Two Worlds

There are two worlds in bridge and this hand demonstrates more clearly than most where they divide.

	K J x x x x - K J x x T x x

First board of a major teams event you pick up this collection. Before you can think through all the possibilities of what you might have for lunch partner opens 1D. With a fit for partner this hand has improved significantly, it's now almost certain that you will bid and make a game here and this is where the slightly awkward two worlds metaphor that I mentioned earlier comes in. Playing matchpoints you now must devote a significant amount of work to finding out whether partner holds two spade cards as 4S (or 6S) will score better than the diamond game or slam. Playing IMPs however the hand is much simpler, you'll spend the whole auction telling partner how good your hand is in the hope that he'll bid 6D and you can go back to thinking about sausage rolls and sandwiches.

I bid 2D, 4+ diamonds and forcing to game. It took partner some time to pick himself up off the floor, request a replacement glass of water and right the chair he'd just fallen out of but once recovered and with a hand resorted he looked back down at:

	A A K x x x A Q x x x x Q

2H he enquired carefully, I pondered whether if partner had all his values in the reds I'd been enthusiastic forcing to game but couldn't find any other bid than 2S. 4D came back. Minor wood. Right. Um. Ok partner I was hoping to avoid questions about keycards because I have very few and a void in your suit... sigh, you don't win arguments by lying, 4S, 1 or 4. Partner bid 6 and collected 13 tricks in the time it took to ponder the relative merits of corned beef vs chicken (can you believe East led a sneaky TS from QTx)

At the other table my hand decided that he wanted to play a hand so he bid a spade over a diamond. After a 2H rebid 3Ds isn't really forcing so it had to be 3C, 3H didn't do anythng to help because there still wasn't a forcing way to agree diamonds and can't partner still have 2 card spade on this auction? The auction turned into a mess when it wasn't clear that 4D was minorwood in an unagreed minor and so they entered that dark place where 4 level bids are either the responses to keycard or cues or signoffs. Eventually one of them bid 5D but neither had the nerve to push further.

Morale? Make the bid that works =) or at least make the most descriptive bid.