Hi all
Last night at Star (pairs) I played with Hoek, I stole him from Nira. She has been on my tail for weeks now, because she wants her 15 minutes of fame on my website. Okay Nira, here you go!
Back to bridge. I’ll put everything on the table first, and then we’ll walk through it.
Hoek wrapped up 11 tricks without breaking a sweat, a nice +990. If I look at the bidding by EW, my eyes start to bleed.
1. West passed initially and then entered the bidding with a weak jump (on a bad suit and with very defensive values). Too late, I found out about the fit already. If you are in Heat 1, then I can agree with a 3 opening, but this was just too little too late.
2. I was weighing my hand, either 3 or 4. The void is nice, but there are no fillers, so a timid 3 it was. But now, after a good night of sleep, I think North is worth a raise to game immediately.
3. East takes away no space at all with his raise to 4. What he does is establishing the fit for NS, Hoek (South) now knows I have very short . Would South go to game if East had not bid 4? I would pass or bid 5, but definitely not 4.
4. Holding the most points at the table East ended the auction with a booming double. But points are not necessarily equal to defensive tricks. He just scored his two trump tricks and that was all, folks!
I’ll end with a little advice. Go get your timing right. Try to minimalize "dud"-bids, empty bids that lead nowhere. And if your opponents bid game voluntarily, don’t double them, let them be.