I talked about very strong balanced hands last week. Here is a hand that we played in the Portuguese Open Pairs recently. With a balanced 26 count I opened 2C and rebid 3NT over the 2D response. That ended the bidding. Georgia and I do not play Kokish as described below. As a result we failed to find the 4-4 heart fit where 11 tricks are easy with a normal 3-3 break in trumps. In fact with the trump break the heart slam only needed the club finesse or lead.

 

In 3NT West chose to lead a diamond which ensured that only 10 tricks were possible. Our matchpoint score was only saved by the pairs who failed in aggressive 6H contracts.

 

If we played Kokish we would have had room to find the heart fit and play in 4H making 11 tricks for a decent result. 

How often do you hold a balanced 26 count?  Well,  if you manage it very often,  you should stop playing duplicate bridge and start playing for money!

 

Because it is such a rare hand type, most partnerships will have few bidding understandings to make use of. We play stayman and transfers after the 3NT rebid. Many years ago Terence Reese proposed playing 4D as Flint showing a very weak hand with a 5+ card major and 4H&4S as having some interest in bidding on. It is not clear to me that the North hand above is strong enough to make a forward going bid and is only worth the Flint 4D.

 

Last Monday, we held the hands  above and bid them as shown. Georgia opened the 26 count with 2C. I showed weakness with 2D and Georgia rebid 3NT to show 25/26 balanced.  With a weak hand and a 6 card major it was obviously to transfer to 4H and there the bidding ended. 

 

Well,  they may have been the correct bids in theory but the final contract was clearly inferior as a slam is well with the odds. The spades will often provide 4 tricks either with a 3-3 break or, as here, with the jack dropping singleton or doubleton. If these chances do not work out there is the chance of making the twelfth trick in diamonds, so what went wrong? There were only 29 points between the hands and no exceptional fit so why is a slam so good?

 

I would suggest that Georgia should have broken the transfer to hearts by jumping to 5H to show an exceptional hand with all suits controlled. If you consider that a responding hand with 6 small hearts and at least 3 small clubs will make 6H the 40% of the time that hearts break 2-2 and might sneak home on a 3-1 break if the defence fail to cash their DA on lead.

 

In my opinion the South hand is too strong to be shown as 25/26 balanced. The controls held in combination make the hand very powerful. It will make a slam opposite very weak responding hands with a long suit such as :-

 

Sxxxxxx/Hxx/Dx/Cxxxx

Sxx/Hxxx/DQxxxxx/Cxx

 

and similar hands. therefore I would have bid 2S over the 2D response to leave partner some room to show any values and suits held.  Over 2S partner could have chosen to bid 3C to show a double negative hand, but holding a 6 card major and a partial spade fit would probably have chosen 3H to show a semi-positive with at least 5 hearts. Over 3H I would have asked for aces and settled for 6H when one ace was missing.

 

Recently there has been a new development in bidding theory by Eric Kokish of Canada is designed to improve the bidding of 25+ balanced hands. My next article will explain the idea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

South is first in hand with 11 points and a decent 5 card diamond suit. As the hand has two aces to provide the defensive tricks an opening bid promises and the potentially valuable S10 and D10 and 5431 distribution I would regard it as a normal 1D opening.

 

West has an obvious pre-empt with 8 clubs which are solid except for the queen. We can count a certain 7 tricks and a possible 8 tricks with clubs as trumps. The usual rule for pre-empting is to keep the penalty to a maximum of 500. As West is not vulnerable that leaves the pessimists bidding 4C and the optimists choosing 5C.

 

However there is another possibility, it could be that a reasonable number of the missing values could be held by East and our side can make 3NT. We use a jump cue-bid overcall to show a solid suit (usually a minor) and little else. Others play it also shows values outside the suit although we believe that that makes the hand strong enough to overcall or double. On this basis we would bid 3D over the 1D opening.

 

At the table our West chose the aggressive 5C overcall leaving me as North to make a decision. It seems that 5D is going to make and a slam or grand slam is possible. It is interesting to consider what the various bids mean in this awkward situation -

 

Double is for penalties although a very strong or distributional opener should bid on knowing there are some values opposite.

 

A new suit is clearly natural so that leaves bids of 6C and 5NT to consider.

 

To me the cue-bid of 6C must agree diamonds and promise 1st round control of clubs. That may be sufficient information to enable the opener to bid 7D on a hand such as SA/HAKxx/AQxxx/xxx.

 

That leaves hands where responder wants to bid on but does not know which suit should be trumps , e.g. -

SAJxxx/HAKxxx/DKJx/C-  or SAQJxxx/HAKxxx/DQx/C-. The only available bid is 5NT which has to be for takeout, It is the duty of the opener to rebid a long diamond suit or to bid a major with length there.  The first example hand would pass whichever suit opener bids. The second hand would remove a rebid in diamonds to hearts to ask for a choice of the majors.

 

Back to the real hand the possibilities over 5C are 5D which I felt was an underbid or a 6 level bid. I thought 6C was appropriate in that I had a big diamond fit and 1st round club control but overall the hand was too weak to suggest a possible grand slam. So I jumped to 6D and hope for the best. As you can see the opening hand although a minimum was very suitable and the slam was cold.

 

Now it was East's turn. He has a weakfish hand with a 4 card club fit, a singleton diamond and a possible spade ruff. It is almost impossible to see how 6D will go down if partner has a normal pre-empt with his values in clubs. So if the opponents can make 1370 in 6D and we are not vulnerable we can make a profit by bidding 7C. Even 4 down would be only 1100. Partner's bid promises 8 tricks and we can surely add 1 or 2 more. That suggests we will go down 2 or 3 tricks in 7C which will cost either 300 or 500. This is less than anyone who allows their opponents to play in 5D and score 600 or 620. So far it is a no-brainer but bidding 7C does preclude the possibility that the opponents have got it wrong and are going down in their slam thus giving us a top.

 

For me to bid 7C is clear cut and the best that North/South can do is double for 300 and a bottom.  Luckily for us our West passed and we scored 1370 for a 75% score. I see no East/West pair managed to find their very successful save.

 

 

This year we only entered the three session pairs event held Friday evening and Saturday/Sunday afternoons. We put in a reasonable performance to score 55% which was out of the cash prizes but good enough to win the mixed pair prize which won us 200 Euros and a very large bottle of excellent Alentejo red wine which we shared with other diners and staff at a restaurant that evening.

 

We arrived on the Thursday afternoon having driven through amazing scenery on the empty motorway from Faro to Lisbon. We joined a team in the last of a three session teams event as two of the players wanted to go to watch Benfica in the Europa League. This deal was a curiosity:-

 

                                                                       S AK7

                                                                       H SK96

                                                                       D KQJ76

                                                                       C KQ

 

S Q98                                                                                                  S J6542

H 752                                                                                                   H Q83

D 9853                                                                                                 D 10

C 842                                                                                                   C A653

 

                                                                   S 103

                                                                   H AJ104

                                                                   D A42

                                                                   C J1097

 

Dealer East    North/South vulnerable

 

The bidding P/P/1S/X/4S/X all pass

 

 

A normal auction would be three passes to North who with 21 points and a good 5 card diamond suit is a maximum for a 20-22 2NT  opener. South has a 10 count but the sequentially honours in hearts and clubs supported by two aces makes it much stronger than its raw point count. South tries for a 4/4 heart fit and, when that fails, is worth an invitational jump to 4NT North has enough to accept a slam but with only one ace would be concerned that two aces are missing.  A possible answer is to adopt non-forcing blackwood where the jump to 4NT is invitational but the responder shows aces if accepting the invitation. Using this system North would accept the slam invite with a bid of 5 diamonds to show one ace and South then bids 6NT.

 

The play in a NT contract is straight forward declarer has 2 spades, 3 hearts, 5 diamonds and 3 clubs after knocking out the CA. The C10 proves to be worth a full trick avoiding the need for the heart finesse.

 

However events at our table were completely different. After two passes Georgia was looking at a 2 count and was not vulnerable against vulnerable opponents. She was playing in form so chanced her arm with the first psychic bid that I can remember her making when she chose a bid of 1 spade showing a 5 card suit. North had a normal double and I felt a 4 spade bid was reasonable. South doubled to show points and everyone passed.

 

Clearly East/West do not have many tricks to take - 3 spades and the ace of clubs for a total of four. That is six down doubled but not vulnerable for -1400. At the table the defence slipped and allowed Georgia (West) to ruff my fourth club in her hand to make 5 tricks and lose 1100. A triumph or a disaster? if our team mates play 3NT they would score 690 and we would lose 7imps. If they bid 6NT they would score 1440 and we would gain 8 imps. I wasn't hopeful as I thought they would stop in game.

 

When we returned to our team to score we were gaining nicely until this, board when they announced +1400. We were all surprised to find that the bidding was exactly the same at their table where West had chosen the same 1S bid as Georgia. North led the SAK7 to hold the contract to four tricks and we gained 7 imps.

Who says bridge is predictable!

 

 

 

This week there were many hands when it was necessary to make the obvious contracts with solid declarer play. Board 2 was one example 

 

The bidding is not easy for East who has only 11 points but good distribution with support for both majors. if East decides to open, the normal Acol choice is 1H so as to give an easy rebid of 2D. The downside of this sequence is that partner will normally expect 5 cards in hearts and might put you into a 4-2 fit. Some pairs would agree to open 1D and rebid 2D should partner be so unreasonable to respond 2C. For those who play 5 card majors the only choice is to open 1D. It is normal to play 15-17 NTs with 5 card majors so that a 2 level response would show 11+ points. This allows East to rebid 2NT after 1D-2C showing in theory 12-14 balanced - nearly a good description. If East opens 1H the final contract will be in game, probably 3NT played by West.

 

Given the difficulties if you open the East hand, some will decide to pass leaving West to open or rebid 1NT depending on the ranges used and if the West hand is regarded as too good for a weak NT.  With 11 points, East would invite game and the contract will be 3NT played by West.

 

I was North and had to lead after East had bid hearts and West had shown a balanced hand. Rather than speculate with a spade I chose a diamond. Declarer won in dummy and should now count tricks. There are 4 in diamonds, 2 aces in the rounded suits and 2 or 3 tricks in spades depending on the location of the SQ. So if South holds the SQ with fewer than 4 cards we nearly guarantee making our contract. So we lead the S10 at trick 2. At our table I allowed the S10 to win the trick and declarer took the opportunity to finesse in clubs losing to my CK.

 

Now I had to decide what to play next. It was clear that there no future in spades or diamonds. In hearts, partner would need to hold the queen whilst in clubs, there was a danger in finessing partner and no realistic chance in getting to her hand, even if a club switch set up a trick in her hand. Of course, a diamond continuation was passive and would not give a trick away. However it would leave declarer time to switch back to spades setting up that suit to add to the 4 diamond tricks, the HA and some number of tricks in clubs.

 

So a heart switch it was. With dummy holding the A109X I decided that playing the HK was best and would gain should declarer hold the singleton queen. Our declarer ducked the HK and lost the next round to the HQ. Ultimately he failed to take all his tricks making only 8 in total.

 

 When I look at the results, I see that 6 declarers failed to make 9 tricks on this hand and it is hard to see why. Normal play will make 3 spades, 1 heart, 4 diamonds and the CA. If the defence fail to play hearts early there will be time to set up a 10th trick in clubs. So anyone who failed to make at least 9 tricks should look at the play and try to discover how more than 1 spade, 2 hearts and 1 club were lost.

 

 

 

 

 

Accurate defensive play is worth many matchpoints in every session we play. Board 12 was one such hand. It was played 16 times on Monday evening. Ten declarers made 11 tricks for an above average score whilst four were held to 10 tricks for a great score for the defenders.

 

The bidding is straightforward. North opens 1D and South, who is to strong to respond 3NT for fear of missing a slam, responds 2C awaiting developments. North with a super suit  holds too few high cards to bid anything except 2D. After this weak rebid South bids 3NT to end the auction. The resultant contract is at risk on a spade lead if the diamond finesse were to lose but is the highest scoring contract and where you would want to be at pairs. At teams where making game contracts is paramount you might prefer to reach 5D.

 

West is on lead with an obvious spade lead but has to decide the choice of card and think about the bidding. South would probably have bid a 4 card major if he held one so we can assume that we has not got one. Personally I do not like to underlead touching honours such as KQ, QJ or J10 although many books would advise to lead low from these holdings, especially if they are not supported by another high card. So all experts would lead the highest honour from KQJ, QJ10 and J109 and most would do so from KQ10, QJ9 and J108. With lesser holdings they would chose the 4th highest. On this board the majority would try the SK which is just as well on this hand as the 4th highest lead would be won by dummy with the S9.    

 

On the lead of the SK dummy plays its singleton and East has to decide which card to play from the 8762. If you play normal encourage/discourage we play the S2 to deny the ace or the jack. If you play reverse then you play the S8. If you play mainly distributional signals it gets slightly more difficult when holding 4 small cards .My view is to play 3rd highest (S6) to discourage with four cards and 2nd highest to encourage - so the S8 from J876. This sort of agreement is more complicated than simple encourage/discourage but will help in a slightly different situation where declarer holds AJ doubleton and East can be read for 5 small cards when he plays the S2.

 

On this hand after East discourages on the SK lead the declarer (South) must decide what to do from his SAJ3. This is an easy decision as winning with the ace and taking a losing diamond finesse will result in defeat of the contract when a spade is returned through your remaining J3. Therefore we have to duck by playing the S3 leaving the AJ to guard the suit. Should West lead another spade it will be won by the jack which would make the contract easy to make The contract is still in danger if West can lead a heart to his partners ace and get a spade return when the diamond finesse will need to work.

 

When the SK is allowed to win the first trick it is West's turn to think. The card played by his partner should make it clear that he does not hold the ace or jack of spades so that a continuation will be a losing play. If we consider the other suits starting with clubs. Declarer has bid the suit, we have 4 cards and dummy has 3. Therefore our partner is short in clubs and will not be able to get the lead unless he has the ace. If he has the ace and returns a spade declarer will win at least 7 diamonds, 3 clubs and 1 spade and I will lose my HA. Alternatively partner holds the DK as well when the contract will always go down. Therefore a club switch must be wrong.

 

Now lets look at a diamond switch. If declarer has the DK he will start to play clubs through partner and cannot make a losing guess. He will make 1 spade, 7 diamonds and several clubs and there is some danger that we will never make our HA. If partner has the DK, when he wins it. he will return a spade to clear our suit. Declarer will win 1 spade, 6 diamonds and several clubs. Again we might not win our HA. Either way a diamond switch must be wrong.

 

So we have worked out that we need to play a heart but which one? if we lead a small one through the KJ in dummy partner might win with the HQ to return a spade which would be good.  Could anything go wrong? Imagine partner with HQ9xx. If declarer plays low partner might play the H9 and lose to the 10.The H9 is the correct play if you have led from the H10. Of course you will argue that you would have led the H10 in that situation but partner had a tough decision to make. When declarer lacks the HQ he may guess to play dummy's king and could run both the minors so we fail to win our HA.

 

When you think back to the bidding South is favourite to hold the HQ as he did jump to 3NT and might not have done so without a heart stopper. After a full analysis it becomes clear that we should cash our HA and play another. If partner has the HQ and an entry in one of the minors he will be able to cash the queen and the long card in the suit.

 

On the actual hand declarer would win the second heart in hand to take the diamond finesse. Partner will win the DK for our third defensive trick and we get a near top for holding declarer to 10 tricks .Of course we managed it?

 

I am afraid not. it was the last board of the night and we were sleeping. Georgia lead the SK and continued the suit into the AJ. Declarer took the diamond finesse which I ducked. Georgia showed out on the second round of diamonds and I won the king. Without any thought I returned a spade giving declarer 11 tricks on top.

I should have stopped and counted. I knew declarer had 2 spades and 6 diamonds and some other high cards. If Georgia has the CA then she will not have the HA so declarer might win 3 tricks in hearts to make 11 in total. If Georgia has the HA she is in danger of being squeezed in hearts and clubs so I should have led to her ace - but which one?

 

From Georgia's perspective she could count declarer for plenty of tricks unless I had the CA so she should have signalled for a heart switch to make sure that she got her ace .Thinking and counting can get tough late in the evening!

 

 

 

Sometimes you come across an opportunity to do something that seems brilliant until the reasons are analysed. Board 8 was such an opportunity and I am annoyed that I missed it by failing to apply the required concentration.

 

The bidding was very simple, 1NT = 15-17 raised to 6NT with North as declarer. The lead was the S2. On the previous hand, this defender had also led the same card, and proved to hold 4 small spades. It seemed reasonable to assume that this was a lead from a 4 card spade suit.

 

A count of tricks reveals 2 in spades, 1 in hearts, 4 in diamonds and 4 in clubs for a total of eleven top tricks. The only chance for the twelfth trick is to take a second trick in hearts. the main chance is that West holds the king with slight extra chances of East holding the singleton king or West having the J10 doubleton so that my H9 gets set up.

 

So how to play the contract? One possibility is to play a heart to the Ace and then another very early. On this hand you would be down one very quickly. Much better is to cash some winners and watch what develops. So we win the SA and cash our solid clubs and ensure we observe the cards - opponents have been known to throw away the wrong cards. As we cash the clubs East discards the H2 on the third round. On the 4th round West discards the SQ to show that she started with solid spades headed by the queen, and East discards the S3. Has anything interesting happened?

 

Yes it has - the heart discard by East is revealing as it is not normal to throw from a 4 card holding as it could easily cost a key trick, so it is more likely that East started with 3 or 5 cards in hearts.

 

Next we cash three rounds of diamonds ending in dummy (South). Somewhat surprisingly, East shows out again, discarding another spade. So what do we know now?

 

We know that East started with 2-2 in the minors and therefore 9 cards in the majors. If the lead was a true card his shape was 4522 which fits in with the discard of the H2 on the third club. So is it time to play West for the HK?

 

Well, West is assumed to have started with only 1 heart so East is 5 to 1 to have the king. This is very poor odds so we need to think about an endplay instead. First we cash the last diamond and discard a heart from our hand. West follows suit and West discards a heart. We are down to a 4 card ending needing 3 more tricks -

 

 

 

                                                                                                                S 5

                                                                                                                H Q94

 

                                                                      S J104                                                            S 8

                                                                       H ?                                                                 H ???

                                                                                                 

                                                                                                               S K

                                                                                                               H A76

 

The missing hearts are the KJ108. If we play the HA we will make the contract if West started with the singleton HK but not otherwise. As I have shown the chances of that are 5-1 against so we ignore that chance - so how can we make it?

 

We need to endplay West to make a losing lead. In this position if we play a heart and West wins he can safely return a spade to my King and we gain nothing. So we cash the SK leaving only hearts in our hands. Now the contract is cold as long as West's singleton heart is not the King. We lead a heart away from the Ace and watch for West's card. If it is the 8 we play out 9. East wins the 10 and then has to lead away from the KJ. If it is the 10 we cover with the Queen and East has to lead away from the J8. If it is the Jack we cover with the Queen and East wins with the King and has to lead away from the 108. And if it the King we curse and go 2 down in a laydown contract.

 

On the actual hand West plays the Jack and we make the contract and we feel very proud. And I missed it!

 

Looking at the travellers 1 pair made 6NT and 2 pairs made 12 tricks in 3NT. I guess that East led a 4th highest heart which might well be reasonable against 3NT but I would suggest that leading away from a King against 6NT is not reasonable and deserved to let the contract in.

 

 

 

 

 

This week had a succession of interesting hands. I only wish I had been awake enough to make the most of them.

 

North/South had a number of potential slams  to bid and then find a way to make them. I failed on two of them as you will see in the next weeks when I look at the play of two interesting slam contracts. Board 1 was the first possible slam -

 

As North I held A3/KQ108752/AQJ3/-. A hand with potential - what would you open? Well, we play weak twos so my options were 1H or a strong 2C. I don't like to open 1H when I have no idea how to rebid, so I decided on a possibly unsound Acol 2C. The opponents passed throughout, and Georgia responded 3C and then raised my 3H rebid to 4H. In our style a positive response does not promise any particular values, and the raise to 4H is not forcing. Probably I should pass, but I risked a jump to 6H. Partner held J42/A94/9/QJ8654 and the contract made easily on a diamond lead.