Wingin' It
This entry was posted on 9/8/2007 11:32 PM and is filed under Pot Pourri.
When Wayne and I played regularly, we played a similar (though considerably simpler) system to what Jeff and JZ play now (we all played the same system then.) The primary components of that system were 2/1, 10-12 NTs (all seats except 4th, if I remember correctly) and nebulous minor suits based on HCP instead of length with balanced hands (open 1C with 15-17 and 1D with 13-14.) As I've mentioned before, I was an extremely undisciplined preemptor at favorable vulnerability as well, so we played modified ogust to check if partner had thrown us a curveball and made a weak 2 with a 6 card suit.
Maybe someday I'll go back and play that system (or something similar) just for kicks, but rather than have all kinds of accidents when Wayne and I played yesterday (we had enough accidents when we were both well acquainted with the system) we decided to stick to a 'standard Ottawa' 2/1 style with all the usual jazz and udca.
Here's a board from last night where I wasn't sure what 'standard Ottawa' was, but hoped we'd land on our feet.
We were playing against a couple of Norwegians, decent players, who had quite a few gadgets to go with their precision-based system.
All red I picked up in 2nd
K3 / JT9 / J / AKQT543
How often do you pick up this hand and hear a 3 Club opener on your right?
You find out that 3 Clubs shows a Diamond preempt. What's your call?
...
I bid 3 Diamonds, hoping Wayne would interpret that as a stopper ask, but not sure if he might take it as Michaels.
Lefty doubled and Wayne bid 3 Spades, pass to you. Great, now what?
...
If he's taken this as Michaels, we could be in a 3-2 or 4-2 Spade fit. Should I pass before we get into deeper trouble? He might take 4 Clubs as a cuebid if I bid it now. I could bid 5 Clubs, but what if he took that as Exclusion? Memories of past misunderstandings started to creep into my head.
I've never been a big believer in taking a sure bad result just in order to avoid a potential disaster. If he doesn't work it out, oh well. I bid 4 Clubs.
Now Wayne bid 4 Hearts.
Hmmm. Passing 4 Hearts is a lot more tempting. At worst a 4-3 fit. But his Spades are better than his Hearts, presumably, and he could have bid 4 Diamonds if he wanted me to pick a major (presumably) and he just might be cuebidding Hearts (thinking we've already agreed Spades.) Sigh.
Oh what tangled webs we weave when we play against Scandinavians (or something like that.)
I bid 5 Clubs, ready to apologize if passing 4 Hearts was the winning action and praying that Wayne was going to stop bidding before we got to 7 Clubs. I relaxed when his green card hit the felt.
The King of Diamonds was led and boy was I glad I didn't pass 4 Hearts. 4 Hearts is cold, true. In fact, even 5 Hearts is laydown.
Their way.
AQ84 / 873 / 972 / 962
K3 / JT9 / J / AKQT543
My overpowering mind control ray worked and Lefty continued with another Diamond. On the last Club ...
AQ84 / 8 / 9 / -
