May 13, 2013

Last week, I talked suit combinations, including restricted choice inferences.  Incredibly enough, the same theme showed up last night.  It was like the card gods dealt out lesson hands. 

Board 2 featured a key suit virtually identical to one I highlighted last week.  We’ll get back to that, but first, I want to focus on board one:

  
The bidding, with no one vulnerable, went:

I don’t normally comment on the bidding, but this one is worth discussing.  The North hand is very hard to evaluate.  If the diamonds are friendly, that suit will produce at least six winners.  Add that to two aces, and the hand has eight winners.  South will certainly have something, so 3NT looks like a good shot.

On the other hand, if the suit does not produce so many winners, then the defense will probably get their own suits set up, and 2NT will fail.  In that case, you will do much better playing in a diamond partial.  Basically, over 2NT, North has two options, and the choice is close – an aggressive raise to 3NT, or a conservative retreat to three diamonds.  Passing 2NT was a very poor move.  Take a look at the two hands.  Three diamonds looks very easy to make.  Playing in notrump, we have only one club stopper, and not much more than one spade stopper.  We will probably take nine or ten tricks if the diamonds are very friendly – diamonds two-two with the ace onside, but even 2NT will be a real struggle if the diamonds aren’t so wonderfully situated. 

     Hands with very long suits should almost never play in two notrump!

3NT may be a reasonable gamble.  Otherwise, play in your suit. 

Back to the play.  West leads the heart jack against your 2NT contract.  What is your plan to win eight tricks?

Counting our winners, we have one spade trick, one club trick, and three heart winners, for five, with virtually no chance of developing another trick in any of those suits.  So, we must set up diamond winners to have any chance. 

At the table, declarer won the heart ace, crossed to the heart king and led a diamond, and West hopped up with the ace.  Good start!  But then the roof fell in.  What do you think happened next? 

West shifted to the king of spades, attacking the only other entry to those diamonds.  Nice shift.  When diamonds turned out to be 3-1, North could only win one diamond trick.  All those good diamonds were now useless.

Here was the full hand:

To keep the diamonds in the game, South had to win the first heart in hand, keeping the ace of hearts on dummy as an entry to the diamonds.  Notice, with

                                                               
it is usually correct to win the first trick with the ace (honor from the short side is a good guideline).  Winning with the king or queen first blocks the suit.  If the defense finds a club shift, South will never get a third heart trick.  Here, declarer saved the extra heart winner, but cost four diamond winners.  Not a prudent investment.

The hand is still not over.  Suppose declarer had correctly won the first heart in hand and led a diamond up.  Let’s look at the hand from West’s position, in with the ace of diamonds:

What should West play?  A club shift would set the contract, but a spade shift would not.  Should West find the right shift?  I think so.  Here are the reasons for a club shift:

1.    The diamonds might be ready to run – we can’t be sure that South doesn’t hold three diamonds.  In that case, we have to run the club suit to set two notrump.  Nothing else would help.
2.     Setting up spades seems to give us only three more tricks.  A spade shift requires partner to stop diamonds, and hold the club ace. 
3.  Partner is marked with some values (since South is a passed hand), yet didn’t raise hearts or double two diamonds.  Most likely, partner has fewer than three hearts and fewer than four spades, making long clubs a very good possibility.
4.  If we guess wrong, and shift to clubs on this type of layout –

partner could still set the hand by winning the ace of clubs and shifting to spades.  That’s not likely, but  … (Note: East might find that defense if West shifts to the club queen, not the club three.  Shifting to the club queen would also help East holding, say, A10932 in clubs.   Stuff like this, however, is beyond our pay-grade. )

Oddly enough, attacking spades is a much more attractive defense against three notrump, where only three spades tricks might be enough to set the hand.  A spade shift works whenever partner has a diamond stopper and the spade jack, or any four spades.  This is a very unusual hand, one where two notrump should go down, but three notrump might well make!

On to the next board.  Last week, I discussed the play of this club suit:

                                      
needing five winners.  There are two approaches.  We can lay down the ace first, and then finesse against West if East drops an honor on the first round, or we can go the other way, and start with the king, hoping for a two-two split, or for West to hold a singleton honor.  Choosing whether to start with the ace or king can be tricky.  Sure enough, along came board two

South was declaring three diamonds, after this auction, with East-West vulnerable:

 

West led the heart three, to the eight, jack, and your ace.  Before I get to the play, I have an odd request

            Write down West’ hand!   Think about it for five minutes, and then make your best guess.

That trump suit is virtually identical to the club suit from last week.  We can start with the ace or king, and finesse if an honor appears in the correct hand.  So, here is the big question:  Is East or West more likely to be short in diamonds?

That’s pretty easy, isn’t it.  West made a takeout double of diamonds, and so is short there.  We should lead a low diamond from hand to the ace, and run the ten next, if West produces the queen or the jack on the first round. 

Okay, what did you guess for West’s hand?  I wrote down this:

                AQx  Q10xx Q AQ10xx.

What did you write?  Here is the full hand:

How did you do?  How did I do?  I told you, bridge can sometimes look like magic, but it’s not.  It is always just careful counting and logical thought.  How did I guess so well?  Here was my reasoning:

 

1. East passed the opening bid.  We respond with six or more points, so East will have less than that.
2. West would certainly have led a club, holding either the ace and king, or the king and queen, yet I got a heart lead.  So East has the club king.
3. East also has the heart jack.  That’s four points.  Thus West has every other ace and queen.
4. Third hand normally plays the lowest of touching honors.  When East played the jack of hearts, East sent partner two messages – I might have the queen, but I don’t have the ten.  So I know West has the heart ten.
5. West doubled one diamond for takeout, so the queen is likely singleton.
6. West bid to three clubs over my two diamonds, so West rates to have at least five clubs.
7. East didn’t bid a major over the takeout double, so East probably doesn’t hold four of either major.  Since East has only four clubs, East must be exactly 3-3-3-4!

Voila.  I guessed wrong about the club ten.  Sorry.

At the table, declarer led the diamond king at trick two, and could no longer pick up the trump suit.  Was there any way to recover from that play?

No, but maybe.  The best try after the diamond king was to lead a club next, planning on trumping both clubs in hand.  The play would continue with a heart to the king, club ruff, diamond to the ace, club ruff, and a heart exit.  Follow the play with the next button to get to the ending, with West on lead. 

You’ve lost two tricks, and must certainly lose a trick to the spade ace and the high trump:

What should West play next? 

If West tries a low spade, South can win both the spade jack, and the spade king.  If West tries the spade ace first, no subsequent defense will help.  West can set the hand in one of two ways:

1.  West can get out with the spade queen.  The king will win, but, since partner holds both the spade ten and nine, the defense still gets two spade tricks.
2. Better yet, West can play a club (or heart).  This let’s North trump, as South dislodges one of the spade losers.  That looks bad, but North is stuck on lead and must lead a spade from the king, so West wins two spade tricks anyway.

So declarer can’t recover after leading the wrong trump at trick two, but South can try.  Defenders don’t always find the killing play.  Give them a little rope …

This line of play – eliminating the clubs and putting West in is worth remembering.  Let’s swap around two nines, and have the hand look like this:

Now there is a diamond loser no matter how we tackle the suit, yet three diamonds can still be made after a low heart lead.  How?  Think about it.  Then, you can follow a winning line of play through the first seven tricks by using the next button above.  West is on lead, and has no way to wriggle out.  Play around and convince yourself that the hand can’t be set.