The Gee Chronicles

Both Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 3

	seymon K Q 10 6 4 3 J 4 3 K 5 4 2
kasey J K 4 3 A J 10 8 7 5 J 10 3		scott-1 9 7 5 2 A Q 9 8 5 2 6 2 6
	Maestro A 8 10 7 6 K Q 9 A Q 9 8 7

West 1 3 Pass

North 1 4 Pass

East 2 Pass Pass

South 1 2NT 4NT

Today’s hand illustrates an important but frequently overlooked point in bidding theory: don’t be in a hurry to bid notrump. You can always bid it later.

Gee sits South. With a 2-3-3-5 hand, 15 points, good spots, and tenaces in the minors, the STCP™ might open 1NT. Gee knows there’ll be plenty of time to bid notrump later and opens 1C instead.

West overcalls 1D, North shows his 5+ spades, East bids 2H, and it’s back to our hero. A good spot for a Western cuebid of 3H, asking for a heart stopper? Not so fast. Gee shrewdly opts for 2NT. Geeselle, who sent me this beauty, theorizes that this is a case of “bidder’s remorse”: Gee regrets not having opened 1NT and is trying to compensate. She underestimates our hero. 2NT is tactical. Sure, 10xx isn’t much of a heart stopper, but the 2NT bid ought to discourage West from leading hearts: after all, only a moron would bid notrump in that position without a heart stopper, right? Besides, the cue would force North to bid notrump first. This would automatically wrong-side the hand, because Gee would not be playing it.

West raises to 3H and North, who figures his partner is showing a balanced hand with extras, reasonably bids the spade game. This is passed to our hero, who goes into the tank and emerges with…4NT!

Is it Blackwood? To play? Minor suit takeout? Experienced as I am in the Master’s Way I still don’t have the faintest idea. North reasons that Gee must hold a stiff spade with 1NT values — otherwise he’d open 1NT, right? — and passes, as the least of the evils. And I sympathize: I really do.

As Rommel could have told you, even the best tactics don’t always succeed. West leads a heart despite Gee’s strict instructions to the contrary, and the smoke clears seven tricks later. The churlish may notice that if Gee opens 1NT North transfers to spades at the 4-level and, even with some static from E/W, they likely play 4S, making 5. But where’s the pedagogical value in that?

Both Vul
MPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 9

	Maestro A 10 3 A 10 8 7 4 K 10 9 5 7
sasscat Q 6 5 2 9 6 J 6 2 J 9 8 2		danb J 9 7 4 K Q J 3 2 Q A 5 3
	sensj K 8 5 A 8 7 4 3 K Q 10 6 4

West Pass Pass Pass Pass

North 1 2 3

East Pass 2 Pass

South 1 2 Pass Pass

Again, as much as the answers to give to the captain’s questions are precise, the captain’s questions do not have for feed you with information about his/her hand, though it is preferance incase captainship is picked by the crew, you in our case.
–G. Cohen, Bridge Is a Conversation

When is a preference not a preference?

After South opens 1D in first seat, Gee holds four-card support to the K10, a decent 5-card heart suit, two aces and a stiff — pretty good-looking hand on first glance. He bids an unexceptionable 1H. South rebids 2C, and Gee has a few choices. A fourth-suit game-forcing 2S would be my choice, leaving plenty of room to explore 3NT, 5D or even 6D. (Even with South’s 12-point hand 6D has chances, and it makes on the actual layout against best defense provided declarer guesses trump.) 3D is another possibility.

Then there is the actual bid, 2D. This appears to be a preference — it walks like a preference, it quacks like a preference — but is actually a “preferance incase.” That’s in case your partner complains that you took a preference with a game-forcing hand.

East, however, decides to give Gee another chance and overcalls 2H. You can’t really blame him. He figures North and South for minimums and knows any trump holding will be in front of him. 2H is passed around to Gee. He could double: this nets anywhere from 1100 to 500, depending on whether the defense is perfect, adequate or woeful. He could bid 5D. He could bid 3NT. If he still isn’t sure they have game, he could bid 2NT.

Or he could bid 3D. As sensj chalks up 170, and none of the matchpoints, for making 6, he remarks, with notable restraint, that Gee’s hand is “too strong for a preference.” Gee doesn’t answer. “Preferance incase” theory would take too long to explain.

None Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 3

	mico K 9 K 9 7 6 3 Q 9 7 Q 7 3
altaya Q J 8 7 6 4 5 2 8 4 8 6 4		Maestro A 2 A J 8 4 A 10 5 2 A J 2
	hsherif 10 5 3 Q 10 K J 6 3 K 10 9 5

Many qualities distinguish the expert from the ordinary player, and imagination is not the least of them. The expert will often bid contracts undreamt of by the Small Time Club Player™ because of his almost extrasensory ability to visualize the other hands.

Today, for example, Gee, sitting East, has a very solid 1NT overcall of North’s rather shabby third-hand heart opener. South doubles to show a competitive hand, and West bids 2H, transferring to spades. This is passed to Gee. You would accept the transfer. I would accept the transfer. Gee is blinded by a vision of runnable spades in dummy and bids 3NT.

South does not share the vision and doubles. The doubt of the world is but confirmation to the prophet: Gee redoubles. One may ask why West doesn’t pull to 4S, but you aren’t supposed to yank your partner’s business redouble, and if Gee holds, say, Kxxx AQ A10xx AJx, then 3NTXX probably rolls in while 4S has no chance. So West lets the redouble stick.

The intensity of a vision, alas, does not guarantee its accuracy. Gee makes the HJ along with his four aces, for -1600. His partner inquires in the post mortem what induced him to bid 3NT. “If you have KQxxx of spades,” says Gee, “then 3NT is cold.” (Actually there are still only eight tricks on the actual diamond lead, even if spades break, provided South discards carefully.) Gee’s partner wants to know what happens if spades don’t happen to be 3-3. No problem, Gee says, 3NT makes anyway. There has always been a fine line, the historians of religion tell us, between mystic vision and hallucination, and here, perhaps, we have crossed it.