Recap Of 10/24/2018 28 Board IMP Individual

Here we are again, 2 days later, with a different cast of 7 players plus me.  Again 8 double digit swings mostly based on bidding judgment, but some leads, play and defense opportunities were present on some hands.

No one in my game plays a strong club on a regular basis – all bidding is pretty standard.  With the prevalence of strong club players at the top levels of bridge, many experts are opening balanced hands with only 10-11 points in 1st and 2nd seat.  They always open 4-3-3-3 hands with 12 HCP.  As for my bidding style, I try to use judgment – looking at hand evaluation – some 4-3-3-3 12 point hands are openers, some are not (my opinion only, not shared by all).  Here, my partner judged to pass in second seat.  He had 2 aces which are strong indicators of opening.  But, he had 2 unsupported queens of doubtful value.  I have no problem with his decision to pass, but the favorable result went to our opponents who decided to open the South hand.  As you can see, from the comments on the auctions, our opponents reached a well-judged 3NT rather than playing in their known 8 card fit in spades.  The only opening lead to give declarer a problem is 4th from longest and strongest – a small diamond from ♦KJ96.  Not a likely lead into the suit that declarer opened.  But, double dummy declarer play can still make 3NT even after the diamond lead, since the lie of the spade suit allows, with careful play, to never allow the East hand to gain the lead for a diamond through the ♦10.

Declarer still must be extremely careful to land 9 tricks after the actual club lead.  I don’t know the card-by-card timing of the defense or declarer play, but the slightest misstep by declarer could allow the defense to defeat 3NT, even after a club lead.   For instance, if declarer, somewhat naturally, wins the club and plays 3 rounds of spades, a diamond shift (from ♦Q85) will defeat 3NT.  Again, that is the suit they bid, so that defense is a bit hard to find.  But, partner’s lead of the ♣J indicates limited future there.  Dummy’s diamonds are quite weak.  Perhaps partner had strong diamonds but didn’t lead them due to the opening 1♦ bid on his right?  A club continuation would be safe, but a diamond could be (and would be) right.  3NT is very touch and go, but when the smoke cleared 9 tricks were in the bag.

My play in 4♠ was a bit boring.  Assuming spades are 3-2, I must lose a spade, a heart and a diamond, and I must lose 2 hearts unless there is an ♥Ax and I can work out which hand has the doubleton ♥A.  As the play unfolded, it appeared no one had a doubleton ace and that was the case, so I was limited to 9 tricks.  Our -100 paired with -600 for our teammates, lose 12 IMPs.

But what about the bidding?  My 4♠ bid was quite unilateral.  I did want to accept the game try, but I could bid 2♦ on the way showing a legitimate hand with some game interest, and later explore with 2NT if partner merely bids 2♠.  I reported on this exact auction from Monday’s game earlier this week where one table arrived in a hopeless 4♠ and the other table played a cold 3NT.  Here, 3NT is far from cold.  And we don’t have a diamond opening bid to dissuade a diamond opening lead if we are in 3NT.  Still, my 4♠ bid was poor and my contract was hopeless as the cards lie.

Here we go again with another ‘light’ opener.  Jerry Helms talks about the rule of 22 – quite similar to the rule of 20, except you add quick tricks to high card points and the length of your 2 longest suits.  Using that rule, I have an easy opener!  3 quick tricks plus 11 HCP plus 8 cards in my 2 longest suits equals 22.  So, I opened the hand and soon we were in 3NT.  Of course, with the spade finesse on, I can use my powerful diamonds to ruff spades and still draw trump later in the hand, allowing 12 tricks in a diamond slam.  We did not explore the diamond slam.  And, with 6 top diamonds and 3 aces, I simply took my 9 tricks, no spade finesse to risk going down in a cold contract.

At the other table, our opponents, holding our cards, did not open the North hand and soon found themselves playing a partscore in diamonds.  Should North make a stronger move after passing as dealer?  If so, what?  Should South bid on after partner’s raise to 3♦?  It turns out on this hand they should.  They found their 12 tricks playing their diamond partscore, so our teammates were -170 to go with our +600 to win 10 IMPs.  Very little going on here in the way of leads, play and defense – it all came down to bidding judgment…and the points that N-S held were the right kind of points (aces with running diamonds) to gather in their tricks.

What about my 1NT rebid with zero stoppers in both unbid suits?  I think the modern style, when you have a balanced hand out of range for a strong 1NT opening bid, is to strain to rebid 1NT to show a weak balanced hand and let partner take care of the stoppers if needed.  It doesn’t always work, but I think it is the way most players are bidding these days.

Kudos to the opening lead of the ♥Q.  Leading 3 card suits, especially with the nice texture of this one, targets hitting partner’s 5 card suit (he did!).  If East leads one of their 4 card black suits, declarer is able to take the spade finesse for the extra trick without worry.  But, on the heart lead, a losing spade finesse could be fatal so it won’t be taken.  Not that it mattered in IMPs, but I still thought it was worth noting.

Well, I considered omitting this hand from the blog.  Wow, what a hand!.  My partner judged to start with a weak 2♥ bid and I had to find a way to respond to that opening bid.  I have a great hand and certainly could have started with a forcing 3♦ which would almost certainly hear a 3♥ rebid from partner.  Then I could offer spades and, on this hand, we would have arrived in 4♠ and still lost a bushel of IMPs.  But, I thought the chance of a 2♥-3♦-3♥-3♠-4♠ auction was sufficiently low that I decided to just blast 3NT and see if I could find a way to score 9 tricks.  Partner could hold the ♦K, making 9 tricks trivial in 3NT…wishful thinking.  3NT was not a good choice as it turned out.  I won the club lead in dummy with the ♣Q and took a diamond finesse, losing to the ♦K.  It seems unlikely that declarer holds the ♥A and is messing around with diamonds, but I suppose it is possible.  At this point a heart lead and club return would have scored 6 tricks for the defense.  Anyway, North continued with a spade.  As I cashed my four spade winners, North had to find 3 discards.  They knew to keep all of their diamonds and hated to part with potential club winners, so they ended up throwing all of their hearts!  So, when I played ♦A, ♦J and another diamond, they were able to win the ♦10, but then had to lead clubs, allowing me to regain the lead, cash my remaining diamonds and score 10 tricks.  Had they kept 1 heart, the defense would still score their 6 tricks for down 2.

The other table had a rather different auction.  Fearing the danger of missing the spade suit, East passed rather than open with a weak 2♥.  After the jump shift in spades, their hand looked like a key card hand – completely solid hearts missing the ace, 2 singletons, long strong trump support.  So, they launched a key card auction and quickly arrived in 6♠ off two aces (as noted a 3014-1430 confusion).  With the ♥A over the solid heart suit and partner void, it was a simple matter of drawing trump and then ruffing out the ♥A to score 6+5+1+0, 12 tricks and -1430 for our teammates.  Paired with my +630, lose 13 IMPs.

Here is another hand that is all about bidding judgment.  Both tables started the same, but one player opted for a simple 2♥ rebid while the other blasted all the way to 4♥.  Using losing trick count (LTC), the 1♥ opening bid is looking at a routine 7 loser hand (the classic LTC for a minimum opening bid) and, therefore, this hand seems more like a minimum 2♥ rebid.  The jump to 4♥, I think, should show close to 20 points or a 5 loser hand.  The South player, thinking he had a few more tricks to offer partner than his simple 1♠ response had shown, raised to the 6♥ slam.  On the standard ♣Q lead, only 10 tricks are available to declarer, so we were +100 while our teammates were +420, win 11 IMPs.

The auction took extremely different routes at the two tables.  Playing ‘good 14-17 HCP’ that all of us play, many 8 point hands should quietly pass, or transfer and pass.  That is what the player holding my cards elected to do at the other table.  I had the extra problem of the (most likely) single suited minor to contend with (although South’s double could also have suggested both majors).  But, holding some help in both minors, I decided to transfer and then invite with 2NT.  My 8 HCP included a 5 card suit headed by the ace as well as a side king – usually those are more useful points than a bunch of isolated queens.  Partner held minimum high cards, but with stoppers in both minors and the heart suit 5 long and bolstered by the ♥109, partner accepted my invitation (and he is vulnerable, so strain to bid all games).

Against 3NT, South made the normal lead of the ♦10 (top of an interior sequence in their longest suit).  Double dummy, the only lead to hold declarer to 9 tricks is an unlikely (impossible) spade.  So, declarer, double dummy, has 10 tricks on the diamond lead and that is what he scored!  But, the play and defense wasn’t exactly double dummy.  To get 10 tricks, declarer must win the ♦J for one of his precious dummy entries so that he can start playing hearts.  Instead, he won the ♦K in hand (perhaps hoping to fool the opening leader about the location of the ♦Q?).  Now he needed to get to dummy to start attacking hearts and made a potentially fatal play of a club to the ♣K.  After a heart to the ♥ J won, he played a spade to the ♠A and led another heart.  North split their honors and the ♥A won followed by the ♥10 to the ♥K.  With no diamonds to lead, North must now play a black suit.  A club would have allowed South to cash 3 club tricks and the ♦A to set the contract, but North, with no entries, played a spade instead.  Now, on the play of the major suits, South, trying to defeat the hand, kept their clubs and pitched down to the singleton ♦A.  When declarer next played diamonds, South had to win and return a club, allowing declarer to enjoy their second club trick and second diamond to go with four hearts and two spades – 10 tricks in all.

At the other table with no interference bidding, my hand opted to play a quiet 2♠.  The extreme spade split meant that the defense had 3 trump tricks as well as a trick in every other suit, so 2♠ was defeated 1 trick.  That gave our teammates +100 to go with our +630 to win 12 IMPs.

It may not be obvious, but the club suit on this deal is extremely complex.  Given where the ♣9 is located, and the ♣J, and the ♣8, amazing things happen.  The suit is semi-frozen, meaning the side that first leads the suit gives up a trick they would otherwise gain if they were not the first side to lead the suit.  It is ‘semi’ frozen since, the way the cards are distributed, declarer can actually safely break the suit (and keep it frozen) if they guess the layout of the cards.  Declarer can (and must) lead the ♣10 (or ♣Q) to start the suit.  That way, if South plays the ♣A on the ♣10, 2 tricks are there and problems are over.  If they play the ♣A on the ♣Q, South’s entry to their diamonds is gone and the club suit remains frozen – neither North nor South can lead clubs effectively.  If South ducks the ♣10, declarer can duck and win the trick.  And if South covers with the ♣J, declarer can win the ♣K in dummy and the ♣8x remaining in dummy still leaves the suit frozen – North cannot effectively lead the ♣9 or underlead the ♣9 to gain tricks for the defense as long as declarer reads the position accurately.  All of this (about how to play the club suit) is a bit double dummy, but still I found it interesting.  And, as it turns out, necessary (after failing to win trick 1 with the ♦J) to bring home the contract with double dummy declarer play against double dummy defense.

Here, the bidding was the same, the lead was the same, and it all came down to the play of the hand.  Double dummy, the only lead to defeat 3NT is a small spade (the shorter major, but a suit with more texture).  The heart suit, however, was 5 long and headed by the king, so that offered the most promise and that is what was led at both tables.  With the heart lead, declarer, hoping clubs will produce 3 tricks, is looking at 1+3+1+3 – one trick short.  Other than stripping a hand to throw them in to lead diamonds at the end, there is no real chance of the 9th trick except for the ♠10.  Not that the opponents are going to ever lead diamonds, but I next cashed the ♦A and then went after spades.  As the cards lie, double dummy, leading spades at that point is the only way to reach 9 tricks.  Upon winning the ♠A, South, as expected, continued hearts (if a spade had been led at that point, I can only make the hand if I rise with the ♠Q and go about getting my other tricks, eventually scoring the ♠10 at trick 12 and a long club at trick 13).  On the heart return, I finessed with the ♥J and North won the ♥K.  They can safely lead hearts, but since South can never regain the lead, declarer’s ♠10 is going to eventually score a trick.  North’s actual continuation after winning the ♥K was the ♣Q.  This gave me a different route to 9 tricks.  I won with the ♣A, cashed a heart (noting the 5-2 split), and led the ♣10!  This presented North with Hobson’s choice – he could win with the ♣J for the third and final defensive trick (since the ♣9 would provide an entry to dummy to run the diamonds), or he could duck, giving up his ‘sure’ club trick, but presenting me with a 4th club trick and the game going trick (1+3+1+4).

If, after winning the ♥K, North exits with a heart instead of the ♣Q, I cash my hearts, cash my clubs, and when I lead the third club, North wins the club and has a heart to cash (while I throw my losing spade), but at trick 11, North must lead away from ♠J9x into my ♠Q10 with a good club remaining on the side to reach 9 tricks and make the contract.

At the other table, declarer won the opening heart lead (presumably cashed the ♦A) and then led 3 rounds of clubs with North winning the ♣Q.  This got the 3rd club trick in the bag, but left the 2nd spade trick on the sidelines.  North exited with a small spade – very important.  After attacking one suit (hearts) and later shifting to a second suit (spades), the size of the shift is critical.  A high card says ‘I’m not interested in this suit, so if you/partner win a trick revert to my original suit.’  A low card says ‘I’m no longer interested in my original suit, if you/partner win a trick, return this suit.’  This is fundamental defensive carding that all players should adhere to.  So, upon winning the ♠A, a spade was returned and 9 tricks are no longer possible for declarer.  The defense scores 3+1+0+1.  So, +50 for our teammates and +400 for our 3NT making, win 10 IMPs.

As a side note, 6♦ by West (impossible for West to play diamonds unless you play transfer preempts) is cold, but 6♦ by East goes down on a heart lead.  Since partner’s preempt suit is often not nearly as robust as this particular 3♦ bid, even pursuing 5♦ (vs. the 3NT chosen by me and the player with my cards at the other table) seems inferior.  What do you think?  Finding 9 tricks is often much easier than finding 11.

Many recurring themes were back again on this hand.  Fundamental is the 3NT vs. 4M – should you look for an 8 card major suit fit?  If you find one, should you play in the 10 trick major or 9 trick NT contract.  The other ‘theme’ is opening bids.  What do you “open” in 3rd seat Vul vs. not with the East hand?  “Light openings” would be an understatement to describe the modern style.  Few people, especially me, like to allow 4th seat a free rein to bid anything they want.  Whatever you open prevents them from opening the bidding (all they can do is overcall or double).  Your bid can inhibit (or help) their hand description.

At my table, they chose a simple 1♦ opening bid.  The other table tried a 2♦ opening bid.  Here you have a weak suit 5 long with a decent 4 card major on the side.  The preempt prompted a 2NT overcall and responder didn’t bother with Stayman – simply raised to 3NT on their balanced 8 HCP.  

3NT is no piece of cake after the diamond lead.  If declarer has to lose 2 club tricks, the diamonds will be established and the defense will reach 5 tricks before declarer can find 9.  As you can see, the heart suit is good for 4 tricks, but declarer can’t see that (there are only 4 heart tricks if they take a deep finesse the first time they lead towards ♥AJ87).  In any case, the diamond lead was won with the ♦A and a club was led towards the ♣K.  When East rose with the ♣A, the play was over, declarer had 2+2+2+3 without risking the heart finesse.  Since East had the doubleton ♣A, it really didn’t matter what they played – if they played the ♣10, declarer was set with 3 club tricks by winning the ♣K and ducking the club continuation to let East’s ♣A catch air.

Meanwhile, I was trying to find 10 tricks in my 4♥ contract.  I won the ♦K with the ♦A, then won the ♥K and a heart to the ♥J.  Good news/bad news – the finesse for the ♥Q won, but I’m losing a heart, plus a diamond plus the ♣A, so I, too, need to find a doubleton ♣A.  But, when diamonds proved to be 5-3, I was seeing the only chance was a singleton ♣J or ♣10 with East (since West had opened, clearly they ‘had’ to have the ♣A – I wasn’t considering the fact that it was a 3rd seat opener).  If they had ♣Ax, they would have to be 5=1=5=2 and would have opened 1♠, so I hoped for 3=1=5=4.  East did have the ♣10, but they had the ♣A to go with it.  Down 1.  Double dummy, 11 tricks were there for the taking, but I could only find 9 of them.  Our -100 paired with teammates -600 to lose 12 IMPs.  Once diamonds are established and the clubs produced 3 tricks, a heart finesse (or deep finesse) could have produced overtricks at the risk of going down, so no heart finesse was taken in 3NT, just 9 tricks to make the 3NT.

Even though 3NT and 4♥ are both cold on this deal, double dummy, neither contract rates to be a great success, but both contracts are reasonable.  Simply looking at our hands (and what the ‘bidding’ told us?), I don’t know that I have a great preference for one contract over the other.  Both contracts succeed easily with ♥Qxx onside.  In the case of ♥Qxx onside, in NT, you have 2+4+2+1 and in hearts you have 2+5+2+1 (losing a diamond and 2 clubs).  In NT, it is best to try clubs first (which Mark did).  If you are able to find 3 tricks there, no need to risk the heart finesse (2+2+2+3).  Where as, in NT, if you try the heart finesse first and it loses (prior to testing clubs), the opponents will establish diamonds and still have the ♣A to then run diamonds and defeat 3NT.  If the ♥Qxx is onside, the 4 heart tricks will still be there later.  So, in 3NT, if clubs fail, fall back on hearts.  In hearts, if you have a heart loser, fall back on clubs.  Finding WHO has the ♣Ax is certainly key, so that you start clubs from the proper hand to produce 3 club tricks (or you could guess to lead a high club hoping to find AHxx opposite a singleton ♣J or ♣10).  

The reality is 3NT worked.  What do you think of partner’s takeout double rather than a 1NT overcall of 1♦?  Or what do you think of the 2NT overcall rather than a takeout double of 2♦?  I think it is very close and can’t argue either way.  With only a doubleton, you can’t hold up to isolate the suit when it splits 5-3.  But, if partner has ♦10xx, the power of the ♦J provides a double stopper.

What do you think of North’s raise to 2♥?  Many play that that simple raise shows 4 card support with ZERO extra values.  This is not a regular partner and I didn’t ask, I simply took him as making a game invitation, saying that if I was close to the 9-11 HCP that would have allowed me to jump to 2♥, then 4♥ should have play so I bid 4♥.  I was close (8 working points) and 4♥  did have play, just not the way I played it.  Plus, I never considered 3NT and neither did partner.

But, after the hand, East who had passed as dealer heard RHO double after his partner opened 1♦ in third seat.  He remarked that he almost bid 1♥.  Not only would we then arrive in 3NT, not 4♥, but we would also have a road map for the 4 tricks available in the heart suit and not need to find who had the doubleton ♣Ax!  Always keep in mind that bidding is a double edged sword.  When bidding, you can be helping partner/messing up the opponents, or you can be giving the opponents the clues they need to both find the right contract and find the right line of play.  Bridge is a bidders game, but silence can be incredibly effective sometimes as well.

This hand contained a comedy of errors, except it wasn’t really all that funny, especially for my side.  Declarer only has 8 tricks in a heart contract, but one side contracted for 9 tricks, the other 10.  I normally make my leads face down and wait for acknowledgement before turning it face up.  Here, I managed to turn a lead out of turn face up and South who should have been declaring put their dummy down while partner is trying to lead.  Partner is confused about what is going on.  Eventually, my ♥J lead was accepted and South became dummy.  Declarer ducked, of course, winning the ♥K with the ♥A.  They then led the ♠J, won by West with the ♠A.  At this point, partner has 4 diamonds to choose from (♦10832).  If they lead the ♦10 or ♦8, we get our 5 tricks, defeating 3♥.  But, when they led a small diamond, declarer isn’t forced to finesse the ♦Q, they can play the ♦6, forcing me to win the ♦7 and saving their ♦Q for later.  When I got out with a heart, they won the ♥Q, cashed their spades and exited with a heart to my ♥9.  Having no more major suit cards, I am now endplayed in the minors to provide declarer their 9th trick, either in diamonds or clubs.  But I can’t blame partner – keep your face down lead face down.  Even better, pay attention to the auction and know whose lead it is.  

Meanwhile, our teammates ventured a game contract in hearts, played by South.  The opening lead of the ♠A won the first trick followed by a diamond shift where the ♦Q lost to the ♦K.  The ♥J was covered by the ♥Q, ♥K and ♥A.  But the defense already had 2 tricks with 2 trump tricks and 2 club tricks yet to come, down 3.  So, we were -140 and our teammates -300 to lose 10 IMPs.