Katowice Open Round 4: Happy Accidents

I remember a couple of months ago, when my opponents made a grand slam off a trump king, and I made a small finesse that depended on finessing a side-suit king in the same round of a sectional Swiss. This hand from the fourth round of the Swiss oddly reminded me of that phenomenon.

On a normal day, you would think that playing in slam on this hand would look stupid, given that you could voluntarily find out that you were missing two keycards if spades were trumps. It would be more understandable if you stumbled into a 6♦ slam, since you had no way of knowing that the king of spades was missing. Yet at least 20 or so tables reached at least a small slam, many of whom were doubled or played in spades, while only one table I noticed went down in a grand slam.

Well, there is certainly one possible explanation for all this, but I would say it definitely has something to do with reverse psychology. I noticed that some of the tables involved a lot of intervention from the opponents. For example, East might preempt in first chair or overcall 2♥ later in the auction if it went (1♦)-P-(1♠)-2♥. That could result in West making a jump raise, potentially escalating the auction up to 4♥ or even 5♥. As a result, North-South may have been on thin ice when deciding whether to bid slam, without knowing what controls or keycards either side held.

For example, the Goodman vs. Govit match provided a perfect example of this:

Bukat	De Wijs	Kuflowski	Muller
		3♥	4♦ (1)
5♥	6♠	AP

1) Non-leaping michaels, showing at least 5-5 in spades and diamonds

Here, Simon de Wijs was left with no room to make any sort of slam try. He reasonably judged to bid 6♠, and it might have even been his decision had he known that partner held five small spades, given the 3♥ preempt, which would likely mark West with the king of trumps. I guess this hand proved that less means more, as more passive bidding from East-West might have driven their opponents out of slam.

Meanwhile, here is how some of the vugraphed matches bid it out. The definition of the hand, for what it’s worth, was certainly the farthest thing from germane.

Trick or Treat vs Knottenbelt:

Goncalves	Norton	Gomez	Tommasini
		P	1♦
P	2♣	2♥	2♠
3♥	3♠	P	4♠
AP

Townsend	Gu	Handley-Pritchard	D Chen
		P	1♦
P	1♠	2♥	4♣
4♥	6♣	P	6♠
AP

This was certainly one way to get rewarded: through a bidding misunderstanding. North clearly thought his partner’s bid showed clubs, so he raised with his five-card suit. Whether 4♣ should be played as a splinter or natural is certainly debatable: playing it as natural would mean South has no way to show a club splinter, while playing it as a splinter might leave South without a way to show a game-forcing hand with clubs.

Good thing Jiang Gu did not correct to 7♣, as partner could have bid 6♥ had they wanted to initiate a grand slam force. Luckily for Trick or Treat, this hand was more of a treat than a trick, as Knottenbelt lost 13 IMPs on this one.

Schonfeld Finesse vs Mesco 2 Bytom:

Gandoglia	Czajer	Di Franco	Czech
		3♥	4♥ (1)
5♥	5♠	AP

1) Supposedly Michaels

Even with a powerhouse, North chose to stay in game. That decision would have proven wise had the spade finesse been offside.

Usually, when you begin learning the game, you familiarize yourself with the scoring for different contracts and memorize the basic ones. With bidding boxes, you would have to calculate a contract's score by looking at the bidding card if you were not familiar with that contract's score. With tablets, however, that becomes unnecessary, which is certainly a good thing here.

Halat	Kvangraven	Herwich	Brekka
		P	1♦
P	1♠	2♥	4♠
P	4NT	P	5♦ (1)
P	5NT	P	6♦
P	7♠	X	AP

1. 1/4 KC

From North’s standpoint, it would be very reasonable to assume that partner had all four keycards based on their 4♠ bid. Nils Kvangraven was definitely aware that they were off three keycards when the grand slam was doubled, but it’s hard to fault him for thinking he had all the keycards set.

East had two choices for an opening lead: the ace of hearts or the ace of clubs. With the same holdings but different lengths, it would make more sense to lead the ace from the shorter holding, even after the ambiguous 4♠ bid, which did not indicate any shortness. Mariusz Herwich probably felt sick to his stomach once dummy appeared without a single club, and declarer finessed trumps twice, fittingly in the spirit of their team name, to take all 13 tricks. The +2470 meant 18 IMPs to Schonfeld Finesse. Not doubling the grand slam would have saved the former only one IMP.

This hand certainly displayed the difference in viewpoints between a player and a kibitzer. It would not be fair to call any of the decisions made at the table crazy.