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The Clock is Ticking…

Apologies that the daily hands have been a bit sporadic during the World Championships in Argentina. Hopefully, regular readers have found compensation in the on-line daily bulletins. They will return to be regular 5 days a week at the start of next week.

In the meantime, here is a bidding and indeed a play problem from Buenos Aires. The bidding problem has an unusual add on. Please ensure you have a stop-watch with you when you address the question.

 

Your 2NT promises a balanced 22-23 hcp. Your passed partner makes a major suit enquiry (3). 3NT says you have no 4 or 5 card major. 4 is natural, a 5+ card suit, with slam interest.

Your options are to bid 4 which is Minorwood (asking for key-cards), 4, cue-bid, or 4NT which is a sign-off.

What is your choice of action?

Also, please note down how many minutes and seconds it took you to come to your decision.

At the table, the bidding continued as below. Although East only held 22 hcp, they had a 5 card club suit and excellent major- suit controls. Thus, they accepted their partner’s invitation. How would you proceed  on 8 lead?

 

Barring a bad diamond break (there was not), you have 9 tricks outside clubs. Therefore, you only need 3 club tricks. Alternatively, you could play for spades 3-3 and a simple club finesse to come to 12 tricks. The latter seems an inferior option.

You can play off your 5 diamond winners discarding a heart and a club and decide what to do next. Both opponents had 3 diamonds, North discarding two spades and South a club and a heart. So, a heart to the ace and a low club towards Q9. South played low…and you?

 

If you played Q from dummy, your contract would fail. 9 would be the winning play. At the table, East won K at trick 1 and led a small club immediately. South panicked and rose with K. Declarer thus had their 3 club tricks, 12 in all. Contract made.

Was declarer happy? Well, kind of. There was one other fact to reveal. The matches were behind screens and when the bidding had ended, South, who was on West’s side of the screen, complained of a hesitation on the North/East side before the 4NT bid was made.

All tables had cameras and thus the amount of time taken by East (North would have no reason to hesitate) was timed at 39 seconds. The table director established the facts of the bidding and asked some experts what they would bid as West after the 4NT sign-off. Even though West had potentially useful club cards in what just had to be their partner’s club suit (no major, no interest in diamonds) the over-riding view was to pass. Thus, the score was reversed from 6NT making to 4NT making 12 tricks. Although many East-West pairs had bid 6NT (some making: others not), the board was thus flat at 4NT in this match.

One can seek a review of the decision made though one is not present at that review. Also, it would be pointless to ask for a review with no fresh facts to produce. There was also the small matter of US$100 deposit not refundable if the review was deemed frivolous.

No review of the above decision was sought. The poor defence from South to 6NT was not a factor. 

It seems the maximum length of time for a bid when one is deemed not to have hesitated is 20 seconds. Beyond that length of time, one risks a hesitation situation. An Italian player was deemed to have hesitated in one of the knock-out semi-finals with the time taken deemed to be just 22 seconds. 39 seconds was thus just an age! In one match, a player hesitated for 3 minutes 45 seconds though no action was taken by the directors because the partner’s bid was thought to be automatic.

One is deemed to know one’s system. Thus, taking a few seconds to remember what a bid means is just not admissible. Such are standards applied at the World Championships.

Richard Solomon

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