The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: 6/14

Welcome to the "pilot" article of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, a new series that features the ups and downs from the Cuebids weekly tournaments. This inaugural edition features the hands, highlights, and heartbreaks from last week's (6/14) tournament. Without further introduction, let's delve into the hands.

Partnership:

• South: bucky3000 (Charlie Chen)

• North: ericxiao1 (Eric Xiao)

The Good:

After a 2♣ Gazzilli bid (the simplest version, meaning either clubs or a strong hand), I decided to make a weak preference 2♠ bid. This showed less than 8 points, because otherwise I would have bid 2♦. Charlie raised this bid to 3♠, indicating that he had the strong variation with 6 spades. Holding a maximum for my weak hand description, I bumped it to game.

This was a relatively thin game as we only had 23 high combined, but at least most points from my hand were working.

This hand was particularly special because we managed to reach the optimal game contract despite the opponents throwing a major wrench into the auction with a strong 15-18 1NT overcall.

We doubled the 1NT bid for penalty. When East escaped to 2♦, Charlie doubled for takeout, which allowed me to bid 3♠. Perhaps I should have just bid game myself over the takeout double, but Charlie had a clear enough raise to 4♠ anyway with his shape.

Thank god we didn't end up defending 2♦ doubled like the 110 or so pairs that ended up there.

The Bad:

With only 11 high card points and a stiff Queen of spades, the South hand is likely better off not treating this collection as a game force. While there is no guarantee we would have reached slam this way, we would have probably had a Gazzilli auction that gives us at least a chance.

Bidding two over one in this scenario puts you in a bad spot by creating artificial pressure. You feel compelled to make a fast arrival bid of 4♥ to show your minimum values, which is something that should generally be avoided when trying to look for extra values. By jumping straight to game, the auction is completely killed because the North hand cannot further describe their hand. Perhaps Charlie could still bid 3♥ even after the two over one game force to keep the conversation alive.

When partner passes over the 3♠ overcall, showing a weak hand, I think South should probably either pass or double 4♠. With a balanced hand that intends to show 22–24 HCP, 5♣ doesn't seem to be in South's best interest, as there is no guarantee of a club fit.

On the actual hand, however, 5♣ is not a bad contract, since it doesn't rely on the diamond finesse working. Interestingly, the expected value is only 450.

Over 2♠, I should have bid 2NT if I wanted to make a game try. That would have given us the best chance of reaching 3NT, although getting there would still have been unlikely given that the opponents had already bid 1NT.

In a matchpoints tournament, passing would've been the clear choice, but that would not have scored well on cuebids here.

The Ugly:

This was just a disgusting hand. Contracts where one side has all the points while the other has none are some of the hardest contracts to play and the easiest to defend. You have to feel bad for all the pairs who ended up in 3NT, which was even more cooked.

The trump situation on this hand was unfavorable, but unfortunately there isn't any way to determine the exact circumstances. Perhaps just an ugly layout.

This is probably not a slam you want to reach at the real bridge table. If the ♠Q loses to the king in a finesse, you're immediately down. On top of that, a heart lead makes the contract even more difficult to navigate. If clubs fail to break 3-3, the opponents may also be able to overruff when you try to ruff your club losers in dummy.

What happened earlier in the auction:

This hand was simply a misunderstanding. We were not on the same page about the meaning of 4♣. I intended it as a potential diamond slam try, and I also thought that 4♥ was Kickback, while Charlie interpreted it as natural. I then bid 4NT to show three key cards, and we eventually landed there because Charlie believed 4NT was a signoff. 4NT is a bid that requires firm agreements, and we clearly did not have them here.

I'm not sure what the best treatment for 4♣ is in this situation. Some partnerships play it as an artificial slam try, while others treat it as natural. Alternatively, I could have simply bid 4♦ with my own hand, as that would be unlikely to be interpreted as an invitational bid in this context.

The South hand is probably only worth a 2♦ rebid, given the poor suit quality and the presence of a four-card heart suit.

Anyways, 6♦ seems like a pretty overrated contract with only an expected value of 838, and we probably wouldn't have ended up there missing trump queen. I guess that's what justifies the "ugly" classification.