Colin my imaginative son… you make my bridge life interesting

Finally Colin had time to play with me again.  I knew it if I played with Colin:

a) it would be a lot of fun

b) weird things would happen

c) imaginative bids and plays would happen

d) we would have some cool system discussion

Did it all happen?  Oh yes.

Early on I got to play in 1NT doubled making a couple of overtricks.  I mention this because the system we play over our weak notrump allows us to play in a spot.  I opened 1NT in third and LHO doubled. 

Colin held S 975 H KQ87 D 65 C K742.

I suppose he could have redoubled for penalty in a "Guoba" based system.  Would you do that playing 12-14 notrump?  It does make the stakes awfully high.  In our system Colin could simply pass saying that was where he wanted to play it, making it an easy decision.

Like many other hands later the hand was fun (to play). meeting a)

It took only to board 4 when Colin did something out of system.  This was what he held. S 63 H Q1094 D AQ975 C AK

Playing standard I opened 1S and Colin bid 2D.  When I bid 2H Colin couldn’t bid 3H (not forcing) and he really did like his hand.  So he bid 4C a splinter.  Imaginative!

I held S AQ984 H AJ876 D 10 C 108 and decided not to make a move with the singleton diamond.  So we ended in a normal 4H anyway.  As it turns out the cards are perfect and you can make 6H.  Criteria c had been met.

On board 10 Colin mesmerized his RHO although it was only for an overtrick.  He opened 4S vulnerable.  The opening lead was the HK.  Here was my hand

S Q3 H A64 D A C KQ87643

Colin’s RHO held S 8 H J985 D Q1087 C AJ95

Colin won the HA in dummy and cashed the DA and the lead a small club from the table.  RHO thought for a while and put in the C5 allowing Colin to win his singleton 10. 

Colin held S AJ1097642 H 104 D K5 C 10

I wouldn’t have thought of that sequence of plays.  Now is that weird or imaginative – I call it weird, criteria c)

Here is an amazing disaster hand that did lead to a bit of system discussion.  I held S 98542 H Q104 D AJ5 C 74.

We were vulnerable against not and West passed, as did I.  East opened 1S and Colin bid 2S.  West passed.  What should I bid?  I wasn’t sure what 2NT would be.  If he had diamonds I surely wanted to be in 4H and even if he had clubs I thought I might have enough to invite in hearts.  But we had not discussed this sequence.  I decided to make the aggressive bid of 4H.  South now bid 4S.  This was Colin’s hand.

S void H AJ875 D Q C KQJ10652

If he bids 5C I think that should be natural and show better clubs than hearts.  Anyway he bid 4S and I bid 5H.  When West doubled this Colin sent it back.  Unfortunately this is doomed to go 2 down on a spade lead with the bad heart break (4-1 offside).   Since 2 down redoubled didn’t seem like a good score I played to make it and went 4 down.  I seem to remember some slogan about -1100 being character building.  -2200 is double that.

Anyway, criteria d) had been fulfilled.