Sept. 21      Lebensohl over Weak 2 Bids

Sept. 28      Lebensohl over Reverses

 Time: 10:00 am to 12:15 pm

Where: Atlanta Duplicate Bridge Center 6761 Peachtree Industrial Blvd.

Cost: Individual classes are $20; Sign up for all 3 classes for $50

Special Early Registration: Mail your check for $45 by September 6th and save an extra $5

Mail to:     Sam Marks

                720 Latour Drive

                Atlanta, GA 30350

For more information or to register call me at 770-354-6033

or email me at sam@sammarksbridge.com

The Grand Nationals did not go as well. There was a one day swiss on Wednesday that qualified 16 teams for the Knock-out phase. Unfortunately we tied for 17th place. We did have one good round where we blitzed our opponents. I will share with you one memorable board. During comparisons, our teammates proudly said, “plus 1130″ They were a little dismayed when I proudly shouted, “win 1″

I was South and overcalled 1 after my RHO opened 1. When the auction became competitive and my partner cuebid to show a limit raise, I started thinking about his possible hands. If he had the Ace and King of clubs and the spade King, a double game swing might be possible. Even the club Ace and spade King might put me on a finesse for game. And if he had a bad hand, maybe down one would be a good save. Well his hand was terrible for me and with 5-0 breaks in clubs and spades I was quickly minus 1100.

Not to worry, our teammates got doubled in 3 and made two overticks to score 1130 and win one imp one the board.

Here was an interesting hand from the recent July 4th Sectional in Atlanta. In some respects bridge can be like golf. In golf, sometimes you need just the right club for a shot. In bridge, you sometimes need a particular convention. Golf limits the number of clubs you can use. Bridge allows you to use as many conventions you like, but memory and system constraints place practical limits.

The Gambling 3NT is a convention I neither like nor dislike. I typically use it because I dislike the other 3NT conventions even more. It doesn’t come up very often, but when it does it can be very successful.

I was South and opened 3NT, promising a solid seven card or longer minor with no outside Ace or King. East/West were a new partnership and West’s double was understood to suggest a strong NT. From his hand, I think West meant his double as a light take-out. Without West’s double partner could have bid 4 to ask for shortness. We had no agreement in competition, so partner bid 5. East thought North was saving so bid 5. At that point, partner decided I was likely short in hearts afterall and bid the slam.

After the K lead, there was nothing to the play and partner scored up 6 X making 7.

At the other table they did not have the 3NT club (to continue the golf analogy in honor of the British Open) in their bag.

South might have bid 5 directly over 4 or after the double but without the Gambling 3NT opener I don’t think N/S would ever bid a slam.

I have just added a new series to my schedule, Major Suit Raises. It will be four Tuesdays in August at the ADBC and will cover Drury, 2NT Forcing Raises, Bergen, and Splinters.

For more information see my MAJOR SUIT RAISE ad.

“Covering an honor with an honor,” sounds simple but it is quite a complex subject. Let’s look at some declarer issues before we look at defensive problems.

                         K94

 Q lead

                        765 

At a suit contract, you generally are going to assume that your opponents are not underleading the Ace. Try and duck twice and hope that RHO has singleton or doubleton Ace.

                        K94

 Q lead

                       1065

 Now, you are in better shape. At a suit contract you want to avoid a ruff so you need to decide which is more likely: If RHO has Ax you need to duck to avoid the ruff. If LHO has QJ doubleton you need to cover to avoid the immediate ruff.

                         K84 

Q lead

                        1065

Now you want to duck to “freeze” the suit. Neither side can play the suit without setting up a trick for the other side.

As you can see, declarer has a pretty clear idea when to cover an honor with an honor, although he might have to guess to avoid a ruff. Defenders have a much harder problem.

                        Q84

                                                 K75

 This is the basic idea when we cover the Queen with the King. We are hoping to promote a winner in partner’s hand.

                           Q84

          T65                                 K72

                         AJ93

Here we need to cover to promote partner’s ten, if we don’t cover declarer will take 4 tricks.

 There are lots of times as defender we do not want to cover. The most common is when dummy has two touching cards. In general the rule is to cover the second lead of touching cards.

                      QJ94

T6                                            K72

                     A853

 If we cover the Queen, declare will take 4 tricks, if we play low he has to decide if we have the doubleton king or does partner have the doubleton ten. If the layout is:

                   QJ94

T62                                          K7

                  A853

We need to duck some of the time to give declarer a chance to go wrong.

                  QJ94           

762                                          KT

                A853

We have to cover here to give declarer a chance to go wrong.

When the suit in question is the trump suit, be very careful about covering. Your partner needs enough length in the suit in order to be able to promote a card.

                J943

                                        QT5

After the opponents bid 1♠ – 2♠ – 4♠, declarer wins the opening lead in dummy and leads the ♠ J, partner has at most one spade, do not cover. The layout may be.

                J943

                                  QT5

               AK8762

The class will run for four weeks, June 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th from 10:00 am to 12:15 pm.

Cost is $60.

Registration is required, please email me at sam@sammarksbridge.com 

or call me at 770-354-6033

A AQJT87632 KQ J

That’s nine hearts!! A 3-loser hand but I hate opening 2 with freak hands. Particularly when red versus white as we were on this board.

At any rate the auction went:

West                North               East                 South

                                                                      1

Pass                1                   3                  4

Pass                4                   Pass                   ?

Over 3 I truly had no idea what to do, I cuebid 4 but when I bid it I knew partner would have no idea whether I had spade support or not. When he bid 4 it wasn’t clear if he was cuebidding or maybe leaving room for me to show him what suit I was slamming in. I think over 4 maybe I should have bid 5 , but at the table I made the bid of  6 .

The lead was the  8 and this was the hand:

          KQ654

          A8542

          KT3

           A

          AQJT87632

           KQ

           J

Disappointing, maybe the K is singleton. I played the K in dummy, RHO won the A and switched to a low diamond.  When I cashed the A, RHO showed out. Down one.

In the replay at the other table, my hand opened a strong club. In a competitive auction, my hand eventually jumped to 5 and played it there. So, did we lose 13? On a low club lead declarer played low from dummy and RHO won the Q and continued with a low club. Now declarer had to weight the possibility of  8-1 clubs versus 4 -0 hearts. At any rate declarer ruffed with the T and now had to lose 2 hearts tricks. Just another routine push board.

1      2

3                   

AQ742 AT7 AJ74 6

If partner has as little as the K and the K, you have play. If he has strength in hearts, he can make a counter try of 3 , which you will be happy to accept. If he has secondary club strength, game will probably not have a good play.

1      2

2 NT

AQ742 QJ4 AJ7 K6

If you are playing a raise as 6 to 9, you might make a game try of 2NT to ask partner if he has 8 or 9 points.

1      2

3

Q7642 AQJ4 AK7 6

3 would ask partner about his trump quality. Some partnerships play 3 as a preempt to stop the opponents from balancing, although that is more useful when your suit is hearts.

In general I am not a big fan of game tries for two reasons.

1) It helps the opponents with their opening leads. The more they know about your hand, the better they can defend.

2) I hate to make a game try and then go down at the 3 level.

In general my philosophy is two-fold. If partner will need the perfect maximum, don’t play him for those cards. Partners almost never have the perfect hand.

If there is a perfect minimum that will give you play for game, just go ahead and bid game. You don’t always get perfect defense, and the less the opponents know, the more likely they are to make a mistake.

So here are examples of hands that I would just bid a game on after partner raised:

1      2

KJTxx x xx AQJxx

QJxxx x xx AKQxx

KQJxxx x xx AJTx

One last thought, when partner makes a limit raise of your major suit, how often should you go to game. My belief is that you should always bid a game unless you have a balanced minimum. Any time you have a queen above a minimum or a singleton, bid the game.

With Jxx AKxxx x QJxx I would bid game after partner made a limit raise.

Well we played well and won.  On Sunday, in the semi finals, we faced a good team from Western North Carolina. The match came down to a single hand. Our opponents had this auction:

West                North               East                 South

                                                                        2

Pass                2 NT                  Pass                  3

Pass                6                   Pass                   Pass

Pass

2 NT was a Modified Ogust and 3 denied any feature.

I was on lead with 743 82 A873 KJ73

With bad holdings in the majors I expected a running suit or possibly even two in dummy. Needing to establish a trick to go with my trump Ace, I led a low club. Our opponents were down 1 when partner was nice enough to hold the Q.

We held on in the finals and hope to do well in New Orleans. This is a team event, so let me thank my partner Mike Kovacich and teammates Jeni and Tom Carmichael for the great results they put up all week.