April 15, 2013

ABOUT THIS BLOG:  This contains posts written to a group of students in the USBF Junior Program, about hands that they played online.  Although this is intended for their use, anyone is welcome to browse through my comments. 

Hi. First off, let me introduce myself. I am Steven Bloom. In my real life, I taught mathematics, until I retired. I started playing bridge in the 1970s. In 1973, forty years ago(!), I formed a partnership with a beautiful and talented woman, Betty Crowther, who is now my wife. I have played almost exclusively with her ever since. For a while we were pretty good. Now, however, we are just old. Oh well.

I keep busy writing about bridge for two web-sites, http://www.DoubleDummy.net and http://www.bridgewinners.com. These are both excellent sites, and you should give them a try. Each week, I intend to focus on one or two hands, with key elements of card play. My main aim is simple: I want you to have a PLAN. If you are on defense, do your best to construct declarer’s hand from the bidding and card play, and try to find a layout that will let you set the contract. Likewise, if you are declarer, find a lie of the cards that will let you make your contract. Look for layouts where you can make your contract, or set theirs. Kit Woolsey used to write about nullo plays. If you come up with a play that will succeed when the cards are favorable, fine. You’ve done well. There may be better lines, but so what. If you make a play that can never succeed no matter how the cards lie, that is a nullo play. Kit said,

                                      Never make nullo plays!

Good advice. This week, I want to look at two hands. The first was board 9 from yesterday, and we’ll let you start thinking about it from Declarer’s perspective (I will always rotate the hands to make South the declarer):

The auction went

West led the ten of clubs, a card that looked suspiciously like a singleton.

A couple of questions:

(1) You want to take 11 tricks. What tricks will those be?

Answer: four hearts, one club, five spades, and a trump in dummy. That’s 11.

(2) This is an odd question, but, how are the hearts divided?

Well, West opened with 1D, so won’t have five hearts. East raised diamonds, and so is also unlikely to hold five hearts. Chances are very good that hearts are four-four.

That brings us to a very good plan: Win the ace of clubs, cross to the heart king, back to the spade ace, and run the hearts, tossing your club losers. After that is done, we can go back to trumps, if necessary.

(3) Could this plan go wrong?

Of course, someone might trump an early heart with the spade king, and cash a club and a diamond. Even worse, trumps might be 3-0 and someone might trump an early heart with the spade ten. Still, this is a pretty good plan.

(4) Where are the trumps? Almost certainly with West, who opened the bidding, and doubled five spades. So West will have the trump king, and might have all three trumps. That suggests another plan: Win the club ace, play a heart to the king, and take a trump finesse, before throwing clubs on the hearts.

Which plan is better? Don’t know, and don’t care. If you choose one, you got it right.

At the table, declarer won the ace of clubs, cashed the spade ace, crossed to the king of hearts, and couldn’t get to those good hearts quickly. So declarer led another trump.

Let’s look at this from West’s perspective:

The play had gone:  Club ten to the ace, as partner dropped the eight, standard carding.  Spade ace, heart to the king (seven from partner), and another trump.  On this, partner showed out, discarding the diamond seven. 

 

Since partner showed out on the second spade, you can count declarer for a six card spade suit. What else do you know?

(1) In particular, how many tricks will declarer take? How do we get at least three tricks?

You can count five spade winners, four hearts, and the ace of clubs. Eventually, declarer will likely trump a diamond in dummy, for eleven. So, to beat the contract, Partner needs the king of clubs, and must get in to cash it.

(2) Can we get partner in? Maybe, if partner is kind enough to hold the diamond jack. There is only one hope to set the hand. We have to lead a low diamond to partner’s hoped for jack, and let partner cash the club king. This is a defense that is so hard, and so spectacular, that I wouldn’t expect anyone to find it at the table, but Ruth Ng dutifully led a diamond to her partner’s jack, and set five spades. WOW! If you guys keep making plays like that, then you won’t need me.

Here is the full hand.  Click on the next button to follow the play to its spectacular conclusion.

 

The other hand I want to discuss came up last week: Consider this as a play problem.

 

You opened one heart, it went double on your left, partner raised to two hearts, and you bid four. Maybe you overbid, but here you are in four hearts, and I want you to form a PLAN. West leads the club ace, and East encourages with the six (upside down). West continues with the club king, which you ruff. So, how might the cards lie to let you win ten tricks?

This is quite complex, as there are a number of possibilities. I’ll try to list them. So long as you choose one, and go for it, I’m happy.

            Make a plan, and don’t make any nullo plays.

Here are the possibilities, as I see them.

(1) You might make if both the trump king and diamond ace are onside. To finesse in both hearts and diamonds, you will need three dummy entries, which looks hard. Here is a layout where you can succeed:

 

 

To make here, cross to the spade ace, play a trump to the queen, cash the ace of trumps, back to dummy with the trump nine for a diamond play, over to the spade king, diamond. I don’t consider this very likely. In particular, that is an awfully good hand with East, a hand that would probably bid over two hearts (with a responsive double). Still, it is a plan.

(2) You might decide to play for the diamond ace onside, and figure that means the heart king has to be offside. You could play for this layout:

 

 

and lay down the trump ace! Again, long odds, but a plan nonetheless.

(3) Rather than play for trumps two-two, you could hope that East has the heart king and a doubleton diamond ace. Maybe this layout:

 

 

Trump the club, cross to the spade ace, run the heart nine, finesse again in trumps, back to dummy, diamond to the king, and a small diamond.

To me, this layout is nearly impossible. I can’t imagine passing over two hearts with the East hand. Still, it is a plan! By the way, you can combine chances (1) and (3) with good technique. Declarer should preserve the low hearts for dummy entries, and trump the second club with the ten. This will allow you to play for (3), but get back to dummy with the seven of hearts if trumps are two-two.

There is a fourth, subtler possibility.

(4) You could play for the cards to look like this:

 

Here, the hand can be made on an endplay. Cross in spades to lead the nine of hearts, and pick up trumps. Then exit with the king of diamonds. West will win and exit, and you run off your red suit winners. Here will be the position late in the day:

 

You lead your last heart, and West is stuck. If West throws a spade, you can win two spade tricks. If, instead, West throws a diamond, you get out with the diamond five, and win a spade finesse. For aficionados, this is called a strip-squeeze.  You can click on the next button above to follow the full play. 

Let’s modify the hand a bit:

Here, the defense can prevail, if they maneuver for East to win a late diamond with the ten. That would be excellent defense.

My personal choice would be to try for this option four, but again, I don’t care. So long as you pick a plan and go for it, I’m happy.