May 27, 2013

Last night, our group played mostly at two different tables, with very little overlap in the hands played.  That’s too bad, since it is fun to see how a hand was handled more than once.   In general, the play at one table was excellent, but, unfortunately, the play at the other table was poor.  Oh well, that happens.

There was only one common hand, and it was quite interesting, so I will spend a lot of time with that, but first, I want to look at the fiasco that was board 2 at one table:

With E-W vulnerable, the bidding went,

There is quite a lot to discuss about the bidding in this hand, and I will leave most of that to Stan.  One key point, however, has to be emphasized.  South’s 1NT call was a limited bid, showing at most about ten points.  North, with a minimum balanced opening, had no reason to consider bidding a game.  Three clubs was a fine spot, and might have been set, but only if the defense collects all of their ruffs.  So North should have passed three clubs.

Anyway, here you are in three notrump, doubled to boot.  West leads the spade eight.  No sense worrying about the auction now – your job is to take nine tricks.  How will you do that?

Counting our potential tricks – we can hope to win five club tricks, and, once we knock out the heart ace, we will take two heart tricks.  That’s seven, so two spade tricks will see us home.  We will need to get lucky in spades, but there is hope.  This spade holding is common, and is always tricky.  With three key honors missing, the A, Q, and ten, there are two obvious ways to develop two spade tricks.

1.  We can hope that West has the queen and the ten, and play the nine from the table, or
2.  We can hope that West has the queen and the ace, and play the jack from dummy. 

The layouts we hope for are either

or

These are the two main chances.  There is one other, fairly obscure possibility.  The suit might look like this:

In this layout, the winning play is the spade king.  That could work, but rarely.  Most of the time, if we play the king, we will win only one trick in the suit, and give up our last stopper.  At the table, declarer played the king at trick one, which held the trick, but the defense got in and cashed their two aces and bunches and bunches of spades tricks. 

Okay, which play was right?  There is a huge clue, that I mentioned, if only briefly.  See if you can remember it.  What was the opening lead?

West, leading fourth best leads, led the spade eight.  Would you lead the spade eight from any of the holdings above?  No!  You would lead the five. 

                  The Rule of Eleven

If your opponents, or your partner, lead fourth best, you can subtract the card led from eleven to figure out how many cards above that spot are out.  Huh?  Here, subtract eight from eleven, and we get three.  There will be three cards higher than the eight in the other three hands.  We can see three higher cards, the king, jack, and nine.  So East cannot hold a card that will beat the nine, and we can play the nine or jack with total confidence. 

This was the full hand:

 

Had declarer correctly played either the spade jack or spade nine at trick one, that would have won the trick.  Next comes the heart queen.  We’ll lead up to the spade king after setting up our heart tricks, and take at least nine tricks.  3NT, doubled, made.  Nice. 

The common board was board 6, rotated to make South the declarer.  At one table, South opened 1NT and played there, with the six of spades lead:

 

North put up the spade ten, which held the trick.  Plan the subsequent play.

As usual, let’s go through a checklist of key questions.

 

1. How many winners do we have?
2. How many losers?
3. How are we fixed for stoppers?
4. Where will we develop seven tricks?
5.  Can we develop seven tricks before they develop seven tricks?

Taking these in order:

 

1. Four.  One spade, one heart, and two diamonds.
2.  Two spades look to be ready to cash, and they have the ace of clubs, so only three losers right away.
3. Our two weak suits are spades and diamonds.  We have two sure diamond stoppers, and, since West appears to hold all the spade honors, one more spade stopper.
4.  We could develop either hearts or clubs.  We can get one more heart trick quite quickly, but we need three more tricks for our contract.  Hearts probably won’t generate three more tricks.  Clubs, however, will certainly yield three more tricks, even if we lose to both the queen and the ace of clubs. 
5.  Yes, so long as we play on clubs.  If we start on hearts, and lose a heart trick, the defenders might attack diamonds.  Once they knock out our two diamond stoppers, we are in trouble, since they will have two spade tricks, at least two diamond tricks, a heart trick, and one or two club winners. 

So, we should attack clubs.  Here was the full hand:

With the clubs so friendly, this will yield at least eight winners.  At the table, declarer tried the heart queen next, risking the contract had that finesse lost.  Once it won, switching back to clubs would now land nine tricks.  But no, North continued with the heart jack, covered and won with the ace (nice play not covering the first heart honor – remember the rule from last week?).  Still time to switch to clubs.  Nope, declarer drove out the heart ten, and East switched to diamonds, dooming the contract.  You can follow the play as it occurred by hitting the next button above.

Only an initial diamond lead would set 1NT, and then, only if East is sharp enough not to play the diamond queen at trick one.  That seems like fantasy, though.  Why would West ever lead a diamond?  Why indeed … watch!

South has an interesting bidding problem.  Opening 1NT is certainly acceptable, even though it is not really a balanced hand.  Personally, I think this hand is good enough to start with a 1C opening, planning on rebidding 2H if partner responds with 1S.  Either choice is reasonable, and South at the other table opted to open 1C.  Their auction went, with N-S vulnerable:

It would never occur to me to double one club with that West hand.  True, you have ten points and support for every suit, so a takeout double is within range, but this hand is too weak and shapeless for my tastes.  Be that as it may, the takeout double got diamonds into play, and so West here led the diamond four.  Good start!

Cole, declarer, made a truly fine play, and called for the jack from dummy, trying to coax East into covering.  Sure enough, East put up the diamond queen, and suddenly two diamond stoppers were now three, and the contract rolled home.  Nice play! 

To set 2NT, East had to withhold the diamond queen, preferably encouraging a diamond continuation.  Should East work that out?

OK, put yourself in the East seat.  What do you know? 

 

1.  Partner should have at least three diamonds, given the takeout double.
2. Declarer is likely balanced, and will certainly have a diamond stopper.  So partner rates to have three diamonds, and declarer two, with at least one diamond honor. 

Let’s consider possible suit combinations:

1.

  

2.

3.

In 1, declarer is entitled to only one diamond trick, but will take two if East covers.  So East should not cover here.  In 2, once partner leads the suit, N-S will win two diamond tricks.  Playing the queen gains a tempo, but not a trick, and the queen could easily turn out to be our entry to run the diamonds, so ducking might break even, and it might gain an entry (but cost a tempo).  In 3, the actual layout, ducking holds declarer to two tricks. 

So, once you reason it out, East should not play the queen.  West could have helped, by leading the diamond five, rather than the four.  Anytime you have told partner that you have length in the suit, leading top of nothing will help clarify the honors, and tends to be the best lead. 

Playing a high diamond from dummy at trick one with

was an excellent play.  Maneuvers like this are common, and a good declarer will try to play creatively from dummy.  Here is another position:

Against a notrump contract, West leads the diamond four.  The card played from dummy does not really matter, but …  If North plays low, East will play the jack, and South will win.  At this point, West knows that South has the nine (East would play the nine from J9, not the jack).  So West will avoid leading that suit again.  Now suppose North plays the ten at trick one.  East will cover with the jack, but, if West gains the lead, West will not know who holds the nine, and may continue the suit, giving declarer an extra diamond trick.  Tricky!

On board 13 Sunday, at one table, Brandon was in a notrump partial, with this club suit around the table:

Evan, West, led the club three, and Brandon played the ten from the table, to the jack and queen.  Two tricks later, Evan won the diamond ace, and continued with the club two, figuring his partner for the nine.  So Brandon took three club winners, without ever losing a club trick, and landed a couple of overtricks.  Nice play.

Here is an old classic – when I first saw this hand, I knew that I had to become a bridge player:

 

In a team game, both South’s ended up in six spades.  One West led the club ace, giving declarer a second club trick for eight spades, two clubs, and two aces.  +980.  At the other table, West tried the diamond jack opening lead.  This seems like a much better start for the defense, but declarer still got home.  Do you see how?

Trick one went diamond jack, queen(!), king, ace.  At trick two, South took a heart finesse.  Do you blame East for winning and shooting back a diamond? 

I particularly like the fact that declarer took the heart finesse before drawing trumps, thus depriving West the opportunity to signal vehemently, and violently, for a club shift.