The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
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Assigning blame since April 20, 2007

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This entry was posted on 4/20/2007 1:51 PM and is filed under The Good.

I have the privilege of playing occasionally with Bruce Gowdy, who won the Spingold on a 5 bagger at the astonishing age of 19.  Here's a hand from one of our recent sets (all hands IMP Pairs unless specified otherwise.)

In third seat, all red you pick up:

A72 / KJT942 / AQ3 / 3

While you're busy trying to decide whether to rebid 2 Hearts, 2 Diamonds, or 3 Hearts after opening 1 Heart, your partner opens 2 Clubs in front of you!

I considered bidding 2 Diamonds, 2 Hearts and 7 No Trump.  7NT isn't as crazy as it might seem because even if you're off an ace, you have almost a 50-50 shot of making it (lefty has a 25% chance of stabbing the right suit if he doesn't have the ace.)  If they lead the wrong suit and it's not claimable, pard needs to go back to opening 2 Clubs school.

Since pard is likely coming in clubs or no trump, and since there was a remote chance of a bidding misunderstanding if I bid 2 Hearts (many play that an immediate 2 Hearts is a double negative response,) I bid 2 Diamonds.  Pard bid the expected 3 Clubs.  Now what?

Well, check for aces and bid 7NT seems reasonable.  I bid 4NT (I hope this is RKCB for clubs, normally I'd set trumps first, but it feels wrong with only 1 club and Bruce might try to take over) and Bruce bid 6 Clubs.

What now?

Well, it sounds like Bruce has a void and that void is probably in hearts.  He has at most 20 HCP, so surely his clubs are completely solid.  I raised to 7 Clubs.  Bidding and making 7 on BBO is always a good result, but when pard has an extremely atypical 2 Club opening like Bruce had, it was worth a dozen IMPs or so for the good guys.

KQ95 / - / 9 / AKQJT987
 
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