Applying pressure

As my regular readers will know, I'm a fan of so-called pressure bids, that's to say wide-ranging preempts opposite a passed hand. I'm also a non-fan of making tram-ticket overcalls opposite a passed hand. Still unconvinced? That's good. I don't need you doing it to me at the table!

But here's an illustrative tale from a team game on BBO (sorry, I don't know how to make this show only one hand):

Dealer: S Vul: Both	North ♠ KQJ32 ♥ 3 ♦ T985 ♣ T42
West ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣		East ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣
	South ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣
Bidding:	South West North p 1C ?	HTML Bridge Hand Layout Creator

What to do? Surely this is worth in intervention with such an obvious lead-directing situation. But partner is a passed hand so, especially vulnerable, this counts as tram tickets. It's just not good enough for an overcall. What about 2♠? Well, gee, this could go for 800 or worse? Yes it could. But it almost never does.

Let's see what happened at the other table. My counterpart couldn't resist a 1♠ bid. East bid 2♥ and West bid 3NT. South, in the pass-out seat felt sure that, on a spade lead, this was going down. So he doubled. The defense wasn't perfect and my teammates were +950.

Now let's rewind to my turn over 1♣. With some trepidation, I bid 2♠. The next two players passed and I started worrying that the next call would be double. But no, West rebid his clubs (3♣). Note the effect of the pressure bid. The opponents have been talked out of their cold 3NT. The damage wrought by the 2♠ call has already been done! Despite having the chance to get out for -110 or -130 on a deal where presumably the opponents belong in game, partner now bid 3♠! I detest that type of action. If partner has preempted, then preempt as high as you're willing to go at your first opportunity. Fortunately, nobody doubled and I managed to drift off three (perfect play would be down two) for -300.

So, even with partner kicking an own goal, we still won 12 IMPs! Even if they double and I play it no better (I might take a bit more care in a doubled contract) we'd still be up by 4 IMPs :)

Here's the whole layout. As you can see, my opponents weren't the best, but the 2♠ call did give them a serious problem.

Dealer: S Vul: Both	North ♠ KQJ32 ♥ 3 ♦ T985 ♣ T42
West ♠ AT9 ♥ KJ ♦ Q7 ♣ AKQ875		East ♠ 75 ♥ T7542 ♦ AJ62 ♣ J6
	South ♠ 864 ♥ AQ986 ♦ K43 ♣ 93
Bidding:	South West North East p 1C 2S p p 3C p p 3S p p p	HTML Bridge Hand Layout Creator

Never give up!

I've always found this to be one of the best bridge sayings, especially of course at IMPs. Sometimes, it is proper to give up at matchpoints and settle for one less than your target, rather than risk two less.

But on the following hand, I judged that there'd be very little field support for going down so I persevered to the very end.

Dealer: W Vul: None	Robot ♠ KT953 ♥ T86 ♦ 52 ♣ Q54
Robot ♠ 42 ♥ 3 ♦ AJT974 ♣ JT76		Robot ♠ QJ86 ♥ KJ752 ♦ Q ♣ 982
	Phasmid ♠ A7 ♥ AQ94 ♦ K863 ♣ AK3
Bidding:	2D p p Dble p 2S p 2N p 3N p p p	HTML Bridge Hand Layout Creator

Ever have that feeling when dummy goes down that you haven't got a hope of making the contract? I certainly had it. The ♦J was led and when East played the Q I had to make up my mind whether to take it or not. It seemed almost certain that it was singleton but there was little point in end-playing him at trick 1 so I won with the king. I would certainly look a bit silly if the diamonds were divided 5-2 and hadn't taken the first trick. At that point, if I'd known that clubs were 4-3, I'd have played off three clubs and endplayed East for 10 tricks. But I hoped that the spades might just be 3-3 so I played ace and low to the nine, thus ducking a spade to East. East had an easy out with the club so now my best possible result was making (though I didn't really expect to). I played off three rounds of clubs finishing in dummy and tried the ten. No good, West showing out. Hoping for an endplay, I played the fourth spade. East was down to five hearts at this point and got out with the knave. My first thought was that obviously he didn't have the king because he'd lead low. But no, he wouldn't as that would put me in dummy (to enjoy the last spade) if I guess right. Plus, he (the robot) knew at that point that his partner wouldn't be able to return a heart after cashing out the diamonds. I therefore won with the queen and then played low to the ten, end-playing East again for the contract.

Nine other humans were in 3NT, four were in spade games/slam (all down) and one was in 4NT. Only four players made nine tricks, despite the fact that really the only skill required was to take to heart the old adage: Never give up.

Inverted Minors with a big fit for partner's minor

A couple of hands have come up recently that have illustrated a pet theory of mine regarding inverted minors. They haven't happened to me personally but have been related to me. Take this one, for instance:

♠KQ92 ♥A6 ♦2 ♣AJT952. Matchpoints, favorable vulnerability. LHO passes as dealer and partner opens 1♣!

Now, it's a well-known principle of 2/1 bidding* that when we have a hand good enough to force to game, we show our longest suit first. Guess what? We have enough to force to game and our longest suit happens to be clubs.

So, let's start with 2♣, for now ignoring the spade suit. Partner probably has a balanced hand with three or maybe four clubs but that's not important for now. Our job is to bid our hand. Of course, if partner has only three clubs, then his automatic rebid is 2NT.  Anything else would be uncivilized. No, seriously, Howard Piltch taught me many years ago that you may not bid a new suit as rebid if you don't possess four of your minor. I still agree with that scheme. And, furthermore, 2NT is forcing! The only non-forcing bid is 3m.

So, assuming four clubs, partner's rebid over 2♣ is likely to be 2♥ or 2♠ (or possibly 2NT with stoppers in both suits). If partner rebids 2♥, he most probably doesn't have four spades (although he could be 4414 or 4405). Our 2♠ will simply be taken as a fragment and no harm is likely to be done.

But, it should be allowable for responder to raise 2♥ or for opener to raise 2♠ to show four. After all, most of the time these raises never occur because the emphasis is always on finding stoppers for no-trump. But if they do happen, the meaning should be clear: a potential double fit has been found. Since responder would never raise the minor without a game-forcing hand with an eye towards 6m (clubs in this case), it's hard to imagine anything going seriously wrong, provided that both partners are open to this possibility.

In the case cited above, the hand opposite was: ♠A74 ♥KJT9 ♦JT3 ♣K86. The club slam is cold** and much of the time, will make seven unless LHO happened to overcall 2♣ with 2♦. But, in practice, almost every table played the hand in 3NT which not only goes down on a diamond lead, but obviously wouldn't score anywhere near as well as 6♣.

So, here's my suggested bidding sequence: (p) 1♣ (p) 2♣ (2♦) p (p) 2♠ p 2NT (p) 4♦ (or other keycard ask, followed by the two-key-card response...) 6♣.

If you start with 1♠, it will be almost impossible to persuade opener that you have six clubs in addition to four spades, which is why nobody got to 6♣. I wouldn't advocate suppressing the major with, say, a five-card minor and a relatively balanced hand. That would be taking things too far. Yet I expect most people will disagree with doing it even in this situation because it was fed to them with their mother's milk that you may not suppress a four-card major when you raise partner's opening minor. But there's a time to break just about every rule. And this is one of those times.

*  inverted minors are often used in "standard" but they were invented for a 2/1 game-forcing context so that's what I'm assuming here.

** unless you decide on a backward finesse against the club queen, you will see her pop up before you have to decide finesse-or-drop.