The Devil's Bedpost

We were vulnerable against not and I had made d_mn sure I had every inch of my bid, but we would have gotten a better result if I had just bid the hand the way I wanted to when I first saw it.

♠ KQJ9xxx
♥ Q
♦ AT3
♣ AT

I was in 3rd seat and the bidding had been two passes to me. My first instinct was to open it 4♠, but it’s a five loser hand that is good enough that I rather doubt the opponents have a game their way (even in hearts since my partner will have heart length) and if my partner is completely broke, I’m down two which is a disaster if they don’t have a game. If, in the far more unlikely event, he has something like either major suit ace with a singleton in one of the minors and the king of the other then I’ll have a shot at making six (not that we could bid it in that case, it’s just the point that it was vaguely possible that I’d be preempting us right out of a slam if he was at the top of his pass). It seems like the right thing to do is open it 1♠ and then go to four if he shows any signs of life.

The bidding:

P-(P)-1♠-(2♥)-
P-(3♥)-3♠-All Pass

TMS had the expected singleton spade, but he also had both minor suit kings and the jack of diamonds besides, so it makes five if one guesses the diamonds correctly and the whole room is in game. The Mad Scientist commented as he put his hand down, “If you weren’t so aggressive, I would have taken you to game.” And, no, I can’t explain the reasoning that somehow underbidding will encourage me not to overbid.

The truth is this really is my own d_mn fault because if I wasn’t so prone to overbidding my partners would trust me and this wouldn’t have happened. (It isn’t as if TMS is a shrinking violet.) I was once talking to an expert player at a tournament (well, he was talking, I was listening and wishing I had a tape recorder with me) and he was addressing the issue of being “crazy like a fox” which is to say he’d cultivated a reputation for bidding very aggressively, but at unfavorable vulnerable he always had “the nuts”. So on this hand I had “the nuts” but because I’ve so often bid as if I were nuts no one, including my partner, believed me. I’m the girl who cried, “Monster!”

To put it bluntly, partnership trust is secondary to winning and primary only in so much as it is crucial to winning, which is to say, in light of what happened I’m inclined to wish that I’d bid that hand differently. Or, to quote, Michael Corleone, “Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in.”