Recap Of 4/6/2016 28 Board IMP Individual

Reno made March too crowded for a date for our game, so after a two month delay, we finally played again.  First timer Gary Soules won.  Once again, I’ll focus on the double digit swings with a couple more thrown in.

Bidding (not necessarily good bidding) resulted in all of the IMPs won.  Here we go.

Board 6

Here it was all about getting to game.  It seems as though 15 opposite 10 with some long suits and strong suits might result in getting to game.  Both because of extensive tools available after a 1NT opening bid and the preemptive effect of 1NT bids, I tend to open virtually all hands in range with 1NT and would have here.  I’m certain, if the hearts and diamonds were reversed (such that opener is 2=4=5=2) they would have opened 1NT at both tables (but, I’ve learned that Ed/Gary have a specific agreement to not open 1NT with a worthless doubleton in a major – perhaps they open a 4 card heart suit if the hearts/diamonds are reversed?).  Here, both dealers started with 1♥.  The auctions continued identically for awhile, then diverged.

After partner has bid both red suits, the ♣J is a doubtful value.  Still the ♠10 is a mighty nice card and it seems that an invitational (vulnerable) 3♠ rebid is not crazy.  Yet both tables rebid 2 only spades with Bill deciding to take one more bid with the East hand while Ed decided to pass out 2♠.

With the auction I saw, I thought there might be a club ruff coming in dummy, so I started with a trump lead and lost my club trick as declarer’s club loser was later pitched on a diamond, making 5 for -650.  Our teammates played 2♠ making +170, lose 10 IMPs.

Board 7

Once more an identical start to the bidding at both tables, but then a divergence that led to disaster for North-South.  The general consensus was that North (at the other table) should double 4NT suggesting a hand unsuitable for play at the 5 level (a pass over 4NT invites partner to bid on).  The ♥Q must be a very good card, but the minor suit queens are more likely defensive values than offensive values when West comes in with 4NT.  In any case, when there was no double, South competed to 5♥ over 5♦.  Against best defense (diamond lead), 5♥ has no play.

Since there was discussion (at the time and in later emails) about “how was there an overtrick in 4♥?” I assumed that a diamond was led and did extensive analysis about how to play (for 10 tricks) after the diamond lead.  After writing all of that up, I have learned that the ♠9 was led at both tables!   

The ♠9 is not an unreasonable opening lead.  Partner implied spades with the takeout double of 1NT and you do have a potential 3rd round ruff.  The effect of the ♠9 lead was remarkable (not good for the defense at our table).  After winning the ♠J, declarer led two rounds of trump ending in dummy and then finessed the ♠8.  Then he ran all of his trumps, coming down to a 4 card ending (winning the first 9 tricks with 2 spades and 7 hearts) and forcing East to hold 2 spades and 2 minor suit cards for their last 4 cards.

If East keeps 2 clubs and no diamonds, the ♦Q becomes a winner as well as the ♠A.

If East keeps ♦AK and no clubs, a diamond lead by declarer allows East to cash 2 diamonds and then provide the spade finesse for 2 more tricks for declarer, 11 total.

If East keeps ♦A and ♣K (and dummy keeps ♦Qx ♣Qx), a diamond play by declarer at trick 10 allows East to chose how to take 2 tricks and give 2 to declarer.  Declarer can score 2 spades and no minor suit tricks, or 2 minor suit queens and no spades depending on how the defense chooses to play.  In any case, 11 tricks are there against any defense after the ♠9 lead.

In any case, in 4♥, my partner made 11 tricks for +650 and in 5♥, our teammates defeated it by 2 tricks for +200, win 13 IMPs.

Bear with me for the following commentary – I spent too much time analyzing a diamond lead (that didn’t happen at either table!) to let it all go to waste.  I thought the diamond lead (that I assumed happened at the other table) created a very interesting declarer and defensive problem.

On a diamond lead, 10 tricks are available, but declarer must be VERY careful.  Three lines of play (to avoid 2 spade losers after a diamond lead) are successful.  

Option 1 (assume LHO has the ♥10 and RHO has the ♠K) – lead a heart to the ♥8, finessing West for the ♥10.  This (plus a later lead to the ♥Q) provides 2 dummy entries for two successful spade finesses, resulting in losing only 1 trick in each off suit.  

Option 2 (assume trump are 2-2 and spades 2-4 with LHO having ♠10x or ♠9x) – lead the ♠Q early, losing to the ♠K prior to drawing trump, then cash the ♠A, draw trump ending in dummy, and use that entry for a spade to the ♠8, finessing East out of their ♠10.  

Option 3 (so obscure, this could only be found via double dummy! – an extreme variant of option 1 with some of option 2 thrown in) – After diamond is lost at trick 1 and ruffed at trick 2 (or pitch a club loser on trick 2 and ruff at trick 3), lead the ♠8!  Then things get really tricky.  When they win and force a second ruff, declarer can only succeed by ruffing high.  Usually you ruff high to avoid an overruff.  Here you ruff high to save your low trump.  Declarer’s low hearts are the key to making the hand.  If you take 2 ruffs with low trump, there is only 1 remaining trump in declarer’s hand that is below the ♥8 in dummy.  So, when you now lead (your last) low heart towards the ♥Q8 to finesse the ♥10 for your (needed) 2 entries to dummy for spade finesses, LHO can rise with the ♥10.  You are in dummy for the last time (no more small hearts left in hand) , so only 1 spade finesse is available and down you go.  So, to be successful with this option, you ruff for the second time with a high trump, preserving your critical ♥43 for leads towards dummy.  Finesse the ♥8, then finesse the spade, then a heart to the ♥Q drawing trump, then another spade finesse and you are up to 10 difficult tricks.  Since this requires a parlay of components of both Option 1 and 2, this is clearly an inferior line of play, but I still found it interesting, specifically because of the opportunity (if declarer ruffs low twice) for the defense to foil declarer’s plan by playing second hand high, the card declarer is getting ready to finesse (♥10) and ruining the transportation critical to succeed in the contract.  These plays are rare, but what fun to see it and cause declarer to fail if you find it.

So, even though 10 tricks are available with best play/defense, it is far from clear declarer would have found any of these options on a diamond lead.  There are many ways to go down in 4♥ after a diamond lead.  But the spade lead made 4♥ easy to make at our table and 5♥ was possible.  I don’t know the line of play/defense chosen that resulted in 5♥ down 2.  So, learning belatedly that the ♠9 was led at both tables, I now have an editorial change – bidding didn’t determine the swing on every hand as I previously stated.  

Board 10

Well, if you can’t be good, it helps to be lucky.  For what it is worth, my thinking was that, in a heart contract, we might have 2 heart losers (how ‘bad’ is partner’s suit?), but he might have enough scattered values outside of hearts to allow 11 tricks outside of hearts.  Not likely, but it seemed to me to be an extra arrow in the quiver.  If hearts come home, both 6NT and 6♥ should be successful.  If the heart suit requires 2 losers, 6♥ will always fail and 6NT might have a chance.  Anyway, that all didn’t matter when the opening lead was the ♦J.  With a club opening lead, I have to find the ♥Q.  No other option.  As it turned out, I didn’t find the ♥Q and made only 12 tricks, good for +1440.  The other table had a kickback/blackwood accident and managed to scramble 11 tricks in the inelegant 4♠ contract.  13 IMPs for our team.

Given a bit more thought, the idea that partner would hold all of the required specific cards needed to bring in 12 tricks in NT (while having 2 heart losers) is too extreme, so the percentage is clearly to hope for no more than 1 heart loser and try the slam in hearts.  I dodged one there.  

Board 14

Our bidding helped the opponents get to a decent club game which was doomed to fail only if I gave partner a heart ruff at trick 2.  If we were defending 5♣, I don’t have a whole lot of choices at trick 2  (assuming I win the ♦A at trick 1) looking at a singleton diamond in dummy.  I would never lead a spade, and neither a club nor diamond is attractive.  But, a heart looks scary too until you think about it – partner might have led a heart if he had a singleton.  So a heart for a ruff at trick 2 would lead to -1.  Eventually a spade trick would come our way.  

I decided my hand held such little hope for defense against 5♣ that I would take insurance and bid 5♦.  With the Stayman (? – did the double just show clubs?) action at our table, South thought the ♠Q would be a good start to the defense.  Most likely I am down if any of the other 12 cards are chosen for the opening lead, but on the ♠Q lead, I was feeling no pain with dummy quickly being established, losing only 2 black aces.

Meanwhile, our teammates bounced right to 3NT with no interference from West.  Having none of partner’s suit to lead vs. 3NT, West led a diamond.  After cashing the first 6 tricks, the rest were conceded for  down 2.  +550 and -100 resulted in winning 10 IMPs.  A lucky result all the way around.

Board 16

Bidding seems to be the main contributing factor to this swing, but play also entered in.  At our table, the auction suggested a problem in spades, so after the opponents cashed two spades to start the defense, partner had little option but to play for 3-2 hearts with split honors.  They were.  +620.  Certainly few would play that the 2♥ rebid (at both tables) showed a 6 card suit.  But when I rebid 3♦, the 3♥ bid definitely promised 6, so I abandoned NT and went for the game in hearts.

At the other table, the auction arrived in 3NT.  East chose a 2NT rebid (vs. my 3♦) and West simply raised to 3NT (rather than repeating the heart suit for the 3rd time).  It turns out that there are lots of issues involved in the play of 3NT.  After a spade is led and the ♠10 inserted by North at trick 1, the ♠J wins trick 1. Declarer doesn’t know if spades are 4-4 or 5-3.  If spades are 5-3, going after heart finesses (split honors) guarantees going down.  There are 8 tricks on top after winning the ♠J.  1+1+3+3.  Diamonds could be 3-3.  The ♣J could fall in 3 rounds (or finesse).  Declarer decided to not risk the 5-3 spades and pinned all hopes for 9 tricks on something good in the minors.  When that didn’t happen, 8 tricks were the limit, -1, +100 for our teammates to go with our +620, win 12 IMPs.

Board 18

I had a maximum negative double and Gary needed all of it to succeed in 4♥.  His thinking (which I like) was to bounce quickly to game (even though he doesn’t really have the values for it), hoping that the opponents don’t work out to bid 4♠.  It worked.  

Against best defense, 4♥can be beaten, but even with a normal forcing defense, declarer must play very carefully.  And he did.

Best defense: overtake the ♠Q at trick one with the ♠K and shift to a diamond.  At this point, you have established the threat of a diamond ruff to go along with the ♦K and 2 black aces.  If declarer draws trump to prevent the diamond ruff, he can manage a spade ruff to go with 4 top hearts and 4 diamonds, but that is only 9 tricks.  There is no way to 10 tricks.

Actual defense: spade at trick 1, another spade (ruffed) at trick 2.  With losers coming in both clubs and possibly diamonds, declarer must start losing those tricks early while there is still some semblance of transportation and trump control.  Declarer led the ♣K at trick 3, won by the ♣A (I think ducking the ♣A one round is probably a stronger defense, starting to cut transportation).  Upon winning the ♣A, a spade tap would have given declarer more problems, especially with the known (to the defense, but not declarer) 4-4-4-1 split of trumps.  The actual lead after winning the ♣A was a trump, but declarer is still not out of the woods.

After the trump lead, if clubs are 3-3 (they were), declarer is home via 0+5+1+4.  But, if declarer draws trumps and clubs don’t split, the only hope would be a singleton ♦K, since declarer can’t get to dummy to finesse diamonds after attempting to run clubs (and it would be a losing finesse besides).   It is rarely good play to rely upon 3-3 splits when other alternatives are available.  So, declarer won the trump in dummy and played another to hand, observing the 4-1 split and leaving one trump left in hand.  Now, time to knock out the ♦K.  Declarer led a small diamond towards ♦QJ1053 in dummy, South won the ♦K and now played a spade to make declarer use their last trump.  But a diamond entry to dummy allowed the declarer to draw trump and then finish with top clubs/diamond.  In the end, 0+6+2+2.

Note, if a diamond is lost after trump are gone, the defense claims the rest via running spades. 

With trump 4-4-4-1, there are often many complex considerations, especially when there is a tap suit, even if the tap involves a ruff/sluff.  Declarer must go about losing their side tricks early to maintain trump control prior to drawing trump.  What if the defense simply continued the spade tap at every opportunity?  Trick 1, win a spade.  Trick 2, force declarer with second spade.  Win the ♣A and force declarer with a third spade.  Now if declarer tests two rounds of trump (and learns that they are 4-1), his only play is to hope for 3-3 clubs – it is too late to work on diamonds because declarer would have no more trump and the spade ruff (after losing a diamond) would come from dummy promoting a trump trick for North.  But, if instead of playing trump, declarer continues with the theme of losing the side suit losers by leading a diamond, the defense can tap him for the 3rd time.  But declarer can now cash his remaining trump, cross to dummy with a diamond, draw trump and claim.

Note the diamond entry is critical – declarer cannot afford the luxury of overtaking a high heart as the entry to dummy to draw trump since dummy’s ♥8 would lose to the ♥9.  After ruffing 3 spades, declarer must cash his remaining high trump, then enter dummy with a high diamond to draw trump.  If diamonds are 4-1, too bad.

In any case, tap at every chance or not, the only successful defense involved a diamond shift at trick 2 and a trump trick for the defense and that was not found.

For our teammates, there were 9 winners in the spade contract, so 4♠ finished down 1, -100 and +420 resulted in winning 8 IMPs.

Board 20

As you can see from the footnotes, an awkward auction where East and West floundered and were on different pages most of the way through the auction, but managed to land in a makeable slam that wasn’t bid at the other table.  No problem with making 12 tricks after trumps were 2-2.   Certainly not a terrible slam, but not one you have to be in and it was not reached at the other table.  Win 13 IMPs.

At the other table, the bidding was:

A push board where both tables missed the lay down (assuming a normal trump split) slam.  After the normal club lead, 13 tricks were there since the heart loser goes away on the high club.  But how should the hand be bid to reach this slam?

I have told my partners to ‘never’ bid 4NT with 2 fast losers in a suit with no known control.  Here, partner tried doing that and, after learning that 1 key card was missing, decided to subside in 5♠ (the usual rule for 4NT auctions – missing 2+ key cards, stop at 5, you may already be too high – missing one key card, go on to slam).  Here, with uncertainty about hearts, my partner was afraid to bid the slam.  At the other table, my hand (South) had the opportunity to jump rebid diamonds after 4th suit game force.  Then he offered 3NT indicating a partial club stopper.  They too continued on to 5♠ but then the auction died.  The first 3 bids in the auction are automatic.  Then, depending on system (2♣ as game force, or 2♦ as game force), the auction will vary.

The auction is challenging (for me, anyway, at our table) because North doesn’t know about the extra playing strength and high card strength and heart control of the South hand, and South doesn’t know about the strong trumps and both club controls held by North.  How might the auction go?

In the post mortem, everyone agreed North should have bid 5♣ (control bid) rather than 4NT.  South needs to decide if diamonds (source of tricks) or hearts (is partner looking for a heart control?) is the right continuation over 5♣.  Partner cannot know your diamonds are this good.  But there is no bid to really tell that at this point.  Since you have already shown diamonds, it seems the right continuation must be 5♥ over 5♣.  Now, North doesn’t know about the ♠Q, but will likely continue to 6♠ since South has been cooperating in the slam investigation all along.

Another suggestion in the post mortem (for the auction at our table) was for North to bid 5♠ over 4♦, suggesting ‘no problem in clubs, but problem in hearts’.  However, often jumps like that ask about trump quality, unless the opponents have bid and then it often asks about a control in the opponents suit.  It is easy to say on paper, but hard to say at the table, that a 5♠ bid by north is a ‘control asking bid’ in my first bid suit, hearts!?!

What about the auction at the other table?  It seems clear that North intended 5♠ as some slam invite, but exactly what he was looking for was unknown to South.  Strong trump?  He didn’t have it.  Club control?  Nope!  So, both tables played 5♠.  A big missed opportunity for 13 IMPs for the side that could solve the puzzle on how to bid slam.