High Level Play
You are playing in a Sectional Swiss Teams in the first match. As dealer, red on white, you pick up the following exciting hand:
A J 7 6 5 4 2, 
—
5 2 
Q 6 5 2
My regular partners know that I believe strongly in bidding some number of my long suit on such hands. My passed hands may have a surprising number of Charlie points if balanced with quacks, but partner is unlikely to be surprised by an unbalanced hand of some merit.
Having said this, I did not like an opening of 2, since partner will not count the tricks accurately, nor did I think that 3 was right given position and vulnerability.
So I passed. What do you think of that?
A moment later the auction had gone 4, pass, pass to me. Well I certainly wasn’t going to pass now, but was my action safer or riskier?
This rolled around to RHO who bid 5. Everyone passed this to my partner, who bid 5 and everyone subsided. After a slow start, we had an exciting finish.
LHO led the K and my partner put down the following:
Q T 8 5, 7 A K Q 6 5 2, 9 8
So this is a Four or Seven hand!! If I pick up trumps, I’ll take all of the tricks. If not, I’ll only make four.
If we assume that hearts are 8-4, that makes the “slot count” 9-5 in favor of the finesse. Is that the answer, or is there more to this problem?
UPDATE: I viewed the hand the same way as Justin did and played for the drop — wrong this time. Perhaps Justin would have read the table better than I did, but it seemed to be smooth passing. Our teammates did not bid it up either. In fact, my counterpart decided to open 4!! My teammates could not find a call, so we lost a game swing.
I would have expected the opponents to bid 6H and not risk giving up a potential vulnerable game if one hand were void in spades. I play for the drop. By the way I think you boxed yourself by not opening the bidding. I think the least of all evils is a 2S opening.
September 7, 2006 Brad C
LHO would at least squirm a little if he had 8 hearts and a spade void white/red after you bid 4S. He would DEFINITELY squirm in passout after 5S came around to him. RHO also may be reluctant to bid 5H with Kx of spades. This is very much a table feel type of situation, but I think I’d play for the drop if LHO gave no table action.
As for opening, the hand seems fine on playing strength for a 3S opener, but I’m a junior :) The hand is very offensive and wants partner to raise with a good fitting hand, and also wants to preempt the opponents. I don’t like passing.
September 17, 2006 Justin Lall