Time to wake up
This entry was posted on 5/4/2007 10:26 PM and is filed under The Ugly.
The final ugly board of the nightmare set was the ugliest of all. I pick up in 4th, unfavorable:
AQ87 / Q6532 / - / KQT7
Jeff opens 1 Diamond, I bid 1 Heart, he bids 2NT and it's up to me.
We play that 3 Clubs relays to 3 Diamonds (Wolff signoff) and that 3 Diamonds is artificial and game forcing here.
Over my 3 Diamonds, Jeff bids 3 Hearts.
What now?
I can bid 6 Hearts, but that's an awfully gross suit to want to play in a 5-3 fit. We could be cold for 7, we could be down in 6. Is there a way to proceed that lets us make an intelligent decision?
I continued with 3 Spades. We're in a game forcing auction, if he wants to take it as a cue bid, I have the ace, if he takes it as a suit, I have spades.
Jeff now bids 4 Diamonds.
Yuck. Not a big surprise, but it sounds like he's missing the ace of clubs or he's trying to show me a 5 card diamond suit. What now?
Well, if Jeff is cuebidding, he can't have the ace of clubs, so if I bid 5 Clubs, he will know to focus on his hearts to decide whether to bid 6 (obviously if he's off the ace of clubs, I don't want to be in 6 off the ace or king of hearts.)
Conversely, if Jeff is showing a suit, I can bid clubs naturally, because we haven't found a fit.
Brilliant! Either way Jeff has to get this right. Either we're cuebidding and he'll bid it because his hearts are good, or we're bidding naturally and by shaping out as 5-4-4, he'll know how much wasteage in diamonds he has.
Over my 5 Clubs, Jeff bid 6 Clubs.
Well, if we're on the same page, he's gotta be specifically 2-3-4-4 without the ace of clubs, so we've arrived. I passed.
We were not on the same page. We were reading different books. In different languages.
Jeff held:
KJ / A94 / AQ986 / A53
Our opponents were in 6 Hearts doubled, which wrapped when the Heart K was onside tripleton. 6 Clubs is an interesting contract, but had no play (J9xx of clubs offside.)