Playing a Regional IMP KO match against a strong team you hold this hand, white on red:
9 6 3 
Q T 5 
K Q 6 5 
K Q 6.
As dealer, you choose to pass. LHO opens 1, partner passes, and RHO bids 3 , a limit raise. LHO bids 4 and partner surprises you by introducing a double.
What do you make of this, and what action do you take?
You could try bidding 4 and partner might find a 4 call, but you are still a long far from home.
This hand, with only five losers, has plenty of potential. Having said this, it needs specific cards: the club king, the top trumps, and a diamond control. It is difficult to find all of this in standard methods, especially when this is plenty of hand outside of partner’s first-bid suit. But partner might have the right cards, with little in hearts.
The solution is the “serious 3NT.” Or at least an encouraging or waiting 3NT. We play that a cue bid in a suit bid by the partnership is an A or K, interchangeably. It is never shortness. 3NT gives partner a chance to show the K, and you have an easy control bid of 4 .
Partner will then have a set shot, holding: A K 5 4 J 7 5 3 K Q 4 K 2.
You might contrive another auction to slam, but my guess is that few would bid it without the 3NT convention. When 3NT cannot logically be natural, it is waiting and encouraging.
Playing rubber bridge you pick up the following hand:
Q T 9 3 A 7 3 A Q J 8 5 3.
You open 1 and partner responds 1 . The opponents are silent and you rebid 1 . Partner bids 2 , an artificial game force, so you make your natural rebid of 3 . Partner now reveals spade support and extras with 3 .
What should you call?
The solution is here.
Hats off to Stacy Jacobs for her work on the Buffett Cup media coverage. Her most recent post on the subject cited the Sports Illustrated online coverage. This is nice, but still not like the old SI days when they had a regular column on bridge.
I had a chance to catch up with her when we were both cheering on our White Sox, an event she notes with pictures here.
I had checked out her first article by doing a Google News search for “Buffett Cup”. Google news covers every paper with anything online, getting all sorts of obscure stories. I asked her how many papers had an article on the event. This is a tough question. You might want to formulate your own guess before reading on.
I also gave the quiz question to Spike (AKA Maribeth) who made a very good guess of ten papers.
And your guess?
Stacy hit it on the number: 3! She also named two of the papers–the NYT and the local Louisville paper. There was another article from Austin, featuring the star player and former Chicagoan Tobi Sokolow.
The Buffett Cup should be of widespread interest. We all need to think about how to increase the visibility.