Back. With some hands.

Hi all.

I first want to apologise for such a prolonged absence. I’d like to say I’ve been so incredibly busy with my PhD that I haven’t had time to play and write, and while that is certainly partially true, I really could have made more of an effort. Hopefully that will happen now 😀

With the new adademic year starting, the University Bridge Club has a lot of new members and so Mondays sessions are spent teaching them. On Wednesdays, however, the more experienced amoung us head to the local Club for an evening duplicate. In order to get myself back into writing about bridge I’m forcing myself to write about a couple of the more interesting hands that come up each week.

Oh before I start I should say that the Wednesday night field is VERY mixed ability; ranging from almost complete begginners to a couple of pairs who would be comfortable competing at all but the very highest of levels. With that said here are a couple of interesting hands that arose last night.

I’ll start with the very first hand of the evening. In third seat, game all, I pick up this reasonable collection:

♠ A5 ♥ KJT86 ♦ T5 ♣ A742

After two passes I open the bidding 1♥ . Partner responds 1NT, which shows 4+ spades and a responding hand (we play Kaplan inversion, i.e. swap the meaning of 1♠ and 1NT over 1♥). Remembering partner passed as opener, would you bid on?

Personally I don’t feel strongly one way or the other, at pairs the extra ten points for being in NT could lean it in the direction of a pass. Notwithstanding that I bid 2♣, partner corrected to 2♥ which ended the auction. LHO tables the ♠7 and dummy comes down.

Declarer ♠ A5 ♥ KJT86 ♦ T5 ♣ A742

Dummy ♠ QJ943 ♥ A9 ♦ Q64 ♣ 986

Ok, how do I make it? For starters the lead looks an awful lot like a doubleton. It could be a singleton but I’ll worry about that possibility after I’ve found a way to make it when it’s doubleton. Everything will be easy if i can pick up trumps for no loss, if thats the case though I’ll be losing to all those making an extra ten points in NT. At the table however I looked no further than thi. I choose to play RHO for the ♥Q as I would still have chances of a trump coup if he had four hearts. with that in mind I played the Queen covered by the King and won with the Ace crossed to the ♥A and took the losing finesse leaving the contract no chance.

What I should have done was think a little bit more! I thinka better plan is to play for an elopement with my small trumps. Having won the ♠A in hand at trick one I should assume the lead to be doubleton and cross to the ♠J and play a third round throwing a diamond to prevent an over ruff. Whatever the opponents now do I simply finesse LHO for the ♥Q creating two entries to dummy to ruff two diamonds.

Yes I still have to rely on the ♥Q being in the right hand, but this time I’m out scoring the 1NT’ers who are probably cashing the ♥A and then finessing (picking up a singleton queen).

Notice however it was a defencive error that lead to the chance to take this line. If the Queen isn’t covered trick one I never have enough entries and have to play my original line. Does that mean that RHO should cover when holding the ♥Q and duck when not? That hurts my brain.

The full hand was:

Dealer: North Vul: Both	North ♠ QJ943 ♥ A9 ♦ Q64 ♣ 986
West ♠ 72 ♥ Q764 ♦ AJ932 ♣ QT		East ♠ KT86 ♥ 52 ♦ K87 ♣ KJ53
	South ♠ A5 ♥ KJT86 ♦ T5 ♣ A742

We now move on to a hand played in a later round. As dealer, NV against V, I held

♠ AT976 ♥ J ♦ QJT9 ♣ AT3

and opened 1♠. LHO overcalls 1NT (16-18) and after a stayman enquiry, overcaller showing 4 spades (don’t ask), they end in 3NT. Partner lead the ♠3 and dummy tables the following interesting collection.

Dummy ♠ 2 ♥ A6432 ♦ A72 ♣ J976

As you can probably tell, our opponents this hand were not the greatest, but they seem to have ended somewhere reasonable. The question is though, how do you defend?

Knowing my partner has at most three HCP and three spades I started thinking. How can I defeat the contract? There seemed to me to be two main options. Firstly to continue attacking spades, and second to switch to a diamond. Even if partner held exactly K83 – a long shot at best – a spade continuation wouldn’t work. If partner held the ♦K however a diamond switch would be necessary. With that in mind I took my Ace and switched. Needless to say partner didn’t hold the King and the contract made.

This was the full hand:

Dealer: East Vul: N/S	North ♠ 2 ♥ A6432 ♦ A72 ♣ J976
West ♠ J83 ♥ QT98 ♦ 654 ♣ 542		East ♠ AT976 ♥ J ♦ QJT9 ♣ AT3
	South ♠ KQ54 ♥ K75 ♦ K83 ♣ KQ8

As you can see my line of defence allows declarer to win and play on clubs for the contract (thanks to the 3-3 break). If I instead go passive and play the ♠9 Declarers job is a lot harder. His best try is to win and try setting up hearts. When you take the first two rounds with the Ace and King discovering the 4-1 break you have one small hope left. You force out the club Ace and win the diamond return, reaching an endposition something like this:

Dealer: East Vul: N/S	North ♠ – ♥ 643 ♦ 7 ♣ –
West Immaterial		East ♠ AT ♥ – ♦ QJ ♣ –
	South ♠ Q54 ♥ – ♦ 8 ♣ –

Now, whichever hand your in, you lead a diamond, and because of the fact East holds precisely ♦QJT9 he has to win and give you a trick with the ♠Q. I think you’ll agree this would be hard to find at the table. Should I have ducked? Or was I right to try the diamond switch?

The final hand of this post was the final hand of our evening. Mungo and I were dealt the following:

Me ♠ – ♥ AJ ♦ KQJT872 ♣ AT74

Mungo ♠ AKT7532 ♥ KQT ♦ A53 ♣ –

A quick count of tricks will tell you that 7NT is on ice, would you get there?

Our auction was as follows:

West	North	East	South
—	—	—	Pass
1♦	Pass	1♠	Pass
3♦	Pass	4♦	Pass
4♥	Pass	4♠	Pass
5♣	Pass	7♦	Pass
Pass	Pass

Everything in the first two rounds of bidding was natural. 4♥ and 4♠ were both Italian style cuebids as was 5♣ though that showed an odd number of key cards by skipping 4NT. Partner then knows enough to bid 7♦. But how do we get to 7NT? Agreed 7♦ is a good contract, but this is pairs so clearly we want to get to 7NT when we have 13 top tricks. Mungo doesn’t quite know enough, I could have a six card diamond suit, in which case we need a club ruff for 13 tricks. Even if he continues to cuebid, how can he find out about the seventh diamond? He could have diagnosed 7NT if I held the ♣K, but I don’t. It seems very difficult to find out unless your playing some sort of relay system. Thoughts?