Recap Of 1/9/2019 28 Board IMP Individual

Bidding judgment was key to all 4 of today’s double digit swings, but once the bidding was over, the opening lead made the big difference on one of these four hands.

 

 

When you deal, white vs. red, a first seat preempt is always appealing.  The opponents must start guessing what to do at a higher level and they will not have the luxury of slowly and fully describing their hands starting at the 1 level.  Here, I simply opened what appeared to be a normal weak 2♠ bid.  Soon I was on lead against 3♥X and when the dust cleared we had won 2+2+1+3, 8 tricks, -4, +1100.  The West player at my table, in spite of holding only 11 HCP and only 3 hearts, decided they would make a takeout double.  In the post mortem, some thought the West hand was not strong enough or shapely enough to make a takeout double of 1♠ (let alone 2♠).  I tend to agree.  What do you think?

Meanwhile, our teammates’ opponents chose to start with an opening 3♠ preempt.  The powerful North hand raised to 4♠ and 11 tricks were scored, losing just 1 spade and 1 heart trick.  That was -450 paired with our +1100, win 12 IMPs. 

Preempting ‘one more’ can definitely create problems for the opponents, but due to the aggressive takeout double of 2♠ (a double would not be considered over a 3♠ opening), the team dealing with the 2♠ opening bid had the bigger ‘problem.’

 

 

Here, after North passed, I was in second seat and thought I had an opening bid – what do you think?  Meanwhile, partner took me seriously and decided that his hand, rich in aces, should go ahead and contract for 12 tricks in NT even though the point range of the combined hands was about 30-32.  It seemed that an invite might be more appropriate, but there I was, committed to 12 tricks.

With hearts the only suit that was unbid, the opening lead vs 6NT was the ♥A followed by the ♥9.  With a miracle, 12 tricks could be possible.  After this start, I had 3 heart tricks.  If both the spade and diamond finesses worked, I would have 3+3+2+3 and had many chances for my 12th trick: 3-3 spades, ♦K falling doubleton, ♣J falling tripleton, finesse for the ♣J, or some squeeze to try to find the 12th trick.  At trick 3 I tried the diamond finesse.  When that lost to the ♦K, slam was lost.  Due to diamonds behaving 3-3, I could have been down only 1, but I ended up trying to drop the ♣J and then trying the spade finesse, ending up down 2.  Communication is quite awkward:  the only entry to my hand after the defense started with two rounds of hearts is the ♠K.  If I use that to find out if diamonds split, I have given up on the spade finesse.  The trouble was that, even though there were many options for more tricks, I couldn’t parlay them all (see if this works, if not, try this, if not…). 

At the other table, my hand not only failed to open, they responded 1♦ and then rebid 1NT.  In any case, without an opening bid by East, West was never interested in slam with no fit and 18 HCP.  The way the play went at the other table, 9 tricks were scored for -400 to go with our -100, lose 11 IMPs.

 

 

There was a lot riding on the opening lead here.  I’ll get to that in a minute.  Meanwhile, on the bidding, one South player added up their points, arrived at 17 and opened 1NT, ending the auction.  At my table, South added up their points (including 1 for the 5th diamond) and arrived at 18, enough to open 1♦ and rebid 2NT.  North noted the vulnerability and figured ‘might as well’ to arrive at the 3NT game contract.  What to lead?

In my estimation, leading a bid suit made no sense.  So, I had to choose between two 4 card suits headed by the K.  Clubs were bolstered by the ♣J10, while hearts spots were quite weak.  Nevertheless, I chose to go after the unbid major for disastrous results.  Declarer was able to gain an entry to dummy with the ♥J, use the ♦J to finesse diamonds and run diamonds (I eventually pitched a heart on the run of diamonds and partner pitched clubs on the run of diamonds/hearts, so declarer found himself with 10 tricks (as soon as I pitched a heart, he was up to 9: 0+3+5+1).

At the other table, after a club lead, 9 tricks were never happening.  Declarer ended up with 7 tricks so our teammates were +90 to go  with our -630 to lose 11 IMPs.  

Readers of this blog know about my fascination with David Bird’s books on opening leads as well as Bob Richardson’s implementation of those books via software in his product:

“Lead Captain”: http://www.bridgecaptain.com/LeadCaptain.html

What do you think Lead Captain had to offer for selecting the best lead on this hand?  Here are the results:

I was totally shocked to see a diamond lead at the top of the list, but it was really in a tie with the low heart lead (virtually a tie).  It shows how Hxxx is not only dangerous vs. suit contracts, it is a problem vs. NT contracts when leading into the strong hand on your right.  Lead Captain chooses every possible card in your hand (adjacent cards are considered equal, since the double dummy result of leading the ♥6 vs. the ♥5 will always be the same – they are the same card).  At the table, choosing between adjacent cards could create different results (partner reading spots, signals, counting, etc.), but double dummy players don’t have to worry about partner reading their cards – adjacent cards are equal.  I point this out to explain why the ♠9, ♥5 and ♣10 are not in the table.  Since a club lead is so devastating to declarer (on this exact deal) and a heart lead so friendly, one tends to look at the hand and conclude, ‘obviously, a club is the best lead.’  If Lead Captain is to be believed (and I do believe it), then a club is decidedly not the best lead based on this auction – it is decidedly the worst lead.  But, at the table, it was the winner on this hand.

Why does a simulation show a club lead to be so bad?  I think, with nearly half of the deck in declarer’s hand, the ♣Q will be there much of the time.  When it is, declarer is presented with a trick they could never achieve otherwise.  On the other hand, even when declarer’s assets include the ♥AQJ (as it did here), if the heart suit had been 3=3=3 around the table, you are one lead from partner away from establishing your suit (assuming the ♥A is with declarer) after an opening heart lead.  Meanwhile, declarer always had 2 tricks in the suit on their own power, so (in the case of 3=3=3 hearts) the heart lead gives away nothing.  Anyway, that was my thinking at the table and that is my thinking after seeing the Lead Captain results.  What do you think?  A major or a minor?  A weak Hxxx or a strong Hxxx?  Or a diamond?  The diamond, in theory gives away nothing, but it does provide the ‘entry’ for declarer to take the diamond finesse.  Lacking that easy entry, the declarer playing 1NT simply cashed the ♦AK after they won the ♣A.

 

 

Well, more bidding judgment issues did me in on this last hand.  At the table, I had various thoughts about ‘checkback.’  9 tricks are less than 10.   A 3♦ checkback bid could allow a lead directing double.  If partner had only 2 hearts, nothing would be learned by going through checkback.  If partner had 3 hearts, he may be able to use hearts effectively in a NT contract.  So I bid 3NT.  Wrong.  The opening leader found a diamond lead against 3NT anyway.  Partner did have a 3rd heart and could have used it to ruff the 3rd diamond.  After the diamond lead and a losing spade finesse, 3NT had no play whatsoever.  Meanwhile, our opponents holding our cards at the other table, did use checkback, found the 8 card heart fit that produced 10 tricks in their 4♥ game.  When partner only found 7 tricks in 3NT, we were -200 to go with -620 to lose 13 IMPs.

I must say, in general, I nearly always do checkback.  But somehow I got the idea that this was the exception and I should not do it on this hand.  Do you ‘always’ do checkback, or use judgment?  Does judgment depend on the total HCP?  Texture of the major suit?  Texture of the whole hand?  I clearly needed to use that tool here.  Just for the heck of it, I decided to do a poll on Bridgewinners to see if there were other crazies who thought 3NT (vs. 3♦ checkback) had any merit.  The response has been tepid (only 13 votes so far) but there are some votes for 3NT by some national champions, but also votes for checkback by some national champions: https://bridgewinners.com/article/view/bidding-problem-2-n97oscag76/

In hindsight, I believe checkback is the right bid, but it wasn’t the bid I made at the table and my choice of 3NT failed.

It feels like the content on today’s 4 swing hands didn’t have much to offer.  Board 3: either you open 2♠ or 3♠ and and then come in with a double or not.  Board 17: you open the East hand (or not) and then invite slam with West or blast to slam.  Board 21: you open South with 1NT or 1♦ and then lead a club or a heart.  Board 28: either you checkback or not.  Pretty binary choices.