First, there was this flyer for the Interbridge Team Tournament on June 9, at “de Denktank” in Arnhem. The short version: 9:45 start, 7 7-board rounds of swiss, 80 euro/team, 600 euro first prize. Click on the picture on the left or here to download the flyer. Pre-registration is required, by mailing or calling Ruurd at info@bridgearnhem.nl or +31-6-15964839, or Peter at +31-6-22215470.

I predicted votes for pass, 4NT, 5♣, 5♥, 5♠ and 5NT. The readers of this blog added a popular 7th choice: 6♣. Here is an overview of the results:

My ideas about the various bids:

1. •5♠ and 5NT: I’ve grouped these 2 as most of the people who voted and entered a comment, seem to use this bid for the same purpose: “Pick a slam”, showing 2 places where responder wants to play. Partner will bid the lowest suit he prefers, if that happens to be 6♦, the plan is to correct to 6♥. That sounds like a decent plan with one flaw. Partner can also double 4♠ on something like a 2-3-5-3 or 2-2-6-3 shape. Over 6♦, a correction to 6♥ is not going to work out well. Also, you basically commit your side to the 6 level, 7 is out of the questions. However, I have to admit that I had decided on 5NT while kibitizing Louk Verhees at the table.
   

2. 

   •4 NT: Intended as “pick a suit”. The same arguments as for 5♠/NT apply, with one practical difference. If partner bids clubs, you can make a slam try yourself and have partner re-evaluate. 4NT was the option chosen by 2 of the world champions holding this hand. The rest of the auction was quite different though. At table 2, south made a forcing pass over 5♠, then respected his partner’s choice. At table 3, south blasted into slam. The remainder of the auction is interesting too, the double over 6♥ showed that west wanted to save over 6♥ unless partner had a good reason not to do so. As we’ll see in a moment, east had such a reason.
   

3. •5♣: Your best suit, but short on values. Remove a few honors and you’d still bid that.
   

4. •5♥: Not surprisingly, this did not attract many votes. At imp’s, the goal is to find the best trump suit, not the best paying suit, as the difference between +600 and +650 is small.
   

5. •Pass: I think this is too passive, even though the world champion at table 1 actually bid this. The main argument: your hand is much better than average and west knew what he was doing when he opened 4♠. By playing 4♠x, you play the contract that west wanted to play. Sure, you will score plus every once in a while, but is it sufficient.
   

6. •That leave one bid, 6♣: It sounds a bit unilateral, but the more I think about it, I think it is a reasonable choice. 6♣ figures to be right on values and you are very likely to have a 5-3 fit. With a real 2-suiter, partner won’t double 4♠ but bid 4NT as some sort of 2 suited take-out. That makes his shape something like 1-4-5-3, 2-4-4-3, or such. In all those case, 6♣ looks quite playable.
   

1. There is one other argument in favor of 6♣ that I didn’t realize at the time and that is the trump split. With 7 or 8 spades on your left, the probability of another suit breaking badly increases. That is something that can be checked with a dealer simulation. The summary: if our side has an 8 card trump fit somewhere and we know nothing about the opponents’ hands, the probability of 4-1 or 5-0 trump split is about 16%. If we factor in the 4♠ bid, the probability of trumps being 4-1 or 5-0 on your right (that is, in the hand that did not bid 4♠) increases to 33%. The same happens with a 9 card trump fit. Full results in the table below: the first 3 columns show the trump break for an 8 card fit without and with the 4♠ bid, the next 3 for a 9 card fit, again with and without the 4♠ bid. Now, obviously, a bad trump split is easier to handle if the long trumps are in front of you. That will be the case with 6♣, not with 6♦/♥.
   

2. 
   

And finally, I received a couple of mails about a hand I discussed late last month. I’ll discuss those one in a next blog. Stay tuned...