Impossible slam?

I haven't had many interesting hands lately, except this one:

♠ K7xxx
♥ K9
♦ AKQT9x
♣ -

LHO starts the bidding, all Vulnerable (Matchpoints):
1♣ - 2♥ - pass - ?
With that partner in particular, I don't play fit jumps, and I didn't have enough trumps to splinter imo. So I just decided to jump to 4♥ and hope for the best. Partner made +2 thanks to a defensive blunder (♠AQ was behind the King, but somehow the guy decided it was a good idea to discard the Queen at some point), so there's only 5♥ available. Great one may say, but here's partner's hand:

♠ xx
♥ AJTxxxx
♦ J
♣ xxx

We had 6♦ laydown if it's played by me (♠K protected, ♥Q stiff onside). The problem is: how to get there? It's quite a weak hand to jump to 3♥ at this vulnerability although you have 7 of them. Either way, you'll probably never end up in 6♦ with a 6-1 fit while you have a 7-2 ♥ fit...

Anyone who can give me a convincing auction, be my guest. :-)

Development squeeze

This one I played yesterday (rotated for convenience). It's very easy to squeeze your opponents on this hand, but it just doesn't come up very often. According to a source on the bridgebase forums (= Ben) it's called a "development squeeze". Here's the hand:

Dealer: East Vul: None Scoring: imps	♠ 3 ♥ KQ83 ♦ AKT97 ♣ JT4
♠ J54 ♥ J765 ♦ 864 ♣ 983		♠ AQ9762 ♥ A2 ♦ QJ5 ♣ Q6
	♠ KT8 ♥ T94 ♦ 32 ♣ AK752

The bidding went:
1♠ - 2♣ - pass - 2♠*
pass - 2NT - pass - 3NT
all pass

So I'm in 3NT, and LHO leads ♠4 to the Q. You can't hold up, so you take ♠K immediately. Now what? You can play on the double ♦ finesse, but the odds are against us because of the opener on the right. The only real alternative is to play on ♣ first and hope that suit behaves. If that's the case, you have 8 tricks and perhaps some possiblities for a 9th.
You continue a small ♦ to the Ace and let the ♣J run. RHO is smart enough not to cover immediatly, but you're still playing the odds. When the ♣J holds, you have only 1 chance of making 5 ♣ tricks and that's if they split 3-2. You're lucky and continue to play off all your ♣s.
On those ♣s, RHO gets into "trouble": he has to keep ♦QJ or he gives away 3 tricks, and has to keep ♥A or I get 2 tricks for free. The only thing left to do is discard ♠s, which are high (but he doesn't know that for sure). Because of these discards I can count out the hand, and play ♥ to the K without fear, to develop my 9th trick.

Money Bridge on BBO

I've been playing Money Bridge for more than a week now, and it's quite an interesting setup imo.

For those who don't know what Money Bridge is:
- You play against 1 human player.
- No kibitzers are allowed at the table.
- You both get coupled with a GIB, a very respectable computer player. You have to play it's system, which is some sort of 2/1GF without too many gadgets.
- It uses total point scoring.
- The stakes are chosen between 0.1 cent and 2 cents per point.
- You need to be able to pay for a loss of 2500 points (which is also the maximum per hand).

It's definetly cheat proof, and skill should be rewarded in the long run. If you're only playing a few games however, you'll need some luck, since it's total points. In other words, if you don't get good hands, you'll probably lose money unless your opponent bids too high every time. You have to put trust in the dealer that it will give you as much points as your opponents get.

What tactics should one use? Well, basicly you should bid and play like you're playing imps:
- V games need 35% chance.
- NV games need 43% chance.
- Small slam needs 50% chance (any Vul).
- Grand slam needs 67% chance (any Vul).
- Try to make your contract, overtricks are worth only a few more cents so don't risk your contract for these.

At the moment there are still some minor problems with GIB's actions. Sometimes it bids crazy and there's nothing you can do about it. You won't get refunds or anything similar from BBO, so I guess you just have to hope it happens to your opponents as well so you can get your money back that way. I've seen him bid a vulnerable 6♥ with 0hcp after a 2♣ opening with interference (which would go -1). But guess what: my GIB partner sacrificed in 6♠ and my human opponent went to 7♥, promply doubled by my GIB partner. Who's fault was that really? 5♠ made, so apparently he made a pre-sacrifice, and his human partner ruïned it.
I've seen even worse things at my side: after a 1♣ opening he responded with a 5332 with 5 ♦s from QJxxx and nothing else. After my reverse he showed 8+HCP by rebidding ♦! 3NT-3 was the final result, losing 300 points without good reason imo...

Perhaps some of you get a negative feeling about GIB, but not everything about GIB is bad, in contrary. I really like to see him play! He seldom makes mistakes and usually makes a trick more than you'd bet your money on. He also finds killing leads and defenses, which all make up for some poor bidding decisions imo. The poor actions are more exception than rule, so it's definetly a worthy partner to have!

One note: don't play high stakes if you don't have enough money. I've already heard someone complain that his first experience was a turnoff. His opponents played 2 games: a vulnerable game and a vulnerable slam, both made. Result: lost some money (not the end of the world), but the most horrible part was that the table got closed because he didn't have enough funds to pay for a possible disaster (2500 points). So he didn't get a chance to win his money back unless he put more money on his bankrole...

Don't push me

Playing a team match, you hold following hand:
♠ -
♥ AT863
♦ QT42
♣ AQ85

The bidding starts with partner showing 11-14HCP with a pretty balanced hand (can be 4441, 5422 and sometimes 6m322):
1NT! - 3♠ - Dbl - pass
4♥ - pass - ?
Do you still try something?

I decided not to because of my poor ♦ holding, and huge chance that partner holds some high ♠s. Now however, my LHO came in with 4♠ and partner bid 5♥! This clearly means he hasn't got any lost values in ♠, so I bid 6♥ because he had to have 'something' in ♦.

The entire auction:
1NT! - 3♠ - Dbl - pass
4♥ - pass - pass - 4♠
5♥ - pass - 6♥ -pass
pass - pass

Partner's hand was:
♠ A85
♥ QJ975
♦ A76
♣ K6

Slam was laydown after the working ♥ finesse. Now my LHO complained that I first passed on 4♥, and later bid 6♥. Imo he has no reason to complain, because it's because of him I bid this way. He pushed us by giving us more information than we were entitled to after his partner's great action: he passed first, and later he supported. This gave my partner the opportunity to show his good holding without wasted values in ♠.

A good rule with few exceptions: either support immediatly and to the right level, or never support partner for the rest of the deal.

LEHO & HELO carding

There are many carding methods around, of which most focus either on showing count or on suit preference. Lots of experts like some sort of count, and lots of them hate it and swear by suit preference, because count gives away too much information to declarer. I'll leave that discussion for another time.

There are at least 2 methods which allow you to show both count AND suit preference with a single card! They're called LEHO and HELO, acronims for:
LEHO = Low Even High Odd
HELO = High Even Low Odd
They work best when playing UDCA or something similar, and when partner leads a suit where you have some length.

Suppose for the rest of the post that you're playing UDCA with LEHO.

Say you're defending 4♠, you hold ♦T92 and partner leads ♦Ace (apparently he wants to give you a ruff). You will discourage and/or show an odd number of cards, and you have 2 cards to do that: T and 9. Here comes LEHO in play:
- If you want the LOWEST remaining suit, you play an EVEN card (LEho)
- If you want the HIGHEST remaining suit, you play an ODD card (leHO)

So in our example:
- ♦2 would encourage partner to continue ♦.
- ♦9 asks for a ♥ switch.
- ♦T asks for a ♣ switch.

Important note: this is most useful in a long suit, so you might want to apply this only in a suit you bid.