July 7, 2013

The play has been pretty strong for a couple of weeks, so we were due for a letdown, and so it was.  The play was quite off last night.  That might be because of the unfamiliar board-a-match format, or the head up competition, but our squad got killed, and earned most of the losses. 
I will look more closely at two boards this week.  The first was board five, lost in the bidding.  With North-South vulnerable, these were the cards:

 

When we sat East-West, the auction was:

At the other table, the bidding went:

Three hearts, in the three-four fit was a poor contract with virtually no chance.  Two spades was reasonable, but doomed to fail with the bad trump split, so our squad went minus in both rooms.  However, as usual, there were chances in the play.

Against two spades, West led the diamond queen, covered and won with the ace.  East returned the diamond seven, suit-preferencing for hearts.  South won the diamond and led a low trump to the jack.  Obviously West must win with the king, or else North will gain the lead and throw heart losers on the good diamonds.  But West ducked, and now the contract was cold.  Cold?  Not so fast.  In dummy with the trump jack, declarer called for a club, rather than a diamond.  The defense made no more errors, cashing both hearts before reverting to diamonds.

In the other room, three hearts was much too high, but, particularly at board-a-match, holding the loss to a small minus could easily win the board.  Since South should have been +110 at the other table, down one or two would be just fine. 

South started with the diamond jack.  The king was probably offside, but I would put up the queen anyway.  It can’t hurt, and if the queen holds, the contract might actually make.  Obviously a trump suit like 10xxx opposite AKx is pretty shabby, but declarer has one very big advantage here.  What is that?

Only East knows how bad a fit there is.  Both defenders will think that East holds four hearts, and won’t recognize the trump weakness.  In particular, South will almost never lead a trump from a holding like this, with the queen, so, if North doesn’t gain the lead too quickly, declarer can hope to win a diamond, club, spade, and trump a spade in hand and a couple of diamonds in dummy.  That’s six tricks, and the heart ace and king make eight.  That looks like a fine goal on this hand.

So, East should win the diamond ace (no sense letting in North too quickly) and lead the spade.  South will go up with the spade ace, cash the diamond, and then?  Even though the spade king won’t live, it feels as though declarer will end up with eight tricks.  Here is one way the play might go:

Now, let’s turn to board 1.  This was another partscore hand, with the search for a ninth trick.  Our declarer was in three hearts, so that ninth trick meant the contract.  Since good defense held two hearts to two at the other table, a full board swung on that trick.
View it from declarer’s perspective:

South opened three hearts, and bought the contract.  West led the club five (fourth best).  East played the king, ace, and four of clubs, as you trump.  Time for some counting:

 

1.  For winners – you have six sure heart tricks, the diamond ace, and a spade trick.  You need one more.
2. For losers – you have lost two clubs, and two more aces will score.  You also have three low spades opposite the KQ, for another potential loser. 
3. There are two obvious ways to generate a ninth trick, and both involve finesses.  You can try a diamond finesse, or a spade finesse, leading twice toward the king-queen.

Unfortunately, it seems like you’ll have to commit to one finesse or the other.  If you try a losing diamond finesse, the defense has five winners.  A losing spade finesse won’t be immediately fatal, but the defense can win and return the suit, leaving us on dummy with no way back to hand to try the diamond finesse.  So, it feels like we have to choose.  Is there any way to improve our odds?

Yes, a little.  If you opt for the spade finesse, then it costs nothing to start with a diamond to the ace, and a diamond ruff, before playing trumps.  Maybe the full hand will look like this:

Here, the diamond finesse was the winner, not the spade finesse, but the diamond king will drop on the next round, and you will set up the ninth trick without any finesse (follow the play above). 

This is the best theoretical line of play, but I actually prefer the psychological ploy – leading a spade before touching trumps.  This will usually work when the spade ace is onside, though, on occasion, you may run into a spade ruff.  If will also give you some chances to try a diamond finesse should the spade king lose to the ace. 

At the table, our declarer chose this line, and led a spade to the king and ace.  A trump came back.  Back to you – how should the play continue?

We need to get to hand to take the diamond finesse, and to do that, we must put up a big heart, either the jack or the king.  That way, we will have a certain quick entry to hand to try the diamond finesse.  If we play low instead, West might also play low, then win the next heart and lead a spade. 
In practice, South played low from hand, an error, but West won the ace and continued hearts, making the hand easy.  All South had to do was overtake the heart queen, draw the last trump, and take a diamond finesse, but declarer won the second trump on dummy, and couldn’t get back to hand!  Not good. 
Here was the full hand:

  

The defense lost their way here.  After a spade to the king and ace, East could see that the diamond finesse would work.  South was marked with seven hearts and had shown up with two clubs.  If South was 2-7-2-2 (or 1-7-3-2), no defense would matter.  With the actual distribution, it was crucial to set up a second spade trick before South got back to hand.  So East should have played another spade.  That would set the hand. 

Still, that might not be good enough.  Suppose this were the layout:

 
After the spade lost, South needs a red suit finesse.  But East has shown up with quite a lot already, yet never bid, so the kings rate to be with West.  If East returns a spade, I think South should call for the heart queen from the table, but play the ace when East doesn’t cover, and bank on the diamond finesse. 

Could East set the hand on this layout?  Not really, but, if East played low on the spade king, with complete indifference, declarer will almost certainly finesse in trumps.  Remember, South had a choice of finesses to try, and chose to try spades.  If the king wins, declarer will figure, “great, I guessed the right finesse.”  South will probably utter something a little different when that finesse fails the second time. 

A while back, I mentioned how holding up on a stopper, on defense, can make declarer’s communications awkward.  Here is another twist on that.  Sometimes holding up a stopper, like the spade ace here, can mislead declarer into thinking a losing finesse is working.  It is truly great fun when a declarer has two paths, one working and the other failing, and you can convince them to choose the losing path. 

The defense was very sharp at the other table, but the bidding quite poor.  The auction went:

I hate opening that South hand with a weak two-bid.  If you bid two hearts on that hand, and also on

then you give your opponents too much room if it is their hand, and you make it too hard for partner to judge when it is your hand. 

     A good six card suit is a two-bid.  A good seven card suit is a three-bid.  Eight-baggers open four.

Then we come to East.  12 high-card points, support for every suit, and a singleton in hearts, is a clear take-out double.  A double would have gotten them to either two notrump or three clubs, both contracts making easily.

On defense, the play also started with clubs.  Declarer trumped the third club, and played trumps.  West won the second round and shifted to spades.  East won the king and returned the suit, setting up a fifth trick, and locking declarer on dummy.  Nicely done.  That neat defense, coupled with sharper play at the other table should have won this board.