The road home

The last KO's were fun, but a few bad bids on our side contributed to us getting knocked out in the second round against a team we should have beaten. Fortunately for our pride, the team we lost to had just beaten the "mini-Meck" team of juniors headed up by the son of big Meckstroth, so at least it doesn't look that bad. But we could have nailed them! So it goes.

Here are three bidding problems that had me intrigued - where would you end up? White against red, partner opens a weak 2H in the second seat. It goes pass, and you hold:

S AJxx
H AKJT
D Axx
C Ax

How do you proceed? Bid game right away? You have whatever tools available you normally use, but rather than tell you his hand, first think about what you want to know and I'll tell you the answers: he has a good hand, bad suit, or a feature in diamonds, no keycards (naturally), two kings, and if you really manage to get this out of him, the king and queen of spades too. Ok fine, now you know the hand, you're making 7, but how were you going to guess this or get the info you need out of partner?

This is a funny one... playing against some doofy old people partner opens a spade red against white, and righty overcalls 4H. You have

S KJxx
H void
C Kxxx
Q Qxxxx

You bid 4S, mostly likely, and then LHO bids 5H, it goes pass pass to you. Now what? Your choices are probably to whack it, pass, or bid 5S. All you 5S bidders out there, congratulations - you make me feel much better. I bid 5S, but I think in retrospect this is a clear pass. Remember, these are doofy old people - 4H showed a really good hand! It turns out they are preempting themselves out of slam, and when I bid 5S, and only when I bid 5S, does righty notice his hand is awesome and bid 6H, which partner dutifully whacks, and which makes easily. -13 IMPs.

Lastly, the most scientific auction of the entire week. Partner opens 1S and you are holding:

S KQTX
H Axx
D xx
C AKQJ

How do you bid this? I chose Jacoby 2NT, and Alex showed an outside 5-card diamond suit! At this point, I can count 12 tricks if we have all the keycards: 5 spades, 4 clubs, a diamond, a heart and a diamond ruff. If Alex has the king of diamonds, we have 7 for sure, and if he has the queen we have a 50% grand. I bid keycard, we have all of them, and I ask for kings - Alex shows 0. Science! We have at most an about 50% grand and a nearly 100% slam: 6S. As it happens, the diamond hook IS on, but any auction that lets you picture the whole hand after 3 bids is fun.

On the upside, losing means we get to leave early this morning and we probably get to NJ by tonight. I guess this is the end of our trip. Er, thanks for reading or something: I don't know what will happen to this webpage here, but check back in a week and you'll find out if we have anything else worth saying.