Tag Archives: Weak Two Bid

2024 April: More Water in the Basement

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Second flood. Continue reading →

As I had done on nearly every Saturday for quite a few years, I played bridge with Peter Katz at the Hartford Bridge Club on April 6, 2024. I thought that we both played pretty well, especially against the best players, but we did not get a very good score. Part of that was due to a few hands that were bid very strangely by the opponents. The one that stood out for me was hand #9.

Peter and I were sitting East-West against Xenia Coulter and Nancy Calderbank. Xenia opened 2♠. I can understand why she did. She surely wants to bid, and the hand does not meet the rule of 20. Hers might be the only conceivable hand that I would bid with only ten points and only one five-card suit. I would not bid 2♠. I can think of many hands that would deliver ten tricks that I would pass opposite that bid, which could be made with only five points.

Peter, playing East, could not find a bid. Nancy for some reason decided to bid 3♠. I can see passing, and I can see bidding 4♠ to force the opponents to enter the bid at the five-level. I would never have bid 3♠.

In fact, I probably would have bid 5♠, the bid that the LAW of total tricks prescribes in this situation, assuming that North’s bid showed six spades. This bid would force one the opponents either to double a not-vulnerable contract or bid a slam with no idea of the partner’s holding.

If Nancy had passed, I would certainly have bid 3♥, and we would probably have found the slam. As it was, I did not have the temerity to enter the auction at the four-level. I passed, as did Xenia. Peter took a long time before he, too, passed. If Nancy had bid 4♠ or 5♠, I am sure that he would have doubled or bid notrump to show two places to play. In any of those cases my response would have been in hearts.

We ended up winning a lousy fifty match points on a hand that we were cold for a grand slam in either clubs or hearts.

So, only the combination of a peculiar opening bid and an inexplicable response left us tongue-tied. I guess that it was my fault. An old bridge aphorism states that one never preempts a preempt. In this case, however, the fact that both opponents showed spade length and some weakness maybe should have prompted me to think that I could count on Peter for four tricks. It was that kind of day.

When I arrived home from bridge I told Sue about the hand. She was surprised that it was legal to open Xenia’s hand at the two-level. I don’t know what she would have done instead. A pass certainly would be sinful with a hand that had the AKQJ of spades and a fifth one.

With this and other hands still on my mind I descended to the basement to spend some time watching MHZ Choice while using my rowing machine. I immediately noticed that there was a little bit of water on the floor in that corner of the basement. It wasn’t enough to be overly concerned about, but I resolved to tell Sue about it.

I watched the fifth episode of season 2 of The Bridge, a fictional police drama about a detective in Sweden who works with a detective in Denmark1, on MHZ Choice on my laptop. The reception was less than optimal. Because of repetitive delays for buffering it took forty-five minutes to watch the first half hour. Then I quit and went upstairs.

When I told Sue about the water in the basement, she asked if we had any leftover kitty litter. She suggested that we use it to absorb the water. I said that I was pretty sure that we did. I went back downstairs to check. The litter box and the box of litter were in the new part of the basement. When I opened the door between the two parts of the basement, I was surprised to see about an inch of water covering the entire floor of the new part.

It was time for supper. I resolved that early on Sunday morning I would repeat the laborious process that I did for the aftermath of Hurricane Ida in September of 2021. That effort is documented here with a good deal of detail and photos.

I got out of bed at about 2:00 a.m., found the extension cord and my wet-shoes, and filled ten barrels of the Sears equivalent of the Shop-Vac. The amount of water that I removed made almost no visible impact. I then went back to sleep.

On Sunday I opened the hatchway door on the northern side of the new basement at about noon. Fortunately the weather was clear and seasonably mild. I also filled another eighteen barrels. This was far less than my plan, but being two and half years older is very meaningful when one is in his mid-seventies. I was exhausted after four barrels, and both my lower back and the sides of my legs were aching.

I went back down and was pleasantly surprised to see that the level of the water was lower than I had left it on Sunday evening. After I had filled seven more barrels, there were still two small puddles, but I hoped that by Tuesday morning the dehumidifier and natural evaporation would seriously reduce or eliminate them.

My plan did not work. I filled two barrels on Tuesday morning. That cleared a path to the door, but it filled back in before I could leave. I did a barrel and a half on Tuesday afternoon. Some progress was made, but the two remaining areas, near the north wall and about twenty feet south of there were obviously going to fill back in with water.

On Wednesday I sucked up one full barrel and another perhaps one-third full. Because the hatch door was closed, I could not gauge my progress near the door. Most of the remaining water is along the north wall.

I swore more often this time than in 2021. I did not want to contemplate the possibility that flooding had become a repetitive occurrence. The weather in Connecticut seemed to have become much more tropical than in the previous decades. I did not miss the snow, but I have become too old to deal with the flooding. Also, the fact that I was continually obstructed by the mountains of useless junk in the basement turned my attitude bitter. I longed for an apartment and a landlord.

1. The two countries are connected by the Øresund Bridge that is almost five miles long.

“Takeout doubles are meant to be taken out.”

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Thus spoke Edgar Kaplan, but it doesn’t always work. Continue reading →

We played many bizarre hands at the regional tournament in Rye Brook, NY, on MLK Weekend, but one really has stuck in my craw. Neither side was vulnerable. LHO opened 1♠, my partner doubled, and RHO passed. The cards that appeared in my left hand literally stupefied me.

♠ K Q J 10 9       ♥ A J   ♦ Q J 10 9 x       ♣ x

What kind of hand could my partner have? He probably had at most one spade, and if so he could have as few as eleven high-card points. Nevertheless, it was easy to picture him with a hand that would seem minimal to him but could produce twelve tricks opposite mine. I decided to bid 3♥, the strongest bid I could make. If he responded in clubs, I planned to correct to diamonds.

My partner quickly drew the 4♥ card from the bidding box and laid it on the table. At first I wondered why he was in such a hurry to get to game. Then I realized that if hearts were his best suit, he had no choice. I could not figure out any sensible way to proceed.

Here was his hand:

♠ A 9 x       ♥ Q x x x       ♦ A x x       ♣ K x x

I would not have doubled with his hand, but the fact that he did gave us a truly amazing opportunity. At the other table our opponents brought in eleven tricks with spades as trump. I think that our teammates could have implemented a better defense, but after our bidding fiasco I was not about to mention it.

Yes, LHO opened a five-card suit headed by the eight, and, yes, RHO was void in spades.

Mel Colchamiro has published a tool called the Rule of Nine. It is used to evaluate whether to leave in a takeout double by one’s partner. You can read about it here. I have never had a hand that scored an eleven on his scale before. If I had bothered to think of this instead of being dazzled by the slam that I envisioned, I would have passed the double, and, assuming we played as well as our counterparts at the other table, we would have scored +1400 instead of -200.

I was quite familiar with this rule, but my hand looked so potentially powerful to me that I did not even consider leaving the double in. This may be the most egregious blunder that I have ever made in bidding.

Incredibly, I got a chance to atone for my sins the very next day. This time LHO opened 2♦, my partner doubled, and RHO passed. My diamond suit was not quite as good as on the previous day – K Q 10 9 x – but it easily qualified for a pass using the Rule of Nine.

This time, however, my partner was the one who was void in the trump suit, and the opponents scrambled for eight tricks. We had another embarrassing number to report to our teammates.

These two hands were not the only hands in which weak two bids led to our demise in the tournament. In one case my partner bid 2♦, and we never found our spade fit. In another he opened a ten-point hand with six diamonds at the one level, and we ended up too high. There were other examples, too. It seemed that for three days whenever a weak two bid was made, we got the shaft.

Bridge is like that. Some days you are the pigeon. Some days you are the statue.

I Fought the Rule of Nine

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And lost. Continue reading →

The Rule of Nine, which was devised by Mel Colchamiro, is designed to aid in the decision as to whether to convert a low-level takeout double by one’s partner to penalty. One adds the following together:

  • The number of cards in the opponent’s trump suit.
  • The number of honors (tens count) in the opponent’s trump suit.
  • The level of the bid.

If the total is nine or more, it is OK to pass. Note: overall strength is not a factor. The choice is between offense and defense.

* * *
Sitting West at unfavorable vulnerability I saw two passes. I had to decide whether to open the following hand:

♠ 8 7 5    ♥ K Q 10 6 4    ♦ Q 8 6 3    ♣ 4
Yes, I know that this hand does not meet the most (or even least) disciplined standards for weak two bids, but I hate to let the opponents use every level of the bidding box, especially when I am positive that it is their hand. So, I drew the 2♥ card from my box and set it confidently on the table.

South, not suriprisingly, doubled. Partner passed. Oh, that was a bad sign. He would have raised to three if he had three hearts. So, we had at most seven hearts. North paused to evaluate her hand for a few hours while I mentally enumerated the popes of the eleventh century so as not to give away my bluff. Alas, in the end North passed. I had no choice but to pass and take my medicine. This was the layout:

Board16

So, we had twelve points, and they had twenty-eight. I needed to hold it to down one unless the opponents had a rather freakish slam. Even at that, I had to hold it to down three. The first goal was obviously not possible unless they revoked two or three times while they were cashing their aces and kings, but I did manage to garner five tricks for -800.

North’s hand did not come close to meeting the Rule of Nine. Even if you change it to the Rule of Eight (because I only had five hearts), her hand fell short. So, Mel would predict that she made a big mistake in passing. Sure enough, North-South can make six spades or six clubs, and the play is not even that difficult. The only challenge is finding the ♣Q.

Unfortunately for me, no pair had the temerity to try the Moysian slam or the eight-card club slam. Nine played in 3NT, two played in 4♠, and one played in 3♣. Moreover, only one of the three who played in the black suits managed to bring home twelve tricks. So, it appeared that I made a big mistake by bidding.

However, that club bid intrigued me. The people who played there were pretty good players. I suspect that the person sitting in my chair at that table (the most aggressive bidder in the club) must have opened 2♥! [I found out later that he DID open 2♥.] If North followed the Rule of Nine, he would have probably bid clubs in response to his partner’s inevitable double. I would have. Playing lebensohl* he would probably bid 3♣. At that point South would either move to a club game or, if they were playing Western cue-bids, ask for a heart stopper. The latter approach would land them in 3NT.

If North-South was NOT playing lebensohl, what would North bid? Maybe he would venture 3♣, and South, armed with the knowledge that eleven tricks in a minor is always difficult, might just pass because she was afraid of the heart suit. Or maybe she would raise clubs. In either case they would not find the easy notrump game.

If so, then it was all or nothing. If North violated Mel’s rule and passed, East-West got a zero. If North bid, East-West won all the marbles.

So, was I chastened by this result? No, but in the future I might be a little more careful at unfavorable vulnerability.

* The lebensohl convention after a double of a weak two bid uses a relay from 2NT to 3♣ so that advancer can distinguish between weak hands and ones with at least seven points.