Crayfish, Cameraderie and Competitions in Kaikoura.

Today, we focus on a weekend of bridge in Kaikoura last weekend. Thanks to Chris Marshall for sending the following report.

“Over the weekend of 21^st  & 22^nd May, Kaikoura hosted their 5B Intermediate (Saturday) alongside the Region’s 10A Pairs with 23 tables and 10 tables respectively, a great number in the 5B. Directors Babs-Merel de Visser in 5B and Craig Shannahan in 10A.  The directors were kept on their toes up to last minute due to drop outs and partnership changes and we would like to make special thanks to Christine Sweeney and Julie Rademaker from Christchurch who stepped as emergency pair in the 10A to make even numbers. 

As per usual Kaikoura excelled in the hosting department with seafood chowder (more seafood than chowder and crayfish in the seafood) and crayfish bites for lunch and plenty of fish bites for the after-match function. At the after-play, everyone was served a piece of crayfish.

The pleasure of return to face-to-face was evident as friends caught up. With Kaikoura’s reputation for good tournaments, there was good representation from both Top of South and Canterbury regions. The most distance travelled was Jeremy Fraser-Hoskin from Auckland and youngest was Leon Meier who looks like he may be on track to become the youngest Grand Master in the country.”

Winners

5B Kaikoura Intermediate

Pat Murphy & Lyn Anderson                  – Kaikoura                61.44%

Diane Donnelly & Judy Honeybone      – Richmond                60.03%

Julius & Jo Mulligan                                  – Nelson              57.41%

10A – Top of South Pairs

Leon Meier & Max Morrison                   - Christchurch          60.69%

Shirley Newton & Jenny Wilkinson        - Christchurch           59.35%

Paula Gregory & Michael Johnstone     - Timaru                    57.37%

                                   Max Morrison and Leon Meier                                                                                   Lyn Anderson and Pat Murphy                         

 

Thanks, Chris. There was a little less pleasure on the faces of some West players when their North opponents led a spade against their otherwise reasonable 3NT contracts.
We asked our Panel what they would have bid as West in the following sequence:

 

 

The game was Match-Point Pairs and the system was Acol:

There is a little debate about whether 2NT or 3NT shows a balanced 15-17. There is an argument that using Fast Arrival principles that 3NT shows 15-17, and hopefully no major suit. Nigel disagrees:

Nigel Kearney  “ 2NT. There is no fast arrival in NT so 2NT is 15-17 and 3NT is 18-19. 2NT is forcing so I could use it on a stronger hand if I judged that having the extra space was more important than showing strength. But definitely not 3NT with only 16.” 

Bruce Anderson   “2NT: Old style basic Acol bidders (of which I am one) rebid 2NT with 15/16 balanced when partner responds at the 2 level, and rebid 3NT with a stronger balanced hand. I am aware there are theorists who believe, no doubt correctly, that it is wrong to take up a lot of bidding space by a rebid of 3NT. But it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. 

There is an obvious problem with bidding 2NT as we could be off the spade suit especially if partner has strained to bid at the two level with a unbalanced hand. But it is Pairs and if I hear 3, indicating weakness, I will still bid 3NT; partner should not have less than length in clubs and 9 points. If over my 2NT partner bids 3NT, I pass. If he/she makes a bid showing a strong responding hand I show my support for clubs, indicating slam interest.”

 

Pam Livingston “2NT: 15-19 balanced.  Anything else is a distortion of shape.”

On a similar track:

Kris Wooles “2NT: which I play as 15 to 17 and leaving room for hand development which 3NT does not. Yes, I know there is a potential gaping hole in spades but let’s see East’s next bid. 

Disagreeing are:

Peter Newell  “3NT: yes, it's ugly, and given this is posed as a problem I’m guessing that partner has a singleton spade, and we are going down in 3NT cold for game/slam in clubs and possibly diamonds as well. At Teams I would bid 2.  Why 3NT? It shows the right strength and pattern and while it will not help partner assess the value of a spade shortage well, it will not help the opponents either.  3NT will be right a fair amount of the time, and I’ll get a heart lead quite often especially if I don’t bid them… I do have rather good club support but hard to show that easily.”

Andy Braithwaite  “ 3NT: I am a bit dubious about 3NT with that spade holding but at Pairs, I have to try for the top scoring contract. So 3NT it is.

It is a good debate whether one can bid 3NT here with the minimum 15-17 and no major interest. Partnerships should know but it is not the central point here. We know that Pairs is not an exact science especially when offering 3NT as a possible game contract. On some days, West will get away with, maybe even score well, with a gaping hole in spades. What, though, about this as an alternative, already suggested by Peter Newell if we were playing Teams?

 

Stephen Blackstock  “2: Not NT, despite my balanced shape, because partner’s spade stop (if he has one) may be safer played by his side. I am not afraid of heart support as 3 is forcing and East should not bid 4 with 4-card hearts. In simple natural methods, 3 would not be forcing without prior agreement. The big problem here will be getting to 3NT (the only playable game) when East also has xxx. That is very do-able in a practised partnership, but not easy in a casual one.

Some will say “I play 2/1 so I can bid 3, aren’t my methods great”. On this hand, sure, but let’s talk again after they have to bid a nice descriptive 1NT on a hand when the rest of us can bid a constructive but not forcing to the stratosphere 2.”

 

Chris Marshall agreed with Stephen:

“With no hold my opinion was that a better bid would have been a reverse into 2 which shows same point count but alerts the responder East that there is something dodgy about the West's spade holding.”

I am not sure East knows yet the spade problem but they can use 4^th suit as below:

                                West                             East

                                   2                               2   4^th suit (hopefully game) forcing
                                3

and avoid the 3NT trap.                     

with the four hands being:

 

No singleton spade in the East hand but still no way to make 3NT on a spade lead while 5 is solid. Of course, on some days, there will be 12 tricks in no trumps. Today is the price some 2NT or 3NT players may pay for all the extra overtricks they will often score. At Teams, we really really do want to reach 5 and maybe for an often average plus score, at Pairs too.
The other reason why 5 will score well is that many will open the West hand with a strong 1NT and their partners will just try for lots of tricks in the no-trump game. On the day, two West players made all 13 tricks in no-trumps (it looks like 8 came good for trick 13) while 5 failed in that contract. The three pairs
in 5 all scored above average.

 

Richard Solomon

 

 

 

 

 

 

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