Diary of a Bridge Pro #23

A typical 80-something degree day in South Florida - light breeze - ideal golf weather. Good bridge weather too. Walter's just arrived here at the site, he and I are discussing Board 13 from yesterday.

Walter and I had a pair of balanced hands, 21 HCP opposite 9 HCP - AK, AK8x, AQJx, xxx opposite Jxxx, T9xx, xx, AKJ.

  Recommended WBS Sequence: 2C - 2D - 2NT - 3NT

 Commentary: First, evaluation - the contemporary credo of bridge pros in this spot, emanating from what we’ll call the  “Las Vegas School”, is:  “Upgrade often, never downgrade.”

  Should we upgrade Opener’s 21 HCP to 22 or more? I consider it a toss-up. 




The case for:

1. Three Aces, one jack, and the jack pulling full weight (as part of an AQJx suit).
2. No isolated honors
3. Fourth card in hearts and diamonds - AQJx better than AQJ tripleton 

The case against:

1. Ace-king of spades not really worth even 7
2. No Five Card Suit
3. No heart or diamond ten or nine

  In truly close cases of this sort, here’s one way to resolve the matter: 

  Against weak defenders, upgrade. Against strong defenders, don’t.

 To get a second opinion on how to evaluate this hand, earlier this morning I visited (Richard) Pavlicek's site to evaluate the hand. His site is amazing - here's a link:

  http://www.rpbridge.net/rpca.htm

  So here’s some more on how I think pairs of hands like this should be bid:
With hands in the 21-22/23 point range, do a “raw evaluation” (not much more than counting the unadjusted HCP), then A) Bid as dictated by your method, and also B) In close cases, lean towards i) be more inclined to upgrade against pairs you perceive as weak defenders, and ii) go with the bid that is more likely to lead to “A good auction” for your side.

  Typically, auctions that start with 2NT are not especially good. So if you play “Good 19 to 21” and want to open this hand with One Diamond: KJxx, Jx, AKJx, KQJ and open this hand 2C: KJTx, Kx, AKJT, KQJ, I think that’s reasonable.

  Now let’s consider responder’s problem, holding Jxxx, Txxx, xx, AKJ - Opposite an expected 20-21 points, I think it’s reasonable to simply raise 2NT to 3NT. The reasoning is: When our side has 29 or 30 (31) HCP, no trump will usually be as good or better than even an eight-card major suit fit.

 At matchpoint scoring, we make this determination because with that many HCP, there’s a fair chance that no trump will score the same number of tricks as the suit - 660 will beat 650. 

  At IMP’s we reason: A bad trump split (5-0 or even 4-1) might scuttle our major suit game, but with that many HCP, 3 No Trump should be safe, a sure plus.

  In both situations, we reason: At this point we don’t know that we have a four - four major suit fit, and the simple act of looking for one has costs attached - both opener and responder will reveal something about their hands, or our artificial Stayman bid or response may be doubled for a lead. So while it’s rare that these costs apply, sometimes they do. it isn’t free, to look for a fit. 

​  We caught another overall on our second day playing - back to the Hard Rock Hollywood Casino that night, I’m a recent convert to Omaha poker, I now love playing PLO and the Hard Rock - Seminole is one of the most popular places in the world to do exactly that.

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