Well bid?

Fourth board in on a club pairs night this week I picked up this collection at nil vul:

♠	J 6 3
♥	Q 8 7 5 4 3
♦	7
♣	J 8 7

Over the previous 3 board combined I'd picked up 17 high card points. It was going to be one of those nights.

Partner, having marginally better luck with the cards, opened 1♥. At least I'll get to make a bid. What though?

The next hand simplified things a little by offering 1♠. This is now a pretty common situation and I believe I'm banned from bidding 4♥. It won't buy this auction, our opponents will bid 4♠ and we'll be the last to guess.

Five or three, three or five, 5 or 3? What about psyching some thing stronger? What about bidding something stronger? Partner with a short spade might be able to bid 6 if we splinter in diamonds! It'll go down when the cash the black aces though.

	Chances?
♠	9
♥	A K T 6 2
♦	A J 5 4
♣	K Q 9

I settled for the pressure bid; 5♥. If they bid when it's wrong partner will be well placed to double plus we have a good chance they'll succumb to the barrage and pass.

The next player passed and partner frowned, thought, and then frowned some more. It occurs to me that we've never discussed this sort of jump.

6♥, no double... The club lead goes to the King and partner ace, she draws the two outstanding hearts in one round then frowns, thinks and frowns some more.

	♠ J 6 3 ♥ Q 8 7 5 4 3 ♦ 7 ♣ J 8 7
♠ A Q 9 8 5 2 ♥ 6 ♦ Q 9 8 4 3 ♣ 9		♠ K 7 4 ♥ J ♦ J 6 5 2 ♣ K 6 5 3 2
	♠ T ♥ A K T 9 2 ♦ A K T ♣ A Q T 4

Finally claiming 12 tricks deciding there really wasn't a play for 13.



I've been collecting weird auctions lately. Here's a nice one on the ever popular theme of passing forcing auctions:

	West	East
(Precision)	1♦	2NT	(13+ GF)
(Stayman)	3♣	3♥
	3♠	4♦
	pass

Reminds me of when I sat down against a pair who announced they were playing "A strong 1NT and 2 over 1 game-forcing" to which the other replied "But it's not really game-forcing is it? Not all the time?"