Winter pairs, November

I played in the Winter Pairs with Norman last Wednesday. We won the night comfortably with just over 60% - which wasn't all that impressive given that we'd been gifted at least 8 tops over the course of the evening. It's a good baseline score, although we'll have to get some bigger than that if we want to win the competition, which is an average of the top 4 scores over the 7 months that it's played.

Here's one that I probably underbid, although technically the game shouldn't make....

I opened 1♦, and raised 1♠ to 2♠. The South hand is really awkward to value. it has 14 HCP, and no aces. However, it only has 5 losers. I thought for a while, but eventually decided that 2♠ was enough, especially at pairs. At several other tables, South found a raise to 3♠, and they reached the decent game in spades. Hugh McCash was one of the Souths to bid 3♠, and at his table the defence went ♦A, ♥A, ♥ to the K, ♦ ruff, for one off, one of only two norths in the room to make less than 10 tricks, and somewhat unlucky. Hugh's partner, John DiMambro dropped ♥10 on the first trick, hoping to put the defence off. However, this should never work. Playing standard attitude, East would never play the 9 from 943, and would probably not encourage hearts holding K943 and the ♣A, so West really doesn't have another option than to play for his partner to have the ♥K, whichever card North plays.

♠♥♦♣

Here's one from early on, where Norman made what I think is a clear tactical error, although it's not the sort of problem you often get faced with.

W	N	E	S
			-
1NT	2♠	-	-
3♥	3♠	-	-
-

I alerted Norman's 2♠, and East asked what it meant, before pausing for what was probably a good 5-7 seconds, and then passing - this is why Norman's decision to come back in with 3♠ was, I think, a clear mistake - West was almost certainly making an illegal bid, so we were already guaranteed whatever score we could manage in 2♠, just by passing. There's almost no hand West could have which would justify him bidding on this auction, and his actual hand doesn't even come close, so we might as well play 3♥, and get the adjustment if there's been any damage. We'd have taken something between 4 and 6 tricks in defence to hearts, so would definitely have gotten a better result than 4 down in 3♠...

Another point about this hand is that our opponents became *very* irritated when we called the director after this auction. This is a problematic attitude that many players have - calling the director is treated as an accusation of cheating. It's quite off-putting, and unfortunately it means they often get away with auctions like this. On this hand, I don't *think* West realised that he was essentially cheating by bidding again on this auction, however, that doesn't mean that he should be allowed to benefit from his ignorance. Incidentally, this reminds me of a hand Norman and I played in the men's pairs last year. I'll give you the auction and the West hand:

♠ Q T x ♥ A x x x  ♦ Q x  ♣ K x x x

W	N	E	S
1♣	2♠	-	-
?

2♠ was weak, and I think it's a pretty close call as to whether you should come back in with a double. However, what actually happened at the table is that East pulled the pass card out of his bidding box before asking South what the range for the 2♠ was, and then putting it down on the table, and I think with this UI, it's clear-cut to pass. On this occasion, our opponents (who will remain nameless) were good enough to know what they were doing, but the director decided not to consider pass as a Logical Alternative, and let the result stand. I've shown the hand to various people, and pretty much all of them do double without the UI, but once partner starts speaking, I really think you are obliged to pass - a good reason to keep quiet when you're hoping for partner to re-open with a double.

I have to say that, even as a fairly experienced player, I'm still never quite sure at what point to call the director in this sort of situation - do I call when the dodgy bid is made? At the end of the auction? After the hand has been played? And if I'm not sure, I'm pretty sure that no-one else in the room is sure either, which is probably why so much of this sort of thing goes unpunished at club level. It wouldn't bother me so much, but letting people get away with this sort of thing punishes those who go out of their way to play by the rules.

♠♥♦♣

As usual at these sort of events, if we'd just cut out a few errors we could have had a score well in excess of 65% on this set of hands, and probably more than 70 was there for the taking. We'll have to have at least a couple of rounds where we actually take it if we're going to challenge for the competition.