Don't spit

Partnering my nemesis of the previous evening, I was pleased with the divergence between our result and that achieved by our teammates at the other table on the following deal.

Picking up an unremarkable, ♠Q865 ♥AJ ♦K103 ♣10532, as West, my partner and I played no role in the auction:

North	South
	Pass
1♦	1♥
1♠	1NT
Pass

With a choice of unattractive leads, I opted for the ♣5 and dummy was faced. I could now see:

	♠K1092
	♥52
	♦AJ765
	♣K4
♠Q865
♥AJ
♦K103
♣10532

Declarer played low from the table and partner played ♣J, won by declarer with the queen. The ♦9 was led towards the table at trick two, and I had to decide what to play.

Were I to play small, declarer would almost certainly run the nine to partner's presumed queen. My K10 would then be exposed to a simple finesse on the next round, allowing her to make four diamond tricks with great ease.

I could of course cover the nine with the ten, relying on partner to hold ♦8, but there is a better solution: rise with the king. At worst, this gives declarer an awkward guess on the next round - if she  started life with nine-eight, she would have to decide whether I had split my diamond honours from KQx, or whether the finesse against the ten was working all the way along. However playing the king also has the great merit of disrupting communications between the hands.

Declarer should probably have ducked but she won with ♦A and thinking perhaps that I had KQ bare of diamonds, led a second diamond towards her eight and my ten.

Continuing with a second club, I was pleased to see partner take dummy's queen with the ace, and return a low heart. This was good defence: there was no need to cash our clubs yet and provide declarer with information regarding distribution of our hands.

I won declarer's ♥10 with the ♥J and had a further choice to make. Declarer had started life with ♣Q and most likely one heart honour. I could just cash my heart ace and our two club tricks, for it seemed that declarer had started life with only three. Partner would win the fourth club and then what? She could cash the diamond queen, of course, but it wasn't clear whether we we would have any more tricks, for declarer surely had ♠A. However I wondered whether, if declarer was missing the ♠J, I might lay a little trap for her, so I exited with ♠Q.

Perhaps declarer should have seen through this ruse and played for split spade honours - but since we had not revealed much about the heart position nor our honours nor our distribution, she was still scrabbling for tricks, and going up with ♠K from table could result in the suit being blocked, if my partner held Jxx, for example. Meanwhile there was the Scylla tempting her to make four spade tricks if I had started with QJx in the suit - after all, who leads an unsupported queen?

It all developed as the gods had foretold. Declarer won with the spade ace in hand and took the finesse of the ten on the way back, partner gratefully winning with the knave and playing an awkward ♥9 through.

Declarer got this one right and played low, and I won perforce with my ♥A. We now cashed our remaining club, heart and diamond winners, but it left North - South with just four tricks.

Declarer gave me one of the filthiest looks I have received for some time and spat " How did you know that your partner had the ♠J?". 

The full deal:

Plus 150 at our table added handily to the +120 which our team-mates achieved at the other table, where the contract and opening lead were the same, but West did not rise with the ♦K when the ♦9 was led towards the table.

Julius Caesar, Act 4

There is a tide in the affairs of men.

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

Julius Caesar, Act 4, Scene 3, 218-221

Following on from the previous blog, I hope that you have decided what you would have done: finesse, risking your contract, or rise with the ♣Q, guaranteeing yourself nine tricks and maybe still making eleven if clubs split three-two.

The question of whether to finesse at pairs in the hope of making an overtrick, but risking going down can generally be answered by saying that if the finesse has a better than 50% chance of success, one should finesse.

Here however, you can be sure not just of making the contract if you don't finesse, but perhaps making just as many overtricks, so the situation is different isn't it?

What do we know to help us make a decision?

East started with five spades, headed by the queen, one diamond and at least two hearts including the ace. There are five unknown cards in his hand. When you lead a club, he produces one of those, so there are now just four unknown cards: certainly room for three (or four) clubs including the ♣J.

What about West? His hand included four spades, one heart and five diamonds, so there are only three unknown cards in his hand.

So, by my reckoning, there is definitely a greater chance of East holding the ♣J than West.

Moreover, had East started with only two clubs, that would have given him five hearts - and with five cards in both majors headed by honours, he might have made the opening lead of a heart rather than a spade (missing J109) - or indeed he might have ducked the initial heart to the king, or even returned a heart at trick three. The evidence points to East having started with three if not four clubs, and therefore the finesse will work between 60% and 80% of the time. However - and this is critical - the finesse only actually gains when clubs break 1-4, which is less than half as likely as the more normal 2-3 break.

Or, put another way, taking the finesse will lose somewhat over 20% of the time - you will go off and get a bottom. Taking the finesse will gain when the suit breaks 4-1 onside, which figures to happen somewhat under 20% of the time. You will then score eleven tricks and a top. In all other cases, it doesn't matter to your score whether you finesse or not.

The match point odds therefore favour going up with the queen, although you might decide to go against the odds late in a match you are losing to stronger opposition.

Mike Seaver, my partner, spurned the finesse - and we made exactly nine tricks, for a slightly below average score on the board. However we won the match 14-6 VP's.

Will this prove to have been the deciding moment in the competition?

The full deal:

Cambridge Swiss Pairs (1)

Every now and then a deal seems comes up - perhaps where one achieved a less than satisfactory result -  it defies easy analysis and you are tormented working out whether you played it optimally, or whether you should have done better.

Such a deal came up in the first of the two-session Cambridge Club Swiss Pairs event this week. In our third match, against Paul Barden and Jon Cooke, our most highly ranked opponents and very real contenders for the competition, we reached 3NT via the auction below and received the opening lead of ♠4. Why not take the place of declarer?

Dealer E		♠A83
Vul:  E- W		♥KQ7
		♦AQ
		♣AK876
				East	South	West	North
				Pass	Pass	Pass	2NT (1)
		♠K		Pass	3♣ (2)	Pass	3NT (3)
		♥9632		Pass	Pass	Pass
		♦K9872
		♣Q104

 
(1) 20-22
(2) Stayman, enquiring for five card majors
(3) No four or five card major

Winning in dummy, the next hand following with ♠J, you consider your options. The contract and lead seem normal enough: some might venture to six clubs, but that faces its own share of options. You have eight top tricks and can securely play for a ninth in hearts. If everything goes your way, you might end up with twelve tricks (or just possibly thirteen if you lead a heart to hand, and the hand with the ace ducks: an unlikely prospect against this opposition). The shortage of entries to dummy suggests that one should test diamonds before clubs, and that if you are going to lead a heart towards hand, the time to do it is at trick two.

With this in mind,and nothing else to go on, you lead a heart to your king, which is taken by the ace and a second spade, the deuce, comes back at trick three, you throw a heart from dummy and West plays the nine. Your opponents are playing fourth best leads, so there is nothing to be gained by ducking this, and you win the trick with ♠A. It seems normal to continue with diamonds, so you play ♦A, the defender on your left, East, playing ♦10.  Any hopes of a favourable split in that suit are dashed when you continue with ♦Q - on which he now discards a heart.

With the spades now wide open, there is no point in overtaking the diamond, so you now play a club from hand, East following with the deuce. Do you finesse the ten or rise with ♣Q? If you get this decision right, you will make five club tricks and eleven tricks in all, get it wrong and you may only make eight tricks in your no trump contract in spite of your combined 30-count. The competition may well hang on your choice of card.

To be continued........

The Phantom of Wallingford

In the days before computer dealing, deals with wild distribution were much rarer than they seem to be today. Except for the goulashes at rubber bridge, one could go months without seeing an eight card suit for instance. There was one exception to this: a session at Wallingford Bridge Club could be guaranteed to produce numerous hands with 7411 distribution, or a void in each of the hands round the table, and such like. This was so pronounced that we used to refer to the influence of the "phantom of Wallingford" when such extraordinary hands appeared several times in a session. My friends who lived between London and Oxford used to love visiting there for an occasional game, guaranteed to be full of surprises and unusual bidding/play situations!

I was reminded of the phantom at the Cambridge Club's Mixed Pairs evening this week, where we had such delights as a 3019 hand including a club suit solid down to the 5 (except for the 7), and one deal where at different tables both North-South and East-West contracted to play in 4♥ doubled (it didn't make either time).

This was another one:

It is both difficult and (potentially) satisfying to bid up to a (making) slam after the opponents have opened the bidding. My partner and I ran out of steam after this less than satisfactory auction:

North	East	South	West
Pass	Pass (1)	1 ♣	Dbl (2)
Pass	2 ♣ (3)	Pass	3 ♥ (4)
Pass	3 ♠	Pass	4 ♥ (5)
Pass	5 ♦ (6)	Pass	Pass (7)
Pass	Pass	Pass

 

(1) Could open but first in hand vulnerable, prefer to wait it he hope of showing two suiter later. Holding spades, I am less likely to be pushed up too fast.

(2) Although this hand might be considered too strong for a one level overcall, double - when one is almost certain to hear a large number of spades from partner - is high risk and not an efficient use of bidding space.

(3) Trying to find out the nature of partner's hand before committing to spades or diamonds

(4) Overemphasising the strength of the heart suit and, at the same time, taking up bidding space

(5) Getting nervous about that spade void. Maybe 4♦ is ambiguous.

(6) We seem to be getting higher than I would like here. 5♦ doesn't look likely to score well.

(7) Chicken. Partner is a passed hand - are we really missing slam?

I would have preferred:

North	East	South	West
Pass	Pass	1 ♣	1♥ (1)
Pass	1♠ (2)	Pass	2♦
Pass	5 ♦(3)	Pass	6♦(4)
Pass	Pass	Pass

   

(1) Take it gently, there are a lot of spades around

(2) Void in partner's suit: be cautious

(3) Can hardly bid less

(4) With four first round controls, but facing a likely shortage in hearts, six is probably enough.

The play in 7♦ is not  uninteresting. If South leads a heart, declarer can take the free finesse and cash his side winners in clubs and hearts, before making the balance of tricks on a cross-ruff. On the lead of a top spade, there is a bit more work to be done: the sequence has to be right. After ruffing in dummy, declarer plays a club to hand and ruffs a second spade, cashes the heart ace and ruffs a heart before ruffing a third spade in dummy with the trump ace. The top spades having now all appeared, he can now cash the club ace and ruff another heart in hand before leading his master  ♠J. When South fails to ruff, declarer can let this run and then ruff his remaining spade in dummy with the ♦Q. His last three cards are winning diamonds.