The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

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Shubi Two

This entry was posted on 6/27/2007 9:24 PM and is filed under The Bad.

Here's another hand from my set with Shubi:

All white, you pick up in 3rd:

8 / K9743 / J94 / K532

Partner opens 1 Diamond, Righty bids 1 Heart. Decision time.

Trapping with this hand seems misguided. Your Heart spots aren't good enough. The opponents are white and they have a Spade fit to run to.

Raising Diamonds is a possibility, but too often partner will go overboard later, expecting you to have at least 4 Diamonds.

1NT is almost always a great spot at matchpoints when it's all white because the scoring scale rewards the bidding side more than the defending side (90 vs 50 or 120 vs 100 for taking the same number of tricks.) I'm a whisper shy for the bid, but oh well.

Shubi raises me to 2 and I can't find the green card fast enough (Shubi's raise to 2 probably shows that he had a full opening hand.)

Lefty leads the Jack of Hearts and dummy tracks:

AKQJ / Q / KT852 / T97

8 / K9743 / J94 / K532

RHO takes Dummy's Queen with the Ace and fires back the deuce of Hearts. What do you play and what's your plan?

This is one of those Dirty Harry hands. 'Do you feel lucky, Punk?' Obviously if LHO started with anything other than JT or J8, playing the 7 will be a resounding success, giving you a cheap trick, a tempo, and an entry to lead Diamonds from the right side. But if you play the 7 and it loses to the Ten, you have an awkward pitch from Dummy and after the reasonably automatic Spade switch, you face a new set of dilemmas (Cash the Spades? Lead Diamonds from dummy? Hope for a Club miracle? (Ace third onside.))

I'm still not sure what the theoretical 'right play' is. After about 15 seconds, I ran out of neurons and stuck in the 7. Sure enough, LHO won with the 8. Ugh. What do you pitch from Dummy?

At this point, I was in damage control. I wasn't about to pitch a good Spade or the other half of my Club stopper, so that left a Diamond.

It seems normal for the defense to go passive now and switch to a Spade. Luckily, I was given a reprieve as LHO switched to the QUEEN of Diamonds! 4 rounds of Diamonds followed (LHO pitching 2 Spades, RHO 1.)

AKQJ / - / - / T97

8 / K9 / - / K532

LHO had AQ64 of Clubs, so the defense got 2 more tricks, but had to give me the last trick with Dummy's big Club spot. 2NT just in (4 Spades, 3 Diamonds, 1 Club.)

A Spade switch at trick 3 would have destroyed the hand (down 2) but guessing to play the 9 of Hearts instead of the 7 would have resulted in 9 tricks for the good guys with the friendly Diamond position.

I wasn't sure how +120 would score, but I feared a 'No matchpoints for me' result (a common expression at IMPs meaning that you pitched a couple of overtricks but made your contract.) Luckily, we ended up with over 90% of the matchpoints for +120 (+150 was only worth another half matchpoint.) If only I'd butchered a few more boards we might have won!

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6/26/2008 10:09 PM shubi wrote:
hi hi Jonathan,
Since you like hands and bid 2 hands,
partner from Ottawa, all I know, partner will try her best no matter what the contract is.
lho 1h pd 2h (S AND minor) RHO PASS
They are red we white,
my hand s-xxx, h-jxxx, d-xxx, c-xxx
what should I do?
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6/30/2008 10:13 PM Jonathan Ferguson wrote:
2 Spades is automatic. If there was some table action on my right before the pass and I was drunk I would consider passing for a nanosecond so I'm guessing that's what you did?
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1. 7/1/2008 9:15 AM shubi wrote:
  hi hi Jonathan,
  Sure if you want to win a post mortom please bid 2s. But to me bid to win, opponents are good players so easy fishing. I looked at my hand with my hand anything is better then BUY a dbled contract. I DECIDED TO PASS my partner 2h and will bid if oppos dbl 2h, with my luck rho who already passed 2h I passed and LHO pass 2h. Result partner DOWN 5 for 250, a net 87.3%. good luck and good hunting.
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  1. 7/18/2008 1:25 PM shubi wrote:
    hi hi FRIENDS,
    Perfect FIELDING or NOT?
    My RHO a GLM, opens 3h, I hold s-a1074 h-xx,d-akx, c-axxx, easy I HEAT, LHO SMART GUY, 3S, my partner smarter just passes 3s, now my trusted rho 4h all pass. I figured if I cash correctly may be I can defeat this contract, i collected ace of d, followed by, ace of club and spade, rtn k dia rho ruffs. 4H JUST IN.
    Now I looked at the opps hand, rho- aq7th of h 4s to q9xx d-x c-x LHO good hand with 3s. My question is do you call it perfect FIELDING?
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