Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science
References: <21DEC199211131587@mary.fordham.edu>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 22:50:48 GMT
Lines: 38
In article <21DEC199211131587@mary.fordham.edu>, nissim@mary.fordham.edu (Leonard J. Nissim) writes:
|> At a 13-table duplicate game in a local club on board 10 (both
|> vulnerable, East dealer) I held as South:
|> S-xx H-Axx D-KJTx C-AKJ9
|> East opened 2H, weak. I bid 2N, which for my partnership shows 15-18hcp
|> and a definite heart stopper. (Qxx would not qualify, QJx would.) West
|> passed, and my partner bid 3N. East doubled, alerted. I asked for an
|> explanation, and got: "*Demands* a heart lead."
|>
|> I passed, partly on the assurance of a heart lead. All passed. The ace of
|> spades hit the table as the opening lead (asks for honor to be dropped under
|> it or for count, according to their card). "Director!" by me produced West's
|> assurance that he had no hearts, and so couldn't lead one.
|> 1) If West had had a heart and still led the ace of spades, what would the
|> director have ruled?
No penalty at all. West told you (correctly) what their agreement was. There are no penalties for disregard partnership agreements whenever a player thinks it is good bridge (or even when s/he doesn't:-); the only penalty would be if West had misinformed you.
Assume West held AKQJTxx,x,xxx,xx. How can there be a law that penalizes you for cashing out your tricks. Take another situation. After 1S-2D-2S-3N partner doubles. This calls for a spade lead, but you are looking at x,KQJT9,Axx,xxxx and you reason that you can lead a heart, win the DA when declarer leads diamonds and cash out your hearts. If my partner held that hand and lead a spade "because you doubled for a spade lead partner", I would think s/he had lost his/her marbles:-)
> 2) Was I a fool, or just fixed?
Nothing foolish. With xx,Axx,KJTx,AKJx you certainly had your 2NT. Partner had his raise to 3NT as well. You said you passed on the assurance of a heart lead -- where would you run to anyway? If you run whenever the opponents double you,
they will soon be doubling you in cold contracts and watching you play in other lousy contracts. Just bid your cards and occasionally you go down. Nothing you can do about it.
You were fixed, because East made an idiotic double on his lousy hand. So your -800 was a zero against the fields -300 on the same auction (without the final double). And you can see why it would be wrong to even think about running. If N has one more little spade you have 9 tricks on top, and a 10th when you establish the SQ....
