The Tao of Gaming

In this round, Betsy starts with: AJT JT874 A5 A54

and opens 1 Heart. Now I bid 3 spades. Here's the thing: we didn't really agree to play splinter bids until last month. So Betsy bid 4 spades, and then woke up when I bid five hearts. [A splinter bid shows 4 card trump support, a singleton in the bid suit (spades), and enough to force to game but not much extra.] Betsy called the director, retroactively alerted my 3S bid, the opponents decided to not change their bids, and she had to decide what to do after my 5H bid.

Now this is an interesting problem. By the law (of unauthorized information), I (Brian) had to assume that Betsy's 4 Spade bid showed the ace of spades, slam interest, and denied the ace of clubs and diamonds. So my five heart bid is pretty much forced ... (I "know" we're off two aces).

Betsy is allowed to know all of this (I think). Given that my five heart bid is basically meaningless ... Do you pass 5 Hearts, hoping that it makes five, or bid 6 Hearts under the theory that you are going to get a zero if four hearts is the limit, and may be getting a bad score if six makes, so five has to make exactly for this to break even?

	KQ83 AQ6 T832 86
AJT JT874 A5 A54		5 K953 KJ976 KQ3
	97642 2 Q4 JT972

Six makes (basically requiring the heart queen to be onsides). Betsy passed, which is certainly reasonable. She was also flustered by the auction and just played to make five (ruffing out the spades and conceding two trump losers), so we got 2.5 points.

(hide)

Unfortunately the nerves carried onto the next hand...

Betsy held:

87 T765 AK76 AT6

Betsy passed, then over my 1 Heart bid (in 3rd seat), bid 3 Diamonds, intending it as a Bergen raise (4+ hearts, 10+ points). The auction continued ...

Betsy  Brian
------------
 P     1H
 3D    3S
 4H    5C
 5D    5H
 P

I held AKQ4 AJ932 -- KQ83

Slam requires one heart honor onside, which happens. (I did interpret 3D is 'probably Bergen and not a Weak jump in diamonds'). I guess with a fit I should go even expecting that half the points would be wasted in diamonds. Either she's going to have the club ace or the KQ of hearts, and may very well have the spade jack. In fact, a grand is still possible, although it won't be cold. Another 2.5

The last hand was just a routine 23 count (held by Betsy). AKQJ AJ9 A94 A87.

Since I had the club king and heart queen (and 2434 distribution) 3NT making four was the typical result, although a few people held themselves to three... 5.5

Needless to say, we were late finishing this round.

Update: Fixed the first full hand.