Happy Labor Day! It’s my last day on Cape Cod. :-( It’s been a great summer with my family, but it’s time to head home. I’ll be on a train back to New York tomorrow.
I have a good schedule of plays and concerts lined up for the fall. The first is at the Philharmonic September 20. Gustavo Dudamel conducting Beethoven’s Fifth! Other highlights for the fall include Don Giovani at the Met, Beethoven’s 9th at Carnegie Hall, and Mamma Mia! and Ragtime on Broadway.
Congratulations to my friends on USA1 for winning the Bermuda Bowl!! I’m so happy for them. I’ve known Adam Kaplan and Adam Grossack since they were kids. It was so cool watching them and doing commentary.
Thanks to those of you who tuned into our commentary. Spending time with Greg is always fun! If you missed it live, you can watch the recordings.
I am going to be teaching a beginning bridge class in the Fall at Honors Bridge Club in Manhattan. It will be Tuesday nights at 6:30, starting September 30. The class has a hybrid format: both in person and online. I’m hoping the class will mostly be young professionals. So you can encourage all your friends, children, and grandchildren to come learn! They can reach out to me for more information.
The ACBL is holding a Digital NABC on BBO September 22-28. There are two knockout team games and three two-session pairs games. There are also daily regionally rated events. I encourage you to check it out.
I you’re looking for something fun to do between Christmas and New Year’s, New York is holding a regional at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square! I convinced them to pre-duplicate all the boards in the team games, so we’ll have hand records. At least my crusade is working in my own district (where I happen to be the president).
My Monday "Expert Thought Process" and Thursday "Thinking Through Declarer Play" classes are on their regular schedule for September. You can get information about both classes here: https://learnbridgeonline.com/adam-parrish/
Upcoming topics in my Monday Class:
September 1 Hand evaluation September 8 Defense September 15 Support Doubles September 22 Defense September 29 Overcalls
Time for some questions! Please keep them coming.
I get a lot of questions about preempts. I did write the book on it!
Hi, Adam,
I need some advice and guidance about when to make a 3-level diamond preempt when holding a 6-card suit. My partner and I play 2♦ Flannery so we cannot make a weak 2-level preempt in diamonds. My 3-level preempts tend to be more “old school,” while my partner has a more aggressive preempting style and will open 3♦ with a 6-card suit. As you can imagine, my failure to open 3♦ in second seat led to a poor matchpoint result.
In your book on preempts and overcalls, the concept of “flaws” was very helpful. However, I could not find a discussion of preempting on the 3-level with a 6-card diamond suit. Your help in deciding if and when to open 3♦ with a 6-card suit will be helpful and appreciated.
Having a card fewer than expected (6 for a 3-level preempt, 5 for a 2-level preempts, etc.) is a flaw. A big one. So you're only going to do it when the odds are in your favor (based on seat and vulnerability) and the rest of the hand is ideal—not many flaws. This applies for all suits—I'm not afraid to preempt 3 of a major on a 6-card suit when the situation calls for it.
Ideally:
you're in first or third seat non-vulnerable or second seat favorable
you're 6-4—but not a 4-card major
your suit is good and the honors concentrated
you have a singleton
The fact that you don't have a natural 2♦ opening available means you might stretch slightly more often. In standard, we do this with clubs, since there is no 2-level preempt available. But you want the rest of the hand to be pretty pure.
Adam
The ACBL allows you to open 1NT with a singleton A, K, or Q, but most people don’t understand when to do it.
Dear Adam,
My partner is very enthusiastic about opening 1NT with a singleton honor, but my anecdotal experience has not been very positive.
Hand #26 (below) is from a club game last week. I was South and opened 1♦. My partner bid 1♥, I rebid 1♠ and my partner rebid 1NT. Now what? We failed to get to 3NT. If I had opened 1NT, we would have reached 3NT: 1NT-2♦!; 2♥-3NT.
Can you offer some advice with, hopefully, straightforward guidelines on opening 1NT with a singleton honor? Is there a difference when the singleton honor is in spades or, as in the above hand #26, hearts?
You don't want to go out of your way to open 1NT with a singleton; you do it when it's necessary to avoid an impossible rebid. On the hand in question, you have an easy 1♠ rebid, so the 1NT opening isn't necessary. You can then raise 1NT to 2NT. This doesn't show the normal 18-19 HCP, since you've already denied a balanced hand—it's just asking partner to bid game if they're at the top of their range, which is about 6-10. Your 1NT rebid lied about both your shape (you’re not balanced) and your strength (you’re showing 12-14 HCP)
It's much more common to open 1NT with a singleton spade honor, since those are the hands that present the biggest rebid problems. Switch your majors and I would open 1NT. Or a hand like ♠ K ♥ AJ65 ♦ KQ874 ♣ QJ9.
Adam
I also wrote the book on defense, so I get a lot of questions there, too!
Dear Adam,
I am an intermediate+ player and am enjoying reading your book on modern defensive thinking. There is a situation I am unclear about.
Say partner leads a low card against 3NT. Dummy has Kxx and declarer wins with the K. You have Qxx. Do you give count and use Smith later to show you liked the lead, or do you play attitude on the lead at trick one? What if dummy had Axx and you had the king? Or Qxx and you have the jack?
The default signal when partner leads a suit is attitude, so that’s priority. Then a Smith signal can clarify how much you like/dislike partner’s suit.
In terms of how high dummy’s honor is, here's my general rule: against a suit contract, when partner leads and dummy wins the Q or lower, your signal is count (you obviously don't like the suit since you didn't play 3rd hand high). If they're winning the A or K, your signal is attitude.
Against NT, it's count when it's J or lower (since you might want to encourage with Jxxx) and attitude otherwise.
Adam
That's all for now. I encourage you to send me questions about my column or anything else at adam@adamparrishbridge.com. Maybe they'll end up in the next newsletter!