Two-way checkback auctions which show good support for opener's suit

There are a number of popular artificial treatments which can distinguish between invitational strength (or less) and game force strength.  Typically clubs is used to show invitational strength or a desire to set the contract (or play diamonds) while diamonds forces to game.

Examples of these types of convention are game-forcing and non-game-forcing Stayman after a 1NT opening, two-way checkback (or XYZ) after a 1NT rebid (or any 1-1-1 auction), and the Wolff signoff (or adjunct) after a 2NT rebid.  [postscript note: I am only considering auctions where a club bid forces a diamond response, plus the "negative" response to the non-game-forcing Stayman inquiry.  My use of the term "two-way checkback" was confusing because it opened up other possibilities which were not intended.  The form of two-way checkback that I am considering here is the one where 2D is forced.  It's possible that I'm misusing, or even abusing, the term but it is what I play in those partnerships where I can't persuade partner to play the full XYZ treatment]

The sequences that start with the artificial game force are relatively straightforward.  And when responder uses the weaker bid and then invites game or sets the contract also require no comment.

But what about those sequences where responder uses the weaker sequence and then bids game anyway?  For example, using the Wolff adjunct, 1C p 1M p 2NT p 3C* p 3D* p 3NT.  He could have bid 3NT directly over 2NT.  So what's all this dilly-dallying?  He must be showing clubs and a hand that would be interested in slam opposite a suitable hand with good clubs. 

The same thing can be assumed a level lower if the bidding goes 1C p 1M p 1NT p 2C* p 2D* p 3NT.  By the way, all of these 1C sequences would also apply if responder first bids 1D instead of a major.

A similar inference can be made if in either of these situations, the bidding goes to 4M.  This looks like a 6-4 hand with 6 of the major and four clubs (or better) and of course slam interest.

What if opener started with 1D?  1D p 1M p 1NT p 2C* p 2D* p 3NT.  Or 1D p 1M p 2NT p 3C* p 3D* p 3NT.  Responder has slammish values with diamond support.

There are some other sequences after a 1NT rebid.  What's the difference between these two sequences?

• 1m p 1M p 1NT p 2C* p 2D* p 2NT?
• 1m p 1M p 1NT p 2NT?

By general agreement, the first sequence shows five card support for opener's minor, as well of course as the four of a major.  The second sequence shows a maximum of four of opener's minor.

Trial bids

After a major is raised to two, most pairs have agreements about the meaning of a new suit: a "trial" bid, or "game try."  These days, the most common agreement seems to be the "help suit" game try.  Personally, I'm not a fan, because it's so hard to know what kind of help partner needs.  And, if responder retreats to 3 of our major, the defense know that they can fairly safely start with the trial suit if they have no other compelling lead.

Personally, I like the power of a double fit and so, traditional second suit bids make more sense to me.  On the other hand, I like short-suit tries too, because it is so easy for responder to know which points in his hand are working and which aren't.  With 7 or more "working" points, it's probably reasonable to bid game.

With some partners, I've played a rather complex system of two-way game tries: the first step is a prelude to a short-suit try (after partner's relay), the third and fourth steps are long suit tries and the second step is everything else (including the "power" try and the short-suit try we skipped with the first step sequence). 

A number of years ago, I read in the Bridge World about Eric Kokish's scheme for two-way tries.  This idea made a lot of sense to me.  Now, I have been able to agree that system with several partners.  It's simpler than the other two-way scheme and really has all of the advantages, while concealing the nature of opener's (declarer's) hand as much as possible.

After 1♥–2♥–, 2♠ asks for the lowest ranking suit in which responder would accept a game try (2NT substitutes for spades).  Otherwise, 2NT, 3♣, 3♦ are short suit tries (NT again substituting for spades).

After 1♠–2♠–, things are simpler: 2NT asks for partner's lowest-ranking suit with help, and 3x is a short-suit try in x.

Of course, if responder names a suit where he has help but opener isn't impressed, he can make a counter-try in a higher-ranking suit, at the expense of revealing more about his hand.

Here's a hand from the club this week where we didn't get to the optimum contract, playing help suit game tries.  After 1♥–2♥– and holding ♠AK92 ♥A8542 ♦K85 ♣K, Len asked for help in diamonds with 3♦.  After all, he didn't need much help in spades.  With ♠QT75 ♥T96 ♦JT94 ♣A3, I reasoned as follows: my spade honors were likely useless (since partner skipped over spades) and my diamond honors might simply be too slow to be really helpful.  I therefore bid 3♥ only.  Well, I was right about the diamond honors but of course wrong about the spades.  We made four for a score of 66% (it wasn't the easiest of contracts and many of those who did bid game went down).  

Playing Kokish with this hand, opener doesn't have to be the one to choose which suit to make his game try in.  Assuming that he doesn't fancy a short-suit try in clubs, he can simply start with 2♠: where can you help?  I would respond 2NT (I have help in spades) and we'd be off to the races.  If I bid 3♣, he could still ask about diamonds.

With Kokish, the distinction between "help" suit and "second" suit is less of an issue because the only kind of help that responder will show is of the form honor third or better.  He will never show "help" with x or xx.

Matchpoint Bridge

Recently, I've been re-reading what surely must be the best book that deals specifically with playing matchpoints, and one of the best bridge books of all time.  I refer of course to Hugh Kelsey's Match-point Bridge (ISBN 0 571 11437 7).  After the excellent introduction, there are five parts, each of which is treated in three different sub-parts: Bidding, Dummy play and Defence.  The five parts are: Fundamentals, Contesting the Part Score, The Lead, Sacrifice and Deception.

In the introduction he makes the very important point, obvious if you stop to think about it -- but not so clear otherwise -- that the two phases of the matchpoint game, the auction and the play are inextricably linked.  If your side has fallen short in the auction, then you are destined to a poor score so that explanation of the auction must be incorrect.  You have to play on the assumption that you actually did get the auction right.  An example which we've all experienced is to have missed an "obvious" game which looks likely to make.  Clearly, you are headed for a bad board -- unless that is the game goes down.  You should therefore assume that the cards are wrong for the game and right for you.

Here's one of my favorite sections from "Sacrifice - Dummy Play."

♠K7 ♥K4 ♦T763 ♣J9643 ♠AQT863 ♥63 ♦A52 ♣85

None Vulnerable, Dealer West West North East South 1♥ p 2♥ 2♠ 4♥ 4♠ p p Double p p p

West leads the King of diamonds against your doubled contract of four spades and you win with the ace. How do you plan the play?

The situation looks grim. Partner's raise was eccentric, to say the least, and it is a safe bet that most of the other North-South pairs will choose to defend against four hearts. In order to restrict the penalty to 300 in four spades doubled, you will need to make six trump tricks and the king of hearts in addition to the diamond already in the bag. But if the heart ace is right for you, it is wrong for the opponents -- that is to say the heart king would have scored in defence. It follows that with a normal spade break you would have four defensive tricks against a heart contract, and the pairs defending against four hearts will register plus scores. That is a possibility which must not be entertained. You must assume that your idiot-partner did the right thing in bidding four spades and the only distribution to make that possible is a 4-1 trump break with the singleton in the West hand. Accordingly, you should lead a spade to the king and if the knave does not appear, finesse the ten on the way back.
The book is full of such gems, not all quite as humorous as this one, but each equally brilliant in its analysis and good advice.

Mud in your eye

One of the most hotly debated issues of bridge defense is what to lead from xxx against a suit contract.  Some people like to play MUD (middle-up-down).  When I first came across this idea, it seemed eminently sensible.  Later on, I learned that no self-respecting expert ever agrees to play that way.  Exceptions?  Probably. Just like there are a few "scientists" who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change.

So, for the sake of examining the issue, let me divide the situations into two: partner has bid the suit; nobody has bid the suit.  I suppose you might think about leading it when dummy or declarer has bid the suit if the rest of your hand is something like Axx Axx Axxx.  But normally it will be partner's suit or an unbid suit.

Let's dispose first of the situations when this is an unbid suit.  Unless you happen to hit partner with a sequence of some sort, the very act of choosing the suit to be led is likely to be giving up a trick except when partner's honors in the suit just happen to be sitting over dummy's.  So, it probably doesn't matter which card you lead: you've blown a likely trick and the important thing is not to blow another when partner gets in.  Is that likely?  It's unusual for a side suit to stand up to three leads, although it's more likely if leader started with three.  So, there probably isn't a lot of scope for another trick to be lost in the same suit, although there certainly is the opportunity to lose another tempo.  Will partner get it wrong?  Probably not.  Partner knows almost for sure that declarer has the Ace if it hasn't appeared on the first round.  If the Ace has appeared, he can still probably tell just by the card declarer played from dummy - in almost every case, dummy will have played low without much apparent thought.  Unless, that is leader got lucky and found partner with well-placed honors, in which case he won't be returning the suit unless it was probably a singleton, which would require misguessing declarer's holding by two cards.

So, my conclusion is that on the rare occasions when you lead from an unbid xxx, it will probably not matter much whether you lead low or middle.  Leading the top card might be embarrassing if partner has AKx(x) and tries to give you a third-round ruff, but nobody is suggesting that.  No, the lowest is the proper count card whether you play fourth-best or third/lowest.

Now let's look at the situation where it is partner's suit and you have not supported it.  There's no problem if you have supported it because you will lead your highest card to show that you have no honor.  But if you have not supported it, the situation is a little trickier.  Think back to the auction.  Did partner bid the suit as part of a constructive auction, before being outbid by the opponents?  Or did partner bid the suit as a disciplined weak two or an overcall?  In the latter case, especially at matchpoints, there's a strong element of lead-direction, so when you lead the suit, you're not expected to have anything in it.  Count is the most important thing you can show because partner will want to know how many tricks might stand up, or may be looking to give you a ruff if his suit isn't solid.

So, again, there's seems little to be gained by playing MUD.

Indeed, the issue should not cause any lost sleep.  The situation is, in any case, extremely unusual.  Looking over the 26 boards from a recent club game, I could not find a single situation where a lead of an unbid side suit of xxx was anywhere close to being chosen.   There was one situation (the one that prompted this column) where partner had opened 1♠ and opening leader had to choose from an unsupported ♠xxx.  But this in and of itself is rare.  A major will nearly always be raised with three pieces -- only a very weak and flat hand is likely to pass throughout.

Comments, as always, are welcome.

On-the-job training

On-the-job training is an inherent feature of playing bridge.  You can't learn it from books or classes alone (far from it) and, unless you're one of those naturally gifted types, you have to keep on making errors in order to improve.  But those mistakes can be heart-breaking.  The important thing is to learn a lesson.

The setting: last of eight matches in a regional open Swiss with 40 teams.  My team is in 2nd place, 13 VPs behind the leaders (to whom we just lost), with decent but vulnerable leads over the next few teams.  We are drawn against a good team, but perhaps not one of the pre-race favorites.  As we reach board six, we are doing fine -- it turns out that we are up by 3.  Having played brilliantly all day, my young partner now decides to break discipline (bidding 4NT instead of accepting the transfer after 2NT - 4H) and we lose 10 imps [responder is most definitely "captain" here because opener is narrowly limited and responder has at least four ways to bid get to the right spade contract: 3H and pass; 3H then raise 3S to 4S - a mild slam try; 4H and pass 4S; 4H then bid 4NT over 4S].  I can't criticize this too much, however, when I realize that if we could have picked up just 21 imps on the last two boards, we would have tied for the win at least.  But I was reminded at the time of the many true stories of team matches where one team has a commanding lead going into the last few boards and...

The final board is brought up.  After what I will politely call "a somewhat unlikely auction" (which, incidentally, I could have allowed to subside at 1C), my LHO ends up in a vulnerable 4S.  We are destined to win 6 on this board (maintaining our 2nd and 5 more masterpoints than we ultimately achieved), providing that, after 55 boards, I can simply stay awake! 

Without going into detail, which would at best be irrelevant to the case in general, and at worst cause excruciating embarrassment to your poor scribe, I will offer this one piece of advice (assuming you are playing in a good event): as long as declarer hasn't yet claimed, there's a way to beat the contract.  This isn't so at our usual practice location, the club, where the scoring is almost always matchpoints, because many players simply do not bother to claim when they should.  But when a good declarer has played the hand out carefully, and you find yourself on lead towards the end of the hand, having achieved your "book," STOP! Then think very carefully before leading to the next trick.

The Duplicate Bridge Player's Burden

You pull your cards out of the pocket, perhaps count them, sort them, and hold them, thirteen pictures and rags.  Do you guard those tender flowers (think Rigoletto) with loving care?  Do you accord them your highest level of custodianship?  In short, do you take responsibility for them while they're in your keeping?

You certainly should.  They are your wards, your charges.  You must do with them the very best that you can and you should certainly treat them with respect.  Perhaps they're all "tram tickets" and your role in the proceedings of the hand will be to follow suit, giving count as you go.  Or maybe your RHO opens the bidding with 3♠ and you hold the following collection (vulnerable versus not): ♠AQ2 ♥AQ3 ♦AQ4 ♣J652.  If you were a rubber bridge player, you could reason that there's only one person to whom you owe any (temporary) allegiance and that you simply don't like your 6-loser hand enough to bid at such a high level.

But at duplicate bridge, you have a responsibility.  If not to the cards themselves, then to your partner, and teammates.  In matchpoint bridge, your teammates are all the pairs sitting in the opposite direction to you, except of course for the ones at your table right now.  Teamship with any one particular pair, is fractional, but nonetheless real.  With the hand given, you are pretty much obliged to bid 3NT whether you fancy your chances or not.  Yes, it could be horribly wrong.  You could be doubled and go down five (1400) or even six on a really bad day.  A defensive squeeze might even do you out of one of your aces for -2000.  But does that scare you?  As no less a personage than the Hideous Hog has said "Just because I had a difficult hand to bid, I was not going to shirk my duty." Do you shrink from taking bold action?  Of course not.  You have responsibility for these cards and so, like the Hog, you call 3NT with confidence and await your fate.

Or, if your not a fan of the Hog, how about Bob Hamman?  It's hard to ignore advice with such pedigree: "When 3NT is one of the alternatives, choose it."

So, with all that background, what do you make of this ugly collection: ♠QJ83 ♥97 ♦KT ♣JT743?  Do such waifs and strays deserve your special attention just like all the other hands?  You bet!

You deal, vulnerable versus not, and pass.  LHO opens 1NT (good 11-14) and partner doubles, showing values.  RHO bids 2♣ (Stayman) and LHO bids 2♦.  Partner's in there again with the red card.  RHO now bids 2♥.  This gets passed around to partner who doubles again (this is getting repetitive).  RHO passes and its up to you.  What are you thinking?  Are you doing full justice to your wards?  Let's say you pass for now and LHO now pulls to 2♠ which is passed around to you (partner doesn't seem able to double this one).

Are you tempted to pass?  Heavens, no!  Are you tempted to double?  Are you sure you're giving your best?  Remember, you're red on white.  What about 3NT?  They probably have an eight-card fit, possibly even nine.  Clearly, the cards aren't sitting well for them but it's reasonable that there are 16 total tricks.  Let's further guess that they can make seven tricks in spades.  That means we can take nine in our best suit (clubs?).  But if we have something like 25 or 26 high-card-points as seems likely, maybe we can take nine tricks in notrump too!  We apparently have everything stopped.  3NT becomes the responsible call (which you should have made over 2♥X, by the way).  If we are right, we gain 500 (600 instead of 100).  It might happen that they can only take 6 tricks in spades and we can take 10 in notrump or clubs (630 versus 300).  As it happens, our side can take eleven tricks in clubs or notrump while they can only take 5 in spades (660 versus 500).

The scoring table is on our side.  Treat our friends the cards well.  Be a hog: bid 3NT.

Unusual over unusual

Unusual over unusual is one of those very dangerous conventions which has so many alternatives and each exponent of the "convention" assumes that everyone else is using the same alternative.  Other examples of ambiguous conventions are four-way transfers, Jacoby 2NT, 5NT, fourth suit forcing.  I'm sure we can all think of a few.  Perhaps the most common problem of this nature is in so-called "Standard American" where after the auction starts 1♠ p 2♣ there are various opinions regarding which continuations are forcing -- something that very few casual partnerships actually discuss.

But back to "Un vs. Un".  When RHO makes a two-suited call, typically an "unusual notrump" or a Michaels cuebid, we have two suits in which to cuebid, one to raise, one to make a possibly natural call and of course double and our own notrump bid.  That's six possibilities, not including jumps.  Double is penalty oriented and while it has its own challenges, we won't discuss it here.  Let's assume for the moment that raises and notrump bids are non-forcing.  Indeed, the raises are all "to play", while it makes sense to consider a 2NT bid (if such is possible) as invitational because it's extremely unlikely that playing 2NT is going to be the par result in one of these competitive auctions.  That leaves three suit bids for which we may assign meanings.  Clearly both cuebids are forcing, almost by definition, while the new (fourth) suit bid could be considered forcing or non-forcing.  I'm going to assume for now that we will agree that the fourth suit bid is non-forcing, although I am aware of systems where it is forcing.  However, I believe such systems are unnecessarily complex for all but the most practiced partnerships.

The non-forcing new suit bid should be something like the poorly-named "negative free bid" after a single-suited overcall: sufficient points to compete and a decent six-bagger or a very good five-bagger.  So we are left with an appropriate meaning for the two cuebids.  It makes sense to use one for a "limit" raise (or better) in partner's suit and one for a forcing bid in the fourth suit.  But which is which?

Probably the most popular method is to use the lower ranking cue-bid to suggest the lower-ranking of "our" two suits: either the limit raise plus, or the fourth suit, depending on which suit partner actually opened with.  This is all very easy to remember but it is wasteful of our now extremely limited bidding space when partner actually opened the lower-ranking of our two suits.  That's because to make the forcing bid in the fourth suit, we must make the higher-ranking cuebid, which therefore consigns the lower-ranking cuebid to oblivion.  Here's why that's bad (this was taught to me by a couple of good theoreticians: Dick Wagman and Bruce Downing).

Let's take an example hand: ♠A3 ♥AQT72 ♦Q5 ♣J652.  Let's say you open 1♥ and LHO calls 2NT.  Playing hi/hi-lo/lo, partner cuebids 3♦ to show that he has a forcing hand with spades.  What are you going to bid now?  You can't bid 3♠ because that would suggest three decent cards in support, you can't rebid your hearts because they really aren't good enough and you're reluctant to bid 3NT with such tenuous stoppers in the minors.  But you can't pass either.  You'll have to decide which of these actions is the least evil.

This is where the "good" way of playing Un vs. Un comes in: we assign the higher cuebid to the message that describes responder's hand most completely: the limit/plus raise.  We assign the lower cuebid to the message that puts the final contract in most doubt: the forcing new suit response.

Let's go back to the hand above with the new auction: 1♥ (2NT) 3♣ [showing spades].  With your hand you can bid an artificial 3♦ to show that you have no other reasonable call.  Partner can now clarify: 3♠ with rebiddable spades and game-forcing values; 3NT to show five spades and minor-suit stoppers, 3♥ with three-card heart support (or perhaps two to a high-honor) and game-forcing values.  If instead the sequence had gone 1♥ (2NT) 3♦ (pass) 3♥ (pass) 4♥, that would show four trumps and probably some slam interest since with only interest in reaching game, responder could have bid 4♥ to start with (fast arrival, preemptive and/or willing to double their minor suit sacrifice).

Isn't that better?  And just as simple?