May 20, 2013 – Bridge Cliches

Two hands to discuss this week, a declarer play problem and a defensive problem.  Let’s start with the declarer play hand, board 11, one which is very, very tricky.

With no one vulnerable, the auction went:

West led the spade queen.  Plan out your play.

There is only one loser off the top – the diamond ace.  We have a potential loser in clubs, a third round of spades to worry about, and possible trump losers.  Counting winners – once we knock out the diamond ace, we have three diamond tricks, so long as we still have an entry to the table.  Add to that two spades and one club, and we need only four trump tricks to get home. 

At one table, declarer won the spade lead, and cashed the heart ace and king.  With trumps 3-2, this meant ten easy winners.  In fact, the heart queen came down, so South drew the last trump and knocked out the diamond ace, for an overtrick.  Here was the full hand:

  
The danger, however, is that hearts might not split.  Let’s swap around the heart and club queen:

   
On this layout, not all that unlikely on the bidding, declarer would have to go down.  Is there any way to guard against this?  Declarer could survive here by playing heart ace, heart jack, planning to pass the jack.  That would fail dismally on the actual layout, as West would win the queen and play another spade, knocking out the entry to the long diamond (though East would have to follow up this good defense and duck the first two rounds of diamonds).  Follow the play below via the next button:

This is incredibly tricky.  Declarer needs to cater to a foul trump split, and yet might need the trump ace as an entry to the long diamond.  The best line of play, and it is very, very hard to find, is to win the spade and pass the heart jack at trick two.

 
This sort of play is known as a backward finesse.  Consider this simple suit:

If we lead to the king, and then back to the jack, we will win an extra trick if West has the heart queen, a normal finesse.  In contrast, some beginners try leading the heart jack first, and running it.  That will gain an extra trick if East has the heart queen, but fails to cover the jack.  So, this backwards finesse is quite poor – it needs the correct hand to hold the heart queen, and a bad defense. 
This brings us to the first of this week’s bridge clichés:

           Cover an honor with an honor.

If East will cover the heart jack with the queen, covering an honor with an honor, then that backward finesse can never win.  That makes it – you guessed it, a nullo play. 

A better formulation of the bridge cliché is this:

           Cover the last of touching honors with your honor.

Consider these layouts: 

Declarer starts by leading the queen from the table, and will win three tricks in the suit unless East covers with the king.
Next:

Here, North starts with the queen.  If East plays the king, South wins and finesses for the ten coming back – three tricks.  So East should not cover the queen.  When North continues with the jack, East must cover to set up a defensive winner.

Finally:

Here, declarer is entitled to two tricks in the suit, but will take three if East covers the first or second lead from dummy. 

On board 11, the hearts were much stronger, we had the 9,8,7, and we only needed four heart tricks for our contract.  Furthermore, the preempt suggested that East might often hold strong hearts.  All of these factors helped make the weird finesse a reasonable play.  Usually, even if we decide to try such a play, we should cash the ace first.  Here, if the finesse loses, we will need that trump ace to get to our diamonds, and so had to preserve that card. 

When hearts are bad, East will probably cover, but you win the king and shift to diamonds, with ten tricks quite secure.  On the actual layout, the heart jack would lose to a doubleton queen, which seems pretty bad.  West does best to continue spades, but you play a second trump to the king, and shift to diamonds.  Alternatively, West could shift to clubs, but you draw trumps and knock out the diamond ace, with a spade entry to the long diamond. 

This strange play looks to land the contract whenever trumps are 3-2, or when East has four to the queen.  If the heart loses to a singleton queen, then it is not your day.

I saw this play, and figured that it was too advanced to even mention, but then, I looked at the other table, where Ellie played exactly that way.  Well done! 

The second problem hand was board 4, another exercise in counting.

             
With both sides vulnerable, South opened 1NT and played there.  You, West, lead your fourth best diamond four.  First questions for you:

1. How many points will declarer hold?
2.  How many points will partner hold?

#1 is easy – 1NT showed 15-17.  That makes 2 pretty easy also.  You can see five points in dummy, and ten in your hand.  Add 15-17 to that, and you get 30-32.  That leaves partner with 8-10 points (AHA.  In case you didn’t know, there are forty points in the deck!).

At trick one, partner plays the diamond queen and declarer wins the ace.  Two more questions for you:

1. Who has the diamond jack?
2.   How do you hope to win seven tricks and set one notrump?

As I mentioned last week, third hand will usually play high, but play the lower of two touching honors.  From QJ3, you would play the jack, not the queen.  From KQ3, you play the queen.  You also play the queen from Q3, or from Q73.  So, when partner plays the queen, that denies the jack and you can put that in declarer’s hand.

Still, if partner can ever get the lead and play a diamond through, you will win your king and ten, and two more diamond tricks.  So, you have very good chances of winning four diamond tricks and two hearts.  All you need is one measly trick from partner, and another diamond over there.  Since partner has 8-10 points, prospects look very good.

Continuing on, declarer plays a spade to dummy’s king (four from partner, standard count), and a club to the king, as partner plays the six.  Next come the spade ace, spade queen, and the high spade nine, as partner follows with the spade eight and spade jack.  You have to discard twice.  What are your discards?

Again, we have to count.  Repeat after me – COUNT, COUNT, COUNT.  That spade is the sixth trick for declarer, so we need the rest.  Partner had better hold the club ace, or we have no chance.  Counting points, declarer has the spade AQ, the diamond A, club K, and, by inference, the diamond J.  14 points.  The club ace would make 18, too much, so partner has that card.  Good.  We should be able to win four diamonds, two hearts, and that ace of clubs.  Can anything go wrong? 

Probably not, but, at one table, West threw a club and a diamond, and suddenly our seven winners were only six.  West did better at the other table, and discarded both clubs.  But now, South could lead a heart and set up the queen for a seventh trick.  Even worse, West could no longer get to partner’s hand for a diamond lead through the jack. 

There are a number of adages in bridge, sayings like second hand low and third hand high, that turn out to be useful tips on many hands.  Here is a useful discarding adage – throw losers and save winners.  The diamonds were potential winners.  Don’t discard one.  We have a club coming, so don’t discard your last club.  The heart six, however, is useless, as is a second club. 
Here was the full hand:

Click on the next button to see how the defense should have gone.

We ran into a bunch of bridge clichés for the defenders this week.  All of these are useful, and worth following unless you can find a reason to do otherwise.  Cliches should never replace thinking, and counting.  The clichés:

1.   Cover the last of touching honors with your honor.
2. Second hand low.
3.  Third hand high, but follow with the lowest of equal cards.
4. Save winners, throw losers. 

See you next week.