BBO Daylong Tournament 1 - Apr 7, 2021 - Board 2

Board 2
Our side vulnerable

♠ A Q 10 5 4 ♥ A 8 2 ♦ K 7 ♣ A J 9

I open one spade in second seat, and partner raises to three spades. This doesn't look like a slam try opposite a limit raise, but let's check. According to Culbertson's rule, your hand is worth a slam try if a perfect minimum from partner makes slam laydown with normal breaks. A minimum limit raise would be an ace, a king, a queen, and a doubleton. Let's give partner a hand where all those assets are working: the diamond ace, the spade king, the club queen, and a doubleton heart. That leaves us with two losers, so I"m not worth a slam try. 

Culbertson's rule works pretty well. You make one optimistic assumption (that partner's values are all working) and balance it out with two pessimistic assumptions (placing partner with a minimum and requiring slam to be cold). You hope that, if partner has a maximum and accepts, that this "perfect minimum" will be part of his maximum. And by requiring slam to be cold opposite that perfect minimum, you give yourself some leeway. Opposite the wrong cards, slam won't be cold, but it might still have play. If you try for slam when a perfect minimum simply makes slam good but not cold, you will reach too many slams that have no play when the hands don't fit well.

With two suits I might want to ruff in dummy, this is the wrong hand to suggest three notrump. So I bid four spades, and everyone passes. West leads the diamond three.

	NORTH Robot ♠ K 9 7 3 ♥ K J 9 ♦ Q J 10 8 2 ♣ 4
	SOUTH Phillip ♠ A Q 10 5 4 ♥ A 8 2 ♦ K 7 ♣ A J 9

West	North	East	South
Robot	Robot	Robot	Phillip
		Pass	1 ♠
Pass	3 ♠	Pass	4 ♠
(All pass)

After all that talk about what constitutes a slam try, it turns out we missed an excellent slam. But that's because partner doesn't have a limit raise. Thirteen support points. Seven losers. However you look at it, this hand is a game drive, not a limit raise.

I play low from dummy and East wins with the ace. I see no particular reason to unblock, so I play the seven. East returns the five--king, six, eight. I don't even need to ruff anything. I have three discards on the diamonds. Since I can cash the spade ace to guard against either four-one split, I have a claim. I claim without bothering to cash the spade ace first just to see if they accept. They do. Such a claim would be unwise in a real game, but the bots give me credit for playing correctly without my having to state a line. They even accept claims on a double squeeze as long the position is known with 100% certainty. No trying for the Zuckerberg coup.

	NORTH Robot ♠ K 9 7 3 ♥ K J 9 ♦ Q J 10 8 2 ♣ 4
WEST Robot ♠ J 6 ♥ 10 7 5 ♦ 9 6 3 ♣ K 10 8 7 6		EAST Robot ♠ 8 2 ♥ Q 6 4 3 ♦ A 5 4 ♣ Q 5 3 2
	SOUTH Phillip ♠ A Q 10 5 4 ♥ A 8 2 ♦ K 7 ♣ A J 9

Plus 680 is worth 38.9%. Five of the other 27 tables reached six spades, usually by rebidding four clubs, after which North drove to slam. I stand by my decision not to make a move. Partner's hand was simply too good for a limit raise. 

One player bid Blackwood over three spades, then signed off in five spades after his partner showed a key card. It hardly seems fair he gets the same score I did. Shouldn't there be some kind of automatic penalty for that? 

Another player opened two notrump. (I've never understood stretching for two notrump. Two notrump auctions are awkward if partner has a good hand; and if partner has a bad hand, you are often too high. So I try to avoid opening two notrump.) Over Stayman, he continued his ruse by denying a major. Then, over partner's four diamonds, he signed off in four notrump. West, who apparently has read the Bird books on opening leads, spurned the pedestrian fourth from longest and strongest and chose the jack of spades. So declarer took the same twelve tricks as everyone else for 81.5% of the matchpoints. 

There will be around 1000 participants in this event. Some people think it takes shenanigans like this to have any chance of coming in first in a field that size. I don't agree. My strategy is to try to do the right thing on every board. I realize that even if you succeed in that effort, you still won't win unless you have some luck breaking your way. But I think this approach requires less luck than tempting the Fates on every board. Besides, doing the right thing is something that, at least in theory, is within your power. Getting lucky isn't. 

Note I said the "right" thing, not the "normal" thing. I'm not criticizing this player's actions because they aren't normal. I'm criticizing them because I think they are anti-percentage. I don't advocate blind compliance in bridge or in any other context, so I wouldn't hesitate to bid this way if I believed it gained in the long run. But I don't.