Better Lucky than …

When partner and I are not on the same wavelength with our bids, we usually receive what we might have earned, a bad board.  But not all of the time …

At Monday morning’s matchpoint club game Boards 17 and 23, we recovered from bidding errors nicely (Board 17) and spectacularly (Board 23).

Our auction was pretty normal through 2NT: 2♦ (alerted) was artificial and game forcing and 2NT was promising a diamond stopper and giving the best description of my hand.  For some reason, partner now chose to bid 3♠.  That choice induced me to think that partner had four spades and that the motivation behind his choice of 2♦ was to show a hand that was too strong for a raise of 1♠ to 4♠.  We play non-serious 3NT in game forcing auctions where we have shown an 8+ card major suit fit and so 3NT was what I bid next.  When 3NT was not alerted, I suspected something fishy.  But the 3NT bid ended the auction, too.  Before the opening lead was made, I undertook to explain the meaning of all of our side’s bids to the opponents, including explaining the apparent forget about the meaning of 3NT.

No matter.  When partner faced a dummy with only three spades, we had reached the normal contract, albeit in a weird way.

 

On Board 23, I had to cope with a third hand all vulnerable preempt of 2♥ before my nice hand.

 

I decided to bid 3♥, thinking that our agreement is that 3♥ is Michaels, showing 5 spades and 5 of a minor.

Partner surprised me by now jumping to 5♦!  Opposite a Michaels’ call, where I had not promised any diamonds, partner must have a pretty spectacular suit, perhaps something like KJT9-seventh at a minimum, I was thinking.  My hand is huge opposite such a hand: first and second round control of every side suit, an unexpected Qxx of trumps when I might well have been void!  If a grand slam is making, I would not be the least surprised.  Both absence of tools to investigate a grand slam and matchpoint expectation odds caused me to take the easy route and just raise 5♦ to 6♦.

 

 

 

 

Well, a couple of problems with our auction.  First of all, because I could have chosen to bid 4♣, Leaping Michaels, my thinking that 3♥ was Michaels was wrong.  Instead our agreement is that 3♥ is a stopper ask, the kind of bid I would make with, say, long and solid clubs and hopes for nine tricks if only partner can stop the heart suit.  Second of all, I don’t understand the reasoning behind partner’s 5♦ call, whether my 3♥ is taken as a stopper ask (as per our agreements) or as Michaels (as I thought it to be).

Partner won the feels-like-a-singleton spade lead.  He then played the ace of clubs and ruffed a club in hand and a heart in dummy.  Next he played the king of clubs to pitch a heart (the suit split 4-3) and drew trumps.  A second spade to dummy yielded five diamonds, four clubs, the heart ruff, and two top spades for +1370  and 12.5 of 15 matchpoints.  (An admission: the opponents went wrong in the end and so we actually scored +1390 for 14 matchpoints.)

We were awfully lucky on each hand to receive fair to outstanding results when we had erred in the auction.  Well, if one pair has to be lucky, I am surely glad that it is my pair …