colin’s choice but then again I am generally a less aggressive bidder than Sondra and I have seen her choices work out very well a lot of the time.