January 28, 2014

I like to focus on card play, and Monday’s team game had enough interesting material to keep me writing for weeks.  At our table, East-West had much the better of it, and finished up 39 IMPs.  Change the play slightly on two back-to-back boards and the lead would have been cut to four!  With so much riding on those two hands, I’ll concentrate on those alone.  We’ll look at each from declarer’s perspective, but the defense had intriguing chances on both hands.
Here was board five (rotated to make South the declarer):

At favorable vulnerability, the bidding went:

West led the heart two, to the eight, jack, and your ace.  Interesting.  We have only 20 high card points, and West appears to have a fit for partner, yet passed over one spade.  It looks like East will have most of the missing points.  Anyway, plan out the play.

There are three top losers, two diamonds, and a club.  We’ll probably need the club ace onside, but that is likely.  Still, three losers doesn’t mean ten winners.  To make our contract, we will have to get rid of our hearts, either ruffing them on the table, or setting up diamonds.  So, there seem to be two routes home:

 

1. Try to trump all three hearts in dummy, or
2.  Try to establish and run the diamonds.

Let’s project out the play if we go after hearts.  We ruff a heart, club to the king, heart ruff, and then?  We will have to enter hand with a high trump to ruff the last heart, and then get back to hand to draw trumps.  We’ll have left the AQ43 in trumps, and East will gain the lead to play a high heart through.  It looks like we will have to trump high and hope trumps split.  Line 1 seems to need a two-two trump split.

Okay, what if we go after diamonds?  We can lose two diamonds, and trump a diamond.  The only entries back to dummy to run the diamonds are in trumps.  In the mean-time, the defense can win each diamond and force dummy in hearts.  That will leave only two trumps in dummy when we establish the diamonds.  So, again, line 2 seems to need trumps splitting two-two.  Rats.  Both lines need a friendly trump split.  So, which is better?

Hands like these are a bit strange.  It is almost always right to start on dummy’s suit.  Here, trumping all three hearts in dummy was hard, because of entry problems.  We would have to use our club entry, and a high trump, threatening a trump promotion.  Setting up diamonds runs into problems if the opponents force dummy twice in hearts.  But, if they choose to tap dummy, they solve our entry problems for line 1. 

Let’s check:  Give up a diamond, ruff the heart return, give up a diamond, ruff the next heart.  Now change gears and lead a club.  We can trump the fourth heart and easily draw trumps.  So, threatening to establish diamonds forces them to help us ruff all our hearts!

This was the full hand:

You can follow how the play might develop if Declarer goes after diamonds.

At the table, declarer opted for line 1.  Heart ace, heart ruff, club.  East rose with the ace and played a trump.  Declarer won in hand, trumped a heart, club king, heart ruff.  This left:

Stuck in dummy, North exited a diamond.  The defense can win two diamonds and then play the heart king (or a third diamond) and promote the trump nine.  On the diamond, though, East rose with the ace.  That was still all right, heart king, and if South discards a diamond, so does West.  But East played another diamond, and the wrong hand won the second round. 

At the other table, West started with the diamond king opening lead.  That made it very easy to establish diamonds, so four spades made without a struggle, for a push.  Better defense would have netted 10 IMPs.  But a stronger line of play wouldn’t have given the defense this chance.

On the previous board 4, one side bid to a thin, but makeable slam.  25 IMPs hinged on the play. 

The bidding, with both sides vulnerable:

  

The bidding was quite strange.  I don’t know why South bid three diamonds, the worst of South’s suits.  With minors opposite majors, it might well be right to bid 3NT over the reverse, but a void in partner’s primary suit is never much of an asset in 3NT.  I would bid 2NT, and raise if partner bid 3 of either minor, or 3 spades.   Four diamonds was explained by North as key-card for diamonds.  Maybe South didn’t read it as such, or maybe five diamonds was trying to show two key-cards and a void. 
The bidding no longer matters.  You can take over and try to make the slam.  West leads the three of clubs, and East plays the six under dummy’s king – fourth best leads, standard count and attitude.  Think about how you would play the hand.

At the table, South played the club two, and called for the diamond jack, nine, two, ace.  Back came the spade seven.  What now?

By the way, declarer has already made an error.  What was that error?

Back to trick one.  Obviously the slam has no hope if there are two trump losers, so let’s assume that trumps are three-two for the moment.  We will then take four trump tricks, two clubs, four hearts, and the spade ace.  That’s eleven tricks.  There are many possible chances for an extra trick:

 

1. The spade finesse.  That is simple, and may be your best chance.
2. Hearts might run.  That will need 4-4 hearts, or the ten and nine in the short heart hand – about a 38% shot.  Not as good as the spade finesse.
3. You might be able to combine these two plays, by ending on dummy when you draw trumps.  Then you can test hearts, with the spade finesse in reserve.  In particular, if East holds the ace of trumps, East can’t force you to decide which option will work. 
4. You might generate trick twelve with a club ruff in dummy.  Unfortunately, I don’t see any way to go back and forth and collect all your tricks.  This option looks pretty futile.
5. You might forget about winning tricks in dummy and set up your clubs.  It looks as though West has three or four clubs to the queen.  Maybe you can throw away two spades, and finesse West for the club queen.  That is a very attractive option, but again there are entry problems.  Heart ace and king, heart ruff, club jack, which holds, club ruff, trumps.  If West has the trump ace, a fourth club will cost you another trump trick.  So, here, too, we may need East to hold the trump ace. 

I said I would assume that trumps are three-two.  Can we handle any four-one trumps splits? 

Yes, if East has the singleton ace.  If we are going for option 1 or 3, we could lead a low trump from dummy at trick two.  East’s ace would catch air, and then, when we find out trumps are 4-1, we give up on hearts, trump a heart to hand, draw the last trump, cash our club ace, and finesse in spades. 

Aha.  So that was the error.  Declarer should have led a low trump, not the jack, at trick two.  Right? 

Maybe, but I like the play chosen.  If we didn’t have option five in the game, it would be best to lead a low trump, but option five is very much alive if someone has a doubleton ace of trumps.  So, I agree with the trump play.  But then, what possible thing did declarer do wrong?

Well, when West led the club three, fourth best, East knew that West held four or five clubs, and that declarer held four or five clubs.  Once East sees the club two, the count is clear.  South should have concealed the club two, and played the four at trick one.  This type of deception is very unlikely to matter, but should be automatic.  If the lead is ambiguous, don’t clear it up for the defenders until you have to.  Make their life hard, not easy. 

Back to the problem at the table.  West, not East had the trump ace, and meanly led a spade, forcing you to choose among your options.  The finesse is 50-50.  Do you take it?  Drawing trumps, ending on the table, and hoping the hearts run is another option, but less than 50-50.  Still, that might be right.  Do you go for that?  How about option five?  Let’s see – spade ace, trump queen, two top hearts, throwing spades, spade ruff, club jack.  Club ruff, heart ruff to hand, trump king.  Yes, that might well work.  Do you go for that?

In fact, there is one more option,

     option 6.  Maybe East has the long trump. 

Do you see how that might help? 

You could win the spade ace, cash the trump queen, and start on hearts.  If East follows to four rounds, throw two spades and two clubs.  Then trump a spade, trump a club, spade ruff, claim.  If East trumps an earlier heart, over-ruff and try the ruffing club finesse. 

So many options.  Choose one!

Here was the full hand:

So, as you can see, both options 5 and 6 would work.  Neither the spade finesse, nor option 2, favorable hearts (which our declarer tried) would succeed.
Here is an obvious truism:

       The trump ace is the most important card in the deck.

On defense, players don’t, and shouldn’t surrender the trump ace quickly.  When West won the trump at trick two, my immediate take was that West was short in trumps, so I would go for option 6. 

West ignored my truism and grabbed the trump too quickly.  What would have happened had the trump jack held?  Declarer would almost certainly continue with a low trump to the king and ace, hoping that East held the trump ace, aiming at option 3.  This would effectively kill option 5 (or 6).  The hand could still be made, double-dummy, but I would certainly go down on this layout if West withheld the trump ace.