Tribute

2006 winners of Chairman's Cup in Sweden. Johan to the far right.

Two weeks ago we suddenly lost a dear friend, fine player, excellent bidding theorist and very popular bridge teacher/educator, Johan Ebenius (1965-2007).

We became friends almost 20 years ago and as a partnership we played the Junior European Championships, notched up two wins in the Swedish first division and a win in the Chairman's Cup at the Swedish Bridgefestival (a 6-day round-robin/knock-out team event with international participation) last summer.

As a tribute to him I'll share a deal from the 2005 first division (which we won).

S/all vul

______AJ87
______A2
______AKT32
______K2
T963_______K4
KT74_______QJ963
97_________J865
A83________QT
______Q52
______85
______Q4
______J97654

We were playing the Swedish 2-way Club and I opened as North with 1C (11-13 bal or any 17+), East overcalled 1H and Johan passed as South. After 2H and X, Johan bid 2NT as Lebensohl (to sign-off in 3C) and West competed with 3H after 3C by me.

Johan was the most aggressive balancer/part-score fighter I've ever seen. Something deep inside him made it very hard for him to pass at times; he persisted with a 3S-balance on the way out! Even knowing his style, I couldn't resist raising to 4S. This wasn't a good contract and looking at all four hands it's not hard to find a way for the defence to beat.

West led a low H and Johan went to work. He won in dummy and discarded his remaining heart after 3 rounds of diamonds as West ruffed. West now continued hearts and it was all over. Johan ruffed in hand, led a club to the the K and ruffed a diamond with the queen of S, followed by spade to the ace and a low to East's king. Dummy could later ruff and extract the outstanding trump and enjoy the last diamond for a sweet +620.

Rest in peace. We all miss you.

The 'kiss'

Playing a 1-day pairs event a couple of weeks ago (ended a disappointing 4th; 1 board from 1st), this typical match-point decision came my way.

D943
EK10
Dkn7
D108

I opened 1C, prepared (playing 5-5-4-2 and 15-17 in occasional partnership) nonv vs vul, as dealer and raised partner's 1S response (Walsh-style) to 2S, which only is made on 3-cards with unbal/semibal.

When RHO balanced with 3H, in tempo, what would you do?

I think it's clear to double in matchpoints. Opps are vul and you need to protect your implied score in 2S making +110/140. Partner could be very weak with 3H making and 2S going down at least one with all those 'quacks'. Sure. But the odds heavily favors double; partner rates to have some values both from a statistical viewpoint (busts are rare) and from opp's 1st round silence.

_____Kkn87
_____kn9
_____1063
_____kn965
E62________105
632________D8754
E942_______K85
K72________E43
_____D943
_____EK10
_____Dkn7
_____D108

3H went one down for +200, the dreaded 'kiss of death' in matchpoints. This proved to be a shared top while +100 (defending undoubled) had been close to average, actually, with 2S just making. The 14-16 NT-range is popular in Sweden which meant that many opened 1NT instead, burying the spade-fit, and scored +90.

Sometimes 'wild' doubles aren't really wild; just mathematically correct matchpoint decisions. Not always the winning decision, though.

Hiding the major (again)

Anders Wirgren-Johan Bennet (Cavendish winners -91, Bermuda Bowl bronze -95) have been opening 1C with 5M332 routinely a number of years now (11-13/17-19 bal/semibal or clubs). They have a choice of opening bids with this pattern, but 1C is the predominant choice with minimum hands (only 1M if suit is 'rebiddable').

Not opening with the major gives you 2 ways to win. For me, the primary benefit is that you can use this to your advantage as responder knowing that opener has better playing strength/shape when the auction gets contested (i.e should you make a negative X or how high should you raise with support?).

The secondary way to win is that it's frequently better to initially just show hand-type (bal/unbal) before suit(s) and this way your choice of developing the auction means that you'll get a bigger edge if the opener becomes declarer as less is revealed to help defenders.

By having a choice of opening bids, you give yourself the freedom to exercise your judgement but you take away the, in my view, primary edge.

Anyways, Anders sent me this deal from an outing in Denmark, showing us edge no 2 in all its beauty...

Eknx
108x
Exx
Dkn9x

Kx
EK7xx
Dxx
10xx

Anders was South and opened 1C, Johan transfered to 1NT and then raised to game. West led the J of diamonds.

Low from dummy and RHO won the king and shifted to the queen of H (!). Anders won and attacked clubs to the queen and king. East continued his attack on hearts and the low heart return was ducked to dummy, with West discarding. An easy +430 when the majority of the field were 2 down in 4H.

Will this way of treating 5M332 catch on to a wider audience?

Surf's not up

Momentum comes and goes like tidal waves. Sweden was struggling this year in the round-robbin of the White House tournament invitational team tournament in Holland. Take a seat.

You pick up (imps, all white) :

9xx
KQ87x
9x
QJx

Your Russian RHO opens a multi 2D (weak 2 in either major; could be 5) and you pass (I wonder if Lauria would slip in 2H? ;). LHO bids 2H, pass or correct, and partner overcalls a natural 2NT ("16-19"). What would be your choice?

Passing is not an option, if anyone was contemplating that for even a split second, so it's a matter of which game. Just raising to 3NT has a lot going for it; you know partner has the ace of hearts and your spade length also favors notrump. A weak doubleton may be a liability if that suit is led but the lack of aces/kings may mean that 9 tricks is a better shot. Remember that for 4H to be a better contract than 3NT, the major suit game has to produce at least 2 tricks more (10 vs 8).

A reasonable line of action is to check for a primary fit in H and otherwise play 3NT. That's was the choice of the Swedish South and a 3C ask fetched 3H showing 5-card H's! The euforia was short-lived, as this was the full deal:

_______KJ2
_______AJT63
_______KQT6
_______K
Q____________AT8765
94___________5
AJ32_________875
AT9632_______875
_______943
_______KQ872
_______94
_______QJ4

2NT was a practical bid, under pressure, with the North hand. 4H was quickly down after a minor-suit lead and spade shift when North covered the queen (nonv the spade suit could easily have been 5-cards) and 3NT proved to be the only making game.

I'm sure South was kicking himself as raising to 3NT probably was his first thought. And, I think he would have if they hadn't been 'out of sync'. Momentum, real and perceived, is a powerful force.

Sometimes you just can't seem to catch a single wave.

Modest intervention - big consequence

This was a less than stellar performance from the local imp-league in January.

Kxxx
AK9x
Txx
Tx

Imps/all vul. The bidding started with two passes and a 1D-opening to me and I felt like overcalling 1H. This isn't my normal style, but sometimes one's got to try new things to widen the horizon. The complete auction:

(pass) - pass - (1D) - 1H;
(2C) - 3H - (4H) - pass;
(4S) - pass - (6C) all pass

Full deal:

_______A984
_______T6532
_______Q2
_______J3
T____________QJ32
QJ84___________
853__________AKJ96
AQ975________K864
_______K765
_______AK97
_______T74
_______T2

Easy make for +1370 and -15 imps. The 1H-overcall was the difference between a partscore and a making slam! The board were played across the room at 12 tables resulting in 1 slam, 3 games and 8 partscores. Our team-mates had the following auction:

pass - 1D;
1H - 1S;
1NT - pass

Not really close ;-)

As for my overcall, I probably deserved some punishment...

Down memory lane - part 2

My first US trip was in May 1990. I went to New York and Atlantic City with Magnus Lindkvist. On the agenda were the classic Cavendish Invitational Pairs and the Omar Sharif Individual (which Zia won and writes about in his autobiography).

Magnus and I were staying with the late Edgar Kaplan in his combined living quarters and Bridge World office. Quite an experience. No memorable finishes in either event but this deal against Paul Soloway in the Cavendish is hard to forget.

Q
Qxxxx
ATx
xxxx

This was Paul's hand and the auction started with a Swedish 2-way 1C (11-13 bal / any 16+) to his right. After a positive reply showing 5+ spades by LHO (that would be me) and a relay sequence, opener having a strong hand, the auction eventually came to a halt in 6S and he had to lead.

There seemed to be some confusion about the later parts of the bidding; probably a wheel or two had come off. Dummy had shown 55 in blacks but declarer seemed to believe something else and the ensuing ace-asking mechanism probably had misfired as well (as a consequence).

A lone, young, female kibitzer leaned over to see Paul's hand as he led the obvious ace of diamonds to check dummy. This was the view (Paul and dummy screen-mates):

_______KT9xx
_______x
_______xx
_______KQJxx
Q
Qxxxx
ATx
xxxx

Partner discouraged and Paul shifted to a heart as this was the most likely trick to disappear if the defence had another ace. About 10 seconds later, declarer claimed.

______KT9xx
______x
______xx
______KQJxx
Q___________xxx
Qxxxx_______Txxx
ATx_________Jxx
xxxx_________Ax
______AJxx
______AKJ
______KQxxx
______x

This was some contract. It required the ace of diamonds lead, suit breaking 3-3, a heart away from the queen (unless finesse working) and a non-club continuation. Not to forget that the trumps queen had to be neutralized, one way or the other. Now all the clubs in dummy went away on red cards for +1430, cross-imped.

Paul didn't say anything. Sabine Zenkel (Auken), the kibitzer, left the table.

I love this game...

Road sign

What would you do with:
AK9x
9
T97xx
98x

...playing imps (none vul) when your partner opens 1H (11-16, 5+suit) and your RHO doubles?

My guess is that a lot of players would bid 1S, just as if there had been no double. My experience is that in this type of situation, you should pass with shortness in partners suit without 6+ suit or genuine 2-suiter (55+) even with values for bidding.

Being short in partner's suit is road sign for 'danger' and passing *always* leads to better results than bidding. What's most likely to happen is that you go down in a partscore instead of going plus on defence. With a better hand you can/should XX of course.

Here's the hand (from the archives), played in the Swedish top division:

________
______AQJT65
______J85
______AT72
J8753________QT42
432__________K87
KQ6__________A3
J5___________KQ64
______AK96
______9
______T9742
______983

The auction went:

1H - (X) - pass - (2S);
3H - (4S) - X all pass

Ace of H was led but when partner continued with the queen (instead of J/T), I misstakenly shifted to a diamond instead of a club and the defence lost a trick. +300 was a still good for +9 imps then teammates went +100 defending a heart partscore.

As always, a single deal proves nothing. But you can take my word for that passing is the percentage call.

Or don't - the choice is yours.