March 5, 2014

Two hands from Sunday appealed to me.  Board 1 involved tricky decisions in the bidding and play.  These are subtle enough that I am still not sure what is best, and I have stared at the hand for some time.  The other hand was Board 8, where the best move was clearer.  We will start with that:  With no one vulnerable, you hold, as West.

The auction goes:

What is your opening lead? 

Well, South has four hearts, at least four clubs, and not many diamonds.  North would have raised clubs earlier with length, so North probably has only three clubs and five, or more likely six diamonds.  That doesn’t leave a lot of major suit cards in the North hand, nor a lot of trumps to ruff major suit losers.  Since you seem to have diamonds locked up, declarer will need to trump some cards in dummy.  So a trump lead stands out. 

I gave this problem to my wife (who is also my favorite bridge partner).  She said, “There must be some trick to this, but I don’t care.  I am leading a trump anyway!” 

Trump leads are almost always right when:

1. Dummy will have only three trumps.
2.  Dummy will have ruffing values, and
3.  Dummy will not supply a source of tricks on the side.

All three of those elements are present, so lead a trump. 

At the table, our West led the diamond ace, to see:

The diamond fetched the six from partner (standard count and attitude) and the eight from declarer.  Two more questions for you:

 

1.   What is declarer’s shape?
2.  What do you play next?

Dummy is pretty close to what we pictured on opening lead, with a trump lead indicated.  Nothing has changed, so the answer to #2 is easy – lead a trump next.

Since our defense is indicated, the answer to #1 is not so important, but I want you to keep in practice.  Count, visualize, count, visualize, and then count some more!  South didn’t want to play in diamonds, so that eight is certainly a singleton.  Partner never supported spades, so South has (at least) four spades.  South bid clubs and hearts.  So South must be 4-4-1-4. 
Here was the full hand:

The contract is almost sure to go down, on virtually any defense  – South can only win three clubs, three hearts, one spade, and one ruff in dummy.  Well, there is one losing defense.  West shifted to a low spade at trick two, so South won the king, threw the other spade on the hearts, and cross-ruffed merrily.  When the smoke cleared, declarer had made ten tricks, +130. 

What do you think of South’s bidding?

Well, hearts might play better than diamonds, but that was pretty speculative.  South had quite a few tricks for partner, so diamonds should play quite well if North had a decent suit.  In fact, the suit was awful, but two diamonds would still make comfortably. 

On to the other hand, Board 1.  As South, in third seat, with no one vulnerable, you pick up:

After two passes, you open one spade, and partner responds with a natural 2NT.  So partner has a balanced 10 or 11 (or maybe a bad 12).  Your call? 

By the way, I hate a passed-hand 2NT call.  If my partner has enough to underwrite eight tricks in notrump opposite one of my third seat openers, then partner should have opened the bidding.  More to the point, the bid jams the auction.  What should South bid with a hand like AKxxx Qxxxx Qx x?  Pass?  That seems pretty silly – hearts will almost always play better than notrump.  Okay, how about a non-forcing  three heart call?  Then what should South bid with, say, AKxxx AKxx Kxx x? 

This last hand is quite complex – opposite a hand like Qx Qxx Jxx AQxx, we should be in 3NT.  Swap the minors around and notrump is awful.  There is no way to investigate if responder bids 2NT.  Compare that to the auction:

This is how you would bid if North were not a passed hand.  Why should you distort and cramp your auction with a jump to 2NT as a passed hand? 

Anyway, you have a decision to make over 2NT.  You have a minimum, but quite a nice minimum.  Game is excellent opposite as little as xx Axx A10xx Jxxx.  Likewise, game is pretty hopeless opposite a dummy like Qx KJxx xxx KQxx. 

At the table, South bid three diamonds, and partner bid three spades.  Now what?

I like the three diamond call.  A diamond fit seems to be crucial to any game decision.  If partner retreats to three spades, I would quit.   If partner punts back with three hearts, suggesting heart values, or if partner raised diamonds, I would bid four spades.  If partner tries 3NT, oh well.  I put down my dummy. 

Again, our South bid game over three spades.  Did you end up in three spades or four?  Whatever your choice, I’ll let you play both contracts:

West leads the king of hearts, and partner tables:

 

East plays the heart four at trick one, and West shifts to the trump two.  How should you proceed if you are in three spades?  What about game?  Plan the play for both contracts. 

We’ll start off playing the hand in three spades.  We have seven obvious tricks – six spades and the club ace.  We can, and will, lead up to the heart queen for trick eight.  Our ninth trick can come from either clubs or diamonds.  We can develop a diamond trick whenever an honor is onside by leading twice toward our queen-jack, but entries to dummy are scarce, so we may have to consider alternative approaches to diamonds.  I see three possible lines of play:

 

1.  The club hook:  Draw trumps and lead a heart.  We will finesse in clubs as soon as possible.
2.  Lead diamonds twice toward our hand:  Win the trump in hand, and lead a heart.  Win the club shift, say, and lead a diamond.  Then back to the trump queen for another diamond.
3.  Lead diamonds toward our hand only once:  Draw trumps and lead a heart.  Win the club ace, discard a diamond, and lead a diamond.  If an honor loses, duck the next round. 

Comparing these:  The club finesse is more or less 50-50.  As far as diamond plays, line two forces us to tackle diamonds before drawing trumps, and risks a diamond ruff unless the suit splits.  So this line will usually need diamonds three-three, with an honor onside, plus a few extra cases.  If the defense finds their ruff when they can, this line succeeds 32.46% of the time.  The third line avoids a ruff, and works if East has both the diamond ace and king, or an honor short.  That line works on 40.92% of the layouts.

So, superficially, the club finesse is best.  Is it really? 

This is very tricky.  West, who has shown up with the heart ace-king, never bid.  Would West pass over one spade with a hand like xx AKxx xxx KJxx?  Would West pass many hands with the club king and a high diamond?  If I opted for the club finesse line, I would change gears and adopt line 3 if West showed up with a singleton or doubleton spade. 

At least one diamond honor will be onside most of the time, so line 2 is attractive, except that it risks a diamond ruff.  However, if the hand could be set with a diamond ruff, West could have set the hand at trick two.  Judging percentages is never easy, and when the opponents had a chance to set you, but didn’t, it might be because they couldn’t.  So some of those bad diamond splits can be ignored. 

After all, if they didn’t find their diamond ruff at their first opportunity, then maybe there is no ruff, or maybe they will continue with their poor defense! 

Given the bidding, the club finesse rates to be off, and the chances that East holds both diamond honors has increased.  So, I tend to think that line three is better than line one.  Given the defense, line two is very attractive.  Which is the best?  I really don’t know.

The play in game is much simpler.  You were off four top tricks, but got a reprieve.  So you need the club finesse to dispose of a heart, and you will need to develop two diamond winners.  There is not much hope unless diamonds are three-three with at least one honor onside.  The play is pretty much forced:  Win the trump in hand, finesse a club and dump your heart loser.  Then lead a diamond up, using the spade queen for a second diamond play.  If you are lucky, the cards will be situated like this:

 
or like this:

At the table, the cards were:

 
So, game had no chance.  Three could have been set with a diamond ruff, but could now be made by line 1, the club finesse.  Nothing else would work.