DSBA 2nd Quarter 2003 Bidding Contest Results!
Edited by Jess Stuart

Jeff Ruben had the top score of the experts on the panel for the second quarter in a row. Among the solvers, Tom Ciconte and Bill Erwin tied him with 470, an excellent score on a tough set of hands.

PANELIST SCORES

IMPs	AJ953	Auction:	West	North	East	South
Vul: None	AT9763		-	1	1	1
Dlr: North	-		2	3	Pass	3
You are: S	Q5		Pass	4	Pass	?

The key to the auction is partner's free rebid of three Clubs showing extra values with a long, strong Club suit. Since partner probably doesn't have wasted Diamond values, he most likely has at least one Heart honor. This makes 6 Hearts very likely. While a Club slam will probably make if partner has Kx in each major, it is less likely to make than a Heart slam when partner has Qx in one of the majors and three or more Diamonds to do something with. Highest scores on the problem go to those whose bid keeps options open for 6 Hearts.

Jeff Ruben (with Rick Rowland and Tom Ciconte similarly): 6 . Assuming we are playing support doubles, I am giving partner something like Kx, Kx, xxx, AKJxxx for his free 3 Club bid. In Clubs it would be impossible to ruff Diamonds, draw trumps and set up the Hearts but in Hearts we could give up a Heart and claim. I know partner could have KQ of Hearts, making 7 possible, but then he might have only Qx of Spades or Hearts might break 4-1.

More aggressively:

Chris Marlow: 5 NT. Let's learn about partner's Heart holding. If partner holds x, KQ(x), xxx, AKxxxx(x), a grand is excellent.

Bill Erwin (with Lois Stuart, similarly): 5 . My computer simulation, specifying a great Club suit of 6-7 cards and a doubleton Heart to an honor (no support double, so usually not 3-card support) shows that 6 Hearts makes almost 80% of the time. Six Clubs is an inferior spot, making about 55% of the time against best defense (often a Spade lead that removes the entry to the long Hearts) and about 70% of the time with a Diamond lead. Seven Clubs and Hearts made a few times when pard had KQ-doubleton in Hearts. My initial thought was to bid 5 NT, pick a slam, but partner will not know that Kx of Hearts is really what we need for 6 Hearts.

Richard Popper: 4 . I should be able to cue bid 5 Diamonds over the expected 5 Club bid. If partner does not bid 5 Clubs, I will be content to play 5 Hearts, expecting a Club loser and a possible ruff, or a Club loser and a natural trump loser.

The Club bidders:

Ivar Stakgold: 6 . North has 2 Hearts, no Diamond stopper and a good 6-card Club suit. Six Clubs should be a decent contract facing as little as Kx, xx, Jxx, AKJTxx. Of course one can construct North hands where 6 Hearts is a better contract, but I don't know how to get there.

Dave Treadwell: 5 . Conservative that I am, I bid only 5 Clubs and hope that we make it. The hand has pretty good distribution, but not many HCP. One can construct many North hands for which slam would be laydown, but also many for which 5 Clubs would have little play, and the bidding has reached a level where it is almost impossible to find the right answer.

IMPs	A	Auction:	West	North	East	South
Vul: None	AKQ		-	-	-	2
Dlr: South	K87		Pass	21	3	?
You are: S	AQ9643

¹Bidding Note: Waiting.

Dave Treadwell (with Jeff Ruben, Ward Schaumberg and Beth Maloney-Refaie similarly): Pass. Forcing. This indicates I do not have a suit worth bidding at this point, and also says I do not have a Diamond stack, else I would have doubled for penalty. Pard should bid a 5-card or longer suit or, lacking that, double with a few Diamonds. If short in Diamonds, he may have to bid a 4-card suit.

Barry Gorski: Pass. Double misses too many slams with fitting cards and low point count. Clubs moves too quickly when you need to hear from partner. Pass is forcing. Opening 1 Club may have made the hand easier to bid.

Rick Rowland (with Ed Kane and Paul Amer similarly): 3 NT. Best shot at game.

Richard Popper: 4 . I object to the conditions. I would not have opened 2 Clubs with this hand because of the relative weakness of the Club suit and the fact that it is a minor. I have no choice but to bid 4 Clubs here but do not like it at all. (Stakgold, like Popper and Gorski, also feels the South hand isn't worth a 2 Club opener. It would be embarrassing, though, to open 1 Club with the 22 point hand and play there opposite partner's xx, xxxxxx, x, Kxxx when 6 Clubs is a laydown on a 2-1 trump break.)

Pete Filandro (with Ivar Stakgold, similarly): Double. Penalty. If pard does not own exactly the Club king, this hand is going nowhere. At IMPs I take my sure plus (+300, with +500 unlikely but possible rather than gamble on finding one specific card in pard's hand.

Confession is good for the soul. When your editor played this hand in a Swiss match, he doubled 3 Diamonds. The opponents played three Spades doubled, making on an end play for minus 530. Six Clubs or six Hearts was cold. The teammates asked, not unreasonably, "What happened?". Your editor admitted to making a bad bid. One of the teammates, who shall remain nameless, entered the bidding contest and your editor suppressed a smirk when he saw the teammate's bid of Double.

IMPs	6	Auction:	West	North	East	South
Vul: N/S	AK9742		-	-	-	1
Dlr: South	KJT7		2	2	Pass	3
You are: S	Q2		Pass	4	Pass	?

Dave Treadwell (with most of the rest of the expert panel): 4 . There is no other choice than 4 Hearts. This may create the impression in partner's mind of a better, or longer, Heart suit than I actually have but partner has forced me to bid and any other call would be more of a lie.

The only different panelist's vote was for a natural 4 NT. A number of panelists and solvers thought that 4 NT would be Ace-asking and perhaps more would have bid 4 NT if it were to play. Since the bidding system in this contest is Bridge World Standard, let's see what light BWS sheds on the meaning of 4 NT vs. 4 Diamonds.

There is no agreement about an undisclosed competitive four-no-trump bid that might logically be interpreted as Ace-asking, key-card asking, or something else; and

When a call is subject to different possible interpretations and there is no explicit system agreement, it should be considered natural rather than artificial.

In light of this, it seems clear that in BWS 4 NT would be to play. A slam try in one of partner's suits should be initiated with a 4 Diamond cue bid. This seems reasonable. A bidding system that doesn't let you bid NT with double stoppers in your LHO's suit and no fit for either of partner's suits isn't a very good system. I would have scored Richard Popper's bid of 4 NT higher than 80 except that (a) five out of six of the expert panel chose 4 Hearts and (b) there may be too much risk that unless one's partner has a copy of BWS in front of him opened to page 3 he might not interpret the bid correctly. This is the 4 NT call that makes one glad we use bidding boxes. Let's let Richard speak for himself:

Richard Popper (with Deepak Khanna, Forrest Pilgrim, Randy Berseth and Lois Stuart similarly) 4 NT. Presumably to play.

IMPs	4	Auction:	West	North	East	South
Vul: E/W	A85		1	Pass	Pass	Double
Dlr: West	AKQ2		Pass	2	Pass	?
You are: S	KT763

Action	Score	Votes(Panel)	Votes(Solvers)
Pass	100	3	10
2	90	2	7
3	80	1	6
3	70	-	3
4	50	-	3

The expert panel was split 50-50 on whether to pass with this hand or to invite game. You have more values than you needed for your takeout double even though you have only three Hearts. Are there enough extras to justify an aggressive game invitation? Seems like there are two issues that influence the decision: what values your fourth chair double promised, and how much raw animal spirit you have.

There are two schools of thought on bidding in the pass-out chair. One is that a double or a jump in a suit promise a full opening hand while non-jump overcalls and NT bids are just competitive. The other school makes a takeout double with a weaker, competitive hand with shape and makes the minimum NT bid with a square hand or a minimum suit bid with more length in that suit. The partner responding to a takeout double of the first school showing a full opening hand would jump or cue bid with 9-11 points while the partner responding to a shaded takeout double would presumably need more for an invitational jump or cue bid.

If your fourth chair takeout double didn't promise a full opening bid, clearly there is more justification for a raise or other competitive noise. Does Bridge World Standard address this? Unfortunately, not specifically.

Generally the BWS requirements for initial constructive defensive actions (takeout doubles and overcalls) are moderate, but two-level overcalls are sound.

In reopening position, a one-no-trump overcall shows 10-14 (by a passed hand, 10 to a maximum non-opening).

BWS addresses balancing 1 NT but not balancing takeout doubles. I interpret its silence to mean that takeout doubles in the fourth chair show full opening hands.

Pete Filandro (with Dave Treadwell and Ivar Stakgold similarly): Pass. This should be unanimous. A further bid (2 Spades or 3 Hearts, say) shows a minimum of 19 HCP. Besides, where are the Spades? East had an easy opportunity to show Spade support at his second turn. West did not rebid Spades. Pard may be busted with 3-4-3-3 or 4-4-?-? distribution. (How about an even worse 4-3-3-3?)

Jeff Ruben: 3 . What else? I have extra values and don't mind playing in a 4-3 fit, or in 3 NT if partner bids it. I know that occasionally partner will have a weak hand with a 3-card Heart suit, but with East's pass and no redouble by West, I think partner has some values. ( I like our panel's confidence. Filandro: "This should be unanimous"; Ruben: "What else?". Not always right, but never in doubt.)

Richard Popper (with Rick Rowland similarly): 2 . Partner must have Spade length when neither opponent can bid more Spades, therefore likely to have (only) four Hearts. Pass could be right.

IMPs	A65	Auction:	West	North	East	South
Vul: E/W	9643		3	4	Pass	?
Dlr: West	J
You are: S	A9642

Here five of the six panelists made a slam try. What is the best approach for reaching six or seven if it makes and staying out of slam if off two tricks?

Rick Rowland (with Richard Popper similarly): 4 NT. (Partner should) never preempt over preempts. Therefore, 4 Spades show a good hand rich in playing strength. If pard has 2 Hearts, then East probably doesn't have one to lead and they may go away on the long Clubs.

Jeff Ruben: 5 . Has to be a cue bid in support of Spades--doesn't it? Over 5 Diamonds I will bid 5 Spades, and hopefully partner will go on with a stiff Heart. Over 5 Hearts, I will bid 6 spades.

Ivar Stakgold (with Dave Treadwell similarly): 5 . There are too many North hands that will produce slams so I must bid. Not being sure how to help my partner make the right decision, I make the pass-the-buck bid of 5 Spades. In a finely tuned partnership 5 Clubs might be more informative.

Pete Filandro: Pass. It looks like I have a great dummy, but the clue is that partner did not double and then bid 4 Spades. Partner is limited to 7 1/2 or 8 tricks. How will I provide 4 tricks? Give partner his most likely distribution (7-1-3-2) and 8 golden winners (KQJTxx, x, AKx, xx). Even if you upgrade the Clubs to Jx or Qx, slam is not a possibility. Take your plus. (If one must double to show a huge hand with a long suit, he is going to get lots of bad results when his partner passes with a weak hand long in preempters suit. For example: xx, Jxxxx, Jxx, xxx. If one bids 4 Spades with ten tricks in his own hand, he makes game. If his ten tricks are eight solid Spades and two Aces, he may be minus 530 when he doubles and partner passes with a hand similar to the one above.)