Board 24
West Deals
None Vul | | ♠ | J 10 3 | | ♥ | J 9 7 6 2 | | ♦ | 5 4 | | ♣ | 10 4 2 |
|
| ♠ | Q 8 7 4 | | ♥ | 10 4 | | ♦ | A K Q J 6 3 | | ♣ | J |
| |
| | | | ♠ | A K 9 6 | | ♥ | K Q | | ♦ | 8 7 2 | | ♣ | 9 8 7 6 |
|
|
| | ♠ | 5 2 | | ♥ | A 8 5 3 | | ♦ | 10 9 | | ♣ | A K Q 5 3 |
|
EW 5♠; EW 5♦; NS 2♥; EW 1N; NS 2♣; Par −450
| West | North | East | South |
| 1 ♦ | Pass | 1 ♠ | Dbl |
| Rdbl | 2 ♥ | 2 ♠ | 3 ♥ |
| 4 ♦ | All pass | | |
West never showed his 4 card support for his pard's major suit, and paid the price.
This is another hand where splinters could have been usefully employed. Instead of XX bid 4C. "Pard I have sufficient for game with 4+spade support with shortage in clubs".
With no wasted values in clubs pard should be interested. RKCB identifies the Ace problem and 5S would be the ultimate contract.
1D Pass 1S Dbl; 2S Pass 4S all pass would be an ok auction.
ReplyDeleteI think is at least an ace short for a slam try splinter.
Well, using losing trick count (LTC) west has a 5 loser hand and with a fit that should mean game. (Pard should have a 9 loser hand at least so 9+5=14, 24-14=10 tricks) Bidding the splinter is just showing pard where your values are if he wants to carry on, so a direct 4S should show a 5 loser hand with no shortage. Or are u saying the splinter indicates more than the direct 4S bid? Also u only bid 2S - surely an invite is warranted at the least. I think where the LTC goes slightly wrong is that it treats A=K=Q. A better treatment is NewLTC where A=1.5,k=1, Q=0.5, so there are 6.5 losers in the hand. Opposite a 9 loser hand game won't be viable.
ReplyDelete5.5 losers
DeleteThe problem with losing trick count is that you cannot tell how many of the losers (or cover cards) are wasted. Here, in the worst case partner might have hQxx counting as two losers - so you each think you are covering one of partner's losers - and cKQx - where you each think you are covering two of partner's losers - but one of you is wrong. If we make that hand up to 9 losers to illustrate the point. It looks like this:
ReplyDeletexxxx - 3 losers
Qxx - 2 losers
xxx - 3 losers
KQx - 1 loser
And we need luck to make even 2S. Of course it doesn't pay to be that pessimistic but on balanced partner is likely to have at least one of these holdings and there are other holdings that are bad. Give partner a better hand like:
Kxxxx
xx
xxx
KQx
Eight losers and you still might need a 2=2 spade break (or something else favourable) to make even 3S.
Losing trick count needs to be used with some care.
There are other dangers too. If we jump to the four-level partner may play us for more high cards and with a good hand may push for slam. We may then end up dangerously high at the five-level.
One other point, in Acol
1D 1S; 2S always delivers either extra strength 15 points balanced or extra distribution. Therefore we do not need to stretch so much with distributional hands in Acol.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with Wayne here that the danger of using either LTC or modified LTC using Acol is that the LTC may vary widely for East's hand. My experience is that modified LTC provides more accurate hand evaluation. Using modified LTC East's Acol hand could have up to 11 losers to as few as 3 losers (although Souths double makes it less likely East has a great hand)
ReplyDeleteJxxx
QJx
Xxx
Qxx
10+ 2x(0.5) = 11 losers
Such a wide range makes it very difficult for West to judge the final contract level from East's response and a jump to 4c may be too high even with 5.5 losers.
Personally I believe that to get the most out of using LTC it is necessary to use a bidding system that provides more accurate information about responders LTC. If East's response guaranteed a maximum of 8 modified losers West would know game was likely and the 4c bid may be justified as a slam try. However, the problems Wayne has stated could still well mean game is not possible even then.
Using LTC provided East knows 4c shows 5.5 losers if East had 6.5 losers then slam seems worth exploring with no wasted values in clubs I.e if the Qh were the Ah
AKxx
AK
Xxx
Xxxx
18 - (6.5 +5.5) = 6 level (12 tricks)
Therein lies the problem of accurately conveying LTC strength between partners using Acol and partnership agreement would have to agree 4c.... showed 5.5 losers.
With Wests actual hand slam makes if spades split and east has Ah and AKs when LTC would indicate only 11 tricks are likely and ideally west needs tools to confirm if East has this holding below game level. If this were actual east hand this would be a very good 24 total HCP slam to bid.
Using imperspicuity asking bids would reveal favourable position
1c ( <=6 losers 0+c) pass 1s (<=6 losers 4+s) double
2h (asking bid) pass 3d ( 1st rd control) pass
3s (asking bid) pass 4s (AK ) pass
6s pass pass pass
If East also had Ac should bid 7s over 6s
Otherwise on actual hand east would show only 2nd round control and west would bid. 4s