| HAND OF THE DAY CHANGES |
FREQUENCY CHANGE : we are now moving to three hands a week - puzzle on Monday, a hand played on Monday discussed on Wednesday, and a puzzle on Friday.
This is primarily to ease the burden on the two producers who have so far generated nearly 2000 hands-of-the-day over the past 5+ years. If anyone else wants to contribute, please contact webmaster@gcba.org.uk
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| FEEDBACK FORM |
To save space and make reading easier, we will put the option for feedback here at the front, rather than embed it in each article.
When you do feed back, please be clear to which items you are referring.
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| Be Careful |
Show Detail |
West leads the ♠3. You try dummy's knave but East covers with the Queen. You duck this and win the return of the spade nine, West contributing the ♠2. Continue.
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| Show Answer |
You have finesse possibilities in three suits. Even if the diamond finesse loses, you still have a chance if either the heart or club finesse works. However, if you play carefully, you have a 100% line assuming that West has 5 spades. At trick 3 you should lead the ♥J. Say West wins and shifts to a high club, best defence. Go up with the ♣A, return to your ♥A and run the ♦Q. Say it loses. Not much the defence can do at that point. If a spade is returned, you have nine tricks: four diamonds, two spades, two hearts and the ♣A. Even if West has the ♣K and a club is returned, you still have nine tricks. Notice that if you had taken the diamond finesse before leading the ♥J, you go down. East wins and clears spades, and now West has the ♥K as an entry to run spades. |
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| Hotd-sun : Christmas Pairs : 27dec20 : B1 |
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The first hand from the Christmas Pairs seemed to spring a trap on the majority of declarers. The auction shown was common and the lead was most often the ♦K (the two instances of a club lead made the contract simpler for declarer, but the spade lead was still testing).
How do we tackle this hand? After winning the ♦A the next step is to lead the ♥Q and the more astute defenders let that win. At this point strategies varied but two paths emerged to give the defence four tricks.
- There were four instances of declarer ruffing a diamond low, and being over-ruffed - giving the defence four winners (two hearts, a spade and a club).
- There were two instances of declarer cashing the ♣A and the ♣K on the first two rounds of the suit - generating two losers there to go with the major suit aces.
You might see from the traveller that five declarers went down in 4♥ - one of them managed both issues!
What should have happened? There are plenty of clues that should lead declarer to the right answer. The lead of the ♦K should be viewed with suspicion - how often will it be led if not a singleton? With that in mind the first choice after the ♥Q holds should not be a diamond ruff, but to return to a top club and continue hearts. South will win and try a spade, and North wins that and plays a second diamond. Now declarer must be careful - and ruff high. Declarer can now draw the remaining trumps and turn attention to clubs. Cashing the next top club gains only when North has a doubleton queen (5 possibiliites), while leading towards the jack gains when North has a small doubleton (10 possibilities). The choice is clear.
It wasn't an easy hand to play - perhaps next time it might be made.
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| How Good Is Your Play? |
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West leads the ♥T. Plan the play.
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You hope that the ♣K is oinside, but you have other chances. You need to eliminate the red suits so careful management of entries is important. Win the ♥J and ruff a spade. Play the ♦J to your Queen (the trumps break) and ruff another spade. Now you can play a trump to your 7 in hand to ruff the last spade. Now you can play Ace and another heart ruffing in dummy. With the red suits eliminated, you now play Ace and another club, playing the Queen from dummy if West follows low. You then succeed whenever the ♣ K is on-side or when East holds King doubleton. |
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| Play This Slam |
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How do you set about this contract on the lead of ♦K?
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One line would be to take a spade finesse, just losing a club if the finesse succeeds. Another line of play is suggested by the lead and indeed will only fail if West has all 3 top diamonds. Ruff the opening lead and draw trumps finishing in dummy. Lead the ♦J, throwing a club if East declines to cover. Win West's return and lead another high diamond, discarding your spade loser unless the diamond is covered. A double ruffing finesse and loser-on-loser play. |
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| How's Your Technique? |
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West's double of 2♣ showed 3 card spade support. The defence started with the ♠Q. How do you play?
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If you can make 5 clubs you have 9 tricks. Good technique is to try and discover the defender's distribution. Win the lead in hand and play 2 rounds of diamonds. Suppose East wins and plays a second spade. Win in dummy and ruff a diamond. If East shows out you know he started with 4 spades, 3 hearts (else he would have bid 1♥) and hence 4 clubs. Now you can pick up the club suit via ♣K and a finesse of the 9. Dummy has a heart entry for a second club finesse. If East follow to the third round of diamonds then you would just finesse the knave of clubs on the second round as the best percentage play in the suit. |
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| Hotd-thu : League 5 : 20dec21 : B14 |
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The hands on Monday this week provied surprisingly dull. although there was no board which was totally flat - there seemed to be at least one table had an accident every time that event got close.
The best bidding hand was the slam on B14 (nobody bid a slam on any other board - maybe after so many slams went off last week?). Two pairs ended up in a perilous 7N and would/should have gone off on best defence, but were allowed to make. Two pairs bashed the better grand slam of 7♦, and one of these pairs had opposition bidding which positively encouraged bidding the grand slam. There were a variety of auctions - one table started 1♣ - P - 2♦ (gf), another 1♦ - 2♦ (gf), another 1♦ - 4N (key card ask), a fourth started with a pass from East and 2N from West - which leaves 6 tables where the opening bid was 1N (11-14 most cases, but 10-12 once). How should the biddng go after a 1N opener? There is clearly slam potential on this hand but West needs to be concerned that the pair might be missing two aces or an ace and the ♦K, which would make the slam poor odds. The way to find out how many partner holds of the ♦AK ♣A is to settle on diamonds as trumps and then use a key-card ask. Three of the Wests found this approach, and heard support for diamonds over their 3♦ bid; they could now launch into Blackwood - one heard partner jump to 6♦ and was unable to proceed, one heard three key cards and bid 6♦, one heard three key cards and bid 7N. None found the right answer of three aces and then 7♦. It is curious to note that on this deal there were eight Wests decided to ask for key cards, and only five of them got sensible answers and of those five only two bid the winning 7♦. Why is this such a difficult game?
Now to the play on this hand; there is nothing to say about the play in 7♦ (twelve top winners plus a spade ruff) - the question is whether the defenders should have beaten 7N? The defence in both cases started with a neutral diamond from South, and declarer set about running the diamond suit. North had six discards to make and it is not difficult to discard safely. SInce 12 tricks for declarer are clear, you can quickly check that there is no heart holding for declarer when North's hearts matter, so they can all go. Declarer has 13 easy tricks if they hold three spades, so North can also spade three spades. If declarer follows with two top hearts, again North has no problem, as there is no holding where North cannot spare a club (declarer cannot have ♣Q when the contract is cold, or six clubs which would not open 1N). What about South's discards when they come? The first two are easy as the fourth club and fourth heart cannot matter. When the next discard comes, declarer will have also discarded twice. They key for South is to mirro East's (hidden) shape. This is most easily done if North is careful to give count signals in disacrding spades and hearts (and longer suit first). With none of the missing queens, North should be very conscious of the need to inform partner so that they can make the right choices. Count signals here makes it clear to South that declarer's shape is 2344 - so if declarer threw a club on the fifth diamond, South needs simply to discard the same suit as declarer on the sixth. Using this pattner, the 7N contract will always go down.
In practice it did not go like that. At one table North discarded three spades and three hearts, but when East discarded a club and a spade, South's third discard was a (fatal) second club, so that the top hearts now squeezed North in the black suits. At the other table North threw a fourth spade in order to hold onto all their hearts. Sadly for the defence.
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| Nice and Easy |
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Play this hand on the lead of ♦Q.
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Lots of players would win the lead and start on the trumps. This is not the correct play and stems from a failure to count your losers. There are 3 in clubs, and 1 each in the other suits. If you play trumps immediately, the defence will continue diamonds and ultimately collect their 6 tricks. However, if you win the diamond lead and play hearts, you can cash 2 heart winners after the next diamond lead and pitch your diamond loser. A very simple hand that just requires a tiny amount of planning at trick one. |
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| HAND OF THE DAY IS HAVING A REST |
The column is pausing; anyone interested to take it over can apply to webmaster@gcba.org.uk
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| How do you Play? |
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West starts with ♠AKJ. You ruff the third round and cash two top hearts. East follows once and then pitches an encouraging club an the second round. How do you rate your chances?
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Your options are very limited. You’ve lost two spade tricks, you have a trump loser and East must have the ♣K, given West’s original pass having already turned up with 10 HCP, not to mention East’s signal. You might try a swindle play like leading the ♣Q to the ace and then a low club to your jack or vice versa. But in either case, it can’t hurt East to go up with the ♣K. There is a legitimate play for the contract, however, if West started life with a singleton or void in clubs. Lead a club to the ace. West can’t afford to ruff a loser with the ♥Q if he is void, so he discards instead. But even if he follows to the first club, win the ♣A, cash your four diamond winners and toss West in with the ♥Q. If you get lucky and find West with, say, a 4351 or a 3361 pattern, he will be endplayed and forced to give you a ruff and discard, eliminating your club loser. |
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League : 13dec21 : B10 |
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This week's hands produced plenty of potential and real swings with only boards B2 abd B17 providing almost uniform results.
There were two execllent slams
- B14 : where opposite the 2N opener the 6142 10-count is clearly worth a slam exploration. Some just punted the slam but could have been missing a cashable AK (or in some cases two aces). The initial step was a transfer over 2N, and where a few openers broke this with a jump to 4♠ (something which hints at control of all suits as if missing one you could have allowed space to explore) it was easy to bid the slam. The traditional mild slam try is 2N - 3♥ - 3♠ - 4♠ (you transfer at the four level if no higher interest) but despite the fit the opener is a minimum and might pass this. Transferring and raising to 5♠ is a stronger push in the same vein and is more likely to get a raise from partner. The slam is decent odds - leading up to the top clubs and finding the ace onside genrates two discards for the losing diamonds - and if that fails then you still have the chance of the ♦Q dropping in two rounds. Given those odds are really only 59%, to which you must add the possibility of South cashing the ♣A at trick one - it was surprising to find that 12 out of 16 pairs reached a slam.
- B20 : with 33-hcp and a long heart suit and such good spades (and 6N unbeatable by North) you would expect most to find this but it was only bid at 7 of the 15 tables which played it. The worst auctions were the jumps to 3N passed by South, who felt not invited to the party (altthough one South did raise to 4N and got to slam). The 2-over-1 sequence which went 1♠ - 2♥ (gf) - 3♦ - 3♥ - 4♣ led to a comfortable use of key card ask and to 6N.
There were also slam attempts on B2 (off two aces), B7 (off two aces and more), B8 (a mildly misfitting flat 31-count needed 3 finesses of which two failed, but makeable on an endplay), B21 (off A and an unavoidable KQ). Unusually there were no hands with good slams which were missed by all.
But back to the deal shown. The contract was usually 3N and it caught the eye because in Division One all three declarers went minus while throughout the other divisions every declarer succeeded. Was this good defence at work?
The common contract was 3N (12 of the 16 tables) and the lead varied but most commonly was a heart (6 times). Declarer could count six top tricks in the majors, and needed three more. The diamond suit looked to be the strongest candidate for another trick, and at table two declarer took a double diamond finesse, but when the second one lost the defenders had 5 tricks to cash. Sad.
Might declarer have done better? It was perhaps worth thinking about the other trick that was needed. You might not know this but with that club suit, the chance of declarer being able to build a trick is actually 95%. That should therefore be the first suit to tackle. So win the ♥9 and lead a club to the ten and queen. East continues hearts and declarer continues clubs. A third heart leads to a third club, and West is on lead. Which suit should West lead? A diamond give the contract immediately, while a spade lets declarer try the ♠J for free before going after diamonds if that fails. Success for declarer!
Things might change if West wins the first club and plays a spade through, but when it emerges that the hearts break 5-1, the odds on the double diamond finesse change significantly, and declarer should resort to leading towards the ♦Q for the ninth trick.
It wasn't all a heart lead; there were two instances of West opening 1♦ and two of overcalling 2♦ and these all got a diamond lead, which stopped declarer going wrong in diamonds. It also gave declarer confidence in playing West for the ♠Q and that gave the ninth trick with no sweat. This was a case where silence might have encouraged declarer to go wrong, but as shown above the contract should still make.
The intiial tale in 3N was one of the losing declarers in Division One; the other two failing declarers in Division One do not want to talk about what happened on the hand.
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| Play the Game |
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West leads ♣A and then the ♣4. How do you play?
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The lead looks like a doubleton club and your contract is in danger if West holds ♥ Qxxx. The solution is to play off ♥ AK: If hearts are 3–2, the most you can lose is a heart, a spade and a club.If East has four hearts, you should be safe. Drive out the ♥Q, and if East wins and returns a diamond, win in dummy and lead the ♠K. Only if West has the ♠A and East a singleton diamond or a doubleton club can you go wrong. The more likely scenario finds West with four hearts to the Queen. Now if you exit with a high heart, West wins, puts East in with a spade and gets a club ruff, the setting trick. There is a possible way out. After taking the top hearts, play ♦AK and another diamond. If East shows out on the third diamond or plays the lowest outstanding diamond (meaning that West will win the trick), discard a spade, cutting off their lifeline to getting a club ruff. |
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| HotD-fri : Monday Swiss Teams : 06dec21 : B7 |
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Monday this week delivered a plethora of part-score hands, with 13 of the 20 being well short of game potential. We can add to this B1 where everyone (except one misbid) was in 3N making, B8 where everyone bid game and only one failed, B20 where everyone played 4♠ and made it.
There were two instances of people bidding slams - it was a 33% slam which succeeded on B2 and it was a 29% slam which failed on B14 - two teams gained and two teams lost, while the other six found both were flat boards.
This hand offered little in the bidding but playing in 1N - almost all on a spade lead - there was quite a variation in the results, with one table down three, four going down two, two down one, and two making. The difference between the top and bottom scores is a swing of 9 imps, so it is worth getting these right. What happened?
On a spade lead, every table cahsed five rounds of the suit, giving East the chance for two discards. Three defenders felt obliged to discard a diamond (once high, twice low) to tell partner they liked that suit - and in doing so they damaged their holding there. Discarding other suits to show no interest in them would work better. They did however all beat the contract. The most common discarding was ♥6 (or once ♥T) followed by the ♥2. Whether this was Suit Prefernece or count, at least partner could now place the top hearts. At this point the field split into two Wests who led out ♣A and another for which declarer was duly thankful and scooped up 7 tricks, making the contract. The others found the diamond switch and South faced a bit of a dilemma; if they cashed their hearts they were stuck in the wrong hand at the end and had to lead clubs away from the KJ (two chose this to settle for -2); but if they took a club play before cashing all the hearts they might not get their hearts (one tried this and ended -3).
But there was an optimal line for declarer which never happened; on the spades declarer must throw two clubs, keeping the heart winners and crucially a doubleton diamond. When the diamond switch comes declarer needs to duck and win the next diamond, cutting East off. Now three rounds of hearts ending with the ace, leaves you in dummy to lead a club to the jack - and West can win but then has to put you back in hand with the ♣K to cash the long heart. The club play at the end was not a guess - as if East has the ♣A they would be winning it to cash diamonds. The exact discarding is needed for this to work - from dummy three diamonds, and from hand two clubs.
Deep Finesse tells us that the defenders can always cash eight tricks putting the contract one down. The robots playing at table nine were the only ones to get close to this - for this you need the defence to set up their diamond winners before cashing the spades - as this leaves the ♠A as an entry with East if South was to duck the ♦T.
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| Plan the Play |
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West leads the ♦A and switches to the ♥K. Plan the play. (trumps break)
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You win the heart and draw 3 rounds of trumps. Now the bidding makes it likely that West holds seven hearts and that East holds the ♣A, so continue with the ♣K from table. If East wins, he cannot profitably continue diamonds, and if he plays a second club, you make 5 trump tricks, 3 clubs, a diamond and a heart. |
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| Take Care |
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Play this hand on a low trump lead.
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There are 10 top tricks and you might be able to take 2 minor suit ruffs in dummy. For this to work you would need to duck a club and cash 3 rounds of diamonds with no-one ruffing. A better line is to play for a dummy reversal. Win the trump lead on the table and play the ♠A and ruff a spade in hand. Now a trump to dummy for another spade ruff with ♥9. Now take two top diamonds finishing on the table and ruff another spade with the ♥A. Then you can ruff a diamond on the table, draw trumps and make the ♣A and ♦Q for 12 tricks. The defence score the last trick. The key play is to take 2 rounds of daimonds before the last spade ruff. If you dont, then West can discard a diamond on the fourth round of spades and you cant get to dummy without the defence getting a ruff to go with their club trick. |
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| Simple Stuff |
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West leads the ♠T. Plan the play.
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There is a chance that the lead is a singleton (or perhaps a doubleton) and that you may suffer a spade ruff. Then if the ♦K is offside you may find yourself with 4 losers. The best line is to win th lead in hand and play 3 rounds of clubs, ruffing, before exiting in trumps. The defence might be able to win the trick and get a spade ruff, but then on the layout shown, they can only take one more high trump before being end-played. No guarantees of course, but the club play improves your overall chances of success. |
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| HotD-wed : League 4 : 29nov21 : B10 |
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There were a lot of swings in the first half of the match on Monday, and things did calm down in the second half. Only one match result changed after half time, with the Simons team coming forward to beat Wignall by 9 imps, having been down 19 at the break. There was one board with a completely flat traveller (12 pairs in 3N+1 on B2) and there was an easy game available on another (B15 had 9 playing 4♥ successfully while the others all made 3N).
On the slam front there was only one relevant board (B6) and whether you bid it and and which suit you played in depended on how bouncy the opponents were. After a 1♠ opener from East, five Souths passed while seven overcalled 2♦ on their ♦AKQJ8 suit. The overcall led partner, with seven card support, to jump to 5♦ and out of the six instances of this three pushed to bid a slam which could have been defeated (and was defeated on two occasions). The seventh 2♦ overcall got a quiet raise from partner and this let East-West find their club fit and bit the unbeatable 6♣ slam. Where South did not overcall, only two of the five bid a slam (and that was the cold slam). It's a little unusual that silence led to fewer making slams than did an overcall! The simple, successful auction by Sasanow & Stirrup (1♠ - 2♥ -3♣ - 4♦(splinter) - 4♥ (offer to play) - 6♣) has a lot to commend it.
The play on the board shown is not complicated, but half the declarers in the heart game went off - and we have to ask why? The answer is that they drew trumps. This is not normally a problem but with a nine card fit, but before you draw trumps you need to count your winners and your losers. On this hand you have two spades and a diamond you must lose; and you have the prospect of two spade tricks, possibly a diamond, and that means you need at least seven trump tricks and maybe eight. Playing to ruff diamonds will generate more trump tricks and create the possibility of a long winner in diamonds, and is the way to go. But you must tackle your side suit here - as so often - before you embark on trumps.
You might care to note that there is one lead from South which will always beat the heart game - you might be able to guess that is a trump, and it beats the game because North can play a second trump when they win the first diamond - holding declarer to seven trumps, to which two diamonds might be added but declarer has lost control before any spade tricks can be created. An initial spade and then a trump is not good enough because declarer now has time to set up something in spades.
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| A Tricky Contract |
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The ♠T lead is taken by your Ace. You cash the ♣A and East shows out. Plan the play.
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You need to force out the Ace of diamonds and then use your diamond winners as trump substitutes. However, careful timing is required. If you lead a diamond at this point, West can win and force you with a second spade. When you run the diamonds, West can simply discard losers and in the end he will be left with a winning trump and a winning spade for 1 down. The winning line is to cash one high heart before leading diamonds. West wins and forces you but now when you run the diamonds, you discard all the hearts from dummy and ruff your second heart on the table with the ♣K. Of course, if West ruffs in at any time, you simply overuff and claim. |
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| Think It Through |
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How do you play when West leads two top spades?
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If you ruff the second spade and draw trumps, you will be in trouble if the trumps break 4-2. You will have to finesse a diamond for your tenth trick and if it loses, you are at the mercy of the spade suit. Best is to discard at trick 2 and ruff the third spade. Then when you ultimately take a losing diamond finesse, East will have no more spades to play and you can secure your ten tricks. |
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| Hotd-thu : Pairs League 4.6 : 22nov21 : B10 |
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There were plenty of swingy hands on Monday and many fewer flat travellers than previous weeks. There were three slam hands which lined up as follows
- B7 was a 50% slam which was only bid once and made. For most it was a case of East finding no enthusiasm for a slam search opposite a passed partner - and the slam was 50% when partner's ace was opposite your void, so some days it will be an even better contract.
- B9 was a much better (over 75%) slam and that was bid 6/17 times - but curiously never bid in Division One! Well done those who did bid it. The key questions seems to be whether you treat a crisp 14-count as a minimum opener or as having extras.
- B20 was an excellent slam, missed at only two tables. It is in fact a decent grand slam, and one pair got to 7♠ but the spades 3-1 and the clubs 5-2 with the queen in the long hand was too much with which to cope. Sad for that pair.
It continues to be worth watching the extent to which the strong pairs (top divisions) bid more aggressively than the lower divisions (hint, hint!)
- B4 say two 3-level openings in Division One, but only one in DIvision Two and none elsewhere - and while no West passed in the top two divisions, there were two passes in the lower divisions. Despite that the scores on the board flattened out.
- B11 in the top Division saw West on their first chance bid 3♥ once and 4♥ three times - while across the others five Wests started with 1♥ making life much simpler for the other side.
There were a few interesting play hands (try out playing B13 in 4♥ on the lead of the ♠K) but this hand stuck out as exactly half of those in 4♠ made their game and half did not. The lead of the ♦K was fairly standard. Stopping at this point to count your tricks you can see three plus another diamond for four tricks outside trumps (North will have some club honour, so hopes for ♣Q are very small) - so you need six trump tricks or to develop the hearts to get up to ten. Of those who went off, all but two played a round of trumps en route and saw the ♠J fall. What they failed to do was realise that its appearece offered them a new plan - the danger of over-ruffs had now gone and provided the two top hearts stand up, cross ruffing seven trump tricks brings the total to ten. It can be difficult once you have a plan in mind, but being able to change when new opportunities arise is vital for success. [The other path to success found by some was to sneak out the ♦9 at trick two and ditch a club from dummy when it was not covered]
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| A Sure Thing |
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Plan the play on the ♣K.
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If diamonds break there will be no problem, so assume they are 4-1. Ruff the opening lead, draw trumps and ruff dummy's second club. Now cash the 2 red aces and exit with a heart. What can the defence do? After taking two hearts they must give you a ruff and discard or play a diamond. If East plays the diamond, you just cover his card. If West plays a diamond, you can just duck and he is then endplayed. |
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| Another Slam |
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How do you play on the lead of ♣Q?
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There is no problem if trumps come in, and if not you have the spade finesse to fall back on. If you play correctly, however, you can also get home on certain other layouts. The key play at trick one is to duck in dummy (preserving the ace) and ruff in hand. Now play off two top trumps. Lets say East turns up with Qxx. Now ♥ AKx ruffing followed by a trump exit. If hearts started 4-3, the defence are doomed. A spade concedes the contract and a fourth heart sets up dummy's long heart with a spade entry to get there. If East leads a club, then you can win the ace and now ruff a further heart to establish the long card. |
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| Count |
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How do you play on the lead of ♣T?
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This is simply a matter of counting tricks. Win the opening lead and lead the ♠K. Now you can win any return and knock out the remaining high spade. You now make 2 spades, 2 hearts, 2 diamonds and 3 club tricks. If you cross to dummy with a heart to take a spade finesse, the defence can win and knock out your second heart stop, eventually coming to 2 spades, 2 hearts, and a minor suit trick. |
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| Defend |
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Your partner leads the ♠2. How do you defend?
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Prospects are bleak. Any minor suit finesses that declarer may need appear to be working. Your best chance is that partner holds something in trumps. Start by playing 3 rounds of spades. Say that declarer wins the third spade in dummy and plays a trump to his ten and partner's Queen. Now a fourth spade from partner will allow you to ruff with your ♥K, promting a second trump trick if partner's hearts are as good as Q9x. A slim chance, perhaps, but no other defence is ever going to set the contract. |
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| HotD : from Pairs League 4.4 : 08nov21 : B4 |
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There were a smaller number of very flat boards this week, one stand-out being B5 in which every table played 4♠ (two went down by rushing to take a club ruff early, and leaving themselves open to a force; setting up the possible ruff is right, but once trumps are checked to be 3-2, the club ruff should wait until after the top diamonds are knocked out). Another in the same vein was B16, where across two denominations, every East-West scored between +120 and +150.
On the slam front there were a number of swings to be found
- B2 : a near-trivial 7N hand on which two pairs bid to 7♦, two settled for game, and the other 13 tables all bid the small slam. It is worth noting that the two grand slams came with silent opponents; at this vulnerability there is no reason for West to be cautious - the six (only six!) Wests who came into the auction are to be commended.
- B3 : was a so-so slam (about 40% shot) which was bid by two pairs (and was a bit of a blind shot in both cases) and it made.
- B9 : was thought to be a slam hand by one member of one partnership, but even game was not making without help.
- B10 : was a very good slam bid at only 6 tables, four of these being the four in Division One. Two declarers in slam failed; the four successful declarer all received a helpful red suit lead. The other two could have succeeded (one easily, the other less so)
- B13 : was slam very much on a finesse and little more, and the two pairs who bid that lost out when it failed.
This board had the greatest number of swings on the play; two tables just invited game on the second round but the majority (with reason) took the view that game would have play and with such strong hearts an opposing double was unlikely. Three suits were led by West (no trump lead) but the majority was for a spade lead, which East won; you might think a trump was normal here (necessary if we swap the ♠K and ♠Q) but there was only one defender did that - the others all worried that spade losers could be discarded on diamonds, and played a second spade hoping partner could switch to a club. In all cases West could see three defensive tricks. How could the ♣A get lost after that? At one table West gave up their heart trick by leading a heart at trick three (was this a mis-click?) and another West decided to test declarer by leading a low diamond from the queen (declarer ran that to the jack). The final success following an initial spade lead came after the ♥Q was followed by ♠K and a third spade. Declarer won that and cashed all the hearts. West discarded down to ♦Q4 ♣J while East read the position correctly and threw all the top clubs to come down to ♦T65. Declarer led the ♦J and West slipped by playing small; confident that East had three diamonds left, declarer ran this and was surprised to find it had won.
There were two cases of 4♠ making on a club lead, when East tried to cash the ace at trick two in one case, trick three in the other. This allowed declarer to ruff out the clubs to get to discard two spades.
It all shows that defence can be difficult.
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| Timing |
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West leads the ♣T. You win on the table, play a diamond to your Ace and finesse the ♥Q, which holds. When you play on diamonds, East turns out to hold J9xxx. Play from here.
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You have 11 tricks and spades represents your only hope of an extra trick. If the spade honours are split, 2 finesses will suffice, but West's diamond shortage suggest length in spades, and a greater chance of West holding both honours. With correct timing, you can cater for both pssibilities. Play a club to the Ace. If Esst follows, you are now a sure thing. Cash two more rounds of clubs (noting West's shape) and follow with a diamond to the King. West is down to holding major suit cards and cannot hold the position. If he discards a spade then you just duck a spade , whereas if he comes down to a singleton heart, then cashing the ♥A removes his exit card so that ducking a spade to West ensures a spade return. |
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| Play This Slam |
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Play this slam on a low heart lead.
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The opening bid tells you that the King of hearts lies over the Queen, so let the first trick ride round to your Ace. Now take two top trumps and play AK and a diamond ruffing. Now cash the AK of clubs and lead the ♣J. If East follows small discard a heart and West must concede a ruff and discard. You make this contract whenever West holds the ♣Q and also when the Queen falls doubleton offside. |
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| Hotd- from Monday Swiss Pairs : 01nov21 : B3 |
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We had a flurry of very flat boards on Monday - three examples of all 10 tables playing in the same game and making (B1,B2 and B16) and another where all but one played the major suit game going down (B18).
There were two boards on which a slam was unbeatable, but in both cases you need to be playing in the right trump suit
- B6 : where a club lead from the king meant making the 6♥ slam became easy rather than difficult, while the 6N attempt was impossible until North discarded in dummy's long suit, and 6♠ was missing KQ9852 of trumps which is not a good start. The one auction on this board to 4N is to be recommended.
- B10 : despite 33 hcp, there is not a slam in no-trumps here (to make it needs very good breaks) but in clubs there is an extra trick or two and that slam is trivial (even though one declarer went off). Of the ten tables, four bid to the correct contract.
There were a few learning points on other boards too
- B8 : there were six tables faced with a choice after West opened 3♥; five of them found the very commital 3♠ overcall on a hand that is semi-balanced and weak no-trump strength. A more attractive alternative is 3N (could be making when partner passes 3♠ thinking it a misfit, although here it goes down instantly) but the winner is double. At the one level we'd rarely think of doubling when we could make a 1-level overcall instead, and that is correct, but at the 2-level and higher you need a much more robust suit as partner has less chance to explore, and you are more likely to be stuck there.
- B11 : it's worth noting that two tables managed to let 3N make when the defence had led ♣9874 opposite ♣AJT632, by blocking the club suit. With the short hand, you need to be thinking about unblock when the second card of the suit is played.
- B17 : the overtrick didn't matter in 4♠ but it was interesting to note that of the six tables where East doubled the 1♣ opening, five declarers werer awake enough to realise that this meant the double finesse in spades was the wrong choice. The three North declarers who had opened 1N lacked that information, which is why we see two instances of 5♠-1 on this hand. Bidding is nearly always the right thing to do (and we fully endorse East's double here) but sometimes it backfires.
But of all the hands on Monday this was the most interesting to bid. The spotlight was on South to start with, and three chose to show a weak two bid with this hand (nobody for 3♥ or 4♥?). Opening at this volunerability and position has to be the right choice. After those openings it was easy for North to think about slam but settle for 4♥ after partner suitably discouraged. The other tables all started with essentially the auction shown. What should happen now? There was a big divergence here - the choices being pass (once), 2N (twice, some sort of second negative), 3♣ (once) and 3♥ (three times).
With a shape like this you need to start telling partner about your hand, and the last choice was the only one that works - reaching 4♥ in two thirds of cases. The concern about bidding 3♥ over 2♠ is not unfounded - we have traditionally been taught we want to bid decent suits in slam auctions. But the fact is that unless one of your suits is useful to partner they will need to have game in their own hand, and if that is the case they will surely bid game. You just have to bid 3♥, and partner must allow for this and not get too excited. Over 3♥ it is very reasonable for North to try 3N, which is ideal as it lets South now show their club suit. Does not an auction 2♣ - 2♦ - 2♠ - 3♥ - 3N - 4♣ - 4♥ describe the hands very well and land you in the right contract?
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| Care Needed |
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How do you play on the lead of ♣Q?
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On a good day you score 2 clubs, 4 diamonds and 4+trumps to make your game. However, if East gains the lead, a heart switch could mean trouble. Win the opening lead in dummy and play the ♠8 and run it if East plays low.. Later you can cash a top trump and take a marked trump finesse if the layout is as shown. If East plays the ten on the first round, you finesse the Knave. If this loses you again later play a top trump and enter dummy to play a spade to your ♠7 if trumps started 4-1. This way you only go down if East hold ♠QT9x |
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| An Extra Chance |
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How do you play on a trump lead?
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Spades looks like an obvious place to generate an extra trick to add to your nine top winners. However, putting all your eggs in the spade finesse basket is an unnecessary risk. Win the opening trump lead in hand and play a club to the ten. Suppose this loses and a trump is returned. Now you can play ace and another club. As the cards lie, the club suit gets established and you finish with eleven tricks. If the club suit was less favourably divided (♣Hxx onside also works), you can always fall back on the spade finesse.
Jack wrote: Does the line given not give up on finding the spades 3-3 with the Queen offside? How about win the lead in hand, club to the Ace and a club ruff (supposing a club honour falls) followed by a spade finesse. When you are put back on the table with the ♥K, then ruff a club high, hoping for the other honour to fall, but risking nothing in case West started with a doubleton. If all else fails, you can hope spades are 3-3 and the 3S will be your tenth trick. This line gives up on finding West with Hx or Hxx in clubs, but that's only roughly 25% of the time compared with the roughly 35% of the time the spades will split evenly.
Garry wrote: this new line succeeds when one hand has ♣KQx or ♣KQ doubleton or singleton club honour and also when spade finesse works or spades are 3-3. This gives 11% for the club position and 70% of the remaining so a total success rate of 74% The suggested line scores in 55% of club positions and 52% of remainder so around 77% success rate. |
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| Hands from Monday - Pairs League 4.4 - 25oct21 : B16 |
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As in many sessions, the outcomes this week dpeended more on the bidding than on anything else. There were a remarkable number of flat hands (13-15 pairs but never all 16 in the same contract) and four hands where slam bidding came up -
- B4 : two pairs went overboard with 20 HCP opposite 10 HCP and a 4-4 spade fit, only to find two fo the three useful finesses were wrong. Odds against but could have got lucky.
- B5 : was a good slam to reach (cold without a spade lead, and decent odds with one - either dropping the ♥Q or a full cross-ruff), but 6♦ was only reached once.
- B12 : was a possible slam (needs clubs 2-2) and the three instances bid were all bid over an opposing 5♥ - so sometimes as a sacrifice. The clubs werer 3-1 and the slam went off.
- B15 : was the "big" hand on which four bid the grand slam, eight bid the small slam and four stopped in game. Three grands were South gambling in ignorance of the important ♦Q, but the Sidgwick-Spencer sequence led to North making the final decision, and holding ♦Q and a fourth diamond and the ♠QJ makes the final stretch a lot more reasonable.
But back to this hand, bid to game by two pairs. It takes a little care in the play to make it - after a club to the king and three rounds of hearts, declarer played the spade ace and discovered the bad break. A spade finesse must follow and declarer needs two more entries to hand for two more finesses. The first is a club to the queen and run the jack of diamonds and then a second diamond. The last entry has to come from ruffing dummy's winning ♣A to take the last spade finesse and draw the final trump. Well done to Malcolm Green, taking advantage of the favourable lie when in a contract that might be higher than you would like.
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| Timing |
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West leads the ♠Q. Plan the play.
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Suppose you follow a wooden line such as winning the first trick and knocking out the Ace of trumps. A spade is returned and now you try a diamond finesse. If that loses and a club is returned, you will go down if the finesse loses as ou have a loser in each suit. This really is just a matter of counting your potential losers - which could be one in each suit. A simple way to eliminate your spade loser is to win the first trick and play ♣AJ. Then win the spade return and cross to dummy with a diamond to pitch a spade on the ♣Q. Now you can play trumps and just lose 3 tricks. |
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| What's the Best Line? |
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What's the best line on a diamond lead?
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One line would be to draw trumps and play 3 rounds of hearts ruffing. If the hearts break you are home and if not, you can fall back on the club finesse. This line is close to 70%. Better however is to duck the first round of hearts completely. Then you can set up a fifth heart whenever the suit breaks 4-2. Your two club losers disappear on the ♥A and long heart. If hearts are 5-1, you still have the chance of the club finesse - and a success rate of over 90%. |
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| Hands from Monday - League 2 - 18oct21 : B11 |
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It was all about slams on Monday, with team 6 managing the amazing feat of six slam disasters, but still only lost by 24 imps!
In the first half there were four excellent slams:
- B1 was an excellent 6♣ or 6N, yet three pairs played in part-scores and five in game. It is genreally harder to bid the slam after North has shown a weak two - but nearly all did and still four pairs reached a slam. The part-scores came from a mis-reading of an explanation of a bid, and from two instances of gross undervaluation. And it was undervaluation - or is this about not trusting partner to have their bid - that resulted in the game contracts.
- B5 was an excellent slam but with the 3♦ opener at most tables there was little chance to make slam tries. In fact it was only at one of the four tables where North did not open that a slam try was made - and maybe it should have been accepted. The one pair to bid the slam were given a pass by North on the first round, and this made life simple for them.
- B7 : the excellent slam here was only bid by two teams, even though all 12 Norths came into the bidding on the first round (seven with 1♦ and five with 2♦). The two successful auctions started 1♣ - 2♦ - 2♥ (natural, forcing) after which West took charge. The others who had a 2♦ overcall chose a raise to game, a slam try not accepted, and a system mix-up. This was a board where the 1♦ overcall meant that the 1♥ from East was more wide-ranging and no pair managed to get to grips with the hand after that. Sometimes pushing the opponents can backfire.
- B11 : this was the most straightforward slam hand of the first set, as the opposition interference was over after the opening bid. The sequence shown - with 2N as a refusal of the transfer showing 4-card support - was the most common, and every pair should have been capable of this. Only 5 of the 9 who had a 1♣ opener managed. It was more difficult after a 1N opener from South and a double from West (where one West passed over 1N, the pair had no chance). The answer from East is to bid 2N, showing a game forcing two suiter; you might not reach the slam now but at least you have a chance. Neither the 4♥ bid over a pass, nor the pass over a redouble, gave any chance.
- B12 : saw one pair go overboard and play in 6N, undoubled even though the man on lead had two aces. Best defence would have taken this contract 8 down, but going one down was actually a gain - as the other table went down two in 3N!
As we finished that stanza, there were 12 slams bid out of 48 chances to bid a good slam - and of the seven teams to gain on those boards, two teams (1 and 5) had gains on two of them.
In the second half there was one excellent slam, but ....
- B14 : three teams managed to bid a slam missing two cashable aces - but only two of them suffered, as the "normal" (4♥) was going off in the other room on best defence.
- B17 : this was the excellent slam, bid by the only pair who were playing a strong club system - although it is not clear what all their bids meant. Well done to Shelley & Ward. It was not impossible to bid on natural (2/1 GF) methods, via 1♠ - 2♣ - 2♠ (6+) - 3♣ - 3♦ (values) - 4♣ (setting trumps) - 4♥ (cue).
- B24 : this was actually a poor slam but 12 tricks were there as cards were lying very well for declarer. Unfortunately the pair to bid a slam bid the grand and were down two.
.... which makes the total for the day - 13 instances bid out of an excellent 60 opportunities, plus 5 instances of hopeless slams reached on 3 other hands.
We can go through a set of board with no slams, but when slams arise there are enormous numbers of points to gain by getting them right. Practicing slam bidding will pay off for any pair - and it will be useful even to just step through this set of hands to convince yourselves that you and partner will bid successfully if the same hands arise tomorrow.
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| Play Carefully |
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West leads the ♥3. You win the Ace and finesse the ♣Q, on which West drops the ten. Play from here.
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The lead made it likely that the hearts were breaking kindly so playing the Ace was to safeguard against a diamond switch. The club finesse at trick two gives you 7 top tricks when it holds. Now either a 3-2 club break or a 3-3 spade break gives you 9 tricks. It is tempting to play off the ♣A and if the clubs don't behave, then turn your attention to spades. However, close examination of the club spots points to a better line. Cross to dummy with a low spade to the Queen and then play a club to your 9. If it loses then the clubs have broken and you have the ♠K as an entry. When the clubs are 4-1, you can now handle the bad break and bring in the suit for the loss of just one trick. |
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| Stay Alive |
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West leads the ♣K. Plan the play.
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You have 2 possible finesses to take on this hand. You could finesse the diamond, or play towards the ♠K, to get a discard for your losing diamond. So which one do you play? The answer is that if you play spades first, then if it loses, you still get the chance to take the diamond finesse, and thus you succeed 75% of the time. If you take a diamond finesse and it loses (50%) then you are defeated. Hence the spade play is vastly superior. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 4.3 : 11oct21 : B16 |
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While the slams give big swings, there are more regular swings on part-score hands and these are very much worth collecting. On this hand there were five pairs played in hearts and two made eight tricks, one made seven tricks, and only two were held to the six tricks they deserved.
Let's check the bidding first; 4 tables had this sequence (another got to 3♥), but amazingly there were four Easts who passed the opening bid, and less surprisingly, there were 5 Souths who could not settle for defending against vulnerable opponents and doubled the 1N bid, inducing partner to rescue the East-West pair. East's pass was a winner but dangerous; South entering an auction when his/her side was so likely to be outgunned is in appropriate.
But back to the play in defending against 2♥ or 3♥; every North led a high spade and declarer won the queen. Declarer now played either diamonds or clubs; two mistakes were made by defenders - one was not continuing the spade attack from the right side, and the other was not realising the diamond position and working to stop declarer from ruffing a diamond that they never intended to ruff.
Here's the sequence at a successful table - spade to the queen at trick one, diamond which North ducked to South's jack at trick two (North's carding suggesting an odd number, which should be five as West never bid the suit), two top clubs from South, small diamond to North's king (would declarer not have played the queen if they held the king?), second spade to the ten and ace, declarer tried a heart towards the nine but the king went in to play a third spade. South won and could give a ruff-and-discard safe in the knowledge that declarer had no losers to discard. And then came the trump queen for down two.
Collecting +200 on a hand like this when other are allowed to make -110 gives you a very useful 7 imps.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 4.3 : 11oct21 : B20 |
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This was the other grand slam hand from Monday and in this case there were only 4 out of 17 in a small slam, and two even stopped in a part-score. What should have happened?
Let's clear the part-scores first. It all starts with the opening bid from West; given that three suited hands are notoriously hard to bid after an artificial opening, it was surprising to see that five tables opened this hand 2♣, and even more surprising that three of those were in Division One. The danger of opening 1♠ on a strong hand is that the hand is passed out, but with this amount of shape, and the propensity partners have to respond today with nothing, there seems little danger. Yet it did happen once, but all I can offer as explantion for that is that possibly East saw a cow jumping over the moon as his turn to bid arose. There is still one minor hurdle to overcome after partner responds 1N to the opening 1♠, and that is about the nature of a 3♥ rebid. It is indeed common amongst top players these days to play 3♥ as promising 55+ shape and being of invitational strength - but to run that way you need some artificial alternatives to handle stronger hands (Gazilli is the name of the most common approach of the past decade). Of the 7 pairs who started 1♠ - 1N - 3♥ there was only one who passed - the others either raised or bid 3N, in all cases stopping in game. Three others protected their partners by rebidding 4♥ after 1♠ -1N, but that also finished the auction.
There remains the four 2♣ auctions, and the one maverick who opened the West hand with 1♥. The latter choice got a raise, and then 4♥ over 2♠, and opener guessed to bid the small slam - and found a perfect dummy. Two of the 2♣ openers were robots, and it was curious to see one pair of robots bid to 3N while the other bid to 6♥ from the same starting point. The two human pairs who bid the slam both started with 2♣ and they proceeded with 2♣ - 2♦ - 2♥ and with 2♣ - 2♦ - 2♠; the first of these led to a confused sequence which East truncated by bidding 6♥, while the latter allowed East to bid 3♦ which West in due course supported and that was how one pair reached 6♦.
Is it possible to bid the grand slam here confidently? There are two paths I can offer
- 2♣ (not liked, but who can argue with success) - 2♦ (waiting) - 2♠ - 3♦ - 5♣ (Exclusion KC) - 5♦ (no key cards) - 5♥ (trump Q ask) - 6♣ (got it and something in clubs) - 7♦
- 2♣ (not liked, but who can argue with success) - 2♦ (waiting) - 2♠ - 3♦ - 3♥ - 3N - 4♦ - 4♥ (option to play) - 7♦ (with hearts now running, needs only a little more than partner having a queen in the suit they bid)
- 1♠ - 1N - 2♣ (clubs to extras) - 3♦ (6+ diamonds, max 7 hcp) - 5♣ - 5♦ - 5♥ - 6♣ - 7♦ as above.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 4.3 : 11oct21 : B2 |
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This hand from Monday was the first of two grand slam hands, and this one was bid at only 3 of the 17 tables - and there was even a greater number stopped in game, missing even the small slam.
This was the auction at the one table where a human pair bid the grand - the other two instances were the two tables where a pair of robots were sitting East-West. Why did the others not bid the grand?
Let's look at first at those who missed any slam; two Wests declined the opportunity to investigate anything by jumping to 3N in response to the 1♠ opener, and their partners, slightly pessimistically, passed that. As so often, taking your time in the bidding gives you much better chanes. The other three failures started with 1♠ - 2♦ and two of those Easts now closed down discussion by jumping to 5♦; in a way this was fairly descriptive (the 4♣ in the auction shown is better) and partner might well have bid on, but the sequence is so rare that West was uncertain about it and passed. The final disaster stopping in game started like the auction shown, but on the third round East cue bid 4♠ and West found a pass. These disasters were all avoidable.
The others all got to a small slam but stopped out of the grand. Should the grand be bid? If we assume the spades run for five tricks then there are eight top tricks outside diamonds, so either a 3-2 diamond break or a 4-1 break collecting the jack together with a club finesse is enough - and this makes the grand slam about 75%. That's with the odds for bidding a grand, but only just. The difficulty in bidding it is that East doesn't know about the ♠J and without that, the grand slam is not one you want to bid. And it is inevitably East who drives to the slam. One player sitting East was more optimistic than the other ten.
If you asusme everyone will bid a slam, then on average bidding the grand slam will gain you 5.5 imps, so although you'd rather be bidding it, it's not the end of the world to miss it.
PatrickP wrote: The sequence shown doesn't appear to tell East that West has ♥K, though he has to have more than four small diamonds and two aces to be worth a two-over-one response. If you change ♥K to ♥Q the grand becomes a lot poorer. I settled for 6♦ and felt that +0.81 cross-IMPs was generous. I was much less happy with the -7.33 IMPs! [Agreed - the final jump is ambitious, five diamonds opposite helps but perhaps a king ask might have been a useful step on the way to the grand. The scoring did not work in your favour here]
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| Plan the Play |
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Plan the play on the lead of ♥K.
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Standard technique in the heart suit is to duck trick one so that West cannot profitably continue the suit, but that can't be right here. If you duck trick one, West switches to a diamond and if the club finesse loses, you are in danger of losing 5 tricks. Best is to win the opening lead, cross to dummy in spades and finesse the club suit. This way you will come to ten tricks as the cards lie. |
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| Helping Partner |
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Partner leads the ♦Q. Plan the defence.
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It looks normal to win the Ace and return a diamond, but there is danger in this play. Suppose declarer wins the King and leads a club. Now partner will not know whether or not declarer has a club guess to make and may well duck his Ace. You have information tat partner does not hold. You know that you have 2 further defensive tricks and hence you should lead a club at trick 2 to force partner to take his Ace. Of course, you have no defence if partner does not hold the ♣A |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads a low diamond and East cashes the first two tricks before switching to a trump, West following. How do you plan the play?
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On the bidding, East is marked with both black Kings, so you have chances of an endplay. Draw trumps - lets say that takes 3 rounds, and now make the key play of Ace and another spade, ducking in dummy. If East started with ♠Kx, he must either play a club round to dummy's Queen, or concede a ruff and discard. |
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| Defend |
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West leads the ♥8 to dummy's Queen. How do you defend?
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Spades offers the best chance of defensive tricks. Win the lead and switch to a spade. However, your choice of which card to play is critical. When you hold cards which surround dummy's highest, together with a higher card, the best play is to lead as though dummy's high card is in your hand. Hence switch to the ♠T. As the cards lie, this beats the contract. |
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| HotD-fri : Monday Swiss Teams : 4oct21 : B3 |
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It was curious to see on Monday that four East-West pairs managed to stop in a part-score despite having 25 hcp between the two hands. How did things go wrong?
There were two starts to the auction on Monday - with South at six tables opening 1♣ and four opening 1N. It was intersting to note the actions by North opposite partner's choice.
All Norths facing 1N passed, which made life relatively easy for East who could now describe their hand with a double. There are two good reasons why this should not have happened - one is that when known to be outgunned, North bidding anything will make it more difficult for the opponents to realise this, and the other is that with 44 in the majors, with any less-than-invitational hand and this shape, it pays to bid Stayman aiming to stop in 2♥ or 2♠. Here partner would be bidding 2♦ over which North could pass such a weak hand on the baiss that losing 50s was not an issue, but at other times, bidding 2♥ here to promise both majors does ensure you find at least a 4-3 fit.
Against the 1♣ opener it was a bit more vaired, and two Norths responded. Curiously the same proportion of East-Wests got to game in the two cases - North passing and North bidding.
How should the bidding go after the start shown? The hand is balanced and we have to look at how different strengths of balanced hands are shown; the "standard" pattern is that 1N shows 11-14 here, double and then NT shows 15-17, and 2N shows 18-20. Doesn't the last of these look an ideal description? The answer is yes but in practice nobody found that - which is why two of the four didn't get to game.
What should happen if North shows hearts on the first round? Here it is more awkward for East - one chose 1N which is hard to criticise (and played there), while the other doubled a 1♦ transfer, and their partner supported diamonds! Not nearly so easy, but when they resorted to 3N that worked well.
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| HotD-thu : Monday Swiss Teams : 4oct21 : B15 |
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Today's hand was a small defensive task on South, but only one of the four facing the task was up to it.
In response to partner's spade bid you lead out the ♠A and partner plays the ♠2. declarer the ♠J. What comes next?
The point you have to remember as South is that partner is there to help. Clearly when dummy has ♠KQ4 you have no prospects in that suit. Partner's signal should therefore be suit preference and the ♠2 is the lowest available. The fact that partner has showsn 5+ in the suit tells you thta partner had plenty of spades to choose from - so this must be indicating clubs. What should it indicate? It should indicate where partner's values are; it is wrong for partner to tell you what to do when they cannot see what else you have in your hand. If partner is showing values in clubs it must be the king., The winning play is therefore indicated - a small club to partner so that they can return one to your ace and queen.
Easy game, but Paul Denning was the only defender in this position who found the winning play!
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| HotD-wed : Monday Swiss Teams : 4oct21 : B10 |
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It was interesting to note that the top slam hand from Monday was bid to slam at no table - and perhaps more curious that game was reached and made in two inferior denominations, both seven card fits, and more often than pairs played in clubs. Of the other slams bid on Monday, the 6♦ on B1 was only slightly odds against but it made, and the two cases on B9 and B12 were hopeless and went off. What happened here on B10?
The first difference generated was in the opening bid with 3 out of 8 choosing 1♣ while the other 5 chose 1♦. It was interesting to note North's choice at this point; the theory goes that when you are outgunned - and here an 8-count opposite a passed partner, and lacking the boss suit means you are - it is better to keep quiet. But at the same time, this is a robust suit and bidding it might stop the opponents playing in 3N. All but two passed and for one of the two this proved a lucrative choice, as in that case the bidding went 1♦ - 1N - 3N and partner led a heart anyway and the defence cashed five tricks. Silence is golden!
When North overcalled 1♥ the common choice was for East to support whichever minor partner opened. The one East who chose a double instead found partner bidding 4♠ on the next round, and he fretted and then let that go and it made when all the suits behaved well. The spotlight was now on South who now supported partner, all but one of them jumping to 3♥. All four Wests who heard 3♥ now simply bid game - missing the chance to show slam interest with a heart cue bid - and the slam was missed.
There were two tables given an easy time by the opponents, one where North passed and the other where South raised to only 2♥. They took very different routes - one jumped straight to game, while the other bid around the houses. The latter should have at least converted from the diamond semi-fit into the bid club fit, something which would have been much more difficult if South had jumped to 3♥.
What can we learn from this? First is that no bid gives a certain win - and sometimes pass is the winner. The other is that despite the dangers - and one pair did lose 800 on the board - taking away bidding space does matter. The stories just told don't exactly support this but could you not imagine the following bidding sequence if you were left in peace
1♣ (3+) - 2♣ (support) - 2♦ (values) - 2♠ (stopper for NT) - 3♥ (FSF, tell me more) - 5♣ (good hand for a minimal raise) - 6♣ (I cannot see losers outside the one heart)
or even
1♦ - 1N (my only suit can be clubs) - 3♣ (natural, GF) - 3♠ (stopper in case 3N is right) - 6♣
Patrick P wrote: We were NS and lost 800 on this board, and that was despite my only raising to one below the level of the fit. The problem was that we were playing against a pair of robots, one of which decided that the East hand was a penalty pass of a takeout double.
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| Bad and Good News |
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West leads the ♠T. You win and play ♦KQ, but East shows out on the second round. How do you continue?
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You have to hope that the heart finesse is working, but if that is the case, you are home. Cross to hand and take the heart finesse. If it wins you can play off the ♥A and your black suit winners before exiting in hearts. West will win and have to lead into your diamond tenace. |
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| Read the Cards |
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West leads the ♥Q to the King and Ace and 2 more rounds of hearts follow. How do you play?
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| Show Answer |
Remember that East passed his partner's opening bid and has aleady turned up with the ♥A. West is therefore marked with the missing high cards. Draw the trumps with the aid of 2 finesses and then cash the ♦AK. If you are lucky, the ♦Q will fall and now you have to tackle the club suit. Since West is marked with the Queen, start by leading the Knave from hand. If it is covered, you can then finesse East for the ♣T. |
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| Defence Can Be Easy |
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You choose to lead a diamond to East's King and declarer's Ace. South now plays Ace and another trump. How do you defend?
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You should win the ♠K and take stock. You know from partner's play at trick 1 that South holds the ♦Q and hence there are no defensive tricks to be had in the red suits. Your only hope is that partner holds the ♣A in which case King and another club would get you a ruff in the suit and defeat the contract. |
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| HotD-sat : Pairs League 4.2 : 27sep21 : B13 |
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It was surprising to see such varied results on this board from Monday, where eight of the fifteen playing in 3N made the contract. The easiest make was the single case of 3N played by South - and this resulted because rather than overcalling a 1♣ opener, one East decided to double.
The commonest auctions saw North open either 1♣ or 1N, and East bidding 1♠ or showing the majors, and then North-South reach 3N. The lead was the ♠T at almost all tables.. A few Norths ducked the first round and the defenders then ducked the second round - making game impossible on any layout. The more discerning won the ♠Q at trick one, and knowing they needed diamond tricks, played a diamond to the nine and queen. The most common defensive error came now - where three Easts cashed the spade ace - setting up declarer's ninth trick as well as cutting their partner off from the spade suit. Should they avoid this? Yes, as long as West has given some sort of county signal at trick one - and even if the signal was attitude, the overall odds suggest that declarer is more likely to have three. [To be fair - this is an awkward signalling position] A number of declarers after winning the ♠Q crossed in clubs to run the ♦J - finessing into the danger hand, but when East ducked (a bit pointless as North's play would not happen if they were not going to run the jack) that was five diamond tricks and the contract was now made. That happened twice - and common sense says that should be avoided; one other declarer tried it but there Mark Rogers covered and game was dead.
The other two cases of 3N making came firstly when one North managed to sneak a club trick through a West who played the ♣2 on the second round, and then when another West fell alseep and ended with ♠J ♥A ♣QT and when he won the spade jack was embarassed to give a trick to the ♣J.
Isn't is curious just how many different ways players can find to go wrong?
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| Standard Technique |
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West leads the ♠K. How do you play?
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This is a simple hand but the sort that many players get wrong. Duck the first spade and win the second. Now take ♥AK and ♦AK and ruff a diamond in hand. It does not help the defence to overruff. You then ruff a spade in dummy and establish the fifth diamond with a further ruff - gaining access to it via the ♣A. If you mistakenly win the first spade, the defence can draw dummy's last trump when you later concede the spade. The defence can always prevail if they switch to a club at trick 2, as they now can take 1 spade, 1 trump and 2 clubs, but this is a risky play and unlikely to be found at the table. |
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 4.2 : 27sep21 : B2 |
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This hand from Monday produced some interesting questions in the bidding and the play.
The first choice was what to do as South at this point. The answer by the vast majority was to open 1♦, a bid found by 11 out of 14 Souths; their next bid varied enormously with one for 2♦, six for 3♦, three for 4♦, and three for 5♦. Was that the right opening bid? Not so argued two other Souths quite cohegently; the only benefit of opening 1♦ is finding a heart fit, and the chance of finding one and not being outbid in a black suit is very small - whereas a 4♦ opener at this vulnerability and in this position describes the strength and shapeliness of the hand very well. The choice had a lot going for it and the two outcomes following a 4♦ opener were (a) three passes, and (b) X-P-4♠ , and both of these were very satisfactory from the North-South perspective. But these results did not score well!
And the reason for that was because a number of declarers in 5♦ were allowed to make. How did that happen? One might expect that being allowed two heart ruffs was the mnost common cause. But two Wests found a trump lead at trick one, and declarer lost a heart finesse to get another trump. The catch was that by the time one heart and eight diamonds had been cashed - the opposition threw so many hearts declarer lost only one trick there. Discards which help partner work out declafrer's shape are vital on hands like these. The other four successful declarers were treated to two rounds of spades at the start and now did get two ruffs to generate 11 tricks. Was the second spade an avoidable mistake? Almost certainly - the only time it is right to play another is when declarer has ducked with Axx and you have to judge from the bidding and partner's signal whether or not that is true. Why - because any spade losers declarer has will not vanish instantly, you can cash them when in with the ♣A - so a trump switch is indicated. And there were three Wests who led the top spade and found the diamond switch, to defeat the game.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 4.2 : 27sep21 : B7 |
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There were eight unsuccessful continuations by East-West on this hand after South opened 3♣ and it is worth looking at what went wrong.
The two auctions which had least chance of success were when West passed over the opening bid (and now defended 3♣) and the one occasion when West overcalled 3♥ which their partner sensibly raised to game (a difficult game to make, and declarer duly went off). All the remaining auctions started as shown and there were five different actions now chosen by East - there was one pass, three of 3♦, nine of 3♠, and one each for 3N and for 4♠. From the most popular of those starts, eight Wests crossed their fingers and bid game (six making) while one passed.
What was the right response from East to the takeout double? The East hand is at best slightly above expectations on this logic - vulnerable opener might average an 8-count and partner coming in at the 3-level might well average a 14-count and that leaves 18 hcp between the other two hands. This particular holding of an ace a king and a queen is rather more useful that the hand would be holding four jacks or values in clubs that were wasted. East will be confident that a spade part-score will be comfortable, but is uncertain about game and indeed uncertain whether the side has enough spades to play in a spade game. There were three players who were not willing to settle for a spade part-score as East - and they chose pass, 3N and 4♠. What do we think of those choices?
Pass has a serious potential upside; you will expect declarer to lose only one club on this hand which gives them six tricks; they still need to find another three. The slight negative is any values held by North will be sitting over partner's strength - but you have an ace and a king as compensation. The pass deserves to collect 500 on this hand, but a trick slipped by at the one table playing 3♣X. There is a lot to be said for the 3N choice, as a little extra from partner in any number of ways could generated nine tricks, and being able to duck two clubs and win the third gives an easy avenue for cutting off the South hand. On this layout game is trivial, as you take the heart finesse in to the safe North hand. There is not so much positive going for the 4♠ bid, as that depends both on some extras from partner and a suitable spade fit - so it is rather more of a gamble.
And it is worth noting that the spade game required a little care - two of the ten delcarers in that contract were found wanting. Yet it is hard to imagine anyone going off in 3N.
BTW, about the 3♦ response - that is to be avoided. When partner makes a takeout double your first duty is to find any major suit fit you have as that is enormously more valuable than any minor suit fit. Over 3♦ the correct continuation by West is pass and now you miss the spade fit.
It feels like two Easts earned a reward on the hand, one had a successful gamble with 4♠ , and another hanful got lucky when West deicded to stretch to 4♠ at just the right time!
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| Make this Game |
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West leads the ♦ 4. How do you set about this contract?
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Th spade finesse is one possible source of a ninth trick, and something favourable might happen in the heart suit. The way to play hearts is to start with a low one to the Ace and then duck the second round completely. Later you play a heart towards your Knave and cover East's card. This only fails if West started with ♥KQT9 in which case he would have led the suit, or if East started with ♥ KQxx and had the skill to play low on the second round of hearts. If that was the case, play against different people in future - these opponents are just too good! |
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| Defend Carefully |
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You lead the ♣JT, which win the tricks, followed by a third round which South ruffs. South now leads the ♠3 from hand. You choose to rise with the Ace, partner signalling an even number, and now play????
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Your defense so far has been based upon South holding a singleton spade. If declarer has 6 trumps, you won't be beating this contract, so assume he only has five. If that is the case, declarer never has more than 5 trump tricks and 2 spades outside of the diamond suit and hence if you exit with a trump, you must always come to a diamond trick. It doesn't matter that leading a trump takes declarer off a trump guess, beating the contract is what matters. |
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| Draw the Inferences |
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Plan the play on the lead of ♦8
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What do make of the lead? The inferences to draw are that West does not hold ♠ AK as else he would surely have led one. Also the ♦Q looks certain to be offside. If those inferences are correct, the contract looks to have reasonable play with correct technique. Win the lead, draw trumps (in 3 rounds as it happens) finishing in dummy, before playing a club to your King. Let's say that loses. Now the link between the defenders has effectively been cut whenever the spades break 6-1. You just give up a diamond and the defence can't get at their second spade winner. |
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| Take Your Time |
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Plan the play on the lead of ♠Q
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The duplication of values means that you will have to pick up 5 club tricks and that will only be a problem if one opponent holds all 3 cards in the suit - a 22% occurrence. The approach on these hands is to find out as much as you can before making the crucial decision. To that end you should duck the first trick and win the spade continuation. Now cash the other spade, both diamonds, and the three heart tricks and see what transpires. On this hand you are lucky in that East shows out of both majors on the third round and West follows to 2 diamonds. Therefore West can hold at most one club and so you play the suit accordingly. You were lucky to find a hand that allowed you to complete a full picture - but you often make your own luck on these sorts of hands |
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| HotD-fri : GCBA League 1 : 20sep21 : B8 |
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This was one of the slam hands from Monday, but it's not the slam bidding that we want to examine but rather it is the way the auction developed at this point.
Every South was face with this or something similar (at half the tables West passed initially) and there were two natural choices - either 3♥ or 4♥. The field divided dead evenly between the two, but when you look more closely, you find that only one team in Division One chose just 3♥, while only one team in Division Two chose 4♥. Do we think there is a message there?
Let's look at the results to see. The sole 3♥ bid lin Division One led to a slam being bid and the (joint) worst result for any table in Division One. The one 4♥ bid in Division Two resulted in East-West going minus while every other East-West went plus and the best result in that Division.
It does look like the message is confirmed - the right bid with an eight card suit is at the four level!
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| HotD-thu : GCBA League 1 : 20sep21 : B9 |
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This was the most common start to the auction on this board from Monday; the others were where three Norths chose to open 1♥ and one chose 3♥, both of which seem inadequate in an optimial position for aggresssion and with the fear that the opponents hold the spade suit. After two passes there was a choice for West and two actions got chosen - there were four who doubled and four who bid 4♠.
For the doublers, there was only one East who took out - surely the right choice as partner needs to be able to double here for takeout or you will lose out too often. Now 5♦ got doubled and went one off, but that was not a terrible result. When the double was passed out, East started with singleton ♠T covered by South and West. At this point West did not know who had the singleton spade and switched to diamonds. Declarer was able to ruff the second one, draw trumps and by running the ♠8 to West's ♠9, was able to set up a ruffing finesse to make a trick from the ♠J7 on which to discard the losing club. One player in 4♥-doubled failed to spot this line and went off - as did the two declarers in 4♥-undoubled after a 1♥ opener.
Declarer has to be on the ball, but could the defence have succeeded? The answer is yes - the winning defence is for West to cash two spades and a diamond, and then lead a third spade promoting the ♥J. [One diamond and then a small spade also works as the ♣Q becomes a winner]. But as suggested earlier - it is better for West not to have this dilemma!
Those who bid 4♠ had made a very dubious choice - committing to a suit, vulnerable at the four level, when the preempt from the opponents suggests suits will not break well. In one sense the bid got its just desserts when South doubled and collected 800 twice and 1100 once. Those Souths were a little fortunate, as if West had recognised the error in bidding 4♠ then the possibility arises of an escape to 5♦ - though in practice nobody did run. One South did worry about this and settled for +400 defending the spade game un doubled.
What would we recommend on the hand? Without doubt, the auction from table two - where West doubles for takeout and East takes it out. This would generate a small penalty of 200 going to North-South and be far cheaper than the alternatives proved to be in practice. Isn't life simple sometimes?
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| HotD-wed : GCBA League 1 : 20sep21 : B21 |
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Slams played a large part in the results on Monday, with slams being bid on 6 of the 24 boards. There were a variety of results, but being on the right side of any or most is how to win ...
- B3 : two pairs bid up to the acceptable 6♣ on this hand, but both cases the slam was bid when the attempt to stop in 5♣ was thwarted by East-West bidding to 5♥ - and taking 800 from that was not as good as making the slam. If clubs broke 3-1 then it would be 500 against going off in a slam!
- B8 : two pairs bid the very good 6♦ slam, but it is hard to discern why they knew it was a good contract when they bid it
- B13 : was slam on a finesse bid bid twice when North opened a cheeky weak 2♠ , vulnerable on a 3-count and partner could nto stop. Why one pair bid the unmakeable 6N is anybody's guess - I haven't dared to ask
- B16 : this was a dead easy slam to make, and was bid by only half the field, but notably was bid by all the pairs playing 2-over-1 GF, and under half of the pairs who were not playing that.
- B18 : a poor slam was bid by one pair and went off
Which all leads up to this hand, where this was the start to the auction at five tables. At four tables West made 3N their second bid - a choice which ignores options such as the spade slam here and cannot be right (3N can come on the next round if approprate). Three tables saw the auction go 1♥ - 2♣ - 2♠ after which West powered into slam. Back to this auction - would you believe that after that start four different contracts were reached at the five tables!
The initial choice was between bidding 3♠ and 4♠; the case for the latter is hard to find if you believe that 3♠ is forcing - as the lower choice gives more room to explore slam, and caters for partner inventing spades for lack of a diamond stop for no-trumps. The jump to 4♠ resulted at one table in pass, while at the other West blasted 4N and bid the grand slam!
Over 3♠ how should West continue? One West just bid 4♠ to end the auction, one bid 4♣ as a move towards slam, and the third blasted 4N and then to 6♠. Again the pattern we see is game and grand slam - which give you the hint that somewhere in between is likely to be the best answer.
The grand slam did of course make - but is it where you want to be? With half the field not bidding a slam, there are enormous dangers in chancing a grand slam and going off. But even if we assume everyone bids the small slam, we need odds progressing towards 70% to make the grand good. Here the grand slam woul dbe beaten by ♠Jxxx with North (and sometimes by South), or by the majority of 4-1 club breaks. When you combine these you get a roughly 50% chance of making the grand. So yes indeed, small slam is the best place to be.
BTW : across these six hands, teams 1 and 4 gained three times more than they lost, team 5 twice, and team 11 once. Only two of the teams just mentioned won their matches.
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| Seven Easier than Six |
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How do you play this slam on the lead of ♥K?
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The slam is very good, even on a heart lead. You can cash 2 rounds of trumps (no problem if the Queen falls. If not, you start on the clubs and provided the hand with the last trump holds 2 clubs, you are able to discard your losing hearts. If you look at the full layout, you will see that this line is unsuccessful, as West ruffs the second club and cashes a heart trick. Now imagine you are in 7♠. Now you have to take the spade finesse and draw all the trumps before starting clubs. The marked ruffing club finesse see you home. Hands where making a grand slam when the small slam will fail are rare, but they do happen from time to time. |
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| Do your Best |
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How do you play on the lead of ♥7?
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The danger on this hand is that West will gain the lead and play a club through dummy's King, which in the light of the bidding, will surely spell defeat. The only suit in which West's entry can hurt is trumps - so try this play. Win the lead in hand and play a low spade towards dummy. If East wins he can do no harm but if West has the ♠K he may well duck at trick 2 if the layout is as shown. If that occurs, you can return to hand with the ♠A to take a diamond finesse. Then you will be able to play diamonds and throw clubs from hand, losing just a trump, a club and a diamond. No guarantee of success but certainly the best line. |
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| Avoidance |
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West leads a low diamond and dummy's Knave holds the trick (East plays the ♦2 using standard count methods). How do you play?
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You have 8 tricks with many extra chances. You need to keep East off lead to prevent a killing diamond return. Start with a low spade from dummy. If East plays something lower than the 7, insert the 7. Say it loses and a low heart comes back. Win the king, cross to the ♠K, re-enter dummy with the ♣K and play the ♠A hoping spades are 3–3 or that the ♠Q is doubleton. If that doesn’t work, lead a club to the 9, guarding against four clubs to the 10 or jack with East. You also bring in a ninth trick if clubs are 3–3. If East plays a higher spade than the 7, win the king, cross to the ♣K and lead a club to the 9 if East plays low. Assuming West wins, you have four club tricks for nine in all. If East started with ♣JTxx and splits his honors, you have to fall back on the spade finesse. |
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| Think Ahead |
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You lead a spade, partner winning the Ace and retturning the suit to South's Queen and your King. What now?
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It may look safe enough to continue with a high spade, but this is not necessarily the case. Declarer can ruff the third spade and eliminate clubs before playing a trump, end-playing you into opening up the diamond suit to your disadvantage. The solution is simple. On the bidding, you are never winning 2 trump tricks so you should cash the ♥A before exiting with a spade. This will be enough to beat the contract anytime that was possible. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 4.1 : 13sep21 : B16 |
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There were two instances of East-West stealing the hand here but otherwise the field was split between 3♠ (5 times) and 4♠ (7 times). Three of those seven in game made the contract and four did not. What was the difference?
The three successes all had the auction shown, and started with the ♣Q, in two cases overtaken and followed by two more top clubs (the sleepy East who didn't overtake had let the contract make by doing so). The key play was when South ruffed the third club with the ♠T - and the error was for West to over-ruff. On general principles this should be avoided, the ruff is ruffing with a trump trick that was always coming, and in such cased delayed gratification is nearly always the right answer. Ruffing with the ten weakens South's spade holding, and that benefit to the defence is negated when West chooses to weaken their holding at the same time.
One East found a neat way to avoid partner falling into that trap - he switched to a diamond at trick three and that set up a quick fourth trick for the defence.
After three rounds of clubs, the defence to the game is far from trivial. Declarer must be expecting the ♠K to be with West and should continue with a low spade to the queen. Ducking would seem normal for West, and when declarer repeats it after crossing to the ♥A, West will win the king. At this point the only way to defeat the game is to lead out the ♦K, sacrificing one trick in diamonds to get back two tricks - the long hearts which declarer would otherwise enjoy.
In practice West was never tested as the optimistic declarers either left the spade play too late, or played for the ♠K to be onside.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 4.1 : 13sep21 : B18 |
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How do you play this hand on the lead of ♠6?
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All eight declarers faced with this problem on Monday went wrong. None of them stopped to think what holding North would have for the lead of the six. The lead cannot be fourth best, and the alternative system lead is second best from a bad suit. What do we think is happening here? The answer is the latter, and if you deduce that South has the queen, and rise with the king - you will earn yourself an extra trick on this hand.
Those Norths who led a small spade rather than the six gave declarer no clue as to the layout, and when that happens, playing the ♠T is inevitable. The pattern of second best from a bad suit can help partner at time, but it can also help declarer. On this hand too, with two side entries West positively wants partner to continue spades, and that too encouages leading small at trick one. |
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 4.1 : 12sep21 : B13 |
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There were quite a few slam hands (or hands players thought were slam hands) on Monday but we cannot count the success rate as good.
Board 3 saw five pairs bid a slam and in three cases it was a seven-card trump suit. Those in 6♦ were rewarded with a 3-3 trump break to make their contract, but the pair in 6♠ found ♠AJ54 sitting over declarer and could not cope. The pair in 6N were rewarded by that 3-3 diamond break and the ♠A being onside, and the pair in the most sensible 6♣ contract had an easy time after the ♠A was cashed at trick one.
Board 14 saw three pairs bid a slam needing a 3-3 break and one of two finesses - and they were doomed, although the pair in 6N got a super-favourable lead and managed to get home.
Which leaves this hand, on which only 2 out of 14 pairs bid a slam - which depended on an even (3-2) diamond break and if that didn't happen there were still extra chances. What led two pairs to bid the slam? The answer was in the choice of bid at the point shown here. Every table faced the same quesiton here, and three tables found a 3♦ bit while the others all found something different. Of the 3♦ bidders, two bid a slam, and out of the 11 others, none bid a slam.
So is the 3♦ bid what everyone should have found? It's a close call, but if you imagine holding the same hand with ♥42 in place of ♥A4 you would open 1♦ and rebid 2♦, so that makes this hand a bid strong for the same sequence. Some compromised and showed clubs on the second round, and over that South bid the fourth suit (game forcing). This enabled 3♦-3N, which was not fatal until North passed, as one would were the diamonds only ♦KQT54. The presence of the ace justifies raising to 4N and now the slam should be bid - but nobody found that.
What about the grand slam? The pair who bid it started 1♦ - 1♥ - 3♦ and then continued with ace asking and confirmed ♥A♦AKQ. After that South, perhaps optimistically, bid the grand slam. Do you want to be there? You might take the attitude "yes if it makes" but more seriosuly, a grand slam needs odds of close to 70% to be justified if everyone else is bidding the small slam. Here you might gets odds close to 70%, but if - as here - many are not bidding the slam your real target is 6♦ - something achieved on Monday by no pair! North needs to have the ♦J in place of the ♦T to make the grand the right answer.
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| What's the Best Line? |
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West leads the ♠Q. You win the Ace and follow with a spade to the King (West started with QJT). What's the best line from here?
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Your best play is to cash three rounds of hearts, discarding a club, cross to the ♦K, leading the jack as West may cover. Assuming no cover, cash the ♦A and exit with a spade. West must now give the contract except when he started with 3 low diamonds. If west exits with a diamond to East's Queen and a club comes back, you will have to guess.Notice that you are far better off adopting this line of play than taking the diamond finesse. If the queen is onside, you make 4♠ whether or not West covers. If the queen is offside, you are far better off playing the ace-king as East may have started with Qx or Qxxx. The recommended line of play has a good chance of finding West short in diamonds because East started with a singleton spade so is more likely to have length in diamonds. |
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| Easy |
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West leads a heart. How do you play?
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Suppose you win the lead, cross to dummy with a trump and finesse the diamond. The problem is that if this loses and a trump is returned, you are faced with another diamond loser which isn't going anywhere. The solution is simple and just involves counting your tricks. Two diamond ruffs on the table are assured if you win the lead and play Ace and another diamond. SIx trumps, two aces and two ruffs equals ten tricks. |
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| A Simple Slam |
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Play this slam on the ♥J lead.
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You won't be able to ruff spades in the dummy so your best hope is to set up the diamond suit. Win the lead and draw trumps. Now play a diamond and finesse the Knave when West follows low. You expect it to lose but now establishing the diamonds is easy and you use the ♠K as an entry for them. If you play off the diamonds from the top, you will fail when the suit breaks 4-1 through lack of entries. |
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| Don't Be Unlucky |
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West leads a trump. Plan the play.
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You have 1 spade, 2 spade ruffs, 5 trumps and a club for 9 tricks. You can generate a tenth trick even when all the key cards lie badly for you. Win the lead and eliminate the spades whilst drawing trumps. Now lead a low diamond from your hand. If East wins cheaply and plays a club through, you cover his card and West is end-played. A diamond through is no better for the defence. You always make an extra minor suit winner however the cards lie. |
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| HotD-fri : Monday Swiss Teams : 6sep21 : B13 |
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It was strange to find that this board from Monday produced a very consistent result of 4♠ making, despite the fact that the defence have four easy tricks to take. What went wrong?
West was able to lead a top diamond at every table, won by South. Why the contract made at most tables was that South led a heart and West ducked, and that was a loser less for declarer and the game was home. Was it right to duck? In ducking, you are trading off the chance fo declarer having a singleton with the chance that you will gain a trick in the suit by ducking - which happens when South has the queen and was not going to guess the position of the jack correctly. Playing for declarer to make an error (or losing choice) is valid but does not compare with beating a contract by force.
Was it all over when you win the ♥A? It was not, as shown when Patrick Phair drew one round of trumps before playing a heart. Roger Miles correctly rose with the ace, and cashed his top two diamonds, but what could he lead then? A diamond was a ruff and discard, a club would allow declarer to win the ♣Q and throw the last losing club on the top heart, and the heart he found was no better! Whether he exited low or high, East's queen of hearts gets ruffed out and declarer has two discards for the losing clubs.
So is game cold after all? No - the winning defence was found at another table, when Mel Barlow rose with the ace and cashed the diamonds, John Arblaster was careful to ruff the last of partner's winners. That put East on lead at the crucial point and he could play a club safely.
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| HotD-thu : Monday Swiss Teams : 6sep21 : B9 |
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This was the most spectacular hand from Monday and the fate of the hand depended on judgment calls by North and South. There was only one case in which North did not open the bidding with hearts, and over his 2♦ (weak two in either major), Rob Lawy could not resist bidding 2♥ as East. South doubled (pass or correct) and North knew to pass and that was 800. A little unlucky!
Only one other table avoided hearts played by North and that was when one of the two West who volunteered into the auction with a 4♣ bid got doubled and carried out.
It was interesting to note that in only 3 out of the 8 other cases did East venture a double and collect some of what they were due. Why was that? Of the five, two undoubled were sequences replicated elsewhere and doubled there - and the double was clearly right, so they should have been doubled.
The three "deserving" cases of hearts undoubled arose when East had to pass initially over the natural heart bid, and never got another chance. This happened at the 2-level (one of six 2♥ openings), and also on one of the two 3♥ openings, and finbally when North opened 4♥ (well chosen, Mike!).
In the end the scores ranged from +1100 to North-South across to +800 for East-West. What can we learn from this?
The bad North-South results all came after North opened and South supported hearts with only a singleton. At this vulnerability the opening bid from North is primarily pre-emptive and - as evidenced by the 3-level and 4-level openers - declarer can be frisky. This means that partner needs to be cautious and the Souths (only 3 out of 9) who passed North's opening bid should be commended.
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| HotD-wed : Monday Swiss T : 06sep21 : B6 |
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There were two cases of slam on a finesse (B7 which was bid once, B11 which nobody bid) but apart from that this hand represented all the slam interest on Monday.
A slight majorty (six out of ten) reached the best contract, but why not everyone?
There were three pairs stopped in game and their bidding sequences all shared one feature - and that was a premature jump to 4♥, albeit in three different contexts (one 4♥ opener, one opened 1♥ and rebid 4♥, and the third started more slowly bidding 1♥ and 2♥ before jumping next to 4♥). The key point to make is that unnecessary jumps to game make slam investigation difficult and therefore should show slam-unsuitable hands.
DId the others avoid that trap? Not really - there was three cases of a similar jump over which North took a rosey view and proceeded (and was rewarded).
Which leaves four cases, of which three started with the auction shown. Worth noting is the fact that the 3♥ bid here is forcing (and therefore unlimited in strength). The next step is for North to confirm the trump suit and the way to do that - with lmited space here - is to bid 4♦. Why does it confirm hearts? The reason is that introducing a new trump suit at the 4-level never makes sense, so the bid always agrees the last bid suit. It doesn't necessarily promise diamond control, this is just a hand willing to play in hearts but too good a hand just to raise to game.
After the 4♦ bid, found at two tables, it was open to either North or South to proceed with a key card ask. All that remains is to avoid the urge to bid the grand, and only one player succumed to that. The grand slam is not without play. Three ruffs sets up a long trick in clubs and it all comes down to playing the spades for three tricks. Sadly the odds favoured finessing for the queen, so the one case of 7♥ went down.
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| Simple is Best |
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West leads a club to East's Queen. How do you play?
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You have 3 losers and a potential second trump loser. Hands like this are a pure guess as to who holds the ♥J. However, if the opponents were to lead trumps, this would solve your problem. The best line is to win the club and lead one back. The defenders might think you are angling to ruff a club on the table and play a trump for you. If they don't, you are no worse off than the heart guess. |
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| Count |
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West leads the ♥T which runs to your Knave. Play from here.
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This is a simple matter of counting your tricks. You need 4 spade tricks to fulfil your game so make a safety play in spades by playing a spade to the Ace at trick 2. If the King does not drop, return to hand with a club to lead a second spade towards dummy. This way you cater for East holding a singleton King or whenever spades are 3-2. |
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| Play This Slam |
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How do you play this slam on the lead of ♣8? When you finesse in trumps, it wins, but East shows out on the second spade.
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You need a trump coup to pick up West's trumps, which means ruffing twice in dummy and ending in your hand at trick 11 with dummy holding the ♠AT. East will hold the ♥A as otherwise West would surely have cashed that card at trick 1. Hence cash the ♦A, ruff a diamond and lead a heart. If East ducks, he loses the ♥A as you can discard a heart on the ♦K and just lose a spade trick. Say that East goes up with the ♥A and returns a heart (as good as anything else). Win the ♥K, ruff a diamond, and get back to your hand with a club. (To make this, you must find West with at least two clubs.) Dummy remains with the ♠AT and the ♣KQ. You remain with the ♥Q, the ♦K and the ♣Ax. Play your red-suit winners, discarding clubs, and wind up with the last two tricks. If West ruffs a red winner, overruff, cash the ♠A and take the last two tricks with clubs. |
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| Care Required |
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West leads the ♠5, dummy plays low and east contributes a low spade. How do you play?
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You need the heart finesse to be right to have any realistic chance, so at trick 2 you play a heart to the Queen and it wins the trick. The key play is to now duck a heart. Later, you will always be able to ruff your heart loser with the ♠K and bring home the slam. If you carelessly play the ♥A at trick 3, youn run the risk that West will ruff and lead another trump, leaving you with another losing heart that isn't going anywhere.
Jack writes later : maybe it doesn't matter if we make the mistake that we supposedly need to avoid? Either we will have a squeeze against East in hearts and clubs, or a double squeeze where West will have to keep clubs and East will have to keep hearts, allowing us to score a second diamond trick. Might need careful reading, though! |
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| HotD-fri : Individual : 30aug21 : B10 |
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After a fairly normal auction, South led the ♣7 - how shoudl declarer proceed?
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The key thing here is for declarer to think about the leads which were not made. South did not lead out the top of a diamond sequence and did not lead out a top heart. This makes it quite likely that North has a high card in both suits. And then we start looking at the overall HCP held by North-South, a total of 20 in this case, and ask ourselves who has the ♠A.
We can never be sure, but the likelihood must be enormous that it is held by South. If that is the case, how should we play the spade suit to best advantage? There's only one answer - to play North to hold both the ten and the jack. Declarer should therefore win the ♣ A in dummy at trick one and lead a spade to the ♠8 - ♠9 - ♠A. After that the defence will have only one diamond trick to cash, as declarer can draw trumps and throw a losing heart on the long club.
What happened in practice? One declarer won the ♣A and played to the ♠K and that lost to the ace. The defence continued clubs and declarer was able to clear trumps and throw the heart loser on the fifth club to make 10 tricks.
A second declarer had two top diamonds led from South, ruffed the second and led the ♠Q from hand. This should have led to two spade losers but South ducked this and East continued with a small spade next. It was too late now to play hearts and declarer ran 11 tricks.
The third declarer - in 4♠ after North-South bid up in diamonds - ruffed the second diamond at trick two, crossed to the ♣A and led to the ♠K and ♠A. South found the heart switch but North failed to play a second heart on winning their spade trick, and that was game made rather than one off.
What would you have done? |
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| HotD-thu : Individual : 30aug21 : B8 |
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All three tables on Monday started with the same first five bids on this hand, but then paths diverged. One pessimistic North passed, not giving partner any leeway for a decent hand with some spades. The other two made a takeout double, over which South bid 2N. One North was happy to pass that, while the other took out to 3♦ which South converted to 3♥. All three tables therefore ended in different contracts, and in all three cases either the declarer or the defence slipped up. Here's how - and how to avoid it next time -
T1 in 2♠: the opening lead was the ♣Q which enabled declarer to set up a third round winner in the suit. Unfortunately declarer decided to ruff this winner with a high trump, creating an unecessary second trump loser - and so went one off.
T2 in 2N : the opening lead, listening to partner's bid, was a spade from West. East cashed two top spades and now the contract could not be defeated. East needs to recognise that to make the 2N bid sensible, South must have four spades - and it is therefore vital to duck one of the first two rounds. After that the spades will run and the contract will go off. Declarer made 9 tricks.
T3 in 3♥ : declarer rufffed the opening spade lead, lost the heart finesse, and ruffed the second spade. Declarer came to hand with the ♦A and ruffed a third spade before playing a club to the queen and ace. West returned the ♦Q won in North. Declarer cashed the ♣K and played a third round. When East ruffed awkwardly with the ♥8, declarer discarded the winning ♦T rather than the losing ♠J. This was fatal.
All accidents were easily avoidable - it looks like we have a lot to learn !
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| HotD-wed : Individual : 3aug21 : B21 |
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This week we ran our first ever INDIVIDUAL competition on BBO, and the system coped well. Well done to Peter Waggett on coming first. This hand was by far the most spectacular .....
This particular shape held by West only occurs in one hand in a million, so you might have to play 4 sessions a week for 200 years to hold an average of one of these. There are many other shapes with 10-card suits and if you play only once a week, you are likely to see someone (might not be you) with a 10-card suit most years.
The preferred bidding patterns with 10-card suits are very simple - you just bid game and give the other side the bidding probllem. And that is what West did, but what happened in practice was that North now passed the problem back to West, by bidding to 5♠. It's very difficult to tell what to do now, but 10-card suits were not meant to be hidden, so each pair sitting East-West continued with 6♣. That was enough in only one case - twice North-South continued and now bid a slam. What was West to do? Defending was the winning answer but in both cases insurance was taken out and the final contract was the grand slam in club, doubled and two down.
Two bridge maxims come to mind here; one is that if in doubt bid one more, and that clearly justifies the 6♣ bids. The other is to leave the last guess to the opposition - and that one suggests passing over the belated slam bid by North-South.
JACK writes: Bidding at our table was a bit different in that Roger opened 1♦ as North. Interestingly he didn't bid 5♠ over 5♣, I suppose thinking that he had already stretched for the opening bid and hoping that his partner will do something if bidding further is right. I'm not sure I agree, having a club void and support for partner's suit, but that is what happened. South then bid 5♦ , which I passed as West to leave the decision to my partner given that I've already shown my hand. You can hardly blame Alan for sacrificing with 6♣ at that point with the East hand, but he made a good point afterwards that he could have bid 5♥! This would have stopped me then competing to 7♣, although perhaps when he passed 6♦ I should have trusted he had defence anyway. I don't think he should have been given the chance, though, because surely North would prefer to be in 5♠ rather than 5♦ and should be bidding it before West has room for 5♥?
PATRICK P writes: I was South with Jack on my left. I responded 1♠ and then bid 5♦ when 5♣ came round to me. On the actual distribution my 5♦ was one of the bids which could have led to the par on the board, since it is a cheap sacrifice against 5♣. But it is hard to imagine EW not bidding on at that stage -- neither of them knows they have a diamond trick, and if they don't (swap ♦Q and ♦T) it takes the lead of ♥A to defeat 6♦. As it was my 5♦ was above the highest makeable contract by either side, so it is strange that there were three more bids!
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| Play This Slam |
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West leads a low diamond. How do you play?
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You can pretty much guarantee that the lead is a singleton, so you must rise with the ♦A. Now you have good chances. Draw trumps and play a low diamond from the table. East must duck this trick to give you a problem, but now you cash the ♣A and 3 hearts finishing on the table. Then play the ♣Q and throw a diamond away. West must win and only has clubs left, so has to concede a ruff and discard, allowing your other diamond loser to disappear. |
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| Unusual |
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West starts by leading the 3 top clubs. How do you play?
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You have 10 tricks - 6 spades, 3 hearts and a diamond, but unless you are careful, you may have 4 losers. If you ruff the third club and it gets overruffed (very likely on the bidding), then a diamond return will leave you stuck in dummy. Now you can't enjoy you heart winners. The solution is to not ruff the third club on the table. If the defence switch to diamonds, you have a trump to lead to hand to enjoy your ten winners. |
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| What's the Best Line? |
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West leads the ♠9. You win the Ace and cash a club, discrading your other spade. You now run the ♥9 and it holds the trick. Play from here.
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It looks like East has ducked with ♥AKx. With a singleton diamond, East would likely have taken the trick and shifted to a diamond, so that scenario can be ruled out. The best way to avoid two diamond losers is to start with the ♦AK. If an honour falls, the most you can lose is two hearts and a diamond. If nothing exciting happens in diamonds, play a third diamond. If the suit breaks 3–3, no problem: You lose two hearts and a diamond. If East has ♦QJxx, you will be defeated, losing two hearts and two diamonds, but if West, has ♦ QJxx, you can still ruff a diamond in dummy, once again losing two hearts and a diamond. The trap to avoid is leading a diamond to the ten after the ♥9 holds. If the suit is 4–2, West will win with an honour and get out with a club. You ruff, but when you play the ♦AK, East ruffs the third round of the suit, cashes a trump, and West takes the setting trick in diamonds. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♥K. Plan the plan.
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This is a very straightforward hand. You need to safeguard (if possible) against East gaining the lead and pushing a club through the South hand. Win the lead, draw trumps and cash ♦AK. Now exit with a heart. The only time you can now be defeated is if West holds 3 small diamonds and the ♣A |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 3.8 : 23aug21 : B19 |
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This was the wildest hand from Monday and the bidding started this way at most tables.
There were also three instances of a 2♠ opener (spades and another suit) and one of a 1♠ opener (which results in North bidding a slam, going down). After the 2♠ opener, North was very excited and two of those tables eneded up defending six hearts for a plus score, while the third played in 5♠x making. All cases of opening the bidding scored well.
Over 4♥ five Wests were very fortunate that North - with a clear takeout double - passed and that was game made for East-West. There are some who still play that the double of a 4-level opening suggests defending but this is a perfect example of why that style is considered ineffective.
The other six Norths found a takeout double and South had an easy choice then of removing to 4♠. This was not enough to stop East-West continuing to 5♥ and it was now the big decision came. Two Souths (and it has to be South as North has already described their hand well) found the right choice in continuing with 5♠ and they were rewarded with a plus score.
Both sides can make 11 tricks on this hand; it looks like further support for the old adage "if in doubt bid one more". For anyone who stopped below the 6-level on thsi hand, that was good advice.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 3.8 : 23aug21 : B8 |
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It was interesting to note how the field divided on this hand from Monday - with six pairs playing in the easy 3N as East-West, while one North-South played in 3♠ and the other seven all played in clubs, where game was impossible.
Here are some of the statistics around the hand
- All pairs who played in the making game as East-West opened the West hand in first seat, and their opposition were silent throughout.
- All pairs who opened as West got a plus score (either 3N or one accident in 3♣)
- Of the six tables at which North-South bid, they achieved a plus score at five of them.
I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
You might care to look at B15 in the same light,; with 4♥ a good contract and making a vulnerable game for North-South
- At the seven tables where West passed in second seat, all North-Souths played game.
- At the eight tables where West opened the bidding, six North-Souths subsisded in a part-score and only two reached game.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 3.8 : 23aug21 : B1 |
The first board on Monday produced a chance for pairs to get to high and four of them leapt at the chance. The opening bid was pretty uniform (at 14 out of 15 tables) but the question was what does East do next?
The hand is a simple 1-level overcall in spades but despite the meagre point count and the length in hearts, five Easts found a 3♠ bid here and the result was that four of them reached higher than game, one even bidding 6♠. The hand would not merit a 2-level overcall and should not be bidding over 3♥.
It was interesting to note that two of the three in 5♠ actually went off when it should have been made. After a heart lead, a spade to the queen and now another spade to the ace - North could safely lead back a heart or a spade. Once the last trump is drawn can East avoid losing two club tricks? The answer is yes - East should avoid losing any club trick at all! The winning play is to bash out the diamonds from the top, throwing away clubs on diamonds. You lose one diamond trick but can win four trumps plus a ruff, two hearts, three diamonds and the club ace. No guessing in clubs is needed!
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| Plan the Defence |
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Partner leads the ♥2, ducked in dummy. How do you defend?
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If partner has no entry, then declarer has 9 tricks (at least), so your defence should focus on this fact. You know that a diamond switch from West will beat the contract and to encourage partner in that direction, you should win the first trick with the ♥K (denying the Queen) and switch to the ♣6. That way partner will hopefully see no future in anything other than a diamond switch when he eventually gets in.
Jack write: what if partner has xx-xxxx-xxx-Kxx and places you with something like xxx-Kxx-Axx-AJ86? Declarer may very well have bid and played this way with Ax-Qxx-QJxxx-Txx, no? And you would certainly have defended that way with that hand. Would the 9S at trick 2 not be clearer? |
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| Basic Stuff |
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West leads the ♥J. How do you play?
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A simple count count of your winners gives 6 outside the diamond suit, hence you need three tricks from that suit. You could win the lead and finesse a diamond (say it holds). You return to hand for a second finesse but this time it loses, and if the suit is 4-2 offside, you can no longer set up an extra diamond trick. The correct play is to simply duck a diamond in both hands at trick 2. Later you finesse (or not - it only affects a possible overtrick) and this way 3 tricks are assured provided the suit is no worse than 4-2. |
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| Take Your Chances |
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You play in 6♥ against the ♦K lead. How do you assess your chances?
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You will need the trumps 3-2 to stand a chance so assume that is the case. Two spade finesses are decent odds, but you have the additional chance that West started with ♦KQx. Win the first trick and run the ♠J (12 tricks if it is covered). Suppose West wins and exits with a club. Win in dummy and ruff a diamond. Two rounds of trumps finishing in dummy allows you to ruff another diamond. If the ♦Q hasn't dropped, cross to dummy with the a trump to try a second spade finesse. |
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| Play This Slam |
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West's 2♦ bid showed both majors. How do you play on the lead of ♥Q (West turns up with a singleton diamond when you draw trumps).
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Your plan must be to avoid losing 2 spade tricks, and hopefully, clubs may provide a parking place for a spade loser. If West holds ♣QJ you have 3 club tricks, and ♣Q9 or ♣J9 allows you to take a ruffing club finesse to get a third trick in the suit. When you cash the ♣AK, however, nothing special happens. Now you must play for an elimination. Cash the ♥A and ruff a club before playing the ♠J from hand. You hope that East holds ♠Tx, which is twice as likely as KT or QT. Assume West covers the spade. You win the Ace, ruff the last club and play a spade towards the ♠9. If West rises with an honour, he establishes the ♠9 when the ten falls. If West allows East to win the trick, he has to concede a ruff and discard. |
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| HotD-fri : Summer Teams 7 : 16aug21 : B6 |
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This hand from Monday was a very reasonable slam which was only bid at one table, and that declarer went down. It was unlucky to go down when the first round fo clubs was ruffed with a singleton trump, but the hand is interesting and the slam concerned is worth some analysis.
The bidding to slam was as shown. There were three Easts who did not open on the 6160 shape, and they all heard a 3♣ opener on their left passed around to them. Two passed that out and one tried 3♦ and played there. Tame stuff when compared to the other tables! Two Easts found a 1-level suit opener and ended in spade games, but half the field started as East with a 2♠ opener.
Looking at the hand as declarer in 6♥ we have to assume that hearts break either 2-2 or 3-1 (yielding 6 or 7 trump tricks), and there are four top tricks outside, which is never enough. The primary source of extra tricks has to be clubs and for sure some winners can be set up by ruffing out the suit, and there will always be two long cards eventually. There is also the diamond jack which might become a trick. If the clubs break 3-2 then the hand is trivial - one ruff sets up the suit and there is a diamond entry (and a spade ruff later) to cash the suit. We need to think about clubs breaking 4-1.
Suppose we ruff the spade lead and draw two trumps before setting about clubs. A club to the ace and a ruff, diamond to the king and a ruff, and a spade ruff - this will put the lead in South with winning clubs. If trumps had been 2-2 these will cash, but if trumps had been 3-1 the first of these will be ruffed and we are down to 11 tricks. So this approach will not cope with a 3-1 trump break with a 4-1 club break.
Suppose we tackle clubs first - playing to the ace and then ruffing one before drawing trumps; that fails if the defence can ruff the second (low) club with short trumps. This only fails on the 3-1 trumps and 4-1 clubs with both shortages in the same hand. That's an improvement.
FInally let's look at the third alternative, one round of trumps and then clubs. If the second round of clubs gets ruffed by the defence, then we know the trumps can be drawn, and the ♦K and spade ruff entries are enough to reach the clubs. This seems to work with all 4-1 club breaks - so even better.
We have, so far, ignored the 5-0 club break which actually happened. Drawing two trumps and then finding a 5-0 club break forces you to rely on the diamond finesse for the twelfth trick. So we make half the time. Drawing no trumps when clubs are 5-0 will see an immediate ruff and if the remaining trumps can be drawn you are back to the diamond finesse, so that is slightly worse. Drawing one trump and then finding a 5-0 break will let you make eight trumps and four outside winners on the layout today, but when the ruff is from two or three trumps you wil have to resort to the diamond finesse again.
It all seems to add up to the fact that one trump and then clubs is the winner! We cannot all do this analysis on every hand, but it is worth noting the pattern, which miht be useful inthe future.
[There is a plausible line of going for three spade ruffs, but in the end position you have to cash South's winners and lead a club, and could go down on clubs breaking and trumps 3-1]
Jack writes: If East is 6331 then the one round of trumps and then clubs line doesn't succeed. East can ruff the second club and then play a spade which forces you to use your spade ruff entry before you can draw trumps. Also, I don't think we can rely on the diamond finesse if East is void in clubs. Say if East is 6340, then they just discard when you lead a club at trick 3, overruff when you ruff a club small and force you to ruff a spade too early as before. If West is void in clubs and East is 6115, then the only winning line is to play a top club at trick two otherwise West will ruff the club at trick three and you will eventually have a spade loser (of course a non-spade lead would have beaten the contract in this case, but with void-QJx-QTxxxxx-Axx you could hardly blame West for leading their partner's suit).
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams 7 : 16aug21 : B14 |
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Making 3N on this hand from Monday proved too difficult for the majority of declarers in that contract. There were two steps to success, both of which apply in lots of circumstances.
In each instance East led a spade in response to West's bid. Declarer can see eight top tricks at this point and must look to either the king of diamonds or the queen of hearts as the extra trick. West's bid suggests values with that hand and makes the heart finesse look to be the safer options. It does no harm however to duck the frist two rounds of spades - and it was failure to do that which cost the three declarers the contract.
But that was not all there was to the hand, as the planned heart finesse was about to lose. The key to success was cashing all your winners before the crucial moment of the finesse. By the time they reached that point, the discarding from East-West made it clear that the heart finesse was not going to work. Both declarers therefore played to the heart ace and a second heart to East's king. East was down to ♦AQ at this point and had to give dummy the last trick. There are many times where cashing declarer's long suit is the key to putting the defence under pressure, and it often pays.
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams 7 : 16aug21 : B4 |
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Winners on Monday with a massive score, and winners of the Summer Teams series as a whole, were Rob Lawy & Harry Anoyrkatis, Jim Grant & Stefan Lindfors - a Somerset based team.
Slam bidding on Monday was not a great success - and the only slam bid by the winners went one off (but did gain them 12 imps). There was a terrible slam bid on B2 at two tables (in the same match) and one was allowed to make. One pair bid a slam on B6 which can be made but declarer went off when he played a side suit without a first round of trumps. And then on B15, two pairs - completely under their own steam - powered into 6♥ missing two cashable aces; this was actually a good result at the opponents can make 5♠!
This board was different to the others, in that it was an excellent slam. Why did so few pairs reach the six level?
Two East-West pairs were given a free run, and one had a 3♣ overcall from North, but the bulk had to contend only with a 2♣ overcall. The only table to find the 4-4 diamond slam was the case where North had overcalled 3♣, but why East showed five+ diamonds at this point rather than making a negative double is not clear. After that had happened and West supported there was no way to stop out of 6♦. It was one of the tables with a silent North which bid 6♥ but the auction seemed to include ace-asking for spades and then reverting to hearts (all unannotated, so meanings unclear) .
The clear choice after a 2♣ overcall from North is a negative double - and this was found at all seven tables. Two Souths raised the ante to 3♣ which in practice clarified things for East-West as West's 3♥ bid now promised six; in both cases East took a very pessimistic view and just bid game. Of the remaining five, after a pass from South, four bid 2♥ and one bid 2♦. You might have hoped the latter got East excited but this East just bid 3N now and had nine top tricks. After the 2♥ bid two Easts just jumped to game, while the other two started with a cue bid of 3♣ but then stopped in game - with their partner unaware of anything more than a minimal game force with East.
What should have happened? The auctions which started with 2♣ - X - 3♣ - 3♥ where the easy chances for bidding a slam; West has made a free bid here which shows six hearts and the hand is not one West is ashamed of. East really must continue with 4♣ over 3♥, and make at least one more try after partner signs off. It's a more tricky judgment after 2♣ - X - P - 2♥ because West could be a minimal 3532 hand; East has to continue with 3♣ and now it is up to West to make a descriptive noise. The one West in this position chose a neutral 3♥ and partner settled for game. When partner has bid 3♣, West needs to show some excitement - after all it is a 6-loser hand with a trump suit playable opposite a small singleton. It feels like a 4♥ bid now and this should get East to bid the slam. Finally the unopposed auction; how should it start? Your normal practice with 4-card suits is to bid the lower first but here there are good reasons for starting with 2♦. The first reason for many is that this is game forcing and that will make the rest of the auction much simpler; the second is that it is your strongest suit and bidding it would get partner with a singleton in either black suit excited (it allows a 3♠ splinter from partner). After it goes 1♥ - 2♦ - 3♦ - 3♠ - 4♥(unsupported), East will know now that West has a shortage in a black suit, and that the hand will play very well in slam - and this makes 6♦ an easy choice.
The slam is, as you might have noted, not 100% - there is a chance of a diamond ruff against a heart slam, or of a heart ruff against a diamond contract. Which one is more more likely? The chance of a heart ruff against a diamond contract, needs a 4-1 heart break and the hand with long hearts to have the ♦A which comes out at 11.93% of the time. The chance of a diamond ruff against a heart contract depends on the hand with a small singleton diamond having 1-5 hearts, and that is a 22.47% chance - so your success rate will be 88% playing in diamonds but only 77.5% playing in hearts.
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| How do you play Trumps? |
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West leads a club to trhe Queen and your Ace. How do you play trumps?
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Lose no trump tricks and the contract is yours, but if trumps are 3-0, how can you tell who holds 3? The answer is simple - you can't. Hence you should play the hand in such a way that you have a chance even if there is a heart loser. Cash the ♥A (suppose West shows out). Now ♠KA and a spade ruff follows. If spades are 3-3, a heart to dummy allows you to lead a winning spade for a diamond discard. If spades are 4-2 (more likely) then you have a club ruff and the King of hearts as entries to set up and enjoy the long spade. If you had played the ♥K on the first round of trumps and found East showing out, you would have been short of an entry to enjoy the spade suit. |
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| Play Carefully |
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West leads a low trump, East following suit. How do you play?
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You probably need a favourable diamond position to make this contract, but you should take care that you don't lose control of the hand if the trumps are 4-1. For example, if you take the ♥A to discard a diamond and then ruff a heart to hand to ruff a club, you will force yourself again to get off dummy. This will be bad news on a 4-1 trump break unless the ♣A is on side. Best is to overtake the ♠J at trick 1 and ruff a club. Then cash the heart to discard a club, ruff a heart to hand and draw trumps. The difference is that when you take a diamond finesse, you have a trump left to cope with a club switch, and just require split diamond honours. |
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| Listen to the Bidding |
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Play this hand on the lead of Ace and another club.
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The bidding marks the heart Ace and spade King with West so you have a neat play for your contract. At trick 2 you must discard a spade from dummy. Now 2 rounds of trumps finishing in hand allows you to lead a low heart towards the King. If West rises with the Ace. the King of hearts provides a parking place for you spade loser, so West must duck. Now you return to hand with a trump, cash the winning club throwing aheart from the table and exit with a heart. West wins but is endplayed! |
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| Defend |
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Your partner kicks off with ♦AK and another. How do you defend?
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This hand requires but a moment's thought. You have two tricks and if you discard a club on the third diamond, you will come to two trump tricks as declarer will lack the entries to dummy to pick up your trumps. If you make the mistake of ruffing the third diamond, you score the trick but it is now a simple matter for South to use dummy's club entries to take take two heart finesses and make the rest. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 3.7 : 09aug21 : B19 |
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This was an interesting hand from Monday, where the successful contracts were three part-scores fron North-South, and one game from East-West.
All but two (correctly) opened 1♦ on the North hand in third seat, and heard a 1♥ overcall. Divergence started now with two pairs directly supporting diamonds, while ten declarers preferred to show their spades; one South managed to do both with a fit-jump to 2♠. [The other two auctions started with 1N from North]. A key question now was how high should West bid? The choices over 1♠ were 2♣ (once), 2♥ (twice), 3♣ (once - another useful fit jump), 3♥ (four times) and 4♥ (twice).
The results were varied but in all cases but one North showed their spade support which allowed South to judge what to do next; the case where they didn't show spade support was when one West jumped to 4♥; there were misjudgements galore after the various starts, but only two tables managed not to bid 4♠ (going off) over the 4♥ game which also had four losers. A key to these situations is to leave the opponents the last guess in a competitive auction - and here the jump to 4♥ was the choice which most deserved success.
But does it look right to play or to defend? First from the West-East perspective looking at the two hand we can see a sure 4 losers which makes bidding 4♥ a bad choice, but we can also see an expectation of 2.7 (do check that out) tricks in defence - so we expect 4♠ to make more often than not. From the North-South perspective, looking at just those two hands, there is an expectation of just over 4 losers playing in 4♠ alongside an expectation of 3.5 tricks in defence against 4♥ which actually strongly suggests a sacrifice.
The players cannot during the bidding see their partner's hand or its shape, but if they could then East-West would judge to bid up to 4♥ and North-South would judge to bid to 4♠ - which means that 8 tables, despite going negative, did the right thing in bidding 4♠.
The Law of Total Tricks is a concept which can be applied to this sort of situation, although it doesn't always work; looking at a 9 card fit in each direction, the default here is that there are 18 tricks, and we find that the limit in each direction is 9 tricks - which is consistant with the LTT.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 3.7 : B4 |
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This hand from Monday looks like an innocuous 3N but there were two tables who went wrong - and others who tried to go off. It's worth looking at the different options.
Once the diamond ace is knocked-out there are 8 top tricks. One option is to develop diamonds for 3 or 4 tricks which would deliver nine or ten. The danger is that if you have to lose the lead twice the other side might get two diamonds to go with three hearts. Another option is to sneak through one diamond and then play clubs for four tricks.
It's tricky to work out the odds, but the diamonds line will only fail if both red suits break badly and the same hand holds four diamonds and five hearts (which is a 16.95% chance). For the one diamond then clubs line - assuming the first diamond wins - is with these pips about about a 76% shot - which isn't quite as good. The simple oiption wins!
At the table we had eight declarers bashed out diamonds, and all had an easy time when these broke evenly. There were four declarers who played one round of diamonds which was ducked and then reverted to clubs - the bad club break scuppered two of them (whio had ducked trick one) and should have killed a third while the fourth survived, Only one declarer started with a club to the ace and then the ♣9 to the ♣T and the ♣K, which allowed time to switch to diamonds.
And there was one declarer who got a small heart lead and won ♥9 on the first round, and the robots who played in 5♣ and went off in that.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 3.7 : 09aug21 : B7 |
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This hand from Monday was the only one with slam potential - and slam was bid at 7 out of the 15 tables. When you look at the East-West hands there are 11 very clear top tricks and very little chance of a twelfth. But the fact is that in practice a slam is much more likely to make than the odds would suggest, and that is true here too as 3 of 7 declarers in slam managed to get 12 tricks. It would not be out of place for North to have led a top club against 6♠ and that does actually cost the contract (declarer leads back the ten and ruffs down the nine, setting up the eight) but in fact the only declarer who got that lead failed to spot the possibility and went off in slam.
So we have two questions - why are we bidding a slam with such poor chances, and how did three defending pairs manage to let it through?
The first question on the bidding is West's first bid; the hand has 9 clear tricks and the real danger of partner passing out a 1♠ opening encouraged five declarers to start with 2♣ while eight were happy with 1♠. The two others were a 2♥ opener from South, and a 4♦ opener from West which showed 9 playing tricks in spades (how convenient!). All five declarers who started with 2♣ ended in slam, alongside two of the eight declarers who started 1♠. Most 1♠ openers stopped in game, the two slams starting 1♠ - 3♠ after which opener drove to slam, while others more accurately showed a weaker raise and stopped out. Was the problem the 2♣ opening?
Here's what happened. After starting with 2♣ everyone found the spade fit quickly, and what happened then was that four of the five Wests drove to slam after checking (via 4N) on key cards. The other 2♣ opener started well, with East making two cue bids to show the two tricks they had to offer, and here West (mis?) judged that this was enough for slam. A successful auction would have been
2♣ - 2♦ - 2♠ - 3♠ - 4♣ - 4♦ - 4♥ - 5♣ - 5♠
and by that point everyone has shown displayed their assets and that is a comfortable stop.
What about the play in 6♠? In all cases of the slam, declarer won the opening lead (spade 4 times, ♣Q, low club from South, and a diamond) and ran all the spades hoping for some successful discards. The twelfth tricks were the ♥9 when both defenders threw hearts, the fourth club when one North - despire being able to see dummy - threw a club and the suit got ruffed out, and the third extra was the ♦J after both opponents threw away all their diamonds. A different suit provided the extra trick in each case!
Were these defensive slips avoidable? Clearly yes, and the key is defensive signalling of count in the side suits together with a bit of logic. North had more of a problem than South but if declarer's shape is known, everyone should know what to keep.
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| Ignore the Odds |
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How do you play on a low club lead to East's ten?
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The percentage play for no heart losers is to take a second round finesse, but is this the best play on this hand? If you can make 5 trumps, you can score 3 diamonds and 2 aces for 10 tricks. The important thing is not to lose 4 tricks. Win the lead and cash 2 top hearts, then play Ace and another daimond. The best the defence can do is take a diamond and a club before switching to a spade, but now you can play diamonds, throwing losing spades from hand and just conceding a trump trick. Timing is key. If you had finessed in trumps on this layout, the defence could take their club trick and switch to spades before the diamonds are established - resulting in you going 2 down. |
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| How do you play? |
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West leads the ♥J. When you cash the ♠A, East shows out. How do you play?
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It is no use playing a spade towards the Queen as West will rise with the King and ut his partner in with a diamond to get a heart ruff, killing your ♥A. West will know his partner has a diamond entry because he will have seen 2 discards from East. The solution is to think ahead. Cash 3 rounds of clubs before playing the second spade. West rises and plays a diamond and East wins and pushes a high heart through. Your Ace of hearts gets ruffed but now West is stuck. He either concedes a ruff and discard or gives you a diamond trick. Either way, you make the game. |
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| The Best Line? |
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What's the best line on the ♣J lead? Would your play be different on the ♥J lead?
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Firstly the club lead. Take the Ace to stop the defence from switching to a heart. Cross to hand in trumps and play a diamond towards the Knave. If West holds the Queen you set up a diamond for a heart discard. If the Knave loses to the Queen you later try a diamond to yor King.
On a heart lead you do best to win and duck a club. Win the heart continuation and ruff out the clubs whilst drawing trumps. Now exit with a heart and either endplay West or guess the diamonds when East switches to the suit (going down on this layout but a nice try nevertheless) |
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| Make it Easy |
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Your partner leads the ♥K. How do you defend?
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It looks like you have 2 hearts and hopefully 2 clubs in defence. You would like partner to switch to a club but if you play a low heart, he might think you are signalling foe a diamond. The sure way to get a club switch is to play the ♥A at trick 1 and return the ♥2 to partner's Queen. Now a club switch gets you 2 tricks in the suit (assuming South does not have a singleton. As the cards lie, a third club promotes a trump trick for partner.
Jack writes: Is there not a risk that partner has lead from Kxx in hearts? In fact, if you just give South the QH, I think there's a good chance that the bidding would be the same. West might worry that only 1 round of hearts is cashing and decide the lead would be better retained in their own hand so they can switch to a minor at trick 2. Looking at that dummy, I would assume any card played by East at trick 1 to be suit preference. |
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| HotD-fri : Summer Teams 6 : B19 |
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The power of the pre-empt was illustrated on this hand from Monday, where the reduced bidding space let to every North-South playing in a failing contract. The question is could North-South have done better?
There were two tables where West didn't open 3♣ and that resulted in the lowest contracts in which North-South stopped, but these were also too high. It was not however a solo effort by North-South as they bid to 2♠ and to 3♦ only over the opponents' bidding.
After the 3♣ opener there were two paths chosen by North; four chose to overcall 3♠ and two doubled. The 3♠ overcall was passed out and met a not-unexpected fate; coming in at the 3-level in a five card suit when partner might be stuck for a bid with a singleotn or void opposite is a very dangerous pursuit; overcalling such a suit at the 1-level is fine but two levels higher you need a much more robust trump holding.
The much better alternative by North is double; this gives partner many more options and you can still bid spades on the next round if you need to. Two Norths found that and the spotlight now turns to South; Both Souths respionded with 3♥ and the auction continued P - 3♠ - P - 3N. This was not a great contract but at least if it made there would be a game bonus to collect.
Can we see any winning option here for North-South? There was one - and it's an option we don't always think of - and that is defending. It is hard to resist bidding as North over the 3♣ opener but if you ask yourself what contract you are likely to make opposite a passed partner with what's roughly a balanced 16-hcp with 5 of those points in the opponent's suit, you might struggle to find a good answer. Alternatively after P - 3♣ - X - P, if South were to ask how to get rich after this start to the auction, there is only one answer that comes to mind - and that is to pass. This is rather a gamble but it would be a clear choice at match-points where a bottom is just a bottom. Part of the power of pre-empts comes from our unwillingness to give in when the opponents announce a weak hand - but maybe sometimes we should.
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams 6 : B20 |
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Slam bidding hit a low on Monday, with an excellent slam available on this hand bid by nobody, and four hands on which five pairs bid slams and only one of those made.
It's worth looking at the variety of auctions on this hand to seek a path to success. The start to the auction at six tables was (with North-South silent) 1♦ - 1♥ - 1♠ and this makes a lot more sense than the choices of 1♦ -3N, and 1♦ - 1♥ - 1N ech of which happened once and ruled out some potentially winning choices.
It was disappoining to see now that two Easts chose to jump to 3N, despite the fact of four card diamond support and the possibility of short clubs in dummy. As it was, partner could bolster the club stop and 3N was secure.
The more measured continuation was a fourth suit forcing bid of 2♣ and it's a little suprising to report that there were 3 different responses to this from the 4 Wests! The responses were 2N (twice), plus 3♣ and 3N once. In the first three cases the next bid was 3N ending the auction, but in the last case - where 3N had promised some extra values - East continued with 4♦ to tell partner of the diamond support. That pair were heading for a successful slam until someone got impatient and jumped to 6N which was not makeable. The only pair to find the diamond fit then rejected it!
Can we construct a winning auction? Starting with 1♣ - 1♥ - 1♠ - 2♣ (fsf, gf) - 2N seems right and after 3♦ (support) - 3♠ (strong spades) it should be clear to East that partner has a club honour and that the only real worries are the top diamonds and whether partner's club is the ace. It's a case where 4♦ asking for key cards gives you just the informaiton you want. Except that hear you learn you are missing one key card and the trump queen. If thet key card is an ace, then you are better to stop out of slam, but if you are missing only the trump KQ then the right contract depends on whether or not West holds the ♦T.
Maybe this slam is too difficult to bid! The comfortable 3N bid at 7 of the 8 tables wins the day.
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams 6 : 02Aug21 : B5 |
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The first big swings came on this board on Monday, with each of the four matches generating different results and double figure swings in three cases. The auction started this way at most tables (5 out of 8) and the next choice affected the outcome significantly.
Three tables bid 2♦ and the other two doubled. The tables which bid their long suit all got to 5♦ while the two who didn't never got to mention the suit! Were they wrong to double? There were two reasons why diamonds were better - length and strength, but more important here is that fact that the major suit is hearts not spades. There is an expectation that the opponents have a spade fit and will bid more spades. If we are going to have to bid a level higher than them, actually diamonds might well be a lot better. If the other side are bidding hearts and it's a question of showing four spades - the decision might well go the other way.
What about the other tables? The other three started - one with P - 1♠ - 2♦ (and they got to 5♦), another with 1♣ - 3♠ - X and they found a good auction to 5♦, and the last one started 1♣ - 4♠ - X and it ended there.
That last auction produced the best result for North-South; the jump to game in spades is rather a gamble and partner turned up with two extremely useful cards where they might have produced none. Someone got lucky, and it is hard to criticise the East-West pair who had ot write down a -790 score.
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| Simple - Just Don't be Careless |
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West leads the ♦K. Plan the play.
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This hand is trivial but easy to make a mess of. The only danger is a 4-0 club break and to guard against that you must discard a club from hand at trick 1. Then you can set up the long club by ruffing to dispose of your heart loser. If you mistakenly discard a heart at trick 1, you go down as the cards lie. |
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| Finesse or Break or Something Else? |
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West leads the ♠J. How do you play?
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Hands like this are common in card play problems. If you duck a heart early you can test the hearts and if they don't break, you fall back on the club finesse. Well on this deal, you need to be aware of an extra chance. Suppose you find that East holds 4 hearts. Now you can cash the spades and one top club and all the winners in dummy. if East has kept his heart guard, as he must, then he will have had to come down to a singleton club. Therefore you don't need to bother with a club finesse as the ♣Q will fall anyway. This is called a show-up squeeze. No special counting is required - merely to know that East's last card is a winning heart. |
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| Wake Up |
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West leads the ♣A. How do you see the defence developing?
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There is a defensive play in bridge known as a 'wake-up call' or 'alarm clock'play It is a play intended to “wake up” partner to the fact that something unusual is required. On this deal, it is imperative for West to switch to a diamond at trick two to defeat the contract, and there is absolutely no reason for West to find this switch. East should play the queen of clubs under the ace at trick one to wake partner up that an unlikely play is needed. The only unlikely shift is to a diamond, and a diamond ruff, club back to the king of clubs, and another diamond ruff defeats the contract. |
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| Think Ahead |
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Play this hand on the ♥K lead.
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This is a very straightforward hand. If the club finesse loses you will be down for sure. Suppose you win the lead and draw trumps finishing in dummy. Now you can run the ♣T and take a second finesse. That will be OK if clubs break but you will be down if they are 4-1 as you have to win the second club in hand. You can circumvent this by thinking ahead. Win the opening lead and play a club to the Queen. When that holds, you revert to the earlier line The difference is that you can now take 3 club finesses and pick up the 4-1 break. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 3.6 : 26jul21 : B20 |
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There were four disasters in four different denominations on this hand on Monday, and a lot stemmed from what you do at this point in the auction.
Eight of the twleve Wests faced with this dilemma bid 3N and played there and saw no problems. There should have been a worry as partner has shown an unbalanced hand and if East's singleton is in either major rather than in clubs, the opponents are very likely to cash five tricks in that suit before you get started. But they got lucky and all was well.
Two of the Wests continued with 3♥ at this point; one intending to show a second negative (but partner forgot) and the other believing it the best of a bad bunch of choices. East inevitably supported hearts and they both ended up going minus as a result. The other two Wests supported diamonds. This must be the safest action but there is a catch. In this position 4♦ is a forcing, encouraging bid and 5♦ is the weaker choice. When 4♦ was chosen, East drove to the diamond slam - actually playable but rather odds against and with the spade finesse losing it could not make. The choice of 5♦ by Jack Armorgie was the goldilocks choice, and that contract make exactly.
Which leaves three tables unaccounted for. At one of those East rebid 2N (supposedly showing 23-24) and when partner raised to game that was a safe place to be. The other two rebid 2♠ on the second round. This is interesting and the style of allowing canape (bidding a short suit first) in this position is actually recognised and used by some leading pairs because of the space consuming aspect of a 3♦ bid. It worked well for one pair (who continued 2N-3N) but not for the others (who continued 3♠ and on to 6♠).
What is worth noting from all this? First is just how clumsy the auction gets after 2♣ - 2♦ - 3♦. It's not something which comes up very often but if a third of players go wrong each time it does, then it is worth some investment. The second point is the implication from a 3♦ bid that the opener is unbalanced, and that 3N should be approached only carefully. Third comes the fact that the game raise of East's rebid represents a weak hand - two of the disasters were non-game raises (of 2♠ and of 3♦) which should be a more positive hand than a 4333 with one king.
Even if you didn't have a disaster this time, we need to learn from the traps into which others fell.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 3.6 : 26jul21 : B13 |
Some of the biggest swings on Monday night arose on this board. There were East-West pairs who played in 2♠ (once), 3♠ (thrice), 4♠ (thrice, one doubled) and 5♠ (once, doubled). In the other direction there were seven North-South pairs who played in 5♣ (all making). How should the auction go?
We'll take the quietest auction first; it went (from South) 1♥ - 1♠ - P - 2♠ . Both North and South were very cautious at this table. Two auctions to 3♠ started the same way, with West making a game try over 2♠ and East rejecting. The third table ending in 3♠ saw North support hearts with A9 and South pushed on to 3♥ (where 3♣ would have been more descriptive and would have got North excited) but then gave in. In all those cases, both pairs are equally guilty of not bidding enough. Two auctions to 4♠ showed similar silence from North-South, and it was a first-round raise by East to 3♠ which led to the game. The other 4♠ auction saw South come back in with 3♣ but North preferred to double the cold 4♠ than to support partner! Of the three in the cold 4♠ game, two managed to run into a heart over-ruff and go off.
What about the (from North-South perspective) successful auctions? Two of these started 1♥ - 1♠ - P and a third started 1♥ - 2♠ - P, and in these three cases we must commend South for coming back into the auction opposite a silent partner, after which North woke up. In the other cases North produced a negative double over 1♠ showing at least some desire to compete, and that was good enough to get South excited. There might be some nervousness about a takeout double with only three diamonds, but it's not a disaster to play in a 4-3 diamond fit and - like here - other good things can happen.
There was only one table where West sacrificed over 5♣ and that 5♠ contract was much cheaper (at -200) than defending.
Yet again we see, it's a bidders game.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 3.6 : 26jul21 : B3 |
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There were slams bid on six hands out of twenty on Monday night, but three times there was only one table bid a slam, and three times only two tables. On only three of these boards was slam successful; this was the best slam of the bunch. It's worth examining one of the successful auctions (shown).
As many do now, this pair uses a 1♣ opener for all balanaced hands outside the 1N opening bid range without a 5-card major; this means that after a 1♦ opener, the NT-rebid is not needed as the opener cannot have a suitable hand for that rebid. This allows, in the sequence 1♦ - P - 1M - P for opener to use the 1N bid artifcially, and here the system is to play transfers, so that 1N shows clubs. The big advantage of this is that the opener is guaranteed a third chance to bid. Here North rebids as they would after a natural 2♣ (bidding 2♣ if they woudl have passed) and here chooses 2N showing an invitational hand with a spade stopper. South is well placed to continue describing a 1354 shape by bidding 3♥ aand North confirmed a five card suit with a raise to game. Over the raise to 4♥ South has a tricky choice; the strength that has been shown so far is enough to reach game opposite partner's game invite, so it is clearly worth progressing towards slam. It is hard to argue with Dan McIntosh's choice here of just bidding 6♥.
Contrast that with the traditional approach which would be 1♦ - 1♥ - 3♣ over which North is forced into 3N and South has to pass. Modern methods do have some positive advantages.
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| Play This Game |
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West leads the ♦3 to East's Knave and a low diamond comes back, (no 2 appearing). You ruff and play...?
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Having ruffed the diamond at trick 2, play to the ♥K and ruff another diamond. Now cash the ♥A (it is unlikely that West had a singleton heart and didn’t lead it or East had a singleton heart and didn’t switch to it). Now exit with a heart. If hearts are 3–3, you are in good shape. Win the club return, play the ♠KA and discard a club on the ♥T. If East had a doubleton honor, dummy’s ten is a temporary winner. West will probably lead a fourth heart to kill it, and after you overruff East, there are only three spades remaining. Chances are you have no spade loser after you overruff. East, with heart shortness, figures to have spade length. If West started with the ♥QJxx and continues with a third and fourth heart, ruff, cash the ♣AK, exit a club, and take the last three tricks with the ♠Axx facing the ♠KJT. Now if East started with a 3253 shape, he might discard two clubs on hearts and then ruff your second high club after you ruff the fourth round of hearts. The chances are that won’t happen. East’s club holding may appear too critical to discard, and if you do get the club ruffed, you might have lost a spade trick anyway, as East would have started with three spades.
If East started with the ♥QJxx or ♥Q9xx (worst-case scenario) and plays a third and fourth heart, discard a club and hope you can work out the spade distribution after East shifts to a club. |
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| Too Easy |
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West leads the ♣K. When you play off the top hearts, West shows out on the third round. How do you play?
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On the reasonable assumption that West has the ♣Q, this hand is now laydown on a double squeeze. West is guarding the club and East the heart, so when you run the diamonds, East's last 2 cards will be the ♥J and a spade, whilst West will hold ♣Q and a spade. Hence the King of spades must now drop under your Ace. |
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| An Extra Trick |
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West leads a low diamond. Plan the play.
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This is a very common hand type - 8 tricks in no-trumps and needing to develop a ninth. The first thing to appreciate is that it is no good playing on spades as the defence are sure to get 3 spades and 2 diamonds. Hence the heart suit is the only source of an extra trick. The bidding tells you that hearts are probably 4-3 with West holdding the length (players who double generally have a 4 card major and East did not bid 1♥). If West holds ♥ QJxx you cannot succeed but if East holds a minor honour in hearts then the play of a heart to the Ace followed by a finesse of the 9 on the way back will mean that the remaining honour will fall under your King, giving you the vital extra trick. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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You lead a heart. Declarer wins and takes a spade finesse which you win to play another heart. Declarer ruffs, draws your trumps and leads a diamond. How do you set about defeating this contract?
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These types of hands are frequently misdefended. You need to count declarer's tricks. 4 spades, 1 heart, and 4 diamonds are all that declarer has on top. Hence you have to hope that partner has the King or Queen of clubs. Simply rise with the ♦A and exit in diamonds. Declarer needs to make a club trick to bring his total to 10 and the only way he can do that is if he started with ♣KQ (in which case he always makes). The trap to avoid is playing off the ♣A in panic mode. |
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| HotD-fri : Summer Teams 5 : B12 |
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This was not the only way to get to play in 4♥ but it was the only table where the contract was doubled. Declarer took the diamond lead with the king in dummy, and finessed the ♥9 at trick two. The bidding had both encouraged that and suggested that the hearts were breaking 5-1 (else why had West not led a singleton spade?). Declarer had 5 tricks outside trumps and needed five more - and this means a trick from all but one of the ♥KQJ63, when the ace was still out. So he proceeded with unblocking the ♦A, crossing to dummy in spades to take one diamond ruff, and then crossing back on the third spade to take another. Ruffing in would not help the defence and declarer made 10 tricks. It is intersting to note that East at trick two could have beaten the contract by force - can you see how?
The bidding and the double clearly helped declarer to play this hand successfully, but at few tables it was not so clear cut. Should declarer have survived without help? Probably not - there is no reason not to at some point bash a top heart before the opposition start ruffing your winners, and what happens is that East plays through a club and ditches their second diamond and takes a diamond ruff to beat the game. But it does take that sequence of plays - at one table it started there but West did not cash the ♣A, fearful of setting up so many club winners in dummy. That should have been fatal for the defence. On the play of a second diamond, declarer won and cross to the ♠A to continue trumps and find the bad news. The contract was now all set to make, through five outside winners and two diamond ruffs in hand. But a diamond discard from the North hand on the second heart scuppered declarer's chances. Lucky for that West!
How often did South get told about the likelihood of a bad trump break? Apart from the case of 4♥x quoted above, there were five other times when West passed and then bid 2N on the second round - but none of those declarers woke up to the fact of the hearts being 5-1.
It was kept a secret at the four other tables - how did that happen? Twice West opened first in hand, and twice East opened third in hand! Bidding early rather than late painted a less clear picture for the eventual declaration by South.
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams 5 : B10 |
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It was curuous to note that on this hand from Monday, the computer tells us that the best opening lead for the defence is the singleton ♠K. Surprisingly enough nobody led this, and all those who avoided it made a trick out of it later.
The hand looks like it has a potential loser in each suit, but with the diamond king onside you might expect to make ten tricks. Only James Rogers managed that; he was the only one in game who got a heart lead, and he (sensibly) bashed out ace and another diamond to get rid of his remaining heart loser, before tackling trumps. He lost the ♦K and one trick in each black suit.
It was more common to receive a diamond lead against 4♠. It should be easy for East to withhold the ♦K and two managed that while a third failed. When ♦K has been played declarer has (but might not know it) five tricks in the side suits and the contract is guaranteed by playing ace and another club which generates five sure trump tricks. After the ♦Q wins trick one it is more tricky; declarer is looking at four sure tricks outside trumps, and six trump tricks means finding the king onside and taking two ruffs (without an over-ruff). The alternative is to go for a late ruffing finesse in diamonds to generate three tricks there and settle for five trumps - and this looks to be the more attractive option. (Anoher is to try for a second heart trick) Ducking a club at trick two seems the next move, and declarer wins the return. It would be wrong at this point for East to switch to a trump, as it so strongly suggests the king is with West and declarer should rise with the ace if a spade is played.
Let's suppose a second club goes to the ace. Declarer can now unblock the diamond ace, and take a club ruff. It looks natural now to ruff out the ♦K and ruff the fourth club. At this point declarer has three outside tricks (with ♥ A still to come) and three ruffs (the last one in dummy with a high spade). Declarer needs 5 tricks from ♠Qx ♥AT4 ♦Q opposite ♠AJ9 ♥Q62. The easy option for declarer is to run the ♠Q and when that loses the contract is off. Is there a better choice at this point? Hard to see one, so we cannot criticise those who went off.
What do we learn from all this? What we have is another example - and it is common - where leading away from an honour (which here gives declarer quick access to a no-risk second heart trick) is not good for the defence. One up for passive leads!
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams 5 : B18 |
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This was the only good slam from Monday and it was bid at only four of the ten tables. (Slams were makeable on B7 and B11 but none of these were attractive to bid). Why did six pairs miss out?
The most common start to the auction was a game forcing Jacoby 2N response. There were three who splintered with 3♠, but if partner is to judge when to proceed the splinter needs to be a narrow range and this hand - for most people - is just too strong for that. Two of those hearing 3♠ signed off in game, in recognition of the bad fit. One powered straight into slam. so 33% success rate from that start.
After the 2N start a number of different continuations are found. There was only one South who stopped proceedings with 4♥, the others either showing shape (often the short club) or making a cue bid. Following some element of cooperation, we had one example of North cue bidding beyond game after which South drove to slam, one of South cue bidding past game and North driving to slam, and one where North went to slam after South's 4♦ cue bid. We get a 42% success rate from this start.
What should be happening? What we have here is some extra values in South (singleton, plus an ace beyond an opening) and a fairly minimum (7-loser) but control rich game force with North. When you get extras+extras you expect to make 12 tricks, and it doesn't quite add up perfectly here. What makes the difference? One very positive feature is the fact that you have AKJ in every side suit - that makes it quite difficult for the opposition not to give you an extra trick with the lead. But you are unlikely to know this! The fact of length opposite partner's shortage is however more visible and that is always encouraging.
So is the slam cold? No it's not - even after negotiating for only one trump loser, you still have some work to do. If the trumps break 2-2 then that work is simply two ruffs in North, but if the trumps are 3-1 they might get to remove that option and that leaves you with five trump tricks and three AK-pairs. So you need to turn one of the jacks into a winner. With three chances, that is good odds.
Is it clear how to play the trump suit - what do you usually do when missing the KJ and some small ones? In most cases the answer is a double finesse but that's not the case when you have 9 cards in the suit. In that case the safest way is to start with the ace and then lead towards the queen (87% shot). If you had 8 cards in the suit, then do take a double finesse but the success chance then is only 76%.
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| Play like Zia |
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West leads the ♥3, East plays the ten and you win the King. At trick 2 you play a diamond to the Knave which holds. What now?
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You need to consider what will happen if diamonds are 4-1. If you play Ace and Queen of diamonds, the defence will duck and you will now be reliant on a 3-3 spade break. You do better to play the ♦Q from dummy at trick 3. The defence can win and cash 3 hearts and play a club through but now you can rise with the ♣A, play a spade to hand and cash the diamonds before taking the ♠ AK. If you played like this, well done. |
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| Careful! |
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How do you play on a low diamond lead?
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This is a simple hand provided you are careful with your entries. If you win the lead and take a club finesse, East will win and return a diamond. Now you are cut off from your spade winner. The winning line is to play the ♠A at trick 2 and the ♣Q at trick 3. Now you have 2 spades, 5 diamonds and 2 clubs. On this line you can never lose more than a club and three hearts. |
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| A Sure Thing |
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3NT would have been better, but your task is to play 5♣ on the ♥Q lead.
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This hand is 100%. Win the lead and draw trumps finishing in dummy. Then play a diamond, covering East's card. West either concedes a ruff and discard or plays a diamond allowing you to set up a diamond for a spade discard. If instead West play leads a spade, you just run it to your knave and score 3 spade tricks to go with a heart, a diamond and 6 clubs, losing at most a diamond and a spade. |
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| Don't Fall Asleep |
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West leads the ♦Q. How do you play?
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The best chance of making this contract lies in the spade suit. You probably just need the spades no worse than 4-2. Win the lead and play ♠AQ. Suppose they win, cash 2 diamonds and switch to a club. You win this with the Ace and ruff a spade high, A trump to dummy allows another high spade ruff. You can then re-enter dummy in trumps to cash the long spade. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 3.5 : 12jul21 : B5 |
The auction on this board started identically at all fifteen tables on Monday, with a 1♠ opener from East. It was interesting to examine the vairaitons which followed.
Only one South chose to bid, by stretching to 1N. Curiously the partner passed that but East stepped back into trouble by protecting with 2♦ and lost 500 for doing that.
There were exactly two cases where South passed and West responded, with 1N. Over this East continued with 2♦ and West passed that - finishing the auction in one case, but letting North protect with 2♥ in another.
The majority of Wests however passed and that left 12 Norths with the question of what to do after P - 1♠ - P - P to them? It is surprising that seven of these chose the low road, passing out at that point and collecting 50s for their pains. South felt disappointed.
Of the other five, four chose to overcall 2♥ - confident that having passed originally, partner would not over-estimate the power of their hand. The downside is that if partner is really short in hearts you may belong in a different contract. Three played there making - and one of them was doubled by a (too) ambitious East. The fourth also got a double from East but West chose to remove this to 3♣ and escaped for down two (when it coudl have been 800).
Only one North found the "winning" answer by re-opening with a takeout double. This must surely be the most flexible option and caters for a lot more holdings by South. Well done, Steve Bunker. South could pass this and even though West ran to 1N, there was really no escape for East-West. 1N ended down four but why South failed to double this remains a mystery.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 3.5 : 12jul21 : B18 |
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This hand provided an interesting choice in the play of 3N, after West led a diamond. The first diamond was ducked and the second taken. Declarer at this point has seven sure tricks and needs two more. East is the danger hand and you expect the ♠A to be with West. How do you find two more tricks?
There are two suits which might provide it - one is hearts and the other is spades.
To make two extra tricks in spades you need East to hold either ♠QT(x)(x) or a singleton ♠Q or ♠T - and, given the assumption West holds the ace, this is about a 20% shot.
There are two approaches to hearts. One is to cross to dummy and run the ♥7, gaining when East holds the queen but not the ten. This gathers four tricks in 44% of the cases. and means you never lose a trick to the danger hand. The other approach is a simple finesse for the ♥Q, finessing into the danger hand - and this delivers four tricks in almost 50% of cases.
What about one extra trick from each suit? In spades either the ♠Q or ♠T onside will give one extra trick, so that is coming 67% of the time (when you allow for vacant spaces in diamonds). You can work for this after finding you have only three heart tricks, adding to that 50% chance. Using a dummy entry to run the ♥7 gives you one less entry to play spades, and that helps less.
So the best line is simply to finesse in hearts and play on spade if and when that fails to deliver.
You cannot be expected to work out these percentages at the table, so the choice you make will depend on your gut feel, but looking at these numbers afterwards will help calibrate that gut feel for next time. Who'd have thought that the best line was a simple finesse into the danger hand! The reason it is so is because of the vacant spades - making the finesse more like to succeed and making it less likely East has the heart ten.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 3.5 : 12jul21 : b1 |
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The first hand on Monday produced a bidding problem for West. This was the start to the auction at 8 of the 15 tables (other Wests passes except for the one who opened 3♦). The big question is what to do now?
The vast majority fell into a trap which permeates the game; they had a conventional 2N enquiry to use, so they did this. They found themselves bidding 3N on the next round. There were two who found a better choice - they bid 2♥. The key point to remember about a bid like 2♥ is that as well as showing partner something about your hand, it gives partner to tell you something about how good a hand they have - which is all you get from the 2N convention.
How did the various choices work out? Those who bid 2N all ended in 3N and this left North on lead, rather blind as to what the West hand held. Three Norths chose a heart and three chose a club. The latter was very much what declarer wanted and here the defence promptly set up two club tricks for declarer making the game trivial. The heart lead left declarer very short of tricks and in those three cases it was only at the table where North later attacked clubs that declarer succeeded.
The Easts who heard a 2♥ took different routes. One didn't realise that the bid has to be forcing, and passed to collect +170. The other continued and ended in 4♥ and declarer made the nine tricks that were available.
What do we learn from all this? Deep Finesse tells us that the highest makeable contracts are 2♦ and 3♥. We have a mis-fitting 24-count between the two hands and that would argue for a part-score rather than game. The problem with bidding 2N is that the only choice of contracts it offers you is 3♦ with a singleton in dummy, or 3N - and neither of those can be appealing to West. Starting with 2♥ gives you a chance of a plus score, but stopping out of game will then take a lot of restraint. A successful diamond finesse to discard the spade loser would make 4♥ very playable - so maybe we should not complain about getting to that game. Passing 2♦ has a lot to be said for it.
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| Finesse |
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West leads the ♠J, which runs to your Queen. How do you play?
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You need to take an avoidance finesse in diamonds to keep East off lead so that you don't suffer a spade through. However, you need to be careful. If you cross tom dummy with a heart and play a low diamond to your Knave, you will go down. The winning line is to lead the ten of diamonds from the table on the first round. If this is covered, you return in hearts to play a diamond to your 8. |
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| Hotd-mon : League Playoffs : 11jul21 : B44 |
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The County A-team won the annual play-offs for the Regional Inter-county Leagues, which was postponed last year but happened in its regular July slot this year. The County-C team also played and came first in their group.
This hand was the biggest gain for the A-team and a useful gain for the C-team, and merits inspection. The auction shown happened at three of our tables in the A-match, but in the C-match only one of the four tables raised to game (the others to 3♥) and that table was allowed to play in 4♥, and Val Constable was allowed to throw a diamond on the ♣Q to make that game.
Across our tables there were five tables played in 4♠, two of them GCBA and of the five there were three doubled. Four tables started the defence with a top heart ruffed (one the club king, after which declarer had an easy time). Of those four two Gloucestershire declarers were successful, but none of the opposition. The failures came about because declarer lost control, using a trump on the initial ruff, and then giving up a trick to the trump queen and being forced again.
The key on the hand is - when East shows out on the second trump - is for South to win and switch toi clubs. The tricky part is when East wins the ♣Q and sees partner show out. It's all too easy to give partner a ruff, but if you do that the contract makes. The defence need to continue on the line of trick one, and play another heart. After that declarer cannot succeed - or should not; the Manchester West threw a diamond on the ♣Q and that allowed declarer the luxury of no diamond losers and an alternative way to make the contract.
Tricky game this,
[Richard later wrote: having misplayed this hand at the table, I believe the best line is, as in many hands, to set up the side suit first and play clubs at tricks two and three. You can afford to lose a club and two trumps. It also preserves the king of spades as an entry to the clubs]
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| Read the Signs |
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West leads the ♦Q. How do you play?
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Surely West must hold all the missing hearts to justify his double. If that is the case, can you make him pay? Win the ♦A shedding a spade from hand. Now take your winning clubs, discarding a spade and a diamond from dummy. Now a spade ruff on the table and a diamond ruff in hand is followed by a further spade, ruffed on the table with the ♥T. Then cash the ♥A (your ninth trick) and exit with a diamond, discarding your losing club. West is endplayed and must concede a trick to your Knave of hearts. |
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| The Best Line? |
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West leads the ♦K. What's the best line?
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There are 2 potential lines that offer good chances of success. You could play off 2 top spades, succeeding whenever trumps are 3-2 and also making when trumps are 4-1 provided something good happens in clubs (you will take a finesse against East since West has long diamonds. The second line is to take the ♠ A and then cross to dummy with a club and take a spade finesse. This line only loses when West holds 2 trump tricks or can give East a club ruff (unlikely given his length in diamonds). This second line represents better odds. |
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| Improve Your Chances |
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West leads the ♥J. How do you play?
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Unless something good happens in spades (the oponents might clash their honours), the contract looks as if it depends on guessing the diamonds. That is true but the correct line helps you reduce your chances of guessing wrong. The opening lead allows you to cash 2 heart tricks, dicarding a club from dummy. Now take 2 clubs finishing in dummy and lead the ♠Q. If East covers from Kx you will be home but suppose East wins the Ace, West following small, and switches to a diamond. You guess to play the ten but West covers with the Knave and you win the Ace to play another spade. West wins this trick and either plays a diamond giving you your Queen or concedes a ruff and discard. No guarantees, but the best you can do. |
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams 4 : 05jul21 : B15 |
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This hand from Monday saw some divergent opinions, and as often the middle route is the right answer.
At this point in the proceedings four Norths closed up with a 4♠ bid; one bid stright to 6♠ and another two jumped to 4N (which ought to be natural here, 11 hcp with four hearts) and then one chose 5♠ and the other chose 6♠.
There were three pairs chose differently with two bidding 4♣ (not annotated, so we cannot tell their intentions!) and one chose 4♥. The 4♣ bid is what you need to bid on a 1435-shaped hand which is interested in a slam in clubs (having discounted hearts) but neither table got into trouble as partner had a natural rebid in spades at this point. The only unambiguous way to try for a slam in spades over 3♠ is that last of these options - the 4♥ bid. Why is that?
In all Stayman auctions, when partner shows one major and you now bid NT you have promised the other (else why ask?) and that makes the bid of the other major redundant . So why not use it for something we need? In this sequence (and after 2N-3♣-3♥) a bid of the other major is simply a general slam try, showing a hand too good to signoff but not good enough to force beyond game. (The same principle applies to 1N-2♣ -2♥-3♠ and 1N-2♣-2♠-3♥) Well done Rob Lawy in finding that.
The downside of being descriptive for partner is that the opposition might be listening. In Rob's auction after 4♥-4♠ the auction continued with cue bids in clubs and hearts. West did not take the hint - they should have led out the ♦K after this start; Here it only saved one trick but sometimes that could be vital.
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams 4 : 05jul21 : B3 |
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This was the best hand slam on Monday, and the slam was bid by nobody. There was an attempt by East-West later on B6 (going one down and two down) and on B15 the North'South got another chance which two pairs grabbed. On that hand there were 12 easy tricks but the defence had two tricks if they cashed them first; nobody did.
The auction was not the same at all tables; in fact only a small majority (6 out of 10) overcalled 1♠ here, so a number of pairs had rather an easier time (more on that later). It is difficult to get to the slam from this position; a lot depends on what North knows about South's hand - and this is one time when the traditional Acol players have an advantage. If South has promised 4+ clubs, then North knows there is a fit and has a choice of three ways of showing it - either a 2♠ cue bid, or raise of clubs, or a fit jump to 3♦. The last of these might seem a bid of a stretch but when North has only one heart, they "know" the opponents have at least an 8-card heart fit and have yet to find it; this was the case for five of the six pairs concerned. The preemptive value of 3♦ makes justifies the slight overbid that represents. What happened in practice? All but one bid 2♦ and the one doubled (suggesting hearts). Can we still get to slam? The two Souths who now bid 3N had no chance and in fact were in trouble on the heart lead but somehow the defence failed to cash - so 3N made. The others bid 3♣ (although one had to bid 4♣ as East had bid 3♥). There was still a chance to get to slam, but nobody found it - and the answer over 3♣ is a jump to 4♥ showing club support and short hearts (a splinter). After that South will push to a slam, confident that partner cannot justify a 4♥ bid without the diamond ace (or a heart void).
What about the auction with no interference? The answer is much the same here. After 1♣ - P - 1♦ - P - 3♣ - P what should North bid? the 4♥ bid stands out. And so much simpler!
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| 4-1? |
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Plan the play on a low spade lead to East's King.
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If trumps are 3–2, the contract is solid. Just draw the trumps and throw a spade from dummy on your fourth club. A spade ruff on the table is your thirteenth trick. But what if hearts are 4-1, with the Knave not dropping singleton? If West has 4 trumps, you gain by laying down ♥KQ and taking the marked finesse whereas if East holds four, you need to play ♥KA to allow for the marked finesse - so what do you do? The key to playing trumps is to consider the whole hand. The only way to ruff a spade in dummy is to draw trump first and then run clubs. However, if trumps are 4–1, that is unlikely to work. On the other hand, a ruff in hand of the ♦7 can be taken without having to draw trump first. Therein lies the answer. Declarer should win the ♠A and cash the ♥K. When everyone follows low, he should next play the ♥Q. If trumps are 3–2, he can claim (draw the last trump). But, if RHO shows out, he is still alive. (If LHO shows out, he was never realistically making the contract.) Next comes the ♦AK and then the ♦7 ruffed with the ♥T. If this lives, declarer now plays a heart to the 9 for the marked finesse and then the ♥A to claim 13 tricks. |
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| The Lead Helps |
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How do you play this hand on the lead of ♣9?
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If the club finesse works then your problems are over. However, does that look likely on the lead? If the club finesse loses, you will be reduced to dropping the ♦Q doubleton. There is an alternative line that gains whenever the player with the ♣K also holds the ♦Q. Rise with the ♣A (on a good day the King will fall) and assuming it doesn't, play Ace and another heart ruffing in hand. A diamond to dummy allows for another heart ruff in hand. Now cash your spades before exiting in trumps. If trumps are 2-2, whoever wins this trick is end-played (you hope) and of course you still have the chance of dropping the diamond Queen if it turns out that the clubs were 3-1. |
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| Play Well |
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West starts with Ace and another diamond. How do you plan the play?
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You definitely need the ♥A onside to have a chance. If the clubs break 3-3 then you will be able to set up a club trick for a heart discard. The bidding makes it fairly certain the West has very long diamonds, so you also have a chance of playing for a squeeze chance in addition to the 3-3 club break. Ruff the diamond and draw trumps before playing Ace and a low club from hand. If West rises with a doubleton honour, he will have no sensible exit other than Ace and another heart. Win the King of hearts in dummy and run the trumps. On the last trump, East has to throw a winning heart or give up the club suit. |
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| A Gentle Slam |
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West leads the ♣Q. How do you play?
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You will be OK on this hand if the spade finesse works and trumps aren't 4-0. You just need to handle the entries correctly. Win the lead in hand and play the ♦Q from hand and the ♦K from dummy. If it holds, draw trumps via the finesse and set up a diamond for a heart discard with the ♣A as an entry to reach the diamond winner. If the first diamond is taken by the Ace and a heart comes through you rise with the Ace, cross to dummy and take the trump finesse, later pitching your losing heart on the winning diamond. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 3.4 : 28jun21 : B11 |
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Slam bidding didn't come to the fore on Monday past, with only one successful slam contract - and even that should really have gone off. Two other attempts failed.
This hand is interesting as the slam in spades looks very good and declarer was regretting not getting higher when dummy went down. But any slam is scuppered by the bad spade break, and the slam in hearts get defeated on a spade ruff. So do you want to be in a slam? The answer is yes, and independently of the particular distribution this time, you really want to play in 6N as that contract is going to work for you if either the hearts or the spade depend - and that's decent odds. Of course this is on the basis that the club king is sitting onside, or perhaps that East is declarer.
The reason for commenting on this hand is just to point out that the (nearly always) jump intervention by North on the first round stopped all their opposition from making any move towards slam. Everyone switched into finding the right game in the little space available. But wouldn't North-South be happy if East-West had found thei spade slam?
There were three cases where the intervention by North was a simple 2♣ overcall; this allowed East-West to agree spades. For reasons not understood, all three pairs concerned chickened out of going above game and stopped in a making contract.
And so it ended up a flat board all round. Funny game this.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 3.4 : 28jun21 : B19 |
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This hand proved intersting as every table reached the same contract (4♥, 12 by South and 4 by North) and of those ten succeeded and six went off.
In some cases it was the opening lead which determined the result. Three times (twice when West had shown the minors, and once for pure inspiration) East led the ♣K and was able to take a club ruff quickly after which declarer had no chance. One West found the inspired lead of the ♣5 which led to the same result, and the other black suit lead was the ♠T which set up the defence's spade trick and again declarer had no chance.
Twice - despite the bidding strongly suggesting that partner had no values - West led a diamond round to the queen at trick one. This gave declarer a good start, but only brought the total up to 9 tricks. All the other leads were a trump. When declarer drew three rounds of trumps a strong expectation should have grown that most of the missing honours were with West - otherwise why would someone lead a singleton trump here? This makes playing the pointed suits bad news, so declarer has to think about clubs. The lack of a top club lead makes it very likely that the honours are split, so the only chance of avoiding losing three clubs is to lead clubs first through a hand with doubleton honour, so that you can duck on the way back. Which hand is more likely to have a doubleton honour? Surely the hand with the three trumps. So the best choice is to win the third heart in North and lead a club to the jack and ace. All West can do is win and play back a club, which you let East win with the king. East will now switch to either pointed suit and you are at the crossroads. Would they be leading this suit if the suit was working for declarer? Surely not. The winning answer is to preserve the queen and win with the ace. You can now collect two club tricks and throw the third card in the suit they led, before exiting with the queen to West's king, and at this point West is endplayed in the other pointed suit. Marvellous play by Joe Angseesing to do exactly that on this hand.
Six declarers with a trump lead drew trumps and tried to find the ♦J onside. This is useful as it lets you discard the spade loser on the third diamond - but it still leave you needing to play clubs successfully. On two occasions West played a spade away from the king at this point, and when declarer lost only two clubs that was game making. In the other cases, West exited safely and declarer then tried the spade finesse and was off. The two with a diamond lead at trick one had less work to do - one got the clubs right and lost two clubs and a spade, the other got the clubs wrong but was gifted a spade trick to again make the contract.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League : 28jun21 : B16 |
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It was interesting to look at the variations in the approaches on this hand, both in the bidding and the play. The auction shown happened identically at the two successful tables in Division One.
Out of the 16 tables, there were eight Norths who passed on the first round, while seven opened 1♣ and one opened 3♣. The last choice led to a fortunate 800 penalty when East-West strayed too high. The 1♣ opener led to a part-score four times, and to game in spades three times but only one of those three was successful. That contrasts with the initial passers where 6 out of 8 got to game and all but one made the game. The two who stopped out had an easy route to game as in both cases East opened 1N and South showed the majors, but pessimistic Norths chose ot play in 2♣ and 2♠. What do we learn from this? If anything it is that opening light on a hand that is difficult to describe and then back-pedalling has a clear drawback.
What about the play in 4♠ where there were six successes and three failures. It is worth noting that four of these successes had a top club lead, and that made setting up the clubs trivial. The other two had a trump lead and a club lead from West and they had more work to do - and these were the leads when the contract was defeated. Let's examine the play on a trump lead. There is the possibility of cross-ruffing but there are only 8 tricks that way, so at least two more are needed.
The three failures in 4♠ came about for different reasons. The first problem exhibited was a failure to recognise that clubs was a much better source of tricks than hearts (as East had shown strength in the bidding) so it was important to win the first trick in the North hand. When this wasn't done, a heart ruff had to be used as an entry and declarer became dependent on spades breaking 2-2, and two of them also played on the assumption that clubs broke 3-3 (so one had ♣T ruffed by West and the other saw a third round club ruff over-ruffed with the ♠5 (and wasn't that West glad it was the lowly ♠2 he had led at trick one).
Was there a simpler route? Try winning in North at trick one and ruffing out the ♣K. Now a second trump to North and ruff a low club. Even if trumps break 3-1, you can now afford a trump to North drawing the last one and the most you can lose is two diamonds and a top club. The key is to identify the suit you are setting up (clubs), and then realise that trumps in that hand are for drawing the opponents trumps and not for taking ruffs.
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| Play This Grand |
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West leads a low club, East following. How do you play?
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On a diamond lead, you could have cashed your side winners and enjoyed a complete cross-ruff, but the trump lead has left you a trick short. The only chance for a thirteenth trick is to establish a trick in one of the red suits. This requires a 4-4 break in one of the suits and South needs to manage his entries carefully to test both suits. Win the opening lead in hand, cash the ♦A, discarding a spade from dummy, and ruff a diamond. Now ♥ A discarding a spade from hand and ruffed a heart low. Now a cross-ruff in the red suits. If one of the red suits breaks 4-4, you will find that you can draw the last trump and have an entry to either hand to enjoy whichever long card is now established. The key to the hand is to win the first trump in hand. If you win in dummy and the layout is as shown, you will be unable to draw the last trump and enjoy the long heart. |
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| What's the Best Line? |
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West leads the ♠Q. What's the best line?
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You will make the slam if the heart finesse works, but you can improve on that. You have escaped a club lead and if the diamonds break you can set up a long diamond to dispose of your club loser. Win the lead and cash the ♥A. No problem if the King falls but suppose it doesn't. Now Ace and a diamond ruff is followed by a spade and diamond ruff. Now you can ruff your winning spade to ruff another diamond, setting up the fifth diamond when they are 4-3. The ♣A is an entry to cash it and you just lose a trump trick. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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West leads the ♥K. How do you defend?
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East knows the defence needs two heart tricks to beat the contract, and hence West will need an entry. East must switch to a low diamond at trick 2, hoping that partner has the ten. When South draws trumps and loses the club finesse, East leads his last low diamond, allowing West to win and cash a heart. |
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| Choose a Good Line |
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How do you play on a heart lead?
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I guess most players will take a spade finesse and later take the club finesse. On a good day, this line will produce an overtrick. There is another line of play that combines several chances that you might not have spotted and may not depend on any finesse at all. Suppose you win the heart in hand and lay down the ♠A – the king might drop. A diamond to the ace would be followed by a diamond ruff – one opponent might have started with ♦ QJx. Cash the ace of clubs – the Queen might be singleton. If nothing good has happened, cross to dummy with ♥A, cash the ♦K and ruff a diamond. Now exit with a high spade. If one opponent started with all three trumps, he can exit safely with his last trump and you will have to fall back on the club finesse. Assuming the spades split 2-1, you might have an endplay. Neither opponent can play a red suit as it will give you a ruff and discard. Should East have the ♠K, you will need the club finesse. When West has the king, however, he will have to lead a club into your king-jack and you will make the slam regardless of who has the queen of clubs.
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| HotD-fri : Summer Teams 3 : 21jun21 : B19 |
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It was interesting to note that three tables bid to a no-play slam on this hand - we have to ask was that avoidable?
This was the start to the auction at some tables and the question is how does East continue. We saw both extremes in practice - with one table bidding 4♠ to end the auction and another bidding 4N to check on aces before bidding 6♠. When you see this range of choices the answer is nearly always that something in the middle is the best approach, and here you need an agreement with partner that trying to play in 2N is too much like landing on a pin, and you can afford to make the 2N bid an artificial game try. You use this to find out if partner hgas a good or a bad hand for the raise to 2♠. If you do that then you can hear if partner made a 3-card raise on a 5431 hand (they now bid a second suit), or a 3-card raise on a 6331 hand (they rebid the suit opened), or a minimum with four trumps which bids 3♠, or a maximum bwith four trumps which bids something at the four level (a new suit being a splinter). It's all very natural and so easy to remember, and its use comes up quite regularly.
So some pairs could have done better; we sympathise however with the one pair who were treated to a 2♥ opener from South. North heard West double and knew the opponents were heading for 4♠, so he sacrificed in advance and the 5♥ bid made life quite awkward for East. Taking a chance on a slam in these circumstances cannot be criticised.
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams 3 : 21jun21 : B6 |
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This hand from Monday has some interesting points in the bidding and the play. The first question is whether you would rather play in 3N or in 4♠? Looking at just the two East-West hands, you would favour 4♠ as the 8-card fit is less troubled by the defence attacking hearts. Yet four tables missed the spade game. The case in which a cheeky South overcalled 1♠ gives a very solid reason in on instance, but the others all started with the auction shown. The question is what comes next? Their answer was 3N.
One pair did however solve the problem after this start to the auction, by bidding 3♣ at this pioint as checkback. They found the spade fit andf played in 4♠. Over this 2N rebid, it is advisable to have some sort of conventional follow-ups. The most effective - and a very simply option - is to play all bids as transfers to the suit above. Here it would be a 3♥ transfer showing four spades (and denying a fith heart as with that you would first transfer to hearts and then show the spades). This scheme gives responder the chance to stop in three of a suit, or to show length somewhere and then bid 3N to offer partner a choice of contracts. The same scheme shoud dapply after 1suit-1N-2N.
But what about the play? The computer tells us that both games can be defeated, but in practice 3N made on all four occasions and 4♠ made once. Against 3N three suits were led; the spade lead at one table (leading from AQ into a very strong hand is never recommended) was welcomed by declarer. who could knock out the top spades while ducking two hearts to get 9 tricks. The club lead was the interesting one - how should declarer proceed? There is a weakness in hearts, and spades have to be tackled from the West hand, so the simplest choice seems to be to win the ♣A and run the ♠8. South wins and now comes the crunch point. A heart switch is needed, but the fact that North encouraged on the club lead led to a second round of that suit. The spotlight was now on East; if the clubs are breaking 4-4 then winning the seocnd club and knocking out the ♠A guarantees the contract. Can East tell? The lead of the ♣3 could have been from four or five (even three) but if North has been seen to play the ♣2 (small to encourage at trick one?) then it cannot have been a lead from a five card suit. In practice East ducked and moved the spotlight to North. North needs now to deduce - from partner's failure to overcall 1♠ with five - that East's shape is 4243 and that a heart is therefore a safe switch. That would have beaten the contract but it was missed. On the heart lead at the other 3N table, the contract can go off but North has a tricky play at trick two - exercise for the read to find the one card which beats 3N at that point.
The defence to 4♠ tended to be simpler as declarer was laid open to a force if they took a club ruff for the tenth trick. The spade game would have been easy if the spades had broken 3-2, something which would not have affected the 3N game.
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams 3 : 21jun21 : B5 |
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This was the first and the best of the slam hands from Monday. It was interesting to note the variations in the start to the auction. The North hand would be a straightforward 3♥ opener at favourable vulnerability, but when vul-against-not there are too many things can go wrong with this hand, and for that reason four tables treated it as a weak-two bid and opened accordingly. This is a good compromise between safety and disrupting the opposition bidding plans. In practice the opener did not make a lot of difference with two opponents bidding a slam eventually despite North's opening. Where North passed we had one case fo a 2♠ opener (spades+another) from East which resulted in a slam and the other three tables started P-P-3♣. This proved more troublesome for East-West and none of the three afte r his start reached slam. The key difference was that with long clubs, West was not able to make a takeout double and so get partner involved in the decision as to where to go.
What can we learn from all this? Although it was really more a question of stealing West's suit, the higher level obstruction after P-P-3♣ was more effective. Could the other tables have replicated this? Opposite a weak two bid from partner with the South hand, the one thought that should come to mind instantly is that the opponents might have game on in the other major - you know they have the majority of points and should have at least 8 cards in that major, probably more. Might this not merit raising the ante by giving support at the three level to partner? In practice South let West in at the two level and now either a jump or a cue bid was available to East and that was the stepping stone ithey needed to get to slam.
The other slams were not such good contracts as here. The "slam" on B7 was missing two cashable aces but one of the losers went away when South led his singleton (hoping for a ruff? But if partner gets in the contract is off anyway as you have the trump ace!) . The slams on B8 and B11 were depenednt on a finesse, wrong for one and right for the other. The slam on B11, bid at three tables, was no slam - it would only succeed if the missing clubs were stiff K opposite JTxxxx. Not good odds.
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| What's the Best Line? |
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West leads the ♦J. How do you play?
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There are two obvious choices. The first possible line is towin the opening lead with the ♦A, cash ♥ A and ruff a heart high. Lead a low spade to dummy’s Queen, ruff another heart high, and cross back to dummy with a spade. You are hoping for the King of hearts to fall. If the King of hearts has not appeared, lead a club to the King and hope the ace is onside. The second line is to win the opening diamond lead, then cash the Queen of spades and lead a spade to your Ace. Lead a heart to the Queen. If the finesse loses, you still have time to play a club to the King. This line succeeds whenever either the ♥K or ♣ A are on-side. Which line would you choose? The second line is a variation on a common theme — one out of two cards onside. This is well known as a 75 percent proposition. The first line has roughly a 61 percent chance of success. Did you choose line number two? The only reason to choose line number one is that you cannot finish worse than down one. On a bad day,the second line will leave you down two. |
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| Easy When You See It |
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West leads a club to East's Knave. How do you play?
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You have trump loser and club loser for sure, and a third club to dispose of as well as the diamond suit to negotiate. However, the contract is almost certain provided you play correctly. Firstly you must take the first trick, else Ace and a second heart will defeat you. The play to trick 2 is critical - lead the ♦Q from hand. If the defence take this and play trumps, you can later reach dummy with a diamond and discard your club loser(s). If they duck the ♦Q, you ruff the third diamond in dummy and discard your club losers on the top spades. |
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| Take a Finesse |
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West leads a spade. How do you play?
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The first thing to realise is that playing on Clubs is doomed to defeat as the defenders will have the A♣ and at least 4 spades to cash. You can make this contract if the heart finesse succeeds, but need to guard against West holding 4 hearts. Take the ♠A and the ♦Q. Now overtake the ♦J and finesse the heart. If thet wins you overtake the ♦T for another heart finesse and then yoiu have another diamond entry for a third heart finesse.
Jack points out : If East has 9xxx in diamonds and a doubleton heart, then they need to make sure they play the ♦9 when declarer leads the ♦3 from dummy on the third round of the suit so that declarer can't use the ♦8 as an entry to hand! |
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| Take All Your Chances |
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How do you play on the ♠6 lead?
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This is a hand where you have many chances of adding to your 8 winners - you just need to make sure you combine all your chances. Play the ♠Q at trick 1 - let's suppose East produces the King. Duck spades until the third round and play off your top clubs. If they break you are home but if they don't, cash 3 hearts finishing in dummy. If hearts are 3-3 you can return in diamonds to score the last heart. If nothing good has happened, you can resort to the diamond finesse. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 3.3 : 14jun21 : B12 |
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This hand from Monday was the most interesting of the play exercises. Thirteen pairs played in the 4♥ game with 11 of these by North. At two tables a diamond lead from East made the contract a trivial make, and at a third a spade lead from West gave the defence an easy route to defeat the game - but at the remaining tables the lead was a club, high from East and once a low club from West. What should happen now?
The best choice was for North to duck this lead and it was then up to East to decide on what to do at trick two. There were four declarers won trick one and the defence was then in charge at their table - and succeeded in the three cases where East led a top club at trick one, but when West had led a club East discarded a club when trumps were drawn and left himself with ♣KQ bare which was fatal (see below for why).
The fact that the lead of the king holds, tells East that a club continuation is safe (surely with ♣ AJ declarer would win trick one). The issue is which one to lead. There are dangers in continuing with a high club (partner might have doubleton jack) so most continued with a low club. This gave declarer a key play to make but only Roiger Schofield (playing in 5♥, sadly for him) found it - and this was the play of the ♣T forcing away West's entry. The others all played low but each East had led the ♣8 rather than the nine, so West felt constrained to play the jack - giving up their entry anyway. What happened from trick three was now that declarer drew trumps and played a third club which East was forced to win. East could exit in diamonds but then declarer would lose only a spade - or exit in spades which declarer would win and then play ace and another of one pointed suit, to get a trick back in the other. And so we find the three declarers in Division One and Angelos Agathangelou produce a multiple end-play position to make their 4♥ game.
Was the trap avoidable? One trap was - leading the ♣9 rather than the ♣8 at trick two would have much improved the defence's chances - even through declarer can counter that. In fact the only certain defence is for East to continue with the ♣Q at trick two. Can this be found? It depends a lot on the bidding - if North is known - as they were at a number of tables - to hold around 20 hcp, then East should be very cogniscant of the danger of endplays. And if partner had the dreaded doubelton club jack, then declarer might well have won tricks one to produce some different sorts of endplay - suggesting the high second club is a safe option.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 3.3 : 14jun21 : B4 |
[RETURNING AFTER A WEEK'S HOLIDAY]
This hand from Monday proved a disaster for a number of pairs, and everyone but East had some decisions to make. Here's some of what went wrong
1. Four pairs started the auction with 1♣ rather than 1♦. You do pass on the message of extra values when you bid clubs and then diamonds, but you also make it impossible for partner to realise that the two suits are of equal length and in many situations you will find it impossible to describe your hand. A golden rule when opening 5-5 hands is to open the higher suit first (although in Acol you can treat clubs as higher than spades in this respect).
2. Only four of the sixteen Norths entered the bidding on the first round, overcalling 1♥. It must be admitted that the hand is borderline for bidding, but the fact is that North-South can make game in either of two suits and this game was only bid at four tables - three of those where North overcalled, and only at one of the other 12 tables. The two most effective (not necessarily the best) auctions were 1♦ - 1♥ - P - 4♥ which left West almost forced to bid 5♣ and that was an 800 penalty. Except that the heart lead cost a trick - which suggests that the fit jump to 2♠ found by Peter Shelley was actually the best move. It wasn't labelled as most effective because it allowed West to bid 3♣ promising a 5-5 hand in the minors, and took away the need for bidding a vey exposed 5♣ (although West couldn't resist doing that too - which cost him 800).
3. The most common start to the auction in practice was 1♦ - P - P - 1♠ and this happened at seven tables. The hand is rather strong for a simple protective overcall and the remedy was noticed only by Nicky Freguson, who jumped to 2♠ in protective position, which should be showing a good opening bid with a 6-card suit (bit for some reason was thought to be weak).
What can we learn from all this? You might note that in Division One all three pairs played 5♣-X from the West seat for a big penalty, while in Division Four everyone played a part-score. You might note that even a simple 1♥ overcall which takes up no space can have a significant effect on the way the hand develops and was the route to game. You might note that in Division Two two pairs were allowed to play 5♣ undoubled despite the bad trump break, while in Division One they were all doubled.
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams 2 : 07jun21 : B5 |
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The two slam boards on Monday came together with B5 and B6 and were both North-South hands; it was curious to note that the only pairs who stretched slightly to the slam on B6 had also bid the slam on B5. Across the two boards there were six pairs bid neither, two bid one slam, and two bid two slams.
The play in this slam turned out to be very easy after a spade lead ruffed out the queen, and various Easts were wishing that they had led the ♦A first, as then the danger might have been more visible to them. The interesting question is would declarer make the slam on the lead of a diamond and then a club?
The answer is yes. The secret is for declarer to cash all the diamonds and watch the discard carefully. There is no loss of opportunity in the heart suit by delaying the play of that - and when you reach the four card ending you have four hearts as South and dummy has three hearts and one black card. There is a choice here of keeping a spade or a club in dummy but there are a number of indicators that East has the ♠A, so you keep the ♣Q. What can West do? The squeeze delivers the twlefth trick even without a spade lead.
On B6 the lead also had the opportunity to make the play more demanding. Attacking spades at T1 put declarer under pressure by limiting dummy to effectively one entry - and now the better odds line failed. Without that pressure, the slam was an easy make. What made the difference to the lead - one East doubled a spade cue bid and the other East didn't!
Well done to Somerset pair Harry Anoyrkatis & Rob Lawy who were the only pair on the right side of both (and commiserations to Roger Williams & Mike Wignall).
[Production delays this week, but hands will appear]
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| Simple Stuff |
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West leads out the ♦KQJ. How do you play?
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This is a hand where you need to avoid a trump loser, so it is important to find the Queen. Ruff the third diamond and play a low heart to the King in dummy. If the King holds then it looks like the Ace is with West. Since he passed as dealer and has shown up with 10 points, you should play East for the ♠Q. If the King of hearts loses to the Ace, then you are back to just guessing the trump position. Playing hearts is called a discovery play and sometimes it can help you place the missing cards. It may not always work, but it costs nothing to try. |
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| Play This Slam |
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How do you play on the ♥K lead?
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This slam is not wonderful, but you have several chances. If the ♣J is doubleton or tripleton, you won’t have to mess with diamonds, as the ♣10 will provide a resting place for one of dummy’s diamonds. Failing that, you have the double diamond finesse or a squeeze on East if he guards both minors. Win the lead in dummy, throwing a diamond. Then draw two rounds of trumps, keeping entry flexibility, and now the ♣K. Say West wins and gets out with a high heart which you ruff. Cross to the ♣Q, ruff dummy’s last heart and ruff a club hoping to drop the jack. If the ♣J has not made an appearance, you are down to this position with the lead in dummy - North ♠Jx ♦ xxx South ♠9 ♦ AKT ♣T.
It looks like West started with seven hearts for his vulnerable, three-level overcall. If he had seven hearts along with the ♣AJxx, he is likely to have overcalled 4♥. If he had only six hearts, it seems as if 2♥ would have been enough. Hence the best chance is to play West for a 1723 shape, in which case East is 4–4 in the minors along with the ♣J. Play a high spade forcing a diamond discard from East, and now the coup de grâce, dummy’s last spade. East must discard a second diamond, as you pitch the ♣10. Now, if your luck is in, you will take the last three diamond tricks, the suit now breaking 2–2. |
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| Don't be too Hasty |
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West leads the ♥Q. East overtakes and switches to the ♦J What do you think will happen and how do you stop it?
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You are clearly in danger of losing a diamond ruff. If you play trumps, East can win and put his partner in with the ♥J to get a ruff. You need to sever the communications between the defenders and the way to do that is to play 3 rounds of clubs, discarding a heart when East ruffs the third round. Now you only lose a heart. a ruff and the Ace of trumps. |
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| Timing |
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West leads the ♦T. You duck this trick to East's King and a trump is returned. How do you plan the play?
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This should be simple. If you duck the spade around to West, you give him the opportunity to switch to a club and this could leave you with 4 losers. The key is to establish the heart for a club discard. Rise with the ♠A and play a heart. Now the only thing that defeats you is a 5-0 trump break - a very slim chance. |
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| HotD-fri : County KO Final : 27may21 : B16 |
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The match reached its final board with a 5-imp margin in favour of the Shields team and the computer produced this offering. The first key decision was East's response to the opening bid. The position in the two rooms was marginally different, as in one room West had promised 4+ diamonds whereas the other room was playing five-card-majors and that means the 1♦ opener could be on a 4432 shape. The two tables diverged; one showed diamond support after which the pair was committed to that suit, while the other showed spades, after which the partnership was committed to that suit.
So one table ended in 6♦ and the other in 6♠. Can we tell which is the better contract? Both contracts have a potential loser in diamonds (vanilla play is 27% no losers) and in spades (47% chance of no losers) - and if we test the spades first we obtain about a 60% chance of only one loser between the two. But then comes the question of winners. There are three winners outside these two suits; if the pointed suits deliver 8 high card tricks (roughly a 12% chance), then we need one ruff to bring the total to 12 and this isn't difficult. If these suits give us one loser, we need two ruffs to bring the total to 12; this is slightly more awkward as taking two ruffs in the trump suit might inhibit the choice of plays we have there - and so the chance then of holding oursleves to one loser.
After winning the heart lead, a first step might be to take the spade finesse and learn whether or not that works. Playing in 6♠ this was Dan McIntosh's choice and South won the ♠K and returned one. The only way to get two ruffs - given the entry position - was ruffing in East, so he won the ♠A, played to ♦J for one ruff, played to ♦A for another, and finally entered dummy with a club ruff to draw the last trump. Because the ♦K had fallen, he had 12 tricks. He had sensibly chosen a small diamond on the second round (rather than the ♦Q trying to pin the offside ♦T which would fail if South did not cover) but the jury is still out on whwther the ♦Q on the first round might have been the better play in the diamond suit.
At the other table.diamond ruffs look better in thre East hand, and that constrains the play of the diamond suit. This led to the queen covered by the king, which meant a diamond lost to the ten and a spade lost to the king. So 6♦ was one down.
That was a 17 imps swing, but to the side already 5 ahead - the county KO Champions this year are Richard Chamberlain & Garry Watson, Dan McIntosh & Patrick Shields.
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| HotD-thu : County KO Final : 27may21 : B12 |
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The margin was down to 1 imp with five boards to go when this deal came along. Both tables had the same start to the action (as shown) but then diverged.
One North chose 3♠ and heard 3N from partner, which he was happy to pass. The other North bid 3♥ showing a suit playable opposite a doubleton, and he got raised to the heart game. Both contracts had play, but were not certain.
Against 3N a heart was led, but unless the defence was to start with a diamond ducked to declarer the contract was easy, and on that start declarer just has to go for hearts 3-3 and the queen onside and that works. A score of +600 to team Shields.
The playat the other table was more interesting. The defence started with two rounds of diamonds, the second one ruffed in the North hand. With four top tricks outside and at best 5 trumps, declarer needed to find something more. He started with three rounds of clubs, as this would leave him safe if the defence was not able to force him effectively. But it was West who won the club and another diamond took away another trump. Now with ♥ AKJ left opposite ♥42 the hand was all about not losing two trump tricks. He went for a spade to dummy and a heart finesse, and when that lost he was down two. The alternative was to play for ♠Q onside and the spades 4-3 which would be five tricks outside trumps, two ruffs in the bag, and needing now only to engineer a trick from the ♥J (and a diamond ruff looked very safe). Team Shields clocked up +200 to generate 13 imps - which was quite important as they lost 12 imps on the next board and thre margin was at five imps when the last board hit the table.
It was a slam hand with lots of potential for a swing. That story comes in tomorrow's installment.
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| HotD-wed : County KO Final : 27may21 : B9 |
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The final of the County Teams Championship had proceeded for 24 boards before this deal was placed in front of the players. The only slam which had been bid up to this point depended on one of two finesses and they had both failed. But interest in slams remained.
On the auction shown the critical decision lay with South, and Richard Butland chose 6N. After a small heart lead he tried the ♥Q and when the king appeared, he found the vital play of ducking that, and winning the heart continuation. He proceeded to cash five spade tricks on the last of which West had to choose a discard from ♦J93 ♣JT72. The information he had was that partner had the ♦Q (else the contract was cold) and declarer had either 2-4 or 3-3 shape in the minors. With just that to go on, he chose a club and declarer was able to cash four tricks in that suit to make an impossible slam.
This looked very bad for the Shields team, but in the other room Chamberlain-Watson found the answer by opening the North hand, and bidding 1N - 2♥ - 2♠ - 3♣ - 3♠ and then on to 6♠. This was a much better slam as a club ruffed in the hand with three spades produced an extra tricks and that genrated a flat board.
Shields had at this point retained their 15 imp lead, but this was about to disappear ...
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♣2 to East's Ace and a spade is returned. How do you plan the play?
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| Show Answer |
If you can bring in 5 diamond tricks you are home. Unfortunately, if you have to overtake the ♦Q to get to dummy, you will be reliant on diamonds breaking 3-3 - only a 36% chance. You do however have an outside entry to dummy but only if you dropped a high club from hand at trick one. Win the spade switch and cash 2 top diamonds before playing a low club towards the ten. The defence cannot prevent you from now scoring 5 diamonds, 2 spades and 2 clubs. As usual, the play to trick one was critical. |
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| A Tricky Defence |
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Partner leads the ♦J and declarer plays low in dummy. How do you see the defence developing?
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South has shown a strong hand with a 5-5 shape. Partner's lead marks South with the ♦Q so you should put up the ♦A at trick 1 in case South has a singleton. If South follows low then the best chance is to play a forcing defence as West probably has 4 trumps. Switch to ♣K at trick 2 and if it holds, continue with another club. South ruffs but when he later loses a trump to West, the ♣A forces him to ruff and lose a second trump trick. |
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| Draw the Right Inference |
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West leads the ♣6. How do you plan the play?
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Whenever a player pre-empts and then doesn't lead his suit, you should draw the inference that the lead is a singleton. Therefore a club ruff is threatened. Can you avoid this? The solution is to rise with the ♣Q on the opening lead and cash the ♥A discarding the ♣A from hand. Now you can ruff a heart to hand and lead a top trump. If the defence play another club, you can ruff high and draw trumps, just losing the ♠A later |
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| Who Plays Like This? |
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West leads a club and East plays off two top clubs. How do you play?
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If things lie badly you might lose a trick in each major, and you can afford that. However, you are in danger of being forced in clubs if trumps are 4-1.South must lead the jack of spades at trick three! Should West win and lead a club, South ruffs and advances the ♥J. Let's say East wins and leads another club, dummy can ruff with the nine of spades. A diamond to hand allows South to draw trumps and claim. If the ♠J holds, South cashes two top trumps and starts on the hearts. All the defence can now make are a club and one in each major. If you play 3 rounds of spades from the top early , you get forced. If you take just 2 trumps and play hearts, you eventually suffer a heart ruff. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 3.2 : 24may21 : B10 |
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There were four tables reached 3N on this board from Monday and all of them got the ♦Q lead. All declarers had an easy time cutting the East hand off, and that gave time to develop a long heart trick plus a spade trick and that made 9. Too easy!
The majority however found the 4-4 heart fit and this proved more challenging. Of these seven got a top diamond lead but four tables had a spade bid from West and that suit was led. Assuming the hearts break 3-2, declarer can see nine winners and four losers - and has to find a way to remedy that. The one option for building a trick is to find someone with the doubleton ♠Ax and leading through that. But there is another option - to persuade the opposition to help - either by giving you a ruff-and-discard or leading away from the space ace.
Looking at the spade lead first, when it goes to the ten and the king, you know there are two spade losers. To obtain some sort of endplay the relevant player must not have a heart or diamond in which to exit, so the next step is to cash the top two trumps, three clubs, and the top two diamonds. Now the only answer is to put West on lead - and the one suit which that is guaranteed to do that is spades. And that works - a second spade leaves West on lead with only black cards to play, and when this is done the ruff & discard sees the diamond loser go away. Of those with the spade lead, only the robots managed that.
It's less clear when you get a diamond lead, as you also have the option of persuding a lead away from the spade ace. If you go for that option by eiminating the other suits and exiting in diamonds you have two chances - either a lead from the spade ace at this point, or they lead from small spades and now you get to throw the other hand in with the third round of hearts. This is decent odds but on this Monday's layout that fails. The other option - getting a ruff & discard - depends on two things; it needs the diamonds breaking 5-2 and the spades breaking 5-2, a combination happening about 16% of the time. This is however the option that works! What did playes choose? None of the declarers played for the two 5-2 breaks, they all went for a lead away from the spade ace. Four declarers on this losing option received a mis-defence to let the contract through. Three declarers with a ♦Q lead were not so lucky.
Only the two robots playing in Division Five made their contract by force!
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 3.2 : 24may21 : B4 |
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This hand from Monday was consistently (well, 13 out of 16 times) played in spades but it was curious to see the level chosen vary from 2♠ through 3♠ to 4♠, and the number of tricks made varied from 7 tricks through 8 tricks and 9 tricks to 10 tricks. What was happening?
Every table but one started with 1♦ and 9 of the 15 Easts overcalled 1♥ - the others taking the sensible view that opposite a passed partner the danger of being caught for a penalty outweighed the benefit. South showed spades after the overcall with a takeout double (or showed hearts if East had not bid). All paths led to North bidding spades and South now had the question of what level of support to show. With an opening bid in their own hand South would insist on game, and this hand is at most one trick less than that - so a 3♠ raise looks to be the value bid and the majority found this although a surprising number (about 40%) just showed a raise to the 2-level. And why did three tables end up in game? One was a mix-up over partners response to South';s takeout double; it is now common practice to bid 1♠ in these positions with three card support and bid 2♠ to promise four cards; the only player who invoked this found that his partner did not expect a minimum hand for the 2♠ bid (but he should). The other three cases were North taking a rosy view after partner's raise.
Against most auctions East was on lead. The position where the opponents have found a 4-4 fit in the third suit mentioned in the auction cries out for one thing - a trump lead, and that was found at 8 out of the 13 tables. This is what made all the difference - we find that the tables with a non-trump lead, and the table which led a trump but never played a second one, these are the tables which made 9 or 10 tricks.
It might seem boring just to lead a trump and continue the suit when you get in, but boring wins a lot of bridge matches!
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 3.2 : 24may21 : B1 |
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This was the best slam hand on Monday and it was bid at none of the sixteen tables. There were only two tables which really had any chance of getting there and it all depended on South's first bid.
The most common start to the auction (there were four tables where East - not unreasonably - passed) is as shown. What should South do now? Most tables produced a mix of 2♠ overcall and takeout double. Both of these told West something - that the opponents were bound to bid 4♠. There was one reaction to this which was more extreme than others - and that was the case where West bid 5♥. This lost 500 but that was a very small cost. The other reactions (a raise to 4♥) got the inevitable 4♠ bid from North.
There was one option which actually makes bidding a slam more practical, and this gives a more informative message than either the double or 2♠ overcall - that option is a Michaels bid, showing a 5-5 two suiter. At one table this was a 3♠ cue and at another it was a jump to 4♣; the effect of a bid like this is to make partner much more keen to bid with just a few cards in the right place. Was it enough?
In practice it wasn't quite enough - North was a passed hand and the 5332 shape was unappealing, so they did volunteer to go to game, and in one case volunteered to bid 5♠. And it stopped there. But if South had felt ambitious - they might have reached the slam.
The other slam attempts in later boards produced miuxed results - there were three attempts at an over ambitious 6N on B9 of which one got lucky, and two bid the very good 6♦ on B12 which made easily.
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| Don't be Greedy |
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West kicks off with the ♣A. When you play trumps, East proves to have Jxx. Will you be successful?
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You should ruff the opening lead and ruff a low heart in dummy at trick 2. When you cash the ♠A, West shows out so you continue with a trump to your ten and ruff another low heart. Now a diamond to your Ace is followed by another heart ruff with the ♠K. Now you return to hand with a club ruff and draw the last trump. You just lose a diamond at the end. If you had been greedy and cashed the ♥A at trick 2 to discard a diamond, you would have been defeated by the bad heart break. |
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| Good Odds |
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West leads a low club to East's Knave, East continues with the ♣A. You ruff and play a heart and East wins to play the ♣K. How do you play?
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If diamonds are 3-2 there will be no problem. You should therefore consider what can be done if the diamonds are 4-1. Ruff a heart in dummy, then a trump to hand and a further heart ruff lets you draw the last trump. Now lead a low diamond from the table. If East plays an intermediate diamond, you duck. If East holds the trick and he started with a singleton, he will have to give you a ruff and discard. If West overtakes to play another diamond, you run it to hand and only lose one trick in the suit. |
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| Be Careful |
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West leads the ♥K. You duck this trick and West switches to a low trump. How do you play?
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Your problem is to avoid losing a trump and 2 hearts since a diamond must be lost. Win the trump Ace and play a heart to your Ace. Now ruff a heart with the ♠K and return with a club to ruff your last heart with a low trump. This way you only lose a trump, a heart and a diamond. |
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| Play This Slam |
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How doyou play this hand in 6♥ on the lead of the ♣K?
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A diamond lead would have been fatal, but having escaped that, the slam is now cold provided West has at least one top spade. Win the lead and draw trumps before leading the ♠Q from hand. If West covers you ruff and later give up a spade. If West ducks then discard a diamond from dummy. Win the diamond return, ruff a club to hand and lead another spade for a diamond discard if West plays low. |
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| HotD-fri : Summer Teams 1 : 17may21 : B16 |
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This was another hand from Momday where 3N should have gone off but eight of the ten playing in no-trumps made 9+ tricks and only two declarers were defeated. How did it hapen?
There were two cases of a major suit lead which in practice avoided giving away a club trick but somehow made life easy for declarer. That leaves eight cases of a club lead from East - in each case givng declarer a trick one winner with the ♣K. At this point declarer will count up two spade tricks, five diamonds and a club - and so needs one from hearts. The contract is perfectly safe if clubs break 4-4 but if the suit breaks 5-3 then success depends on the long club being discarded or being able to sneak a heart trick before the opposition realise that this matters.
Six of the eight declarers started off by playing diamonds. It was therefore evident to the defence that declarer had eight tricks outside hearts and that only clubs and hearts could contribute to beating the contract. Despite that, when declarer led a heart from South two Easts ducked giving declarer nine tricks, two Easts rose and cashed the clubs to hold declarer to eight tricks, and two Easts rose but managed not to cash out and declarer got 9 and 10 tricks in those cases. We can only suggest that the defence in four cases out of six was asleep. It does feel like this approach to making nine tricks should have been doomed.
Two tables produced a much stronger attempt at the contract. What they did was at trick two they crossed to the ♠A in dummy and led a heart towards the closed hand. West did not have a count on the tricks at this point and ducked, but declarer had no guess to make and won that trick and cashed out to make 9 tricks overall. Well done Jack Armorgie and Rob Lawy.
Should those two declarers have succeeded? It's a close call. There are a number of scenarios wherein it is right to rise with the ♥A. On this hand, the question for West to ask is why declarer is not starting by attacking their long diamond suit. The failure of declarer to do this in 3N is often a sign that the suit is running.
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams 1 : 17may21 : B12 |
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This was the only slam (or close to slam) hand from Monday and less than half the field got to slam.
Two pairs had very appealing auctions, of which one is shown here. The key point in this auction is that the East hand is too strong to bid a 3♠ splinter over the 1♥ response as partner can have very little in the minors and will be forced into bidding 4♥ nearly every time. (Unless you have an agreement that 3N shows values but nothing to cue). When West makes the diamond support as clear as Ncky Freguson did here, then it is easy for his partner - Tom Jarman in this case - to bid the slam.
The other attractive auction (by Williams & Wignall, you might be surprised to learn) started with P - 1♦ - 2♦ - 2♥ - 3♥ after which nothing would stop opener short of 6♦. The key point here is that in the context of an unbalanced 1♦ opener, after a raise suits are always natural and so West could can afford to hide a 4-card major on the first round as it will emerge in due course. The fact of primary diamond support and values (for an inverted raise) makes it easy for East to bid the slam.
One of the other successful auctions is worthy of record, and this was very different because North opened the bidding with a weak 2♠ bid. There was little choice for East but to double and South bounced to game. West could show some values with a double, and now East cue bid 5♠ as a "pick a slam move" but promising first round spade control (where the alternative 5N would have denied that). Well done to East-West, but notice how much less certain that auction was that the two auctions given earlier. Yet again - bidding more (by North here) makes life much less good for the opponents.
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams 1 : 17may21 : B1 |
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Seven tables on Monday got away with a beatable 3N on Monday, and the result was primarily determined by the choice of bid by North at this early point.
It is worth noting first that there were two auctions which did not start with 1♣, and three in which South passed over the 1♣ opening. The former we'll skip past, but ifor the latter group, it is worth noting that the real value in overcalling 1♦ isn't the chance of playing in that contract - it is the fact that the bid encourages partner to get involved in the auction and then benefits come up in positions like this.
Back to North's choice here - clearly the most important message is diamond support and there is a possibility of seriously disrupting the oppnents' auction. The simple choice was a raise to 2♦ found at two tables, but slightly more useful was a jump to 3♦ found at three others. But none of these worked as the next step was 3N by East and a diamond lead from partner, giving declarer their ninth trick. The other two Norths had a better understanding of the importance of the "boss" suit - so they showed their spades. They had two options and one chose 1♠ while the other found a better (more disruptive and guaranteed diamonds) jump to 2♠. In neither case was this able to steal the contract from East-West but for those concerned it earned a swing (gainin 6 imps in one case, 8 imps on the other). It was the third aspect of the bid that mattered here - the lead directing value.
Once again - bidding more is the answer!
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| Controls aren't Everything |
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West leads the ♣Q. Plan the play.
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You have plenty of controls but are in danger of losing a club, a diamond and 2 spades. This is one of many hands where it is better for declarer if the opponents open up a suit. Win the lead and draw trumps - let's say that takes 3 rounds. Now you can duck a diamond, win the likely club return and eliminate the diamonds before exiting with a club. Whoever wins this trick will have to open up the spades, and you will now win 2 tricks in the suit more often than not. |
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| How's Your Technique |
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West leads the ♠K against your grand slam. You win the Ace and at trick 2 play???
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When your contract looks assured, you should consider what could go wrong. The only danger is that trumps break 4-0 and that the diamonds don't come in - not very likley but you can take precautions. Ruff a spade at trick 2 and lay down the Ace of trumps. East shows out but you can cash 2 more trumps in hand and cross to dummy with a diamond to ruff another spade. Now a club to dummy allows you to draw the last trump, throwing a small diamond from hand, and claim the remainder. A simple dummy reversal but if you play a trump at trick 2 you will be defeated. |
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| Complicated |
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West leads the ♦J to East's Ace and the ♦2 is returned. Plan the play.
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You discard a spade from dummy at trick 2. Next, unblock the ♠KQ and cross to the ♣AQ. If clubs are 3–2, you have the rest. At this point, six tricks have been played and you have the lead. How do you play if East has four clubs? How do you play if West has four clubs? In both cases, the defender with the singleton club will have discarded a low diamond on the second club. If clubs are 4–1, you must find a 3–3 break in one of the majors. They both can’t break 3–3. If East has four clubs and four diamonds, he only has room for one three-card major. If West has four clubs, he is almost certainly 5–4 in the minors and must have three spades and one heart to keep possible squeeze options alive. The bottom line is that spades must be 3–3 if West has five diamonds given East’s ♦2 return. If East has four clubs along with a presumed four diamonds, he must be 3244. If so, you can squeeze West in the reds if your ♦8 is a threat against West, who hopefully led from the JT9. After testing the top clubs, discard two clubs from dummy on your presumed two winning spades. Then, the ♣K squeezes West in the reds in this four-card end position: Dummy has the ♥AQxx while you have ♥Kxx and the ♦8. West will have to give up his high diamond to save four hearts and the ♦8 is your 12th trick. If West has four clubs and five diamonds, he must have three spades and a heart for you to have a play. This time the play is to squeeze West in the minors. Accordingly, discard a club and a heart on your winning spades followed by three rounds of hearts ending in your hand. Your last two cards are the ♦8 and a club, and dummy has the ♣Kx. This time West has again been squeezed out of his high diamond, and your ♦8 allows you to make the slam. |
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| HotD-sat : Pairs League 3.1 : 10may21 : B18 |
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This board from Monday was one of the few hands where declarer play was key to the result. Most tbales played 4♥ by South. In practice all suits were lead; the common leads were the a club (for times), the ♦A (four times) and a heart (three times). While the last two "solved" a problem for declarer, declarer had no option in diamonds and was likely to find the ♥Q anyway. How should declarer proceed?
Let's assume the diamond ace is led and a second diamond is played. The first step is to count winners and there are five tpo hearts and one in ech of the other suits - which means two more are needed. The first thought is "will two ruffs do?" - it does bring the count up but look at the play - after coming ot hand with a trump and ruffing a diamond, declarer has to play ace and anotehr club and surely the opponents are awake enough now to play a second trump. So that won't do.
The second approach to making two extra tricks is to set up a long suit, which in this context has to be spades. As is often the case, the side suit should be tackled before drawing trumps, so a trump to hand and a spade finesse losing, after wihich a second trump comes back. Now it is easy to play ♠A and ruff the suit good, draw trumps and cross to the ♣A to enjoy the long spades.
So the defence does better once you start on spades to attack the entry in dummy - let's suppose after winning the ♠K East plays a club which you win with the ace. You still hope to set up the spades but your only entry to the suit looks to be the ♥T. The less careful players (including the robot playing in Division One) continued with spades at this point and when heatrs turned out to be 4-1 they could not recover. The more careful choice is to play a heart winning in South before ruffing the spades good. When you do this you get the bad news about hearts, and when you find that out you know you cannot ruff out the spades and get back to them - so you draw trumps and then finesse West for the ♠ J and you emerge with 11 tricks.
Easy game really.
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| Easy! |
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West leads the ♣5 and East plays the King. How do you play?
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The key point of this hand has been reached. You are obviously going to take the diamond finesse and this is in to the hand with the long clubs. Hence there is no point in ducking trick 1. You just win the Ace, cross to dummy and run the ♦J. If it loses, you hope the club suit is blocked, as it will be if East started with ♣KJ doubleton. Obviously you also make whenever the club suit breaks 4-3. |
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| HotD-thu : Pairs league 3.1 : 10may21 : B14 |
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In acknowledgement of the exhortations to bid as often as you can, it is only fair to report that sometimes this backfires. Every West was faced with this problem on Monday and of the 16 players, we had 7 chose to open with a club pre-empt. Five of those got a 3N overcall and the club lead (did it have to be?) from East gave declarer a very easy path to nine tricks. Where West passed, North-South found their 4-4 spade fit and played in spades and only 2/9 declarers in spades made their game. The two who made game were exactly the two who received the ♣8 lead.
Does this tell us not to bid? Not really. The East-West pair who scored best did involve a pre-empt, but this was for the brave West who opened 4♣; this stopped North bidding 3N and South ended in 4♠ doiubled going two down.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 3.1 : 10may21 : B2 |
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Monday was an odd night in the slam department this week; it started on B2 when three pairs bid a slam missing two cashable aces (and once the opposition even sactificed over that), and then on B3 two pairs bid a slam missing AJxxx trumps and a vital queen. Board 4 has the potential for a slam off two aces, and here one pair thought to check, but their 4N bid was passed by partner and that contract went three down. B5 next was a slam on two finesses - bid twice and failed twice. It all went quiet then until B10 where the slam missing two aces was bid at only one table. Not a single successful slam all night!
The credit on B2 however goes to the opposition for creating the dilemma for the North-South pair.
Let's look at how the auction starts; across 16 tables we had 8 overcall 2♦ and 8 tables overcalled 3♦; notably all three Wests in the top division chose 3♦. The next choice however was the crucial one - with three of the Easts finding a raise to 5♦ and giving South a real problem. The South hand is rather above average in terms of playing strength but is only 12 HCP; two of the three Souths in this position were tempted to bid again - one chose 5♥ and the other 5♠ and now what happened was partner moved on to the slam.
We find that 67% of those given a problem by East went wrong, while 0% of those who were not bounced got the hand right. This is yet another confirmation that taking away bidding space from the opponents makes their bidding less accurate.
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| Don't Fall Asleep |
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West leads the ♦Q. Plan the play.
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One line is to croos with atrump and take a spade finesse. If this loses, you still have the chance of a 3-3 break. You can do much better than this however. Win the lead and play ♠A nd then ♠Q. Suppose the defence win, cash 2 diamonds and switch to a club. Now you can win in dummy, ruff a spade high, cross back in trumps and ruff another spade high. A trump to dummy allows you to enjoy the fifth spade for a club discard. |
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| Play Carefully |
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West leads a club. Plan the play.
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You have no losers outside the trump suit so you must do what you can to hold your trump losses to one trick. You do best to cross to dummy with a diamond at trick two and lead a low spade from the table. If East has the singleton Ace the defence are held to one trick, and if West wins the Ace, you can still pick up Txxx with East. No guarantees - but you have done your best. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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West leads the ♠5. You play the Ace and declarer drops the Queen. What now?
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| Show Answer |
A spade return may concede a ruff and discard. Many players would play a club at trick 2, as this looks like on only suit where the defence can win tricks, but a passive defence is better. There is nothing in dummy on which to discard any clubs so this suit can wait. A trump switch might pick up Qxx in partner's hand so it is best to switch to a heart at trick 2. Unless declarer makes the unlikely play of running the ♣T from hand at some point, he will ultimately lose 2 club tricks and his contract. |
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| A Foolish Double? |
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West leads the ♦T. How do you play?
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Surely West holds the ♠KQ for his double. Can you punish him for revealing the position? You will need some luck but try this. Win the lead in hand and cash the ♣A. Now a heart to the Knave and if this holds, ruff a club. Use dummy's 3 red suit entries to ruff another club and 2 hearts. In the end position you have ♠ AJ9 opposite the ten in dummy. Exit with a low spade and West is finished. Do you see how West could have beaten the contract? If he inserts the ♥K on the first round of the suit, south is an entry short to bring about the trump reduction and must lose 2 trump tricks. |
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| Are you a Good Defender? |
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When a pre-emptive bidder doubles, he suggests a void, so you start with the ♣J. This is covered by the Queen and East wins the King to return the ♥T. You win the King and play?
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Partner has underled his ♥A so he must be deperate to get you in. This suggests he has a void. His ♥T suggests a diamond switch but if partner has a diamond void you always have a diamond trick. It looks tempting to switch to the ♦J and hope that declarer puts up the Ace, then you get a ruff and a diamond trick. This is not the best play, however. On the ♦J, declarer ducks in dummy and partner places South with the ♦K and ruffs thereby only beating the contract by 1 trick. The correct switch is to the ♦K - now the defence get a ruff and a diamond trick for 2 down. |
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| HotD-thu : Congress Swiss Teams : 02may21 : B25 |
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This was an interesting hand on Monday and only one declarer managed to read the hand correctly. Many played in 3N after East had bid spades, and the common lead was the ♠J. How should declarer proceed?
There are clearly six tricks in the red suits, so declarer needs three more. The easy option is to play small from dummy one guaranteeing a trick for the spade queen, and that is what most Norths did. When this was chosen, West won trick one and switched to hearts and now the contract had no play.
The winning choice was looking a bit further forward than just setting up the eighth trick. Playing low from dummy at trick one will make the contract a trivial game if East has the king, and make it impossible if West has the king. The key is where you think the spade king lies.
The fact of the overcall suggests it might be East, but there are a few hints that might not be true. One check to be done is on the conventions East uses in making leads; for some the jack denies a higher honour and the system lead from KJT is the ten (strong tens). Another thought is that leading from the KJT sequence, there is a strong case for leading the king - winning if you find a singleton queen in any of the other three hands, and costing nothing if (as expected) North-South hold both the ace and the queen.
But perhaps the over-riding factor is that you are putting all your eggs in one basket. Even if East has led away from the king, you can still make the contract by setting up two tricks in clubs - and if you lose a club to East they may well continue spades. Well done to Angelos for playing the spade ace at trick one.
They key on this hand is to realise at trick one the implications of ducking the opening lead.
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| HotD-wed : Congress Swiss Teams : 02may21 : B2 |
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This was the first of the slam hands on Sunday and the start of the swings. Across 50 tables, 32 bid a slam and 18 stopped in game. It was not an easy hand to bid scientifically. With 12 HCP opposite the 2N opener you are clearly in slam territory but there is just a chance you might be missing two aces, and who says you have twelve tricks to cash? Do you take a chance on bidding a slam, or is there a way to find out?
The natural continuation after the start shown is for North to show the club suit but the catch is that North - with so many values - is going to have to make the final decision themselves on whether or not to bid a slam. After 4♣ the most common choice by South was 4♦ but apart from showing something useful in diamonds, it is not clear what amount of support that shows for North's suits. In practice North had little idea what to do next. Most lost patience and chose the most likely contract, by bidding 6N - and that was very successful.
After 4♣ some Souths decided that their values were in the wrong place, and signed off in 4♠. This actually gave North a way forward as now 4N becomes ace asking and North initially found there was a missing ace (usually from a 5♦ response), and then could check about the spade queen and found it was missing (a 5♠ response to the 5♥ ask). Missing those two key cards, North stopped off in 5♠, missing what turned out to be a cold slam. A little science turned out to be a dangerous thing!
There were many, many auctions recorded which are impossible to understand. On hands like this - even if you end up in the best contract with the best result - it pays to talk to partner about what all the bids in between meant. Many will find that they had been - on at least part of the journey - on different pages, and that means there is an accident out there waiting to happen - unless you sort it out now!
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| This one is Tough |
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You play in 5♦ after opening a strong club. West leads a top heart. You win and play a low trump from dummy, on which East discards a heart. Plan the play.
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The contract seems doomed. Even if the spade finesse works, it appears declarer must lose a trump and two clubs. However, don't give up. Cash the ♠A and lead the ♦8 from hand (key play), covered by the 9, to dummy’s ace. Now finesse the spade and cash the ♠K. If your luck is in, the spades will have broken and the Queen will be onside. You now have a count on the West hand (3541) assuming East's double raise was based uopn 4 card heart support. That being the case, you take the ♣A and exit in hearts, endplaying West. If West got out with a low diamond, dummy’s 7 would put declarer in dummy. The 13th spade would provide a parking place for one of declarer’s club losers. West would get the trump trick back by ruffing the spade, but West would then be down to nothing but hearts and would have to concede a ruff and discard, allowing South to get rid of the other club loser. If West got out with a high trump, declarer has an even easier time. If West exited with a heart instead of a trump, declarer would ruff in dummy and discard one club loser, throwing the other on the long spade. The winning defense is not easy to spot – West must refuse to cover the ♦8, sacrificing his trump trick. Declarer would have no diamond losers, but would not be able to establish the long spade in dummy and get back to it. |
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| Grand Slams Are Easy |
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West leads a low trump, East following suit. Plan the play.
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Things look simple so what can go wrong? If hearts are 5-1 or worse, you only have 12 ttricks and will need to generate a 13th. This extra trick could come from the diamond suit. Win the ♠A and ♠T, retaining the Knave as a later entry. If spades are 3-2, you can play ♦A and ruff a diamond high before coming back to hand with another trump. At this point you can ruff another diamond and if diamonds are 4-3, you have established the suit for a heart discard. If the diamonds don't behave you fall back on a no worse than 4-2 heart division. |
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| Play This Slam |
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You play in 6♥ as South on a trump lead, East following. You draw trumps in 3 rounds (West showing up with a singleton), and play off ♦AK, but no joy as West turns out to hold a singleton diamond. How do you play from here?
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West has 11 black cards and hence is very likley to hold the ♣A. If he also holds the ♠J, then you can succeed. Cash the ♠A and then finesse the ten of spades.If this holds you can play the ♣K from dummy and discard your ♠K. West can win this trick, but now has to play a black card which allows you to throw your 2 losing diamonds on the ♠Q and ♣Q. |
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| HotD-sat : Pairs League 2.8 D2-4 : 26apr21 : B16 |
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We saw two new faces (Kanwar Rahim & Toby Roberts) in the Pairs League this week, and they came top of their division. Their biggest score came on this board, when their opponents didn't bid game.
There was nothing in the play, with three losers if the opponents set up a club trick and two losers otherwise. It's clearly a game you do want to bid (only in trouble with a 4-1 spade break) but only 5/11 pairs bid the game.
Some made it very easy to get to game - opening 4♠ in third seat after two passes, a choice made four times. Does the hand justify this? If we assume the ♥K makes a trick, then there are five losers to worry about and partner needs to cover at least two of these (as a passed hand). With some uncertainty about the ♥K we have to judge that opening bid as on the ambitious side - however successful it was.
The others all opened 1♠ and heard partner respond with 1N; here paths diverged with three bidding only 2♠, three bidding 3♠ and one jumping to 4♠. What was the right answer? We have only 13 hcp in East which suggests a minimum rebid, but with a shapely hand like this it is worth supposing spades as trumps and applying the losing trick count. This hand comes up as a 5-loser hand which is two tricks better than most openers. When the high card count suggests the two level, and the losing trick count suggests the four level, one might well conlcude that the "correct" answer is a rebid of 3♠, showing some extras and inviting game.
When 3♠ was chosen, three different answers were found by West; one passed, one raised, and one bid 3N. What should West have done? When offered a choice like this they key is being able to offer aces and kings to partner, as a distributional hand opposite will tend not to be interested in very slow winners. Although passing is the losing option, the fact of only one A-K and the singleton trump argues strongly for that option. To see why is it not a silly choice, think if the red suits in either West or East were swapped around; then the hand would have AQJ2 opposite 3, and K54 opposite T765 and two losers outside. Games needs the missing king and ace both to be in favourable hands, and then the trumps have to break. You might even struggle to make 9 tricks with that layout.
Our sympathies therefore lie with the pair who bid 1♠ - 1N - 3♠; it is one of the key attractions of the game of bridge that sometimes the second best choice turns out to be the winning choice. That's what keep us all playing!
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| Better than a Finesse |
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How do you play this slam on a club lead?
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If the spade finesse works you will be home barring a 4-0 break, but you can improve on this chance. You have the entries to set up the heart suit provided it breaks no worse than 4-2. Win the lead in hand with the Ace and play Ace and another heart, ruffing with an intermediate trump. If an opponent shows out on the second heart, then you will have to play for the spade finesse to be right. Assuming both follow to the second heart, you can now play a low trump towards dummy.. It doesn't matter whether this wins or loses, you have a trump entry and a club entry to set up the heart suit, and the ♦A to get there to enjoy a diamond discard. |
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 2.8 D2-4 : 26apr21 : B12 |
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This hand offered large swings on Monday and there were serious swings in all divisions.
The first dividing action across the field was the choice of opening bid; it is a close call with a 5-card major and a 6-card minor, but there are three arguments for opening the major in this case (a) it will be easier to get both suits into the bidding, (b) opposite a passed partner clubs is a much less likely game than hearts, and (c) for many the club opener does not promise clubs. Across the field there was one opener by North, and of the Easts who could open six chose 1♣ and four chose 1♥.
The choice had a knock-on effect on South - giving South an advantage over a 1♥ opener because now South could bid 2♥ to make a more complete description of their hand. Only two of the four took advantage of this, and for one this was the prompt for North to bid 5♠ over the opponents' 5♣ , earning +650 in the process. (There was only one other pair bid to 5♠)
The play in 5♣ is quite interesting. A number of declarer survived by ruffing the spade lead, drawing trumps and then finessing the ♥Q; this line is doomed but half of the Souths in this position panicked at this point and cashed the diamond ace. Jack Armorgie got very close by eliminating spades while he drew trumps and now he could exit in hearts to endplay the opponents. Sadly he chose to exit with the ♥Q where cashing the ace and then playing a heart would have made the contract by force.
The club game can be made by force as long as declarer can set up enough hearts to discard two diamonds from dummy. The question is how? The finesse of the ♥Q works on all 3-3 breaks and the 4-2 breaks with the king onside. Finessing the ♥9 and then ruffing a heart will work on all 3-3 breaks and the 4-2 breaks with the king doubleton. A priori, this is clearly lesser odds but you could well be influenced by the bidding on this hand, particularly if South doubled the final contract.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 2.8 D1 : 26apr21 : B3 |
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After eight sessions, in seven of which they were in the top two in Division One, the pair of Dan McIntosh & Filip Kurbalija have won series two of the Pairs League (having shared frst place in series one in the autumn with two others). On this final session, a login glitch left Filip out and Tim Gauld stepped in to play with Dan. This was one of their top gains on Monday, earned by Dan.
The contract was normal and the opening heart lead was neutral. Declarer checked that the suit did not break 5-1 and played a third round followed by a spade to the ♠QJ losing to the ace, and then a spade came back. At this point declarer has 6 tricks in the majors, and at least one diamond - so he went after clubs running the ♣Q. When this won the trick he continued with a club to the jack - only to find that Dan had smoothly ducked the queen. When he now won the second club, Dan led a diamond and declarer took the difficult route by rising with the ace. With declarer having two stranded club winners and a stranded spade winner in hand, East won and continued diamonds - to the ten, jack and ...
When declarer won that trick he had to give up two diamonds and suddenly 3N was down.
Should declarer have done better? Yes. When the ♣Q won the trick, declarer had seven tricks in the bag and ♦KQ and ♣A to come. Guess which one he should have been playing? Later, when he got the diamond switch, he could have solved things by playing low from dummy. And finally when the second diamond went to the ten and jack there was another way out - to duck the jack, endplaying West. Giving the opponents all these chances to go wrong is the way to win events!
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| Not Too Difficult |
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West leads a low heart. You win and cash 2 top spades, West showing out on the second round. What now?
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Now you have a trump loser, you can't afford to lose a diamond trick. That will be no problem if the suit breaks 3-2, so consider a less favourable break. The solution is simple once it occurs to you. Just ruff a heart to hand and return to dummy with a club. Now lead a diamond from the table. Only West can hold long diamonds. If East ruffs in, he ruffs a loser, if he throws away, you simply play off your club winners and exit with a trump to achieve the same ending. |
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| What's the Best Line? |
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West leads the ♣Q. What's the best line?
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You have 2 poential losers. One line might be to take a spade finesse, another to play a diamond to the Queen. Both of these plays are 50%. Can you do better? Yes - in fact you can improve on these odds considerably. Win the lead and play a low diamond from both hands. Let's say a club is returned. You win and play Ace and another diamond, ruffing high. You still have 2 dummy entries to set up the long diamond and get back to enjoy it. You only go down if diamonds are 5-1. |
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| A Tricky Contract |
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How do you play on a low club lead?
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You might consider setting up the spade suit, but dummy entries are short, so that line looks doomed even if the trump suit behaves. Making tricks from trumps is a better option. Finesse the club and if it wins, play Ace and another diamond ruffing. Then a spade to hand to ruff another diamond. Cash the ♠K and ♣A before ruffing a club in hand. Now another diamond, hoping to ruff it in dummy. As the cards lie, West ruffs in and leads another club. Now you must be careful to ruff in dummy and under-ruff in hand. That way you can lead a spade from table and ruff low. West can overruff but is endpalyed to give you the ♥ K for your tenth trick. |
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| A Sure Thing? |
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West leads a heart. This contract is 100%. What is the winning line?
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Win the heart, draw trumps and play a diamond to your 8. West wins and has to play a diamond or a spade or concede a ruff and discard. If he plays a spade you just run it, and a diamond allows you to set up a diamond for a spade discard. |
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| HotD-fri : County League 10 : 19apr21 : B20 |
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There was a serious swing in all but two matches on this board from Monday. There were interesting aspects to the bidding and the play.
The first is the choice of opening bid and there were a serious number opened 5♦ but this seems unnecessarily high and obstructive to partner, when one of the opponents has already denied an opening bid. The most common opening was 1♦; after that opening, there were variations in the choice now by East, with a number choosing 2♠. With such poor spade pips and a useful heart suit on the side, this is not the sort of hand on which to pre-empt, so the 1♠ bid shown it the better choice.
What to do after West's cue bid is more intersting. There were some minority choices but the value bid seems to be 4♦ and that was found at a number of tables. What should South do after that? It is very hard to say and we would not quarrel with pass or 5♦, but the raise is very appealing with a very useful diamond holding for partner.
The play in 5♦ is very interesting. There were 8 Norths played this contrsact and 5 were successful, despite Deep Finesse telling us that the contract should not make.
The very easy opening lead for declarer was a heart which happened once. The next easiest opening lead for declarer was the ♣Q and the two declarers with this lead pushed back a club at trick two, setting up a trick in that suit and that was the eleventh trick. The other declarers faced a diamond (twice) and a spade (three times).
The spade lead rufffed is a very revealing start as it marks West with the the AQ and East with the K. Why can we say this? At least on normal play, the ace from West denies the king, and with the king-queen East would surely have led high rather than low. The consequence of noting this is a high likelihood that the king of hearts is with East. For the team which eventually won Division One, Ollie Burgess noted this and decided to cash all his trumps to see what happened. As happened at two other tables (one of which gave back the trick), East-West found the right choice of discards too difficult and gave away a vital trick in the ending.
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| HotD-thu : League 10 : 19apr21 : B2 |
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After a very flat board one on Nonday, the swings started on this board. It was clear for East and South to pass, after which should West open?
As we know from many other deals, the more room we leave the opponents to bid the more accurate will be their determination of the right contract. At this vulnerability, the West hand begs to be opened with 3♣ and in Division One five of the six Wests found this bid (but only 3 out of 8 in Division Two). North has a natural 3♥ overcall, and the question then is how high should East raise?
The answer depends on how pure you expect the West hand to be for a third-in-hand opener, The strength of the East hand suggests that there is a game for North-South, but the weak clubs and the possibility of providing just one trick outside that means the penalty could become large (six trump tricks plus an ace is -800). In Division One, three Easts nevertheless blasted 5♣ at this point, and two were rewarded when South continued to 5♥. In Division Two all three Easts passed at this point and after South raised to game, two continued with 5♣. This put no pressure on South who could double to show some defensive values, and that cost 300 points. So passing and bidding is a tactice to avoid!
Was sacrificing a sensible option? It was all going to depend on whether or not 4♥ made, and the answer is that - apart from one case where East later went wrong - when East led partner's suit against 4♥ declarer went off. Sacrficing had exchanged +100 for -300 for those pairs.
Should it have been so? Probably not. After the bidding, declarer should be expecting a club finesse to lose and should see the danger following of losing two spades and a diamond. So why not refuse the losing finesse? If declarer does that, and plays a diamond to the ♦8 at trick two they wuill succeed in setting up some diamond winners in time to discard the losing spade. It is correct to decline the finesse as if diamonds do not behave (both honours with East) and the ace of spades is lying badly (with East) then the finesse was never going to work as East had passed initially. And if East doesn't have those cards, you will always make the game.
So the answer becomes that the sacrifice is the winning choice!
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| HotD-wed : League 10 : 19apr21 : B14 |
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There were a plethora of slam hands on Monday, and as always there were plenty of swings involved. A number of these hands did involve competitive bidding, which is difficult to practice, but even in those the value of preparation in partnership slam bidding will pay off.
- B6 was an excellent 6♦ reached only by Brian Goalby & Judy Sanis and by Nanda & Roberts, and both despite a 2♠ overcall by South on the first round. The fact that North decided to double some others in (a cold) game might have been a discouragement to a couple of pairs.
- B7 was the easiest slam to bid and was found by ten pairs out of fourteen.
- B8 was an excellent 6♦ contract was only found by Lilley & Swales, helped a little bit by the opposition bidding.
- B9 was an excellent 7♦ reached only twice (and one careless declarer went off) - and here there were 4 tables stopped in game
- B13 had twelve trivial tricks playing in 6N but the nine pairs who bid slam all chose the 4-4 heart fit and the 4-1 trump break scuppered their chances. They lost out by bidding better than those who stopped in game. Sad.
- B14 (shown here) was a trivial 6♣ to make but it was only bid twice.
- B20 wasn't actually a slam hand but slam was attempted by three pairs, all of whom failed.
On B14, a number of pairs stumbled at the point shown in the auction. We had fourteen Norths in this position (or similar if West had passed) and only two of them made forcing-to-game bids at this point. The vast majority of the others (ten) bid a non-forcing 3♣, while one bid 2N and another bid 2♣(!).
This downgrading of the North hand - which looks like a 6-loser hand in support of clubs opposite what is usually an opening bid - led South to believe that the choice was either part-score of game. One of the Norths was saved by partner leaping to slam, and another saved himself by re-evaluating after partner bid game.
What is the right sequence? It is not clear to North what the right game is, but it is clear that game should be reached. The answer is therefore either a 2♠ bid if allowed that, or a responsive double, or a cue bid of 3♠. This option shows at least two places to play, is forcing to suit agreement and gives you time to confirm the club fit and then ponder slam suitability.
It was curious to see three pairs play in 3N, against which two defenders started with a top spade and then switched to a heart, while the third bashed out three top spades. Only one declarer took advantage and made the no-trump game. If you trust the opposition to have a spade stop, does a fourth best spade lead not look best? Then whenever partner gets on lead they are likely to have one to return. Here you win the first six tricks.
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| How's Your Card Reading? |
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West Leads the ♦8. East wins the Ace and switches to a spade. Your Knave loses to the Queen and West cashes the Ace and exits with a club. How do you play?
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You only have winners outside the trump suit so this hand hinges on finding the ♥Q. This is a time for some detective work. From the bidding and early play, LHO is marked with five spades and not too many diamonds. Hence he can't have short clubs. Before playing trumps, it can't cost to play more clubs from dummy. On the second round of clubs, you get lucky in that East shows out! This marks West with 5–5 in the black suits, and heart shortness. If West has two hearts, it means only one diamond. That would give East seven diamonds, and he would likely have bid the first time. With West’s shape pretty much marked (5125), hence you should play the ♥K and then finesse against East’s ♥Q. |
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| Test Your Play |
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West leads the ♣Q. How do you play?
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You are looking at a loser in each suit, so your best chance is to hope that West has four clubs, in which case the opponents may not be able to cash a club winner before you can set up dummy’s spades for two club discards. The critical move is to lead a diamond at trick two and hope West’s only side-suit entry is in diamonds. As East seems to have the majority of the missing high-card strength, West probably owns no more than a reasonable diamond suit to go along with an apparent club sequence. Suppose East wins the diamond and leads a low club to the 10 and king. Now, in order to make this contract, you must assume that East has both the ♥A and the ♠K. After winning the second club, play the ♥Q from dummy. East, marked with the ♥ A, is not likely to have a singleton heart and a doubleton club and not jump to 5♦ (and if he does, he is endplayed). If East has two hearts, he will win the ace and exit a heart, the best defense. West’s distribution should be 2164. After winning the heart return in dummy, lead the ♠9 to the ace and then a low spade, covering whatever spade West plays. If West plays an honor, cover with dummy’s queen; if East wins and plays a low spade, discard a club. West has no more hearts and no more spades. Now you can ruff a spade and set up the suit for a second club discard. If East exits a diamond instead, ruff in your hand, discard a club from dummy, and you have the wherewithal to ruff two clubs in dummy. Suppose East has three hearts and ducks the first round. No matter. West’s distribution should be 3064 so spades are 3–3. Without playing a second heart, play the ♠A and another spade as before. If East wins and gets out with the ♥A and his last heart, win in dummy, ruff a spade to set up the suit and return to dummy’s last heart to cash two winning spades, discarding two losing clubs. |
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| When it Looks Easy |
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West leads the ♠T - plan the play.
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You have 3 red suit losers but will be fine if the black suits behave. Win the spade in dummy to retain entries to your hand. If clubs are 4-1 you are going down so you may as well cash the 2 top clubs. Good news - the clubs are 3-2. Now you come to hand with a trump but East shows out. Just one more chance to play for now. Hope that West holds the third club. Ruff a club in dummy and return with a trump to cash your black suit winners. |
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| HotD-sat : Pairs League 2.7 : 12apr21 : B7 |
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The general advice we promulgate in bridge these days is - bid, bid, bid ! But just occasionally silence is golden. Look what happened here ...
South had the chance to overcall 1♥ as a passed hand and every West playing in NT other than at this table had an overcall from South. The fact that partner had passed and the deduction that the opponents had the majority of the HCP, along with th quality of the heart pips (842) persauded this South to pass.
Against 3N, with no overcall, North led a top club and when that was ducked it was clear to switch, and the singleton heart in dummy beckoned. The heart switch went to a top heart and the ace. Declarer has seven top tricks and just needs to knock out the ♠A to bring that up to nine. So trick three was a spade to the ace and South produced a low heart through declarer's ♥J9. What should declarer do? Playing the 9 wins when South started with KTxxx or QTxxx while playing the jack wins only when South started with KQxxx. The odds favour playing for the ten onside and declarer duly did that. When that lost and North continued the suit, the defenders could cash out for down two.
Nobody misguessed the hearts after an overcall.
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| Be Careful |
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West leads the ♣J. How do you play?
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When thinks look easy, ask yourself what can go wrong. On this hand, a bad trump break is your only worry. Ruff the lead and play the ♠8. If an opponent shows out you cannot draw trumps. Instead, you cash the ♦A and two top hearts. Now you can crossruff the hand for 10 tricks. You must not play the a high spade from dummy on the first round because then you will not be able to ruff 2 hearts on the table without suffering an overruff. |
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 2.7 : 12apr21 : B10 |
This hand from Monday was the first of the five hands on which 6♥ was a contract to consider. There were very few bid the slam in each case
- B10 : only two bid the slam and both went off.
- B12 : only one bid the slam - and in fact the grand slam is respectable so we really should bid it - and that one pair had an easy make.
- B13 : two pairs bid the slam this time; when the ♠KQJ was on lead that suit beat the contract but played the other way up the lead was ♣A and that let it make, The contract was cold unless a spade was led.
- B16 : this slam was bid twice but it requires (at least) two winning finesses and one of them was wrong.
- B17 : this was not really a slam hand but if you are there, there is only one line to play for (a 6% chance). The cards are lying favourably and it works.
It was curious to note that both declarers took their eye off the ball. Looing at winners, there are five hearts and two clubs and you need either five diamonds or four diamonds and a spade. Both declarers started diamonds with the ♦K and then small towards the ♦AJ94 but rather than finesse they rose with the ace and ruffed the third round. It is interesting to compare this with the alternative of finessing in diamonds.
- In the case where diamonds break 3-3; when there is ♦Qxx with West the finesse makes the slam 100% while ruffing down the queen still needs the spade finesse and the slam is 50%. When there is ♦Qxx with East, a losing finesse means you go down, while ruffing down the queen gives you a 50% slam by playing for the spade ace onside. That comes out even for the two choices.
- In the case where diamonds break 4-2 : the finesse gains a trick with ♦Qxxx onside (10 cases) making the slam 50% rather than 0%, and playing the ace and ruffing gains when West has ♦xxxx (five cases) but here moving from defeat (0%) up to certainty (100%) because the queen drops. Again this comes out even.
We have to conclude that our two declarers were unlucky in their choices.
Is such armchair analysis practical at the table? It is difficult to think as clearly as this in the heat of the battle, but the more practice we have of doing this analysis in the armchair, the better our chances of doing it when it really matters!
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 7 : 12apr21 : B8 |
This hand from Monday produced swings for many, with 7 pairs playing in the spade game going down, and 6 pairs playing in the heart game making - not a surprising result for those who found the longer 8-card fit, Why was it difficult to find the longer suit?
There were two "non-standard" auctions which took place. One where West opened mini-NT, and the other where North chose to open 1♦. Apart from those everyone opened 1♠ as North and then the field split; those playing 2-over-1 as game force all chose to bid 1N, while the more traditionbal Acol players bid 2♥. Taking the latter first, it seems normal now to continue with 3♦ and across the five who did that there were three different answers from South - one bid 4♠ (rather prematurely), one bid 4♥ (tgiving a decent description of the South hand and finishing the auction) and three bid 3♥ (leading to 4♥, 4♦-4♥ and 4♦-4♠). This makes the Acol bidders the most successful groyup, with 60% getting to play the heart game.
The other "standard" auction started with 1♠-1N and North had a choice of how high to bid next; two chose 2♦ while four - some playing this as forcing but not game-forcing - bid 3♦. The weird thing to report is that at this point only three out of six Souths bothered to show their 7-card suit - and only two played in hearts (one after 2♦-2♥-P and the other in game after 3♦-3♥-3♠-4♥). So here only 33% reached the right game.
Playing in 4♠ the standard sequence of play was to win the club lead and start by setting up the side suit. Those who played two top diamonds and a low third were in with a chance (if East doesn't ruff or ruffs low win and play to ♠J,♠A and a third spade - the only chance; if East does ruff high, throw a club loser) but none of the declarers got it right. Those who played three top diamonds and got one ruffed had no chance after that. Is it clear which is best? It is not but after two rounds hold up, the odds still favour a 4-2 break. So the contract should make.
Playing in 4♥ is it more obvious just to play out top diamonds as any ruff is likely to be with a trump trick. When East ruffs and you over-ruff, a spade finesse and another diamond makes life easy.
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| One for the Mathematicians |
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West leads the ♦J. Plan the play.
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You have to make 8 tricks in the majors without losing the lead. In spades, you can hope for either a 3–3 break, or that the JT come down, or maybe a third round finesse of the 9 if East has produced the Jack or ten. In the heart suit, there is a two-way guess for the queen. If the suit splits 3–3, it is just a pure 50–50 guess. What if they are 4–2? Because it is easier to pick up ♥Qxxx with East (you can cash the king first and lead the 10), let’s say you lead a heart to the king at trick two, all following low. You continue with the ♥T covered with the queen. You play the ace, and left-hand opponent follows with the ♥9. You are left with ♥J7 opposite ♥ . “Restricted Choice” says that ♥9x was more likely than ♥98x. You now play off ♠ AK, East following with the ten on the second round. You play a third round, and when LHO plays low, again 'restricted choice' dictates that the 9 is the better proposition. Hence you finesse the spade, cash the Queen, and then finesse the ♥7 to bring home the contract. Why should you play hearts before spades? - Well you need the spade as an entry to pick up the hearts when they are favourable. If you play spades first, you can still succeed by running the ♥T on the first round (but you would go down if West held a singleton ♥Q). |
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| Get Lucky |
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West leads the ♦K, East following small. How do you play?
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It looks like East holds the top hearts and the queen of clubs for his opening bid. Win the lead and cross to dummy with a trump to lead ♣J. Run it if not covered, else win the ♣A and cross back to the ♣K. If West follows low both times then play for the clubs to be 3-3 by ruffing a club high, drawing trumps and cashing winners. If West plays the 9 or ten on the first 2 clubs then draw trumps finishing in dummy and run the ♣8. You win whenever East started with ♣QTxx or ♣Q9xx and lose when East started with ♣Qxx and West with ♣109x. The odds are greatly in your favour. |
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| Play This Slam |
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You declare 6♥ as South after West has opened first in hand with 1♠. West leads a trump - plan the play.
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It is a fair bet that West holds all 3 of the missing relevant high cards (♠K, ♦A, ♣K) to justify his opening bid, and if that is the case, we can succeed provided the trumps are breaking. Win the trump lead in dummy and ruff a diamond before drawing 2 more rounds of trumps (discarding a diamond from dummy as West shows out on the third round). Now duck a club. Say West wins and leads a spade. You finesse the Knave and ruff another diamond, before laying down the ♣A. If the King drops then West is counted as a 5242 shape. The ♣Q now squeezes him to either let you ruff out the ♦A or to set up the ♠ T. If West follows small to the ♣ A, his shape must have been 5233. Thus you can finesse in spades and ruff another diamond, bringing down the Ace. If East wins the club and plays a club through, you rise with the Ace and proceed as above depending on whether or not the King drops. |
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| Know your Combinations |
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You win the diamond lead and run the ♥J. East wins the Queen, cashes the Ace and plays a third heart. How do you play from here?
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The first step is to cash your spades and throw your diamond loser. Now you have to play Clubs for the loss of one trick. What is the best way to do this? There are several ways to tackle this combination in the club suit.One is to cash the Ace and hope West has a singleton honour (but are you an entry short for that?). Another is to play the ace and another club hoping one opponent has the king-queen doubleton. A third is to play East for a doubleton 10..Best is to start with a low club towards hand and if East plays low, insert the nine. If this loses to a top honour, you have a choice on the next round of clubs - either to play West for KQ doubleton, or to play East for Tx. Given that East probably started with 6 diamonds, and you have seen 3 hearts and 2 spades, then Tx (two options) represents your best chance, so you will lead the ♣J from hand and run it when West plays low.
If East plays the ten on the first club, you lose to an honour and then run the nine. Yes you might lose to QT doubleton but such is life. |
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| HotD-fri : Easter Pairs : 05apr21 : B12 |
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This was a curious hand from Monday in that the slam in clubs is excellent and always makes, but nobody bid it and indeed East-West pinched the contract twice (2♦ and 3♥ both makiing) and three times North-South stopped in a part-score. What should have happened?
The auction shown was the most common start but not always,. Twice, despite having as many HCP in their suit as in the other suits, East ventured a 2♦ overcall. And once East chose to double 1♠.
In addition, there were three pairs for whom the South hand lacked the strength to bid 2♣ and they all bid 1N on the first round, and were pleased (in two cases) to hear partner bid clubs next. One found a gentle raise then and stopped - the other bid 4♣ and partner got to game. It is more tricky after bidding 1N, but it counts as a 6-loser hand in support of clubs, so South should have insisted on game and that might have woken partner up to the possibilities.
The more standard Acol auction is as shown - what should North bid next? All four Norths in this position chose to raise to 3♣. This is a slight underbid, but you cannot be sure the ♦K will pull any weight, and anything more vigorous in the way of club support will make it more difficult to get to 3N when that is the correct contract. If South has a free choice now what would be best? The choices taken were 3♦ (which led to 3N), 4♣ (which led to 5♣), 5♣ (which ended the auction), and pass. None was successful in reaching the slam but there was one option which might have been - a splinter jump to 4♥. When factored in with no spade support from partner, North can think in terms of a very small number of losers, and if partner is bidding this missing ♣AK, they must have a good reason.
It is difficult to bid every good slam that comes your way, but it is a good exercise to find a plausible sequence, so that the next time something similar happens, you are better prepared.
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| HotD-thu : Easter Pairs : 05apr21 : B10 |
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There were some interesting points on this hand from Monday. The first was in the bidding - where two pairs missed their heart fit and played in 3N. There are times when a 4-4 major fit is best ignored but these are very rare and hard to diagnose, so the advice is always to check. It was curious to note that both pairs who played in 3N were allowed to make a diamond trick from the J5-QT but still did not manage to get 9 tricks. Why? In both cases they ran the ♣9 round to the queen. Back to diamonds, and curiously there are a number of positions where leading the 9 from A982 can actually save the defence a trick; if that lead had been found it would have avoided the blockage in the diamond suit which was otherwise stopping the defence from cashing the first five tricks in that suit - after which the ♥A would have meant down two.
Back to 4♥ with South on lead; all defenders in this position started with a spade lead and declarer won and played hearts. The nice continuation for declarer was another spade; this enabled them to draw trumps and cash the winning spades. When the fourth spade is a winner, a losing diamond can be thrown and now you get either 9 tricks or 10 tricks depending on whether you find the ♣Q. The more testing defence, only found by Roger Williams & Mike Wignall, was to cash two diamonds and then exit in spades. Now declarer is faced with the dilemma of finding the club queen.
Is this 50-50 or is there some clue out there which might help? There is indeed (as nearly awlays) a clue to be found. The clue is in the opening lead. By the time of the decision South will have shown up with ♠J76 ♥ AT6 ♦A2 and what you need to do is ask yourself why South chose to make a dangerous lead of a spade away from the jack. Clearly a heart or a diamond showed more dangers - but why not a club? With three small clubs that would have been a very safe lead, and preferred to the spade; from that we should deduce that leader didn't have three small clubs, and so play that hand for the ♣Q. Which works!
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| HotD-wed : Easter Pairs : 05apr21 : B7 |
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Today's hand provided a trap into which a number of declarers fell. All but one table played in 4♠ and nobody could resist the lead of a top diamond. The question was what next?
The choice depends on the signal received from South, who should use suit preference to indicate where their values lie. Across the field, five of the Souths dropped the ♦2, two dropped the ♦T , and two dropped the ♦7. The outcomes of these were three club switches (none after ♦T) and six heart switches (one easier than the others where South had managed to bid hearts on the way).
Everyone who got a heart switch finessed to South's king, and of the six, four Souths switched to the ♣Q and were rewarded with a ruff when partner won the ♠A. This beat the contract.
What should have happened? There is a bit of bluff and double bluff can play into this but there are two pointers why declarer should refuse the heart finesse. The first is that North will rarely feel inclined to try beating the contract with a heart when they are looking at the king in front of the ace-queen. The second point - in some cases - is that South signalled strength in hearts rather than clubs; the strength of these signal might also play into this. And you can add to that the fact that rising with the heart ace almost guaranattes the contract.
How big was the danger in finessing? It was not enormous but it was real. A lot depends on the psychology of the person sitting North, something you would have known much better in the days of rubber bridge that you can know in a duplicate movement where you only see a player for two boards.
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| Play like a Champion |
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West leads the ♦A. This gives you a good start. How do you play?
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If trumps break you are home, so you ruff the lead and cash 2 top trumps, but say that West turns up with a trump trick. Now it looks as if you will have to lose 2 hearts and a trump, but that is not necessarily true. Cross to the ♠K and pitch a heart on the ♦K. Now ruff a diamond and play ♠A and ruff a spade. A further diamond ruff is followed by another spade. If West ruffs in ahead of dummy, a heart is discarded and you only lose 1 heart trick. If West discards, your ♥A is your eleventh trick. |
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| Play for Your Only Chance |
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West starts with a heart lead and you win the Ace over East's King. How do you play?
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How do you avoid losing a heart and 2 spades? Your only chance is to find one of the opponents with 2 spade honours doubleton. You have to hope the layout is as shown in the diagram. Now you can ruff a diamond and cash the ♠A. A club to hand and a diamond ruff followed by another club to hand for a last diamond ruff. Then exit with Q and another heart. The defence can cash only one spade before conceding a ruff and discard. If East sheds his second spade on the second club to avaoid the endplay, you only lose 1 spade and finish with an overtrick. |
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| Think! |
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Partner leads the ♠J. Declarer wins with the Queen and plays a club to the Knave, partner contributing the 7. How do you defend?
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It looks tempting to return a spade, hoping that partner has led from AJTx(x) or similar. However, if declarer can bring in the club suit for 5 tricks, surely he will have enough tricks outside to make the contract. Best is to win the club and switch to the ♥K. Whether declarer wins or ducks, you can cut him off from dummy's club suit whenever he has less than 3 clubs in hand. If the latter case transpires, then you fall back on the spade play when you win the ♣A. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads a top diamond, on which East plays a discoraging card. West now switches to the ♥Q. Plan the play.
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If East gets in you will lose a club and 3 diamonds. If you try a club to the King and hope West holds the Ace you are doomed to failure. West passed originally and has already shown up with 9 points so wont have the ♣A. Your best shot is to deceptively duck the heart switch in both hands. You hope that West will think he has struck gold and will continue with a second heart. Then you can win, play ♠A and cross in trumps and pitch your club on a heart. Then a ruffing club finesse sees you home with a trump entry still in dummy. |
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| HotD-fri : League 9 : 29mar21 : B22 |
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This board was a very respectable (73% say) slam from Monday which was bid at only one table, and the successful auction is shown. The initial bidding from East-West seems inevitable and the only question is around the final raise to slam. From West's perspective, partner has chocen to contract at the five level in an unsupported suit, and so should have a good hand and a good suit - making the AAK in the West hand very useful cards. One cannot be sure the slam is good but surely the odds favour a raise.
Other tables saw a similar start but at most North only raised to 3♠ (and one North didn't even do that). Over that five of the six Easts simply bid 4♥ and that usually ended the story. One East found a double and then removed West's 3N bid to 4♥, which shows a hand that felt too good to bid 4♥ on the previous round. That might have reached the slam but West decided to stop.
What is perhaps more surprising is that six Souths decided not to bid, and gave East-West a free run. Did that help? In practice it didn't. The field divided after 1♥ - 2♣ between a 2♥ rebid (presumably forcing for those pairs) and a 3♥ rebid. The 2-level bidders heard 2N and then East stopped proceedings with 4♥. (A winning choice would have been 3♥ then 4♥ to show a better hand). The 3♥ rebidders got a raise to game except in one case, when West sensibly bid 3♠ to show the control there. That cue bid choice was a good start but East got too excited on the hand and later bid 7♥ and did not make that contract.
How many tricks should be made in hearts? The vanilla play in the heart suit is to start with a top honour and when a top heart drops on the left, crossing to dummy to finesse is the best odds and that play will deliver seven heart tricks 46% of the time (as here). Having overcome that hurdle there are 12 top tricks and clubs is the only real source for a thirteenth. If you have used the diamond entry to dummy to pick up the trumps, there is little choice in clubs but to finesse. You only do this if you are in the grand slam, so you expect 6♥ to make 12 tricks and 7♥ to make 11 tricks. And that is exactly what happened to the two pairs who were in those contracts.
If we are giving out prizes on this hand do we give it to the West who raised partner to the small slam or to the South who avoided leading a club against the grand slam? Or could it be we give out a booby prize to the North who raised to 4♠?
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| HotD-thu : League 9 : 29mar21 : B10 |
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This hand divided the field on Monday, with eight tables playing successfully in 4♥ while there were six tables playing in 3N going down. If you look at the two hands then the 4♥ contract looks impregnable, and the 3N contract looks playable but with only one stopper in spades it could be in trouble if spades were attacked and the ♥K was sitting badly. And that was the case today.
Were the 3N contracts avoidable? In some cases trivially. If you are not playing that 2♣ is game forcing, the 2♥ bid usually shows a weaker hand than this, and this East hand would normally rebid 3♥. After that bid West has to make the final decision, and must raise, as they could be facing a singleton or void in either spades or diamonds, making 3N a very dicey prospect. It is less clearcut when 2♥ is forcing, and a number of tables playing this style bid 1♥ - 2♣ - 2♥ - 2N. For some that forcing 2♥ bid showed a sixth heart, but for some it was ambiguous about the heart length. The key choice now was for East, and only one found a bid of 3♣, highlighting to partner a -6-3 shape (as a more balanced hand would just raise to 3N). The others all looked at the fairly balanced nature of the East hand and raised to game.
To be fair, 3N is not a terrible contract. It is only at risk if they do lead spades, if the spades break 5-3, if the long spades has an entry, and if the ♥K is badly placed. It might seem good odds but the second best choice cost 13 imps on Monday. There are advantages in keeping the bidding simple, but in many cases full exploration does pay off.
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| HotD-wed : League 9 : 29mar21 : B8 |
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This was the first of the two good slam hands which arose on Monday. There was also three poor slams bid (one of which made) and a slam-on-a-finesse which failed and the five pairs out of fourteen who bid that lost out.
This was a common seqeunce on B8 and a key question is what you do next? The two most successful continuations were 6N which was bid twice and was a trivial make after the ♠Q appeared. Without that it might have struggled, but since three suits presented helpful leads to declarer the chances were good. The other four in this position passed and duly collected +800. That cannot really be classed as unsuccessful. There was one other, who bid 5♠, what we would calss as unsuccessful; this was a very pessimistic choice and got its just desserts; if you are not going to bid slam it is safer to take the sure plus from defending than to chance a 4-4 fit at the five level.
There was one table simply bid to game as North-South and that was a win for East-West. Why did it happen? It happened because West opened the bidding. There were a number of indicators that this was not the right time for a weak two bid - a poor lead, out of range, and good support for either major should partner bid it - but the fact is that yet again bidding when others pass earned points.
The other middling scores all came from defending 4♣ (once even undoubled). Two of the more cautious 4♣ bids came after a 2N opener from North, which does indeed put a dampener on East - but the other four were underbidding - and indeed the only one who had the chance bid 5♣ on the next round.
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| How's Your Card Reading? |
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West leads the ♥6 and when you play the knave from dummy. It holds the trick. How do you play?
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It looks like the lead is from ♥ AQxxx and since West did not overcall 1♥, he is most unlikley to hold the ♠A, so establishing spade tricks is not really an option. In fact, West's silence means that East is quite likely to hold both the missing minor suit honours. Best play is to run the ♦9 at trick 2. When this holds, you can take the club finesse and return in diamonds to pick up 5 tricks in that suit, thus making the contract. |
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| How Simple |
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West leads the ♠J and the defence plays 3 rounds of the suit, East holding AK. You ruff the third round. How do you continue?
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You have a diamond loser that isn't going anywhere and must therefore avoid a trump loser. Many players would lay down the ♥A in case they drop a singleton Queen, but this is wrong. If the hearts are 3-2 it doesn't really matter, but when hearts are 4-1, West is 3 times more likely to hold a singleton small card than a singleton Queen. and you cannot afford to waste the ♥9. Just cross to dummy with a diamond and run the ♥J |
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| An Extra Chance |
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West leads the ♦7 to East's Ace, and the ♦Q is returned. Plan the play.
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It looks like you need to find the ♥J to make this contract but there is a chance that West holds both club honours, in which case you can set up a club for a heart discard. The best line of play is to cash the ♣ A, draw trumps and play a club towards the knave. If West holds both top clubs he can win but is now endplayed. Also, as is the case in the layout shown, you gain whenever East holds ♣Qx or ♣Kx, as after winning a club trick, he must open the hearts or concede a ruff and discard. |
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| How's Your Defence? |
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You start with a top spade on which partner plays the knave. How do you see the defence developing?
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You look to have 2 spades and a diamond trick, so where will the setting trick come from. The bidding tells you that partner will have no useful honour cards, so the only chance of an extra trick is in trumps. If partner holds the ♥9 and ruffs the third spade with it, then you will make a trump trick. You need to be careful, however. If you play 3 rounds of spades and partner does indeed ruff, declarer may just discard a losing diamond if the layout is as shown. To prevent this development, you should cash the ♦A before playing a third round of spades. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 2.6 : 22mar21 : B14 |
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There was a clear chance missed at a number of tables on this hand from Monday.
The first thing to note is that 4♥ is where you want to be, but many had trouble finding that. A major contributor was whether or not East opened; East opened five times and on four of those occasions hearts was never bid. Contrast that with the 9 times that East did not open, all of which led to a heart contract by North-South. The fact that most heart games went down might give consoluation to those Easts who passed but it should not have been so.
Playing in hearts from either side, the lead was always a diamond, at which point Easts shows up as holding the ♦AK. If declerar discovers now that the spade honours are split - and one decalrer knew because the defence played the suit, others knew because West didn't start a high spade at trick one - then they can place the ♣K with West as otherwise East would have had an opening bid. It is therefore straightforward to draw trumps, finessing for the jack, and drop the offisde ♣K to make the contract. Nobody did that.
Two declarers did however drop that singleton king., And the reason they did that was because East won the first diamond and switched to a club at trick two. This is clearly not a useful constructive move for the defence if the king is onside - so rising with the ace is indicated. Well done Malcolm Green on doing that and making his game. Not so well done the other who did rise with the ♣A but misplayed the hearts.
What about the case where East did open the bidding? Did declarer have any chance? The answer is yes at the one table where that happened, and the reason was that after 1♦ - 2♣, West showed positive values with a 3♣ cue bid. Now when the top spades and top diamonds had been located, West needed to have the ♣K to justify his bid, and declarer had a good case for dropping it.
The initial pass from East made the play (dropping the king) achieveable, but it was still possible were East to open.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 2.6 : 22mar21 : B11 |
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This hand on Monday was the only excellent slam deal which arose (B18 was also a reasonable slam but only attempted once, and successully). The key to success in bidding the slam (and bidding the slam slam with the grand slam cold is still a success!) depended a lot on the choice made by West at this point in the bidding.
Clearly West has the option to bid a numebr of hearts. Here's how the options fared
- The one West who passed saw the opponents sail into 6♠ and the unknown distribution did not harm that contract.
- Five Wests chose to bid 3♥ which got 4♠ from North three times and double twice (nobody bid 4♥?!). One from each of those camps got to bid the slam, and of the others two got to make slam tries (rejected, surprisingly) and one simply took the push to 5♠.
- Eight Wests chose to bid 4♥ and here a key difference from the above auctions appeared. All North could sensibly do was bid 4♠ and this is such a wide-ranging bid that South could not be sure of the slam potential. When one pair passed out 4♠ North-South had no second chance, but in five cases East bid 5♦ (happy enough to be in 5♥ but giving partner a hint about the best lead). What was unfortunate about 5♦ is that it gave South a chance to bid 5♥ but only one South (well done Allan Sanis) did that. The two Easts who bid 5♥ denied South that chance. In practice it made no difference, and all these pairs stopped in game.
What do we learn from this? The key point is that the more bidding space we take away, the less room the other side have to describe their hand - and here the chance to describe the hand was vital for getting to a slam. It was curious to see that both West and East had the chance to deny the opposition space.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 2.6 : 22mar21 : B4 |
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This hand was played in 1N at 11 of the 14 tables in play on Monday, and three different suits were led. The most common lead was a small club, followed by ♣7 twice, with one each for ♦5 and ♥Q.
The number of tricks made in 1N varied from 5 tricks to 9 tricks, and hit every spot in between. How could it be so varied?
It is worth noting first that not all auctions were as shown; there were three instances of West opening 1♣ and rebidding 1N over partner's 1♠ , and one instance of a 1♦ opener and the same conclusion.
Let's look first at the cases where the ♣7 was led; it is clear to West that this is not fourth best, and is therefore likely to be second best from a bad suit - placing South with the queen and North with the ten. It is easy therefore to play low from dummy and scoop up the queen, and both declarer in this position did just that and ended with nine tricks.
The players facing a low club lead did not have the same insight - what should they do? Of the seven, a slight majority (4/7) jumped up with the jack and this got beaten by the queen. This limited declarer to two club tricks where playing smalll woudl have netted four. Although two of these four succeeded, best defence now beats the contract. Curiously playing the ♣8 at trick one also costs a trick - playing ♣2 gets you four tricks, playing the ♣8 gets you three tricks and playing ♣J gets you two tricks. What should declarer have done? The correct answer is the winning answer; holding the 9 there are three tricks guaranteed by playing small, and the only time the jack gains on that is when LHO has led from ♣Qxx. Against a blind auction there is no reason for a lead from a three card club suit.
It was curious to note that there is only one suit to lead to beat the contract by force, and that is a heart. It was found once, and for good reason - as at that table the opposition had bid both clubs and spades, so that North naturally looked at the other suits and hearts was more appealing than diamonds.
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| How's your Technique? |
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How do you play 6♥ as South on the lead of the ♦K?
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You have many chances, Even if you have a heart loser, you might be able to dispose of a club on the spades or the club finesse might be right. Good technique is to win the ♦A and ruff a diamond at trick 2. Now cash a top heart (assume both follow suit). Cross to dummy with the ♣K and ruff another diamond. Now play a spade to the King and lead the ♥J, running this card if East plays low. If East has the ♥Q you are home and and West wins he is endplayed and you have no black suit loser. If East shows out when you lead the ♥J, rise with the King and exit with a third heart. If West started with only 3 diamonds, he is endplayed and if not, you still have your chances in the black suits. |
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| Table Feel |
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Play this slam on a heart lead.
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| Show Answer |
Win the ♥ K and lead a low club. If West goes up with the king, you have 12 tricks. If West plays low and the jack wins, you have 11 top tricks, so cross to a diamond and take the spade finesse making an overtrick if it wins, 12 tricks if it doesn’t. If the jack loses to the king and East returns a club (best), win the ace, cash eight red-suit winners ending in your hand, leaving this three-card end position: N: ♠AT6 S ♠4 ♣Q9. Cash the ♣Q, and if the 10 doesn’t fall, take the spade finesse. However, if there has been an unusual amount of suffering from East on the discards, and if you know for sure that East is an honest sufferer, you might be inclined to go up with the ♠A and play that East’s last three cards were the ♣T and the blank ♠K.
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| This one is Complicated |
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How do you play on a trump lead, East following small?
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In 6♠ on a trump lead, win the ♠8, cross to the ♦ A and lead a low heart. If East rises with the ace, you have 12 tricks. If East plays low and the queen loses to the ace, your best bet for 12 tricks is the heart finesse. If the queen holds, play the ♦ KQ, discarding dummy’s remaining hearts, and ruff a heart with the ♠9. It is unlikely either opponent has a singleton heart. West didn’t lead one, and East didn’t double the transfer bid, likely if he held five hearts headed by the AJ. Assuming both follow to the second heart, return to your hand with the ♠A. If spades are 2–2 or West has three spades, run the ♣10 (or ♣Q) into East. If East has fewer than three hearts, he is endplayed. If he has can exit with a heart, you can still take a second club finesse. If East has three spades, ruff another heart high. If hearts are 3–3, you have a spade entry to your hand to discard a club on the fourth heart. If hearts are not 3–3, lead a low club from dummy, and if East plays low, guess which club to play (you still have an entry to take a second club finesse). |
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| Know the Odds |
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West starts with a top heart and switches to the ♣9. Plan the play.
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The best line is to hope for a 2-2 club break. Win the club switch in hand and then ruff a heart. Cash the remaining two top trumps in dummy and attempt to return to hand with a club. If clubs break, then you can draw trumps, discarding the ♣ AQ and setting up 3 club winners in hand for 10 tricks. The alternative line of ruffing a heart and then overtaking the ♠Q works when spades break 3-3. As you should know, the odds of a suit breaking 2-2 when missing 4 cards are greater than a 3-3 break missing 6 cards, making the suggested line a better shot. |
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| HotD-fri : League 8 : 15mar21 : B13 |
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On this innocuous hand from Monday it looks like declarer is booked for success in 2♥ but when it came to the day 33% of the declarers went wrong - what happened?
All the declarers concerrned started off correctly - first thing it to set up the side suit, so win the minor suit led and play spades, with the return and to the same again. If they now play to another minor winner, you have lost two tricks and the worse that can happen is you lose three trumps. Cashing the ♥A and running the spades guarantees the contract. But these declarer didn't; they played ace and another trump, hoping for a 3-2 break and an overtrick. Disaster! One pair of defenders produced a stronger start, playing only one minor suit and being able to make North ruff the third round. Bashing trumps would cut declarer off from the spades, so he played the ten away from his ♥AT9 to keep some control; East did well not to cover and West took the king but had to play a diamond. Declarer won and crossed to the ♥A getting the news of the bad trump break, but now - needing one ruff in each hand to succeed, but with a glint of an overtrick from another line - went about it in the wrong order.
Where they went wrong was not keeping their eye on the ball - when you can guarantee your contract, don't take another route unless you are sure it will succeed.
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| HotD-thu : League 8 : 15mar21 : B18 |
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There were two slam hands on Monday, of which this one was the more interesting. After partner opened, there was only one West settled for game; many of the others had to plan the bidding after this start to the bidding.
Of the thirteen slam bidders, six of them looked at the uncertainty which stems from having a void, and skipped any ace-asking bid. Most of the six chose 6♥ but one chose the grand slam.
Those who chose to ask for aces were not expecting it to solve all problems, but if committed to bid a small slam at least, and in the absence of anything better, there was the possibility of some useful information. And that is what happened - the response showing ♠A and ♥AQ and all three cards were useful, as declarer had a club loser which could be thrown on the top spade. Having had that good news - what comes next? The paths diverged here; one West chose to bid the grand slam, one West chose to bid the small slam, two Wests bid 5N to ask for kings, and three Wests bid 6♦. The request for kings led nowhere as partner denied any - after which one asker stopped and one punted the grand slam, The 6♦ bid however is more interesting; most organised players use a new suit in this position to ask abou third round control in the suit (kings would emerge via 5N or cue bidding). In all three cases East was not on that wavelength and denied that control by bidding 6♥. This was an important check as on the same high cards but with three diamond in East, the grand slam would have been unplayable. So we are not able to report any confident auction to the grand slam. :(
The play in 6♥ was trivial, but in 7♥ was interesting; it looks too easy but only two of the four in the grand slam made their contract. The two who failed won the spade lead and decided that the safest ruffing of two diamonds was ruffing with the ♥AQ; in preparing for that they drew one trump with the king - and when the suit broke 3-0 tthey found there was no way of making the contract. The alternative was to cash the ♥A and then aim to ruff diamonds with the ♥Q9; this line would fail if the first diamond ruff was over-ruffed, which is when South holds a doubleton diamond and two hearts with the ten - which is about a 6% chance. This is much smaller than the 22% chance of a 3-0 trump break.
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| HotD-wed : League 8 : 15mar21 : B1 |
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This was an interesting start to the match on Monday, with quite a number of declarers trying hard to go down, but not all being allowed to!
The most common start (ten times) was a spade lead and in most cases West played three rounds. Declarer ruffed the third and had nine top tricks and needed one more. There was always the possibility of the ♣Q dropping, but that could come as the last chance. An extra trick in diamonds was more promising. There were two options - cross to dummy with the ♥T and take the finesse, or bash out the ♦AQ to set up the jack and hope to cash it. The latter depends on the third round of diamonds not being ruffed. How do the odds compare?
You might think that the diamond finesse was 50-50, but in many cases it was not. Where East had led unprovoked (unlike the auction shown) a spade from small cards, they might have just as easily led a diamond from small cards - and in that case the spade lead comes with implications that the ♦K is offside. So let's settle for 40% chances there. Bashing out the diamonds will work when the suit breaks 3-3, and on the 4-2 breaks where the short diamonds has short trumps. Tihis gives you 35% plus a bit under half of the 50% of 4-2 breaks, so that might all add up to 55%. What's nice about this calculation is that it is not beyond what we can do sitting at a bridge table.
The answer seems clear. But that didn't stop a number of declarers going for a finesse.
Some declarers actually were able to combine the two chances to make; or rather, the opposition offered to combine the chances for them, by playing a diamonds from West after cashing two spades. This saved declarer a vital entry to dummy, and on that defence no declarer could go wrong. The defenders who made it easy for declarer ought to record a black mark!
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| Card Placement |
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West leads ♠ K. You win and run the ♣9, East following suit, but West wins, cashes a spade (East pitching a diamond) and exits with the ♦Q. How do you play?
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| Show Answer |
You already know a lot about the shape of the defenders hands. If you win the ♦A, then ruff a diamond and play a trump to dummy and ruff the last diamond with the ♣A - you will know the exact shape of West's and hence East's hand. If West has 2 cards in each minor and therefore 3 hearts then you take the heart finesse as your only chance, but if West proves to have three clubs and a doubleton heart, you play him for ♥Q doubleton, as otherwise you will always have a heart loser. |
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| How Good Is Your Play? |
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West leads a trump against your grand slam, East discarding a spade on this trick. How do you set about making 13 tricks?
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You have 12 top tricks and an extra one if the diamonds split. If diamonds are 4-1, you should be able to squeeze an extra trick if the hand with 4 diamonds also has the ♠K Win and draw 5 rounds of trumps, discarding a diamond from dummy. Now play off the ♠A, ♣AK and ♦AK. If diamonds have broken, continue with a third diamond and then ruff a spade to hand to cash the last diamond. If diamonds are 4-1, ruff a low spade in hand. This will bring down the ♠K whenever the hand with 4 diamonds also held this card. The ♦Q and ♠Q are your last 2 tricks. |
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| Plan Ahead |
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West starts with Ace and another club. How do you plan the play?
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This is a hand where you must plan ahead (aren't they all). A careless declarer might throw a heart away from dummy at trick 2. This will result in defeat. At some point you lead a heart from hand but West rises with the Ace and plays another heart and you eventually have to take a losing spade finesse. The winning line is to discard a spade from dummy at trick 2 and draw trumps before playing a low heart from hand. If West takes his Ace, you can later throw a spade from hand on dummy's ♥K. If he ducks the heart, you can return to hand with a trump, play a club throwing a heart from dummy and exit with a heart to endplay West. |
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| Find the Lady |
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West leads the ♦AK and a third round to East's Queen. What's your best line?
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If the spade finesse works you are home and if it loses you have the 2 way heart finesse in reserve. However, an elimination play improves your chances. Ruff the third diamond and lead a club to the Ace and a trump off dummy. Rise with the ♠A and eliminate clubs before exiting with a trump. If the ♠K had dropped under the Ace you are home and the heart finesse is for an overtrick. If spades are 2-1 whoever wins the ♠K will have to give you a ruff and discard or open up the hearts. The only problem arises when spades are 3-0, in which case you will have to view the heart suit. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 2.5 : 08mar21 : B13 |
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It was curious to see that the field divide almost evenly on this hand with six playing game in hearts, and seven playing in the better game of 4♠. The cards were lying well enough that both contract could make, and there was only one declarer went down (more later, we have a little sympathy for this declarer).
What happened? A lot of the divergence happened at the point shown in the bidding - where four different bids were chosen at different tables. The most common auction was a 3♥ rebid (six times) and that got a raise to game in all cases but one, where Val Constable continued with 3♠ and got to the better game. The next most common action was 2♥ (four times) over which three different answers were found - a raise in hearts which got to game there, a jump to 3♠ (twice) which got to the alternative game, and a 3♣ rebid which led to East supporting spades. Which leaves the two tables which raised to 2♠ and to 3♠ (the latter only possible because for this pair, playing Flannery, the 1♠ bid promised five or more). [And there was one artificial auction we have skipped over].
Is there a preferred auction? The 3♥ rebid, as you can see, got most of those piars to the inferior game. It hits the rocks most often when partner has a singleton heart and has to pass because of lack of fit/values. The 2♥ bid proved a lot more flexible, but could hit the same rocks. Given the tram tickets on which some openers are bsaed, this hand is 5-hcp above minimum, making this too wide a range for partner to cope with. It showed no more or less values thana raise to 2♠ but if anything the latter sounds more positive and encouraging, making it more likely partner will stretch to move on. That makes 2♠ appealing. What is surprising is that nobody shows a strong balanced hand here - it has 15 hcp, and it is semi-balanced, and all you will miss by doing that is a 6-2 heart fit. And here is makes it trivial to get to the spade game.
There is no defence that makes any different against 4♠ but defending 4♥ is interesting. Everybody started with a club from South and most North's grabbed the ace to play their singleton spade. They got a ruff, and declarer had no choice by to lay down the top hearts and when the queen fell everything was good. The winning defender ducked trick one(!). This lulled declarer into a sense of security (thinking surely no spade ruff or they would have taken it) and declarer thought it safer to play a heart towards the jack (it isn't - the best play for 5 heart tricks is to cash one top heart and then run the jack). South won the queen, played a second club to partner's ace and now came ♠A and a ruff and the contract was one off. Wasn't that a subtle defence!
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 2.5 : 08mar21 : B6 |
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This hand from Monday produced quite a few swings, as only four of the nine declarers in the heart game made it. Everyone had a diamond lead, and declarer could see a minimum of two spades and a club to lose. How did the successful declarers proceed?
There are two approaches to the spade suit; lead small to king and hope the ace is onside, or lead up to the KT9 twice and hope to find at least one of the jack and queen onside. The latter is better odds but takes two entries from dummy. One declarer started with two rounds of trumps (finding the bad break) and then led a spade, but when the ace appeared the choice in spades disappeared, and a second diamond was played. Declarer has to ruff this, and was now in a position to play king of spades and a third, setting up the long card in that suit. When a third diamond appears declarer has two choices - ruff or discard? It's a curious position as declarer's discard is a club from ♣A97 and with the king in front of the ace, throwing away a club is a bit like throwing away a winner. But ruffing leaves East with the long trumps.... Declarer discarded and when West won an unexpected diamond trick they were endplayed. Chooseing either a club from the king, or a ruff & discard would give declarer the tenth trick while retaining the ability to draw trumps. Game made.
A second table made 4♥ when declarer ruffed the opening diamond and played a club to the queen (West ducked) at trick two. Rising with the king would have beaten the game.
The third and fourth successful table saw East get in with the spade ace and attack clubs, setting up the ♣Q while declarer still had trump control.
It was curious that so much depended on this hand on the play in clubs. This was a suit that mattered to declarer more than the defence, and the defenders needed to be more careful about that.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 2.5 : 08mar21 : B10 |
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Slam hands were out again in force on Monday with two excellent gtrand slams and one trivial small slam there for the taking. The grands were bid 3 times (across 26 instances) and the small slam was bid 5 times (from 13 tables). That record is not good.
All three hands were not difficult, on some it was trivial to count the tricks, but of the nine pairs (more than you might expect at random, but three sections used the same pairs movement) who were sitting in the slam direction on all three boards, only two (Shelley-Ward & Butland-Sanis) managed to get to the right contract on two of them and nobody managed all three. Maybe that's why those pairs are in Division One!
Investigation of the possibilities was ignored by a large number of players on this hand. A typical auction with a 15-17 opening of 1N, saw North raise to 6N and that was the final contract. With 13 top tricks unless the diamonds break 5-0 (and still good chances after that) you really want to bid the grand here. The reasoning most people applied was just simple point counting and deciding they had a maximum of 36 hcp. But with 17 points in partner's hand some random hand generation (playbridge.com does this for you) showed that 7N was making 85% of the time, When partner has 16 hcp this fell to 80% (was this a small sample giving too small a difference?) and when partner has 15 hcp then the chances come out at 30% of the time making the grand slam. Even if these figures are a bit suspect, it looks to be worthwhile making a try, especially if partner can refuse.
A few tables did indeed invite, bidding either 2♠ or 5N over 1N hoping to discover something about partner's range. In practice only one got a positive enough reply and they were the sole pair to bid the grand.
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| What can you Infer? |
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West leads the ♣Q. How do you play?
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What do you infer from the bidding and opening lead? Surely West would have led a top heart if holding the AK or AKQ, hence it is reasonable to place East with a top heart (probably the King). Since he passed his partner's opening bid, he can safely be assumed not to have another King. Therefore win the lead and lay down the ♠A. If the King drops you have 10 tricks. If the ♠K remains at large, take the diamond finesse to dispose of a heart loser. |
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| Which Finesse? |
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How do you play on the lead of the ♦7 to East's ten?
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This is a hand where finesses abound, but if you play correctly, the hand is a sure thing. If East gets on lead, the defence might prevail with 4 diamond tricks. Cross to dummy with a club and finesse the ♠9. Let's say that loses to the knave. If West leads another diamond he gives you your ninth trick so say he exits passively. Then you cross again in clubs to finesse the ♠T. Even if this loses, you have established a second spade trick to bring your total to 9. Note that it is not good enough to cross to dummy at trick 2 with a heart as then West can play a second heart when he wins the first spade and then ultimately get his partner in for the killing diamond lead. |
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| Care Required |
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How do you play on the lead of the ♣J?
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There will be no problem if trumps break 3-2 so you need to think about a 4-1 trump split. First priority is to get rid of the club loser so win the lead and take 3 rounds of hearts, throwing a club. Now you can afford to lose 2 trumps and a diamond, but you must be careful not to lose control of the hand. Play one top trump and then lead diamonds. The most the defence can do is take the diamond ace and a ruff in the suit, but then you can take another high trump and run the diamonds. You cannot lose more than 3 tricks on this line. If you take 2 top trumps early then the defence can ultimately win the diamond, draw your remaining trumps and have a lot of clubs to cash. |
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| The Power of Spot Cards |
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West leads a diamond to East's nine and your King. You draw trumps, West holding 3. How do you continue?
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You need to avoid 2 spade losers, and this can only be done with a favourable lie of the cards. Perhaps one defender holds KQ doubleton - or East might have Tx. Having won the third heart in dummy, you play a low spade from dummy and insert the 8 when East plays low. If this loses to the King or Queen, you ultimately regain the lead as South and lead the ♠J to pin a doubleton ten in the East hand. This play in the spade suit is known as an intra-finesse. Of course East may rise with an honour on the first round and now you will play him for KQ doubleton, as no other lie of the cards is helpful. Your other choice is to play West for KQ doubleton spade and this is a view that you could legitimately take. I would personally favour running the knave through West as this play is more 'elegant' (makes for a much better story to tell) |
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| HotD-fri : Monday Swiss Teams : 01mar21 : B19 |
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This hand from Monday produced a number of swings - half the field played in game and half in part-scores, half the field played in spades and half in diamonds.
The auction shown was the start at half the tables and from this position three North-Souths reached game, three stopped out. There were three actions chosen : the immediate 4♠ bid was one of the games reached, but the other choices had mixed results. The thrice-chosen double reached game only once, and the twice-used 3♦ call reached game only once. The key in the successful cases was that North bid when they got the chance, and South would not stop out of game after that,
The other auction start at six tables was 1♠ - 2♣ - P - P to South and the field split evenly here, with three bidding 2♦ and three bidding 3♦. It would come as no surprise that the three former ended in partscores, while the three in the latter category ended in game.
What does all this tell us? It tells us that a number of players seriously undervalued the strength of the South hand. With a modicum of support in either spades or diamonds, we have a 3-loser hand here - so game must be close. In a competitive sequence it is important to try to get partner excited, and bidding 3♦ on this hand when you get the chance is the way to do that. Partner will not expect any more as you would always start off, were you to hold say 21-hcp, with a double of their bid. The 3♦ bid shows playing strength and with four diamonds and a useful ♠K, North will get the pair to game.
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| HotD-thu : Monday Swiss Teams : 01mar21 : B5 |
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This hand from Monday was interesting on a few fronts. The first point to note is that of the 12 tables, only one North decided to open on this 11-point 4333 hand. In a sense llife was not comfortable for him, as after 1♣ - 1♠ - X - P he had the choice of bidding 1N without a spade stop (recommened) or bidding 2♥ on a three card suit. On either path the layout of the cards delivers him nine tricks. He got a top!
Everyone else passed and the auction displayed above was identicfal at all eleven tables - not something we often see. What also happened at all eleven tables was the lead of the ♣J. The results however did vary - only 4 pairs made their contract, while 7 went off. What should have happened?
The most common approach, chosen at 9 out of 11 tables, was to win the ♣A at trick one and lead a spade to the king or queen. South won this and continued clubs. Four declarers ruffed this and bashed out the other top spade. They were dependennt on the jack being singleton on doubleton and they went one off. What this the best play in the spade suit? Hardy. Finessing for the spade jack is a 50% shot and therefore better than cashing the second honour.
The other five tables aimed to do better. Two of them tried leading the ♦9 at trick four, but when North turned up with the ace this failed to provide an entry to dummy and they eventually had to bash out the top spade and go one down.
Three tables tried a bit harder - they pushed out the ♦K at trick four. Twice this was won by the ace, and now the ♦J entry to dummy allowed a successful spade finesse and the contract made. But Paul Denning was more awake that the other defenders - after declarer has shown a singleton club you know it is not a singleton king of diamonds, and you know that declarer wants you to win the ace. So you don't. When Paul ducked there was no entry to dummy and this declarer too was one down.
Did it have to be so? Not at all. Of all the Easts, only John Arblaster reocgnised that a second entry to dummy was unlikely (it needed help from the defence) so he took a spade finesse at trick two, and when the jack was onside he was rewarded with an unbeatable contract. Was this a clear choice to make? With five unavoidable losers outside, the contract clearly hinges on finding the ♠J; clearly your best chance of avoiding losing a trick to it is to find it onside, so the finesse is clearly the best approach, and at trick two.
[The fourth successful table involved the defence giving declarer a trick with the ♣Q and I am sure those involved on both sides wish no more to be said]
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| HotD-wed : Monday Swiss Teams : 22feb21 : B3 |
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One team produced an enoeurmous 93-0 score on Monday and this hand was their biggest gain, The key decision was at this point and it produced a double figure swing in three matches. Some auctions started a little differently, thes ebeing 1♣ - 3♥ for those people whose 1N opening was strong and so the 1♣ opener included a weak no-trump hand. What do you do now?
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The key question is whether or not to bid. With these game invitational values, the hand might belong to you, but bidding now might get you too high. The obvious choices are pass, double and 3N.
Three pairs passed at this point (as did the player facing 1♣ - 4♦) and they collected either +50 or +100. That is at least a plus score but collecting 50s is not winning bridge.
Two Easts chose 3N, a slight overbid but an acceptable contract. They managed less than 9 tricks although 9 is possible (they need to play up to the ♣ KJ and take a deep finesse in spades - and given the 7-1 diamond break, this is the best odds play in spades for four tricks).
The remainder all doubled. The danger they all faced in doing that was that partner would insist on playing in hearts (and this drove the 3N choice by the two already mentioned). Could they cope with this? The answer is yes, but only if they have adopted the following stance - that after a takeout double at the three level a new suit is forcing. This comes up in multiple contexts and does mean you cannot stop on a pin, but it makes bidding stronger hands much easier. Here you know partner with hearts will only bid 3♥ and now when you bid 3N you care clearly offering a choice of contracts (spades or NT) and partner can choose.
Only one responder to the double chose 3♥ but they did not pick up the implications of the 3N rebid, and passed that, ending down four. There was - in this case - a very simple answer to the double, found only by Andrew Kambites, who bid 4♦ clearly proimising both majors and letting East choose 4♠. Two Wests chose 3♠ in response to the double and got raised; presumably they planned to bid 4♥ over 3N should partner have continued with that bid,
There was one maverick East who chose over 3♦ to bid 3♠ (showing 5+ for most of us) and found a raise from partner to the best contract.
That all adds up to 11 pairs which leaves only the story of the one North who overcalled just 1♦ and gave East-West and easy time. |
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| No Guessing |
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West leads the ♠K. You duck this trick and West continues with the ♠Q, East following both times. Plan the play.
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You have 8 top tricks and chances of a ninth if the heart finesse wins or you can guess the location of the ♦Q. On this hand, however, you don't need to make any guesses. Win the spade at trick 2 and play clubs to exhaust West of that suit. Then exit with a spade. West can take his 3 spade tricks but then must lead a red suit, giving you your ninth trick in the process. |
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| This should be Easy |
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West leads the ♣J and East takes the ♣AK and gives his partner a club ruff. At trick 4, West switches to a heart. Plan the play.
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Remember the bidding. East opened vulnerable at the one level and is henced marked with the ♥Q and the ♦K, thus both red suit finesses are doomed to failure. Fortunately, a squeeze can come to your rescue. You need the rest of the tricks and one player is guarding 2 suits so all you need to do is ensure that one of your threat cards sits behind the hand that is to be squeezed. Its a good job you hold the ♦T. Win the heart switch with the Ace and cash the ♦A before running all your trumps. You are left with a heart and the ♦T, dummy with ♥KJ and East with ♥Qx ♦K with a discard still to make. If he doesn't throw his diamond, you know that his ♥Q will fall. |
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| Only in textbooks? |
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West leads the ♣J. You win and play a trump to dummy's ten. This holds but East shows out. Do you have a chance?
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| Show Answer |
It looks like you must lose 2 trumps and a club, but don't give up yet. Finesse the ♥J and if it holds, you are well on your way. Cash the ♥K and enter dummy with a spade. Pitch a spade on the ♥A and ruff a heart. Now a spade to dummy and a spade ruff. If all this passes off OK you can exit with a club. East wins but on his forced club return, you ruff in hand and West's second trump trick is smothered out of existence. |
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| The Best Line |
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West leads the ♠T. What's the best line?
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The lead gives you 3 spade tricks and you have 3 more quick winners. Clubs will produce 3 more tricks provided West holds the King and less than 4 clubs. It is better odds to play diamonds, where the suit will set up unless East holds QTxx. Hence you should win the lead, unblock the ♠A, and play the ♦A, on which we will say that East drops the ten . Now the best play is a diamond to the King. You don't mind losing a diamond to West as if hearts are led from that side, the defence can take no more than 3 tricks in the suit. If you finesse the diamond and it loses, the ♥9 switch could prove embarrasing if the layout is as shown. If East started with ♦QTx, you will have to hope that the cards are such that the defence cannot take 4 heart tricks. If the ♦T had not fallen on the first round, then you have to assess the chances of losing a diamond to East and suffering a fatal heart switch versus playing the ♦K and finding West with ♦QTxx. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 2.4 : 22feb21 : B7 |
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This hand from Monday was a straightforward 3N to play once you had bid it, although only 9 of the 14 tables reached that contract. The 3N contracts (all but one) were played by South, and the fact that South held only J6 in diamonds caused no concern. In five cases South has opened 1N and diamonds were never an issue, and in the other cases South opened 1♣ and bid NT afterwards to show their hand type.
The one table which disrupted the comfort of North-South with 3N used a very simply device to do that. The West of that pair overcalled the 1♣ opener with 1♦. After that South was too worried about diamonds to bid NT, and North was too worried about hearts. This gained the relevant pair 10 imps against each otehr table.
Why did nobody else find this bid? It was because the West hand here ws so weak, and the suit was poor. Who is to say it was wrong?
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 3.4 : 22feb21 : B20 |
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It was interesting to note on this hand from Monday that with 25 high card points between them, and balanced hands, there was only one pair out of fourteen managed to get to game istting East-West. It is worth looking at what happened.
There were 9 instances where North opened 1N, and these mostly showed 15-17 but it also included one instance of 13-15 and some 14-16 openers too. Over that there were six pairs showed the majors, one passed and the other two rather committed their side by bidding 2♠. Nobody moved towards game, and the best score went to the pair who passed, as they collected +300. Why did everyone give in so easily? It is because we like to interfere over their 1N opening, and that means sometimes we are lighter that this, and we become scared of going minus.
There were 4 instances where North opened a red suit, and over that East overcalled 1♠. These had more chances to get to game - or at least they did when West didn't pass out 1♠! But none of them did get to game - two Wests did bid 2♣ after which East is worth trying 3N, but nobody did.
What about the auction at the one table that did get to 3N? None of the above opener by North came to pass, because West opened the bidding in first seat. After that there was no keeping partner out of game.
It won't always work, but it's just amazing how often opening light works to your benefit.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 2.4 : 22feb21 : B5 |
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This hand from Monday was the only slam of note (B19 had a slam with a 40%+ chance of success but nobody bid that, reasonably).
The big divide on this hand came with the third bid - and there were five different choices made at this point. Here are the choices in order of popularity
- 3C was chosen six times; this gets over the message of five+ clubs and enough values to game force
- 3S was chosen four times : this tells partner of four+ diamonds and enough values to play at the 4-level
- 5D was chosen two times : this tells partner of diamond support and a willingness to play at the 5-level : this choice could be to make or could be an advance sacrifice.
- 3N was chosen once : it seems odd thing to do but it does make some sense - this was being treated as a Lebensohl situation and this showed values for game but no spade stop, and not four hearts.
- X was chosen once : this showed some values and interest in competing, and encouraged partner to bid hearts if they could.
Which do we think gives the most useful information to partner? The answer has to be number two (3S); you are not confident about making 11 tricks, but if partner knows you have diamond support, have shown no interest in hearts, and haven't bid NT yourself - then partner will expect something in clubs and should be well placed to make a winning decision. Looking at the downside of the others
- 3C and X : when partner now bids 3N they have no idea of your diamond support and taking out 3N might get you too high.
- 5D : the range for this bid is just too wide, and there is no space left for partner to explore slam.
- 3N : again the diamond support is hidden (you could have a 3334 hand) and taking out 3N might get you too high.
How did the choices work out in practice? The slam was bid three times. Twice the hand opposite a 3S cue realised their potential and got to slam. Once the 5D jump got a raise to slam by partner, reading partner for a decent hand given this vulnerability. None of the others got close.
The Theme? If you have support for partner, tell partner as soon as you can. This applies every time when the suit is a major, and applies nearly every time the suit is a minor and there is opposition bidding.
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| Multi-tasking |
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How do you play on the lead of the ♦Q?
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On this hand, you need to set up the spade suit when they break 4-3 and also keep control of trumps. Win the diamond in hand and cash the 2 trumps in dummy. Assume everyone follows else you are going down. Now the key play is to lead a low spade from the table and discard a minor suit card on this trick. Win the return on the table (a diamond say), ruff a low spade and draw trumps before using the other minor suit entry to access dummy's winning spades. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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Your partner leads the ♥Q and declarer plays the Ace from dummy at trick 1. How do you see the defence developing?
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This hand revolves around your decision at trick 1. Do you unblock the ♥K? The answer should be no! A simple count of declarer's tricks (always a good idea as a defender) shows that if South has either black Ace, he will have 9 tricks. Therefore if you are to beat this contract, partner simply has to hold both missing Aces. When partner wins the ♣A, he can put you in with a heart for a spade lead through South's King. If you unblock at trick 1, you will survive when partner has 3 cashing heart tricks, but not when the layout is as shown. |
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| Don't play too quickly |
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Partner leads the ♥T, covered by the Knave and your Queen, declarer following with a small heart. Hopeful of a heart shortage with partner, you try to cash the ♥A at trick 2, but South ruffs and leads the ♠K, West showing out. How do you defend?
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You should know the shape of South's hand. From the bidding and play so far, declarer is 6115. If declarer can get to dummy to lead a spade towards hand then you will be limited to one spade trick to go with 2 red suit tricks. If partner has a sure club trick then South will be defeated, so assume his clubs are good. The winning defence is to win ♠ A, take your ♦A and then exit with a club. This way you will come to a second trump trick. If you fail to cash the ♦A, preferring to play a club at this point, then declarer can tke 2 club tricks and exit with a diamond, forcing you to give the required entry to dummy whatever you now return. |
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| Think It Through |
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West leads the ♦8. When you play 4 rounds of diamonds, West follows to the second round and then discards 2 spades. How do you continue?
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The bidding strongly suggests that West holds the A♠ in a six card suit, in which case you need to make 4 heart tricks and 4 club tricks. The only way to make 4 heart tricks is to find the suit beaking 3-3. Counting West's hand means you need him to be 6322. There is no way to bring in 4 club tricks if East holds Qxxx so you need to play West for Qx. Cash the ♣K and play a club to the Ace. When the Queen drops, you can take 4 tricks in the suit, to go with 4 hearts and 4 diamonds. |
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| HotD-fri : League 7 : 15feb21 : B20 |
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The results on this board were fairly uniform on Modnay - with ten tables playing in 4♥ and making easily.
Amongst the four which differed, three shared a common reason. And that reason was that North got into the bidding. For must of us the North hand - at this vulnerability - is out of range for a weak two bid. The effect of opening here was that South was comfortable leading ♠A and another, and after that start finding the club ruff was easy.
A few tables did managed to find the ♣A lead unpromoted but in only one case was the follow-up successful. Most of the Souths continued with a second club for partner to ruff, and the favourite card was the ♣8. Only in one case did North return a spade allowing the defence to cash their winners. In the other cases, North was scared to give away a trick leading from the spade king, and when they returned a red suit, declarer's spade loser got discarded. Should they have read the suit preference signal better? The key is what choices North expects South to have; if South's remaining clubs were J86 then this would be a middle card, suggesting nothing worthwhile in diamonds or spades. But we can rule this out - when would South ever choose to start with the ♣A from a four card holdiing - they would not as it is too likely to give away a vital trick. The only rationale for the lead of the ace is either a short or a long suit. So the ♣8 is a clear steer away from diamonds and towards spades.
Could South have made life easier? One way would be to cash the ♠A before playing the second club, but that could also be creating a discard to let declarer throw a losing diamond - so it is not always safe to do that.
The easiest way to open to solve the problem? For North to have been in the bidding!
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| HotD-thu : League 7 : 15feb21 : B13 |
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This hand is an easy enough game for East-West but five tables saw a bonus offered to East-West and in most cases taken up (to the tune of 800, 1100 three times, and 1400). Why did they get lucky in this manner?
We need to look at the auctions which led to South (it was South in all cases) to bid over the 4♠ contract on which East-West had alighted. There were two key factors in these cases, the first was was ambiguity about the strength of the West hand, and the second was South not managing to get a second bid in before the opponents reached game. The most awkward auction combining these was 1♠ - 2♠ (hearts+minor) - 4♠ - P - P - ? and the reason it is awkward is that West might be bidding this way with a bundle of high cards, or just long spades and some shape.
Is it safe for West to bid this way - giving less information to partner as well as to the opponents? It is not totally risk free but if South has enough values to justify pushing their side to the three-level, then you are never going to be missing a good slam on this hand, so there is nothing to investigate. And if the opponents bid on you don't need to involve partner, you know you are going to double.
Should South have avoided this trap? There are some warning signs; an opening pass from partner and you holding only 7 hcp, and the bad club split might well make 4♠ difficult for declarer. In practice two of the six presented with this problem did find a pass.
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| HotD-wed : League 7 : 15feb21 : B9 |
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With 25 hcp and balanced hands you would expect 3N to be the common contract here and it was - although three pairs managed to stop out. One has some sympathy for the two Souths who passed a 15-17 opening as 44% of those openers are just 15, and who wants to play in 2N-1.
Against 3N there is no stand-out lead from West; five Wests led the ♦A, three led ♣3 and three led the ♥T. The contract should not make on any lead, but the fact is that it made four times, twice on a diamond lead and once on each other lead. What went wrong?
Looking just at the diamond lead; it is clear to East that partner holds the AK, so you want to encourage a diamond continuation. Three players didn't apply their brains but just followed the system - and played low to encourage. Unfortunately the signal was far from clear to partner, and two of the partners switched, and never went back to diamonds again. Declarer made the contract. Easts who were thinking dropped the ♦T; this is where logic takes over from system. You could not afford to play the ten unless you also held the nine, so it is here an encouraging, and not "high for hate". The heart lead disaster came back to the same point; West got in with clubs and tried a top diamond but partner played the ♦7 to encourage, and partner was not encouraged. The disaster on the club lead is harder to diagnose, as the diamond suit was never broached.
The key message is that you have to look at each hand and each suit in context - and only after logic does not dictate the answer do you look to what conventional signals you play.
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| Plan the Play |
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West leads the ♦J. You win and play a trump towards the King, on which West throws a club. How do you play?
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The first move is to lead a low club from dummy at trick three, the key play. If East follows,win the ace, cash a second diamond, ruff a diamond low, ruff a heart low, ruff a diamond with the ♠K, ruff a heart low back to your hand, exit a club and wait for tricks nine and 10 with the ♠AT. If East ruffs the low club at trick three and returns a heart. Ruff, draw all of East’s remaining spades, cash the ♣KQ, return to your hand with a diamond and take the ♣A. Ten tricks: five spades, two diamonds and three clubs. Say East ruffs and returns a diamond. Win the king, take four spades via a finesse, cash the ♣KQ, ruff a heart back to your hand and cash the ♣A for the same 10 tricks. |
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| A Tricky Slam? |
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West leads the ♥K. You win the Ace and play 2 top clubs. West follows with the ♣T and discards a heart on the second round of clubs. How do you plan the play?
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You have some options on this hand. It now appears that you have a trump loser and a heart loser. If the diamond finesse works that would allow you to dispose of your heart. You might be able to ruff out the ♦Q in 3 rounds and again that would allow you to dispose of a heart. There is also the following line which combines this chance with the opportunity to avoid a trump loser. After the 2 top clubs, play ♦AK and ruff a diamond, Lets say the Queen does not appear. Now you can cross to a spade for another diamond ruff, and then again cross in spades for a spade ruff. You are now down to a losing heart and ♣Q9. Simply exit exit with your heart and collect the last 2 tricks in trumps. A nice trump coup. |
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| A Simple Hand |
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West leads the ♦Q. When you play trumps, it transpires that West has 4. How do you continue?
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One line would be to hope that hearts break 3-2 and just draw trumps and cash winners. An improvement would be to abandon trumps and play hearts immediately. If both opponents follow you revert to drawing trumps and you are also OK if West has 4 hearts as well as 4 trumps. However, you can do much better than that. Play a heart to dummy and cash the ♦K, discarding a heart from hand. Now you can ruff a heart high, draw the trumps and claim. |
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| How's Your Defence? |
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Partner leads the ♠4 against 3NT. Declarer wins the Ace in dummy, dropping the 5 from hand, and leads the ♦Q. How do you defend and why?
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What East should do is somewhat problematic. He does know that South made a strange play by going up with the ace of spades. The most likely reason is that declarer has the king in his hand and wants to keep an entry to his diamonds. A count of declarer's tricks shows 7 available in dummy and a putative spade trick in his hand. If he has the ♦K and you duck this trick, he would have 9 winners. Hence the best play must be to win the diamond lead with the Ace. Although South has bid heaerts, his heart suit does not have to be that strong and I would therefore recommend a switch to the ♥Q, rather than continue spades.
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 2.3 : 08feb21 : B19 |
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There were three Easts who got to play this hand in 1N, but the other 11 tables were all either in 1N by South or in 2♥ by South. Only two contracts by South we made and they both benefited from a heart lead from West at trick one. With that suit led, declarer was able to cover the ten, or play the eight over the five, and in both cases the avoided losing two heart tricks to East. Playing in either contract this sufficed to engender success.
All the other declarers failed to make their contract and the reason for this is that they all lost two heart tricks. Could they have done better? Yes, Should they have done better? Yes. The heart suit combination is an interesting one to watch for; your best chance of avoiding two losers is to start the suit by leading small towards the J84 and playing the eight ot jack as required to cover West's card. When your play loses to an honour, your best (and here, winning) line is to lead the jack and hope LHO started with a doubleton ten. It works perfectly here.
We used to believe that with this suit combination you could also gain if LHO held a doubleton KT or QT. You lead towards the jack and if they rise, on the next round you lead the jack, running it if not covered, to pin the ten. That would be fine if the did rise, but the opponent here - if up to date with the thinking - will play the ten on the first round from honour-ten. Why is that? It is because your next play as declarer will be to run the jack aiming to succeed if it was a singleton ten - but here the defenders get their two tricks. To choose best, you have to know something about how LHO will react. Tricky stuff!
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 2.3 : 08feb21 : B3 |
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This hand was most commonly played in the expected 4♠ (ten out of fourteen tables) but the play proved problematic with the majority, and only four out of ten made the game.
If we look at what happened to the tables which went off (and one which got lucky and succeeded) there is one common feature - they rushed to draw trumps. This meant that they later found themselves looking at two clubs losers and a diamond loser, in addition the king of trumps, and that was too many.
The solution - found at the other three tables - was to start at trick two on clubs. The safest approach is to cash one top honour and then lead up to the other, but importantly to play the third round while the possibility of ruffing the fourth in dummy was still present. When North turned up with the length in clubs, game was a trivial make. If North had been short in clubs you would be ruffing the fourth club with the ♠J which might win and if it lost would make the chance of another spade loser remote.
Well done to ANdrew Kambites, Filip Kurbalija, and to the Advanced Robot.
This answer is a very generic strategy - you only draw trumps when you don't need those trumps to ruff your own losers. The general theme is to make sure your side suit is sorted out before tackling trumps. That is nearly always the right thing to do.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 2.3 : 08feb21 : B7 |
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There were three big slam hands on Monday, with a grand being the right and the winning choice on all three. On Board 6 only three pairs got to the grand slam, and on board 15 there were seven pairs reched it (plus the pair who collected 1700). But this was the hand people had more difficulty with, in that five tables only reached game here, where the grand slam is about a 70% contract. If you bid the grand, for the two cases of 12 or 13 tricks being the limit, you will gain about the same number of points in one case as you lose in the other. However bidding the small slam in this case GUARANTEES a win because there were more in game than in the grand slam, whether it is 12 or 13 tricks made. That probability of making the grand slam this time makes it just a tiny bit with the odds for bidding it, so we cannot criticise pairs who played in either level of slam.
But what happened to those who failed to reach slam? Four of them started off with the sequence shown but could not see how to proceed safely. [The other bid 2♣ - 2♦ - 2♥ - 4♥ where the last bid would normally show a much weaker hand] The key thing to note at this point is that by bidding 3♣ East has shown interest in at least one majhor suit. Were East to bid 3N at this point it would show spades - which makes us ask what does a bid of 3♠ mean? The answer is that, by logic and by agreement too, it shows slam interest in hearts. The same principle applies after 2N - 3♣ - 3♠ with a 4♥ bid. Telling partner you have support and some (albeit) mild slam interest is enough here to get you to the slam.
You may be curious to know how people scored across the three slams, as this can affect the overall scores by rather a lot. An examination of the travellers tells us that
- four pairs were sitting the the right direction to be bidding all three hands, and of those only two pairs - Steve Bettely and his robot friend, Peter Shelly & Trevor Ward - managed to get to the right level on all three hands.
- four pairs were sitting in the other direction on all three hands and saw their opponents bid - and across the four cases two pairs gained on one hand from their opponents' failures, and the other two gained on two hands. So about average.
- two pairs gained a big swing on all three hands - and these pairs came top of Div One (Filip Kurbalija & Dan McIntosh) and top of Division Three (Ben Ritacca & Peter Waggett)
- one pair was on the wrong side of all three hands, and thei failed to get promoted from Div Four this time. Four others lost on two hands and defended 6♥ on the hand shown - which was also a losing position.
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| What's the Best Line? |
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West leads the ♦T against your slam. You try the Jack but East plays the Queen and you ruff. Play from here.
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This is a hand where you need to combine all your available chances. If clubs are 2-2 you are safe for 13 tricks by discarding a spade on the fourth heart and ruffing a spade in dummy. You also have the chance that the ♦A will fall. At trick 2 play a club to the Jack and ruff a diamond. You are out of luck in that the Ace does not fall. Now cash a top trump in hand. Assume that the clubs break 3-1. Now it's time to play hearts - the player with the third trump might have 4 hearts. If indeed you are able to cash 4 heart tricks, throwing a spade from the table, you can now ruff your third spade on the table. Note that it is important to retain a high trump on the table, else your third spade might get over-ruffed. |
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| Consider the Options |
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West starts with two top hearts. You ruff the second round, East playing high-low, and try a low trump from dummy. East rises with the King, West showing out, and switches to the ♣Q. Play from here.
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Cash dummy’s two high clubs, discarding a heart, and ruff a club. Assuming everyone follows, cross back to the ♦A (it doesn’t hurt to lead the jack) and ruff dummy’s last club. If everyone follows, you have a count of the hand. West is 0724 and East 4234. You now have a claim. Cash the ♠Q and play the ♦K. If both follow low, exit a diamond to East’s queen and take the last two tricks with the ♠A 10. If West’s ♦Q drops doubleton, you still have a spade loser, but you make four. If, when you ruff dummy’s last club, West shows out, West is known to have a 0733 shape and East is 4225. You are now reduced to finding East with the ♦Qx. You cannot make the contract at this point if West started with the Qxx. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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You lead the ♣T to partners Ace and the ♣4 is returned, declarer winning with the King in hand. South now leads a low heart from hand, How do you see the defence developing?
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A critical aspect of defence is counting declarer's tricks. On this hand you know he has 2 club tricks and most likely 6 diamond winners. Why has declarer played a heart? He must be playing to build a trick in the suit and if you sleepily play low, he will win the knave and have 9 tricks. You must rise with the Ace and switch to King and another spade. |
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| This one is Easy |
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You play in 6♦ as South and receive the lead of ♥K. Plan the play.
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This one should be easy for regular readers of this feature. The deal screams end-play. Win the lead and draw trumps fishing in hand. Now ruff a heart, cross back to the club King and ruff your last heart. Now Ace and another club forces the player who wins this trick to either open up the spade suit or concede a ruff and discard. |
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| HotD-fri : Monday Swiss Teams : 01feb21 : B17 |
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Nine of the twelve tables playing on Monday reached 3N on this hand, and of those six were favoured with a top diamond lead from East. That lead generated three tricks in diamonds for declarer and with two in each other suit, the contract was there (although two did go off - by ducking at trick one and giving back one of the diamond tricks offered).
The most demanding lead was the ♣J - but Jack Armorgie showed how to overcome that obstacle. He let the lead run to the king and won the return with the ace. He went after diamonds immediately leading to the ace and back towards the ♦J97. East won that and continued clubs, giving North a convenient entry to lead another diamond. East won again and cashed the winning club.
East now played a fourth round of diamonds and Jack won that in dummy. This brought the tricks in sight to eight - two in each suit. But look at the West hand as the minor suits were played out. The end position was declarer with ♠ AKJ5 ♥2 and dummy with ♠4 ♥AK86 which meant that West had to come down to five cards. He had to keep three hearts, so away went another spade. Three spade discards was enough to persuade declarer that the spade finesse was not an option, so he cashed the AK dropping the queen and now had 9 tricks. West had been subjected to a show-up squeeze when his partner took his minor suit winners.
Well done, Jack.
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| HotD-thu : Monday Swiss Teams : 01feb21 : B6 |
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This hand from Monday was a borig heart game at the majority of tables, but when that happens we should not ignore it and move on. In this instance we need to ask why nobody bid the easy small slam in clubs (when a grand slam in clubs is playable too - about a 33% chance).
The start to the bidding should be as shown whatever system you play. North could claim to have 9 hcp but the singleton queen must be downvalued and it is never right to suggest no-trumps with three card trump support and side suit singleton. So 2♥ stands out. This is how it started at exactly half the tables, with five others upgrading the responding hand to be worth 1♥ - 2♣ (which in a way enhanced the chance of reaching the best contact - but only one of those tables ever suggested clubs as trumps and they later passed 4♣, which was a disaster).
After that the key is for opener to take their time, but the majority failed to do that. Three of the six tables leapt to 4♥, more keen to kide their hand from the opponents than to expose their hand to partner. One produced a jump to 4♦ over which partner should have continued but did not. So we had jsut two tables did continue as suggested by showing their spade suit. What happened then? Both Norths at this point bid 3♦; your continuations at this point are of course subject to partnership agreement, but where the queestion of the right denomination must be the first concern, surely bidding out your shape should come first. After the 3♦ bid South never considered clubs as a potential trump suit.
Did anybody bid slam? Yes two tables did but they to 6♥; and this contract was playable but with a sure trump loser it depends on the club finesse - so today they went down. The two tables which did bid slam both started 1♥ - 2♣ - 2♠ but their difficulty - again the same issue, rushing too much - was that partner bid 4♥ at this point, leaving no room to explore. One table avoided that rush by rebidding 3♣ at this point, and they were set for the jackpot except when partner raised to 4♣ they passed. This should not happen as after a 2-level response a reverse as with 2♠ here ia a game force.
Maybe next time we can report on some good slam bidding!
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| HotD-wed : Monday Swiss : 01feb21 : b1 |
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Not every pair managed to stop in 1N on this board - West has to judge whether the QJ-douleton is pulling its weight in deciding whether to continue. One factor to bear in mind is that when partner opens an 11-14 one no-trump, the probabilities favour the lower end (14-count comes only 20% of the time). In practice NT ranges affect the choices and we found four pairs stopped in 1N, three in 2N and one could not stop before 3N.
On lead against a no-trump contract, two Souths were put off by an opening bid of 1♣ and gave declarer a gentle heart lead (they should really have ignored the bid) but the remainder all led a low club at trick one. Every declarer ducked this in dummy and North won with the jack, and here is where the interesting question comes up. Should North continue clubs or switch to a different suit to allow partner to lead clubs again?
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The answer depends significantly on how you think declarer will play the next time a club is led. If declarer had no guess (say North held only the ♣J and South the ♣AQ) the it would be nornal for North to return cubs, so when North does switch declarer will expect North to have ether ♣QJ or ♣ AJ - the question is which? In practice two Norths switched to hearts and three switched to the ♠Q. Only one continued clubs. Of the times when North switch, three times South continued later with ♣A and another which saved declarer from any guess, while two Souths continued with a small club and declarer guessed wrong, losing to the queen and getting no club tricks at all.
So should declarer have guessed to play the king on the second round of clubs? The answer, imho, is yes and the reson is this - if North held the ♣AJ then South has less HCP and might well not have enough entries both to lead the suit again and to get in later. North would therefore not dare blocking the suit and would bash out a second and third club to set up South's winners.
But if North knows that East will reason like this, then sitting back with the ♣AJ will gain when the above logic makes declarer choose wrongly. We are now moving into game theory, and if both declarer and defender are cognisant of this, then a mixed strategy is appropriate. It could be a case of bluff and double-bluff, but we need to factor the question of how many tricks the defence needs.
Defending 1N and defeating it will, with such a strong dummy, depend on declarer mis-guessing - so against that contract it is right to keep open the losing option for declarer.
Defending 2N is more nuanced. Clubs will at best provide fur tricks, but on this layout that is enough to beat the contract, as declarer must lose a heart to set up that suit and the spade ace is a sixth defensive winner. So a club continuation is right. |
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| Listen to the Bidding |
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West starts with 3 top diamonds. How do you play?
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There are 2 possibilities to dispose of your second heart loser. One way would be to take a winning club finesse and the other way would be to endplay West. Given that West is heavily odds on to hold ♥AJ, then the second way is preferred. Ruff the third diamond, draw trumps and eliminate clubs. If trumps are 2-1 cross to dummy to play a heart to the Queen. If trumps are 3-1 just exit with the ♥Q. West will win and have to concede a ruff and discard or lead from his ♥J. |
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| Think! |
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West leads a diamond to East's Ace and a diamond is returned. Plan the play.
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If the spades come in you have no problem, so assume tha East holds ♠J9xx. If East also holds the ♥Q (or five diamonds) he can be squeezed provided you take your tricks in the right order. Win trick 2 and cash the heart Ace and then 4 rounds of clubs, pitching a heart from hand.Now a spade to your Queen allows you to cash the other top diamond. East cannot keep both his spade guard and a red suit winner. If you carelessly play the ♠Q at trick 3, you can no longer enter hand to execute the squeeze. |
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| What are the Chances? |
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West leads a trump to which East follows. What are your chances and how do you play?
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Your chances on this hand are close to 100%!. Win the lead in dummy and ruff a club before playing a spade. You have the chance that East might mistakenly rise with the club Ace if he has it. You also have the chance that the player with the ♠A has no more trumps so you can ruff 2 spades in dummy but no - they win and play another trump. You win in dummy and ruff another club. Now ruff a low spade in dummy and another club in hand. Cash the ♠Q and cross to a heart to ruff another club. If the ♠J has dropped or the ♣A has appeared, or the clubs are 4-4 you are home. Say nothing good has happened - you still have good chances. You will know who holds the ♣A If West has the ♣A and East holds the ♠J, you have a classic double squeeze when you play your last trump, scoring the low heart in dummy. If either player holds the ♠J and started with 5 hearts, they will be caught in a simple squeeze. |
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| Be A Good Guesser |
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West leads the ♦J. How do you play?
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Clearly there will be no problem if you can avoid a trump loser, so how do you guess which hand might hold ♠Qxx? There has been no bidding to guide you, so either opponent could have the troublesome trump holding. However, your best play is clearly indicated. If you have to lose a trump trick to East, you will be dependent on the position of the ♥K, whereas if West holds ♠Qxx you are virtually certain of success. Play a trump to the Ace. If East shows out you eliminate the diamonds and play clubs, ultimately throwing West in with a trump to lead a heart. If West shows out in trumps, you just finesse against East and later try the heart finesse for an overtrick. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 2.2 : 25jan21 : B17 |
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This was the wildest hand from Monday's game and the swings produced were enormous. What's the secret to doing well on these big hands?
The first three bids at almost evey table were the same - East opened diamonds and South showed at least 5-5 in the majors. The routes chosen by West now diverged, but the clearest path is the one shown which establishes diamonds as trumps and shows a shortage in hearts, and seeks partner's opinion on what next.
What should North be thinking at this point? Two things come to mind - the fact that there is a massive heart fit here, and the fact that the singleton they hold in partner's other suit might well offer some defence to the opponents' contract. The opposition are about to bid game in diamonds - is North going to defend against that? The enthusiasm being shown by West suggests partner has a void in diamonds and partner won't have much in the way of club tricks - so it seems inevitable to sacrifice in 5♥ over their 5♦, so why not do that now? Paul Denning chose 5♥ at this point which left the opposition guessing as to what to do next. East passed it around to West who found a wining choice by bidding 6♦ but when this came around to South, it was clear to bid 6♥ and so it was that this table in Division One ended in the par contract on the hand, 6♥ doubled down one.
There was only two other tables bid up to that contract, which means that at the other ten tables either NS or EW received a score which was well above par, and the other a score well below par.
What led to the disasters eight pairs experienced?
- There were three cases of letting 6♦ play - which was NS assuming that the opponents had bid a failing slam, as a heart sacrifice was known to be cheap. Was this insulting the EW bidding?
- There was a more understandble choice to defend 6♣ doubled by West, but North failed to find the crucial diamond lead to beat that slam.
- There were three cases where East-West defended 5♥ doubled making; a minor suit game had been bid in all cases, but West failed to recognise that their hand was roughtly a 4-loser hand and they had not engaged partner isnthe search for a slam.
- There were three cases where East-West were allowed to play peacefully in game, and there twice North never supported hearts and at the other table did so minimally. We should expect such behaviour to lose out.
There is an element of being willing to trust the honesty of the bids being made around the table on hands like this, but the age old adage of "if in doubt bid one more" rings particularly true on this hand.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 2.2 : 25jan21 : B10 |
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This hand proved very difficult for some on Monday, but easy for others. The auctions where East had only disckosed hearts tended to get a club lead, and when the ace appeared declarer needs only to duck a diamond, or take a double heart finesse to make the game. The aucitions where East showed real clubs got a diamond lead and had a more challenging path to find.
As always the first step is to count tricks, and there are 7 sure tricks with potential extras in the form or a spade finesse, a double heart finesse, a fourth diamond on an even break and and extra club by fiding the ace onside. The difficulty in the heart and club suits are that you need two entries to the West hand for each suit, and there are only two entries overall. This means you cannot go for both of these, and therefore you need an extra trick from either diamond or spades. And clearly better than choosing between them is to go for both - and the easy route for that is to duck trick one. After doing that you win the next diamond with the ace (and you might at this point diagnose that the diamonds are breaking 3-3) and choose either clubs or hearts.
You must also as you proceed be keeing an eye on how many winners the other side have. If you play hearts they will have at least a trick in each red suit, so you must be careful they do not get three black winners - and you must play clubs yourself at some point so there is a danger there. The issue is that if you take a losing heart finesse, East can return a spade and now you might have to cut yourself off from a spade winner or cash the AK and leave them the possibility of two defensive tricks in that suit. This makes leading up the top clubs attractive, as if the club ace is onside you will only ever lose one club, one diamond and at the worse two spades. In practice, with the club ace onside all lines deliver nine tricks, but the fact is that all declarers with a diamond lead stumbled.
Meanwhile all six declarers who did not get a lead of the suit breaking most favourably for declarer all got to make their contract.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 2.2 : 25jan21 : B1 |
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The opening board on Monday proved to be a trap for four pairs, and they all fell into the same trap. It's worth noting what the trap was. Every table had a minor suit lead, and the first thing to do after that is for declarer to count tricks.
With five clear tops outside trumps, you have to look at the expectations from the trump suit. If you drw trumps with a 4-4 fit like this, you hope for one loser and therefore three tops and an extra trick from the spare trump at the end making 4 tricks. That adds up to nine, One more is needed!
The options are either to set up a side suit, or to get an extra trump trick. Whichever route you choose, the answer is not to play trumps as soon as you can. Yet that is exactly what these four declarer did. The others didn't.
It's much easier to be successful at this game if you count your tricks!
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| When All Looks Easy |
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West leads the ♦J. Plan the play.
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This looks like a simple 12 tricks, so now is the time to be careful. The only problem is a 4-0 trump break and you need to prepare for this. Win the lead and ruff a diamond. Now play off the top trumps and let's assume that West holds 4. Now a club to dummy allows you to ruff dumm'y last diamond. This should exhaust West of his diamonds. Continue by running your clubs. At some point, West either ruffs in or he gets put in with a trump. At this point he must exit with a heart. It is not clear which heart you should play from dummy and it would be a shame if you guessed wrong having done all the hard work - at least you have given yourself a chance. |
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| Don't Give Up |
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West leads the ♠ T. This contract is absolutely terrible (about 5% I reckon) but can you see a possible winning line?
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On hands like this it is easy to think that you are going down whatever you do and to switch your attention to berating partner for his bidding. A better approach is to concentrate on maikng the contract on the small number of hands where this is possible. You need the club finesse, hearts 3-2. and diamonds blocked. Win the lead, draw 2 rounds of trumps, cash (hopefully) 3 rounds of clubs with a winning finesse and ditch a diamond on the third spade before exiting with a trump. If the diamond suit is blocked, the defence can take 2 diamonds only before conceding you a ruff and discard. |
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| Play This Slam |
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West leads a club to East's Ace and a club is returned. Plan the play.
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You have 11 tricks and can establish a long diamond if they are 4-3. You can always fall back on the heart suit if that doesn't work out. Ruff the ♣K, (assuming 4–3 diamonds, you need the entry to set up the suit), cash the ♦A discarding a heart, and ruff a diamond high. Assuming both follow, cross to the ♠Q and ruff a second diamond. If both follow, diamonds have divided 4–3, so you can draw trumps, cross to a high heart, ruff a diamond and back to a second high heart to discard your remaining heart on an established diamond. If East holds 5 diamonds you can't set up the suit. Now your best move is to reduce to this five-card end position, not having touched hearts: ♥ AKJ ♦ Jx opposite ♠ 98 ♥ xxx. At this point, you should have a very good idea of East’s remaining five cards: After all, you know that two of them are diamonds. You have a count on spades and assuming clubs are 7–3, you have a count on the hand. If East has three hearts remaining — any three hearts — play a spade and discard the ♥J. If East discards a diamond, you have the entries to set up a diamond winner. If East discards a heart, your third heart is high after you cash the ♥ AK and ruff a diamond to get back to your hand. If East has two hearts and has not discarded any (meaning he started with a 3=2=5=3 pattern), take the heart finesse. If East started with six diamonds, there is no need to ruff any more diamonds; just reduce to the same end position, again having a count on East’s heart length. Anytime the count tells you that East started with one heart (3=1=6=3 or 4=1=6=2), cross to the ♥A, ruff a diamond and take the heart finesse. |
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| How's your Technique? |
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West leads Ace and another diamond. You win with the King and play a trump but West shows out. How do you play?
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What seemed a trivial hand just got a bit more tricky. You will need to engineer a trump coup to prevent East from scoring a trump trick. For a trump coup to work you need to reduce your trump length to be the same as East and you then need to be leading a card from dummy at the critical end stage. This is easy to achieve provided East holds 3 hearts. Cash another high spade in dummy and ruff a club. Now play 3 rounds of hearts finishing on the table. If East has followed you are home. Lead a heart winner from dummy. If East ruffs you overruff and draw trumps and you are left with a winning diamond. If East discards, then so do you and you remain on the table to lead another heart, killing East's trump holding. |
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| HotD-fri : County League 6 : 18jan21 : B8 |
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It was interesting to look at the opening calls by West on this hand from Monday. There were three choices of opener - one opened 2♠ (rather specialist showing 5♠+another and 8-13 hcp) but the rest were divided between pass and opening 1♠.
Opening with a 10-count is not without dangers, but the plus factors for this choice are that it is first in hand (ie not after a passed opponent, increasing the chance that they own the hand) and that the suits are in a very convenient order to bid. The downside of passing is that you might never get a chance to bid, and in practice this only hapened at two tables, where West passed and over North's 1♣ opener, South showed spades.
What were the outcomes? There is game there for East-West and nothing for North-South to make; exactly half the field got to game (or equivalent penalty) and half didn't. All six of the Wests who opened reached game level, and only one of those who didn't managed it.
Game is not certain to make but with a sure club, diamond and spade to lose - there is no choice but for declarer to take the heart finesse, and with North bidding and showing up with a void spade the odds on its success are quite high.
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| Hotd-thu : League 6 : 18jan21 : B14 |
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This was another hand from Monday where it was open to a pair to win the hand in the bidding. It mostly came down to East's choice at this point. What would you bid?
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The winning answer was found at three tables - they bid 3N. Despite the low point count, 3N is a very respectable contract, being certain if the opponents fail to attack diamonds, and still have a decent chance if they do. In practice declarer could be induced to go off, but the ♠QJ92 proved too appealing to South and that was either the opening lead or the trick two switch.
What does a 3N bid mean in this position? With a balanced hand, many different contracts could end up as the right answer, and a 3N bid leaves no room to check that out. For this reason, we don't want to use it that way, and so organise that a 1N rebid here shows 15-17 (or 11-14 if you are playing a strong NT) and that means 2N covers 18-19 and with more than that you open 2N. So there is no need for a balanced hand to bid 3N, and it is therefore agreed by most tournament players to show a long good suit and some stoppers outside. An ideal description of this hand. It also means that West has no inclination to return to playing in hearts.
Nearly everyone else bid 3♣ at this point, and of those who did only one managed to move on to 3N.
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| HotD-wed : League 6 : 18jan21 : B20 |
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As often the slam hands produced big swings on Monday but there was only one real slam hand and it was this. The slam bid by two pairs on B22 was distinctly poor (27%) but this time the cards were lying favourably and it came home, and there was a system mis-understanding which led to the slam off two aces on B23. Back to this - it was actually a flat board in two matches, one flat in 4♥+3, and the other flat in 7♥=. What should have happened?
The auction on diaplay was a common start (6 times) equal with three passes around to South's 1♥ opener. The two exception were one player who opened 3♣ (and might well count -800 when doubled as a success) and the case where East responded freely to the 1♣ opener. How did these choices fare?
- Letting South open the bidding resulted in two opponents playing game, three playing a small slam, and one playing a grand slam.
- Opening 1♣ and passing round to South resulted in one instance of game for North-South, one small slam and four grand slams.
- Opening 1♣ and a response from East resulted in one instance of game.
Before working out if there is a message in this we need to check what contract we'd like to be in. Yes, the grand slam makes but it depends on roughly {hearts 2-2 and diamonds 3-3/4-2} or {hearts 3-1 and diamonds 3-3} and when you add this up it comes to about 52% so it is a playable contract but not good enough odds to bid a grand slam when there is a serious chance (even in Division One) that your opposition stop in game. So the contract of choice is 6♥. The best performance therefore as North-South came from the case where East-West let the other side open the bidding, and the worst performance for North-South came from the (admittedly solitary) case where both West and East bid before South had a chance.
There's the message!
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| How do you Defend? |
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Partner leads the ♠J against 3NT. You win the Ace and declarer drops the 9. How do you defend?
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Think about the bidding and play to trick 1. South's most likley shape is 3154 and his spade holding looks like KQ9. Partner will surely hold a minor suit winner else you have no chance. You should play partner for the ♥J and switch to the ♥T at trick 2. When West comes in he can then push through the ♥J and you collect 5 tricks. Some of you might return a spade at trick 2, playing partner for ♠ KJT in which case you can take 4 spades and a heart to beat the contract. Well that is a possibility I suppose. This is an area where one's lead style needs to be examined. A good method is to play that the lead of a jack denies a higher honour in the suit - and this makes the defence on this hand absolutely clear. From an interior sequence like KJT, AJT, those players lead the ten - systemically the lead of a ten against NT sows either no or 2 higher honours. This method is known as strong tens and makes it clear to partner what your holding is. The knock on effect of playing strong tens is the problem of what to lead from QT9(xx) - you can't lead the ten as you only have 1 higher honour. The solution is to lead the 9 and play that 9 leads also show zero or 2 higher cards (i.e an interior sequence). I call this strong nines. It is a method that makes it easy to identify partners exact holding. |
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| Subtle Play |
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West leads the ♥4. You duck to East's King and the ♥3 is returned. How do you plan the play?
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On the bidding, it looks like West will hold virtually all of the missing high cards, including the ♦Q. From the bidding and carding so far, you can assume that hearts break 4-4. Thus you win the ♥A, cross to a club and run the ♦T. When this holds, you play the ♦A and run the clubs. If the endgame West will be down to ♠AK ♥ QJ ♦ Qx and have no good discard on the last club. When he throws a major suit card, he is thrown in to ultimately lead a diamond round to your ♦KJ. A simple endplay you might think, but West could have thwarted you by unblocking a heart honour at trick 2 and then discarding the other heart honour in the projected endgame. This would have allowed him access to his partners hand via the heart suit. So is this really a defensive problem? - Not if you play correctly. On the first 2 rounds of hearts, you should have followed with the 5 and 7, concealing the 2. Now it will look to West that partner may have started with ♥K32 and unblocking a heart honour would merely give you a heart trick by force. Concealing the 2 is a subtle falsecard of the sort that good players make all the time. You don't necessarily have to work out exactly what might happen on a hand if you play confusing cards as declarer - just be aware that always playing your cards in a traditional fashion can make it easier for the defence to reconstruct your hand. |
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| Assess The Risks |
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West starts with the ♦K and continues with a second round to East's Ace. What are the dangers?
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You have masses of tricks on this hand but lack an important card - the Ace of trumps. This gives the defence control of that suit. Suppose you ruff the diamond and play a trump: If hearts are 4-2 which is with the odds, the defence will hold up their Ace on the first round and then be able to force you in diamonds. The solution to not being forced is to not ruff trick 2 but to discard one of your winners. The defence cannot continue diamonds as you can ruff in the short trump hand. This play carries a small risk.The defence may be able to switch to a black suit and obtain a ruff in that suit if it breaks 4-1 and the ♥A is with the long holding but I would assess this risk as much less than that of a 4-2 trump break. |
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| What Next? |
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West leads the ♣2 and dummy's Queen holds the trick. What now?
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You expect the clubs to break 4-4 from the looks of the opening lead. The red suits need to furnish 5 tricks and they can easily do this but only if you play the suits in the right order. Suppose you start on diamonds and the defence duck 2 rounds. Now if East holds the ♥A he may be able to deny you an entry to dummy to cash the diamonds. However, if you play on hearts first, the defence can never deny you a diamond entry, so you will make 3 hearts and 2 diamonds whilst the defence can only get 2 red aces and 2 clubs. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 2.1 Div3 : 11jan21 : B15 |
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This hand from Monday was a good candidate for planning but nobody managed to find the winning path. The contract needs some luck, but you can identify what that luck needs to be. It is inevitable that you lose a club, a diamond and a spade. Your missiion is to avoid losing a second spade or a heart. How should you proceed?
The defence start off with the ♣Q which you win. You play a diamond to give you an entry to dummy, and they play a second club, North following with the jack. Now is time for a plan for the remainder of the hand .....
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Let's do the trump suit first. The best play to avoid a loser is to lead small to the queen, and you will need one entry (a diamond ruff) to dummy to do that. Easy.
Now the spade suit. One option is that a spade might be discarded on the fourth round of clubs. The other is that you make two spade tricks by force; on a random layout; there's almost a 40% chance of doing that if you know the right sequence of plays. This is one to learn and remember - best is to lead the ten and run it unless covered; the next round is again led from dummy but finessing the ♠8 is your best choice now if the ten had been covered earlier. Leading small initially to the ♠8 is not far behind (losing 2%). To play the spades this way you need two entries to dummy.
That comes to three dummy entries, and you can see two diamond ruffs as candidates and the third will have to come from leading a trump to dummy at some point.
The sequence is therefore dictated by these requirement : ruff a diamond and play to the ♥Q and then cash the ♥A. Now you must test the clubs by playing the third round - that fails and you ruff the fourth club. Now comes - ruff your last diamond and play ♠T (covered by the queen and ace) and then back to dummy by a heart to the ten to lead a second spade. and the eight forces the king.
The cards are lying exaclty as you want them to be, and you wrap up 10 tricks. Neat! |
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 2.1 : 11jan21 : B10 |
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This was a tricky play hand from Monday, with only 5 out of 9 declarers successful in their 4♠ contract. The defence in all cases started off with two top hearts but the key question is what came next?
All three suits were played with four Souths switching to the ♣5, three playing the ♦5, leaving one to lead the ♦ 8 and one led a spade.
Now let's consider this from East's perspective. There are eight top tricks and two more are needed from the clubs and diamonds, and there are options in both suits. Four diamond tricks solves the problem, else you need three in one minor and two in the other (without losing two tricks).
With a diamond switch, the key point for declarer to register is how foolish it would be for South to lead from the ten or the queen in this position, and so those cards can be placed with North. The only chance to gain is to play low on the diamond switch (or cover the ♦8) and doing this generates three sure diamond tricks, which with the club finesse gets you home. Although only Anne Swannell got this right, all declarers with a ♦5 switch got home. With a club switch, it was more tricky; two declarers were tempted by the chance that South had led from ♣J and they played small - fatally as a club trick and the inevitable diamond trick defeated the contract. One declarer played the queen (the winning choice) but later continued clubs giving the defence a trick there. The fourth rose with the ♣A. All four of these declarers by giving up a club trick left themselves dependent on the ♦Q being well placed - and were off. The declarer who had the spade switch at trick three had least to go on and drew trumps and tried ♣Q and ♣A and a third club, and that was fatal.
What is the best line of play? The diamond switch tells declarer they have a diamond loser, and therefore they need the club finesse to work - so they should always succeed. The club switch does suggest that the club suit will break 4-2 and that North has a club honour (South should lead the J from any ♣KJ holding). Running the club switch round to the ten is playing for South to have given away a trick with this switch; there is no doubt that can happen but if you trust South not to be giving away tricks, there is a strong case for playing the queen on this switch and then giving up the suit. On this play you will make the contract. The spade switch gives declarer fewer clues as to how to proceed; finessing the club queen and the diamond jack are necessary steps and the key is which suit will break 3-3 and give you an extra winner if one of those finesses fails. But you cannot allow two losers - so sdiamonds is the only option..
Looks like the game should make after all.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 2.1 : 11jan21 : B1 |
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The first hand from Monday (in three Division) was this, and it was a very tricky hand to bid, with only two pairs out of nine reaching a comfortable contract.
Of the Easts who had the problem, six of them chose to open 2♣ on this hand while two opened 1♠. After the 1♠ bid, the problem passed to West who in both cases was constrained by the fact that a 2♣ response was game forcing. Both Wests chose that auction but their paths diverged over East's 2♥ response. One jumped to 5♣ while the other bid 3♣ (and then 4♣ and then 5♣). In both cases East proceeded to bid the slam in clubs. This was playable (needs Kx or Jx in clubs for one defender, and a winning guess by declarer) but on this layout was doomed.
Over the 2♣ openers, West was pleased to be able to reply with a positive 3♣ ad to rebid that suit over 3♠. All but one of the Easts bid 4♥ (the other a less ambiguous 4♠ avoiding the concern that 4♥ might be a cue agreeing clubs). What should West do now? Two chose 6♣ , two chose 4N ace asking, one chose a 5♦ cue bid - but only Dan McIntosh found the winning answer of giving partner preference to 4♠. This last one was the only plus score from the 2♣ openers.
So how should this hand be bid? The first question is show high can East force the bidding; try this approach - if partner would pass 1♠, say averaging 2335 3-count, how will East fare? If spades break evenly, and they lead a diamond setting up the KQ, then that is nine tricks - so as well as all that luck partner must have something else to contribute. By no means a certain game and partner could have something less or less well fitting. That makes a decent case for opening 1♠, but it's hard to argue with either opening bid - so let's work out what should have happened after that.
The start after a 2♣ opener has to be 3♣ - 3♠ - 4♣ and it is hard to reists 4♥ at this point (although who offers a new trump suit at the 4-level?). Over 4♥, there is a good case now for the winning choice; the warning bells are there - this sequence could easily find opener with 6-6/6-5 in the majors, but it is hard to give up with two aces. The 5♦ cue is appealing (but not if partner leaps to 7N in response, as happend at table 8) and is less ambiguous if opener had rebid 4♠. Still if West's ♣Q was the ♥Q then 6♠ is the contract you would want to be in. So slam is hard to resist.
After a 1♠ opener there is a better chance of avoiding the slam. West does start with 2♣ game forcing, but the choice of 5♣ on the next round sends a very definite message. It tells of long clubs (8 or 9) and specifically rules out 3N as an option. This must say something about the quality of the club suit. A solid suit, or a one loser suit with an outside entry really ought to bid differently to allow for 3N. There must be a good case for passing 5♣ despite the enormous extra strength East holds. This might be the best chance of stopping in game.
But there was a second table which stopped in game on this hand; this happened after North opened the bidding instead, with a weak two in ♦. There is a flaw in the hand (holding a decent heart sut) but otherwise it does look like a good candidate for an obstructive bid; here the effect was unlucky, as now East could show a atrong hand but not as clearly as with a 2♣ opener, and they came to rest in 5♠. It is quite uncommon for the more active bidders to suffer this way.
The bid question from all this is - will any of us change the way we would bid the same hand if it came up tomorrow?
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| Play This Slam |
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West leads the ♦J. How do you play?
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| Show Answer |
Assuming you have a spade loser — a reasonable assumption because you do unless West has king–jack doubleton — you need the heart finesse to work. There is no need to risk playing three rounds of clubs just yet as the clubs might be 6-2. Win the ♦A and run the ♥8. Assuming the finesse works, repeat the finesse and draw trumps whether they are 2–2 or 3–1.If hearts are 4–0, draw four rounds of trumps, discard a diamond on the third club, and play the ♠A. If no honour falls, guess whether to play for Kx or Jx in the suit. If trumps are a more civilized 2–2 or 3–1, draw the outstanding trumps, and play three rounds of clubs, discarding a diamond. Then ruff a diamond and lead a low spade to the queen. If the queen holds, lead a low spade to the 10 guarding against K–J–x–x with West. Once the queen wins, you are home. If the ♠Q loses to a singleton king, East has no safe exit. After East surrenders a ruff and discard, ruff in your hand, discard a spade from dummy, and run the ♠10. If East started with the ♠K and the ♠J (any) length, then bad luck. |
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| Logical Defence |
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Partner leads the ♣J to your Ace and declarer's King. How do you defend?
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You know South still has the ♣Q from partner's opening lead. Dummy’s diamond spots are pretty good and South should have no trouble setting up a diamond or two for spade discards, so you’d better get after your spade trick.
You shift to the king of spades, which declarer allows to hold the trick. There is danger now that the ace of spades and a spade ruff will set up the spades for diamond discards. Now it is time to get after your diamond trick, if you have one. Partner will need to hold the queen of diamonds plus a trump trick, but if he doesn’t have those things, you are not beating this contract. You must shift to a diamond – and your good work is done. You have played a different suit at every turn – not always a good idea for the defence – but it was all suggested by logic. You are rewarded when partner has exactly what is needed. |
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| Use Your Imagination |
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West leads the ♥T and you win the King and Ace, partner contibuting the 9 whilst South plays the 2 and Knave. How do you see the defence?
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Two tricks in the bag and the Ace of trumps still to come but beyond that prospects are bleak. South surely has ♠ KQxxx and there can be minor suit tricks for your side. One possibility is that South has falsecarded in hearts and that partner has a doubleton. Then all you need is for partner to have a spade higher than the 8. You lead a third heart but both South and West follow. South ruffs his winning heart in dummy and leads a trump. This is your last chance. Although you know partner will be out of trumps after this trick, South doesn't have that information. Rise with the Ace of trumps and lead another heart. On a good day declarer will ruff high and lay down his remaining top trump, hoping the Knave will fall. You will then have conjured up a second trump trick from thin air. |
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| How's Your Luck? |
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West leads the ♥J, covered by Q,K,A. You lead the ♠K and East shows out. Can you find a way to bring home this contract?
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You will need a big slice of luck to make this contract. After the ♠K, cash the ♦K and finesse the diamond. If this holds, you can discard a club on the ♦A and play King, Ace and a third club ruffing. If clubs are 3-3 you enter dummy with the ♠A and discard your losing heart on the last club. Not great odds but perhaps your good fortune in the minors offsets your bad luck with the trump break. |
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| HotD-fri : Monday Swiss Teams 2.1 : 4jan21 : B1 |
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A lot of North-South pairs collected an unnecessary minus score on this hand from Monday by an inappropriate pre-empt. It's all about the opening bid on this hand.
What the biggest cuplrits did - and there were five of them - was to open 3♦ on the hand. It won't always hit an unfavourable distribution like this but there are multiple reasons why a pre-empt is not the right choice on these cards
- The hand is a positively contructive one, rather than being obstructive. if you hit a diamond fit, the losing trick count could call it a 6-loser hand - better than many opening bids!
- The hand has good defence to any opponent's contract, with three possible defensive tricks.
- The hand is playiable in hearts and clubs as well as diamonds.
The next most common opening bid on the hand was 2♦; this worked out a bit better - all four Souths now bid 2♠ and the two who were allowed to play there got a plus score, but most people play 2♠ here as forcing and North was reluctant to pass and so moved on to a minus score.
The third most common opening bid was pass - and the twice that occurred there was no probem with South playing the hand in 2♠.
The final table saw North open 1♦ and take fright later in the auction and pass partner's forcing 3♣ bid.
What will we all do next time we are presented with this North hand?
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| HotD-thu : Monday Swiss Teams 2.1 : 4jan21 : B6 |
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The South hand here was the "big hand" from Monday's game. Holding 27-hcp only happens about one hand in every 20000 hands, which means playing 4 sessions a weak of 25 hands would give you one of these every four years. It would be no surprise that many were not prepared for this - but still a number did cope.
There were six tables who opened 2♣ and rebid 3N which did show what they had and one which opened 3N to show this hand; this left no space to explore and when the robot pair tried to explore (the others all passed) they found themselves propelled into 6♥ which could not make. There were two tables which improved on that, allowing South to rebid 2N with GF-balanced, and over that North was able to transfer into hearts and then show spades. Both Souths here felt that had a little to spare (did they?) and showed this by jumping to 4N. One North (having actually shown 4-7 hcp already) passed this natural bid, while the other - unsure as to what was going on - gave a Blackwood response and that led to 6N (a playable but doomed contract, given to declarer on a play that should have been avoided).
There was one odd table where West - despite the vulnerability and the poor quality of the suit - decided to intervene at the three level, offering 800 to the other side. Gallant as always, NS refused but they were in unexplored territiry and they stumbled into 6♣ after that (making).
Two tables found an innovative and winning answer to South's dilemma. Having a hand they felt too good for any NT bid, even after starting with 2♣, what they did was rebid 3♣. They immediately found the only fit and were soon in the best slam, and duly collected +920.
How should one handle these hands? The tables which started with a forcing 2N rebid were clearly in the best space, and that gave North time to explore for a fit in either major. With partner showing 45xx shape what should South be doing? Despite the high cards in South, it is far from clear whether any game will make opposite a really weak North hand. There is likely to be much more flexibility playing in hearts than NT, which makes that the natural choice. Neiother South with the option went for that. :( Unfortunately hearts is not where you want to be - playing in clubs on thsi layout is significantly better (as the fourth spade might take care of the third round of hearts).
Can we get to clubs on this hand? Suppose we go through the motions described above and after North has shown two suits, South bids 4♥. On the basis of exactly that North hand and assuming that South holds 24+ balanced with three hearts, a selection of 20 random hands (only 3 with as many as 26 hcp) showed up the following - 6 cases with two cashable winners for the defence (so no slam), 8 hands where slam was an easy make (seven in hearts, one in clubs), and 6 hands where slam is around the 40% space. Across the 14 slam hands, there were only three where clubs was preferrable to hearts. From another perspective, North might have a much less appealing hand - so it is clear to make a further move. What should that move be? Sorry - no easy answer. A natural bid of 5♣ would be ideal, but this is unexplored territory for most partnerships.
What are the lessons from this? The first is that auctions which go blah-blah-3N are genrally uncomfortable, and better avoided; playing a system which allows a GF 2N bid is much better (as exemplified by the auction at table 11). The second is that a shapely 4-count is a powerful hand opposite a very strong balanced partner, even when that partner might be weaker than the hand held here. Slams need to be explored, even if you cannot be sure that a slam is there.
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| HotD-wed : Monday Swiss teams 2.1 : 4jan20 : B2 |
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This hand from Monday was played in 4♥ seven times, and only three declarers made their contract. One table had the auction shown; the lead was a top club and at trick two East switched to the ♦7. North knew from the bidding that East would only have a doubleton diamond, so he put up the queen, forcing East to take the ace. After that, there was the ♠A to lose and the contract made in comfort.
When the game went off, the play started with a top club and then a diamond switch. In these four cases declarer played a low diamond from dummy and the ♦9 forced the king; when East later got in with the ♠A they could play a second diamond and that was four tricks for the defence.
You might think that it all came down to fact that West bid diamonds at the first table, and indeed it was staightforward there - but could the other Norths have worked out the winning play? The big uncertainity declarer needs to consider is who has the ♦A? Playing low from dummy is the winning choice if East has the ace or if West has a doubleton ace. Two things come into play in deciding; the first is West's signal at trick one and the second is how much you trust East as a defender.
With a singleton in dummy in a suit contract, most players have agreed that neither attitude nor count is very important, and the card played by third hand is suit preference. In practice, at all four of the tables concerned, West played the ♣3 at trick one. This was a strong sign that West held something in diamonds. The other question is how would East have defended holding the ace. Even without a signal a diamond switch is not unlikely, but that switch could come from a varity of holdings. Is there any ace-high holding where East would lead the seven? The only candidates are ♦AT7 and ♦A97 as with ♦AT97 the lead would be the ten, and with ♦AJ97 the lead would be the jack. But even with ♦A97, leading the ace might matter if partner has ♦KT842 (to avoid declarer scoring with a doubleton jack). Or is could be a non-ssytemic lead from say ♦A72. When we add these factors up, the odds strongly favour it being a lead from ♦74 or ♦72.
So do we tink the contract should always have made?
It was actually rather trickier that suggested at two tables; it was curious at these to see East lead the ♦2 rather than the ♦7 at trick two. This could well confuse partner (if a 1♣ opener, West might diagnose a singleton diamond and rise with the ace) but in practice it encouraged declarer to releax, fatally.
[The other tables which made 4♥ both had a top club lead; one had a heart switch at trick two and the other had a second round of clubs. Neither troubled declarer.]
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| Monster Hand |
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West leads the ♠Q. Plan the play.
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Don’t try to make this one more complicated than it is. Ruff the opening lead, ruff a low club, ruff a spade, ruff a second club, cash 2 top diamonds throwing clubs, and ruff a third spade with the 9 (this ruff should be safe as East would surely have bid over 1♦ if he held ♠ AKxxxx. Now draw trumps and claim. This line handles a 4-0 heart break and merely requires the minors to be no worse than 5-2 (if ♣Q drops you dont bother with the diamonds. Starting with one high club can be fatal if a third round of clubs is ruffed with the ♥10 by a defender holding two low clubs. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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Partner leads the ♣6 to the King and your Ace, declarer following. How do you proceed?
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You can tell from the lead that partner has no more clubs since the only missing club is higher than the 6 and partner would not have led low from a doubleton. Hence you have a club ruff coming. However, this by itself will not defeat the contract unless you can take 2 further tricks and it is difficult to see how that can happen. If West held ♦AK he would surely have led one of them to begin with. Declarer most likely holds the ♠A and therefore your best chance is that West has the ♦A, Switch to the ♦Q at trick 2. If it holds, now is the time to give partner his ruff. If declarer covers the diamond, you get back in with the Knave for the club ruff. A simple case of thinking ahead. |
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| Every Little Helps |
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What are your chances in 7NT on the ♠K lead?
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You have 12 tricks and the thirteenth could could come from a 3-3 diamond break. More experienced players will also see that if West holds 4 diamonds along with his known ♠Q, then he will be squeezed by running the clubs and then the hearts. The last heart will leave him with no good discard. That is not the full story however. You do have a tiny extra chance - that the ♦JT are doubleton. You need to be careful to take advantage of this possibility before pursuing the line mentioned above, else you will not be able to take advantage. Your first move should be to play off the ♦AK. When JT drop, you can take your 13 winners. If you run your clubs and hearts first, there is no squueze and East defeats you by keeping his 4 small diamonds. |
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| Just a Little Thought |
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West leads the ♣J. How do you play?
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You could take the spade finesse, but if it loses and a heart comes through, then 3 rounds of hearts gives you a problem. You have to ruff the third round in dummy but how high? If East started with 3 decent trumps, they will beat you with a trump promotion. An alternative line might be to cross to dummy and cash 2 clubs, throwing hearts. If that passes off without West ruffing, then you might well scramble home, losing a trump, a heart and a diamond. It is a messy way to play however, and risks running into club and diamond ruffs. The best line is to eschew the spade finesse and play a spade to the Ace at trick 2, followed by a low spade from dummy. Now if East rises with the King to play a heart, there is no trump promotion and you can just ruff the third heart high. |
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| HotD-fri : Christmas Pairs : 28dec20 : B23 |
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Today's hand from Monday was a battle between declarer and defence, with 18 pairs playing in the normal 4♥ game (and two in 5♥ when South got too excited - balanced 18 opposite less than an opener does not make slam). That left three pairs playing in 3N and one who stopped in a part-score.
Against 4♥ what should West lead? The danger of leading out aces is evident on this hand; either ace being led gives declarer an extra trick, so all but one avoided that, settling for leading the doubleton club. This is useful for the defence as the threat of a ruff will push declarer to draw trumps, but if declarer draws four trumps then the extra trick a trump suit usually delivers will vanish. Declarer should try the ♣7 at trick one but that gets covered and the king wins (if the queen is well placed, the jack can be finessed later). Looking to ruff a spade, declarer can count on one spade trick, five hearts, one diamond and two clubs - so it needs only one more trick. This can come from finding the ♦A onside to get two tricks on that suit, or from developing an extra club trick.
The natural sequence of plays is to win the ♣K, play to the ♥Q and then to the ♥K - at which point the bad trump break emerges. Declarer must now pay attention to getting a spade ruff, and play a spade to the queen and duck the next round. This leaves East on lead. It would be normal for East now to play a diamond and when the king loses to the ace, declarer knows they only have one diamond trick. Whatever gets returned now (except a small spade to the king) declarer has to resort to the club finesse and when that fails the contract is one down.
But in practice six declarers succeeded; how did that happen? One table saw the ♠A rise when declarer led towards the queen; this gave declarer two spade tricks, and a diamond could be discarded on the ♠K and a diamond was ruffed. At another the ♠A was used on the ♠Q but that West now cashed the ♦A giving declarer an extra trick in that suit. At two tables West got to beat the ♦K with the ace but promptly played the ♠A, giving declarer an extra trick in that suit. The commn theme on these was rushing to cash aces; the restraint was there at trick one, and it should be easier to be restrained later as if there was a way it might vanish, declarer should already have taken that option.
At another table East discarded carelessly and in the endgame after the club finesse lost they had to play back into dummy's ♣A8 to give declarer a discard for their losing diamond. And the final table making 4♥ East pulled out the ♣Q by mistake on the first round, gifting a trick there.
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| HotD-thu : Christmas Pairs : 28dec20 : B3 |
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This hand had more potential than any others for swings in Monday's game, with both sides able to make game. The direction in which the hand moved depended a lot on the bdding choices made by South.
One choice was to open 1♥ and this is the option which traditional bridge teaching suggests. One table which started this way proceeded 1♥ - 1♠ - 2♥ - end (with EW silent). This went down, which was poor in comparison to the table which started 1♥ - 1♠ - 2♠ which then got to the spade game. This start to the auction was also the path to the East-West game at one table, where it went 1♥ - P - 1♠ - 2♣ - 2♠ - 5♣. That's three different denominations from the same start.
The other regular choice as an opening bid from South was 1N; this is very much the preferred approach today, which treats any 5332-shaped hand as balanced. When North hears that opening bid the path is very clear - the target is 4♠ and the sooner it is bid the better. It's not very many HCP in the North hand but a 6-6 shape makes it worth trying to make game and with a known 8+ fit in spades, that has to be the best choice. Where North took it slowly by transferring into spades, it gave East the chance to double the transfer to show hearts. The best East-West result came after this start - East doubled 2♥, West showed their clubs and East was able to raise to game. That scored +600 for EW.
The par result (both sides bidding optimally) on this hand is North-South sacrificing in 5♦ or 5♠ over the opponents 5♣ game, and losing 100 points (when doubled). The closest to this was 5♠ undoubled. The par result on this hand would score about 20% for NS and 80% for EW which reflects the fact that achieving the optimal result happened on this hand to be much more difficult for East-West.
What would be the recommended auction on this hand? Opening 1N as South seems a clear choice as it does so much to describe the hand. Over this North can bid 4♠ on the logic exposed above. Can East now bid? It's hard to say yes or no here. North could very easily be stealing the hand, so there is a good case for a takeout double. This would lead to West bidding 5♣ (the making game), but North would see the danger of that making and offer 5♦ as a sacrifice to partner. When East now doubles, the par result is achieved. Wow!
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| HotD-wed : Christmas Pairs : 28dec20 : B10 |
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There were four hands on Monday where slams could be made - three for North-South (this and B6 and B12) and one for East-West (B18). Although they could make the others were not as sound propositions as this one was; board 6 depends on diamonds not 4-0 plus a spade finesse (decent odds but a tiny bit odds against) and the other two were rather more fortunate makes. Only three pairs (from 72 chances) bids slams on those other boards.
As well as being the best slam this one was the slam most often bid. But even then it was only bid at 5/24 tables, which isn't very many. There was one bidding sequence to 6♠ which happened twice and which has a lot to commend it. It is illustrated here, and there are a couple of interesting points to note
- North is showing some positive values by raising the bidding level with a 2♥ bid.
- Over this positive bid, South knows that 3♠ is forcing and can bid this to hear more from partner.
The combination of these means that South knows of values and spade support from the 4♠ bid, and can now proceed to check on aces before bidding the slam. Well done to the Martels and to Ferguson & Jarman for producing these sequences.
But bidding it was only part of the story. The slam is a Good Slam, with 12 top tricks provided the spades break 2-1 (as then you can unblock the ♥K and cross to the ♠9 to cash three hearts in dummy) and when they don't you need a favourable position in diamonds to cocmpensate. Today the slam is actually doomed, except that - as so often - the defenders come to the rescue. Here, and with some justification, three Wests started off with the ♦A at trick one, and that meant declarer could survive the bad spade break and make the slam.
Bidding slams pays!
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| Make This Slam |
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How do you play in 6♥ on ♠2 lead, East contributing the 9?
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Your first move should be to take the diamond finesse. Your future play depends upon what happens. If the finesse loses, you are reduced to the heart finesse, the percentage play in the suit to make the contract. If the diamond finesse wins, cash the ♦A and if the king does not drop and both follow, discard the ♦Q on the ♠K and ruff a diamond. There is no chance you will be overruffed because West still has the ♦K. Next, lead the ♥J to the ace. If both follow low, ruff the ♠J, and with spades and diamonds both stripped, exit a heart and claim. Whoever wins has to lead a club or concede a ruff and discard. If one opponent holds ♥Kxx of hearts, drive out the ♥K, win the major-suit return, and try to get as much of a count on the hand as you can (reducing to three clubs in both your hand and dummy) to determine who started with longer clubs and play that hand for the Queen. Unless something dramatic has happened in spades, chances are the hand that was void in hearts started with the longer club holding. If East ruffs the ♦A, a black suit return eliminates the club guess. If he ruffed from ♥Kx, then unless he returns a heart, you are just on viewing the trumps, probably playing East to not have started with 2 singletons. If he ruffed from ♥xx he will certainly exit with a heart, reducing you to pitching the ♦Q on the ♠K and playing East for the ♣Q (he would have three red cards, presumably five or six spades, and therefore four or five clubs, compared to West’s seven red cards, three or four spades and two or three clubs). Notice that after the diamond finesse wins, you do not have the wherewithal to cash the ♥A before stripping spades and diamonds. You are short of a quick dummy entry (the ♥A) to pull this off. |
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| A Routine Part-Score |
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West leads the ♥5, East contributing the 8 under dummy's 9. How do you get to 7 tricks?
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Making 4 club tricks will see you home but the obvious danger is that the defence will hold up the ♣A until the third round and you will need a side entry to dummy to cash your winners. This entry can only possibly come from the heart suit. However, an alert defender will deny you a heart entry by ducking your King or by rising with the Ace if you lead a low card from hand. The solution is very simple - play the ♥K at trick 1 and later you cannot be denied a heart entry to dummy. The rule of eleven tells you that East has only one card higher than the five and you have seen that card when he plays the ♥8. Don't take your eye off the ball at trick one. |
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| You Can Always Ask |
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West leads the ♠J against your game. How do you play?
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You have 9 obvious tricks and can look to spades to provide a tenth. It looks tempting to finesse the Queen at trick one but first you should check the defensive carding methods. If you are told that the Jack denies a higher honour, you have a strong indication that the finesse will fail. Best is to rise with the Ace at trick one and draw trumps before leading a spade towards dummy. If West has led from KJTxxx (he isn't barred from playing a misleading card at trick one) he will most likely rise with the King, pleased that his subterfuge at trick one seems to have worked. Now your Queen will be good for a diamond discard. If West plays low on the second spade, you intend to duck and play East for ♠Kx to again establish the ♠Q as your tenth trick. A simple play but the moral is that when opponents opening lead is a J,T or 9, it is important to know what the lead can be from on their methods. You can always ask!
[And sometimes West will have opened on a seven card spade suit and you might drop a singleton king] |
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| HotD-sat : League 5 : 21dec20 : B2.8 |
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This was the most interesting hand from the second half of the match on Monday, and there were two bidding decisions worth discussing.
The first was the opening bid by West whio held enough HCP for a "normal" opener, and a good suit, even the boss suit so that you will not be easily outbid. It was a surprised to find that only 2/12 Wests chose to open this with 4♠, the remainder starting with a quiet 1♠ bid. In practice the two results at the tables of the two 4♠ openers were both towards the extreme, the case of the mis-interprettion of the 4N overcall resulting in the largest penalty seen yet in the league this year. So these results here do not tell us much; what better measures the effectiveness of the bid is the comfort level of North after hearing 4♠; over a 1♠ opener North has space to describe their hand, and room to hear from partner. After a 4♠ opener that have not, and both Norths chose to gamble with a 4N bid without any certainty as to which side owned the hand. They landed in a sensible spot but more will lack a 10-card trump fit. The 4♠ bid has a lot to commend it.
The other auctions all started with 1♠ and the next decision was up to North. There are two schools of thought on 5530 hands - some people treating them as two suiters and some as three suiters. The advantage of showing a 2-suiter (here by bidding 2♠) is that a partner with say ♠987 ♥K98 ♦AT86 ♣A75 will get excited over a Michaels Cue but less so over a takeout double. The advantage is showing a 3-suiter is that partner might turn up with something like ♠987 ♥K9 ♦AT8632 ♣A7 and now your chances of making 6♦ are better than those of making game in a rounded suit. In the event, the choices came down as 7/10 for showing a 2-suiter, and 3/10 for showing a 3-suiter. Because partner gets enthused with a big heart fit in either case means that either choice worked this time. Next time - who knows?
Where do we want to get to on this hand? If you look at just the EW hands, then you will make 6♠ most times that the diamond finesse works, while they will make 5♥ most times that the diamond finesse loses. This says that for sure you want to play the hand (in spades). If we just look at the NS hands, we expect to make 5♥ most times the diamond ace is lying with West, and to average about three tricks when defending a spade contract. This justifies bidding up to 5♥ but no more. How many tables matches these expectations? The majority of NS pairs (7 out of 12) bid up to 5♥ while only 4 EW pairs bid as far as 5♠ (one voluntarily, three over 5♥). The common advice "if in doubt bid one more" might well have led to a better result at many tables.
A quick look at the Law of Total Tricks, in vainalla form, suggests 20 total tricks and here it turns out to be 10 tricks in hearts and 12 tricks in spades. Why? The extreme shape of the West hand drive that difference (and the fact that the diamond length in West fitted diamond strength in East).
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| Counting in Defence |
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You lead the ♦5 to partners Queen and declarer's Ace. South plays a low club from hand at trick 2. Where are the defensive tricks coming from?
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You should already have a count of South's hand. In the bidding he showed 64 in the majors. You know he has the ♦J else partner would have played this card at trick 1. Hence declarer has a singleton club. You have 3 tricks in your hand and you must do two things. The first is to make sure you do't lose any of your three tricks and the second is to hope that partner has a heart winner. Rise with the ♣A, cash a diamond and then hope. If you play low at trick 2, hoping that South has a club guess, you risk letting declarer make an impossible game. |
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| HotD-thu : League 5 : 21dec20 : B6 |
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This was a very respectable slam bid at six tables on Monday (there was also one table in 6♠ which was not a good choice). All six players in 6♥ went down, and it is worth looking at how and whether they might have done better.
Three tables received a club lead, two had the ♠J, and one had the lead of two rounds of hearts. There is clearly only one top loser, so we need to count winners to make a plan. The default expectation from the heart suit is three winners plus a ruff for four tricks, to which we can add six outside top tricks. The best source for tricks is the spade suit and one or two spades ruffed will usually set up two long tricks there and make the slam comfortable. Five of the six tables in slam were happy with this approach - one preferred to go after diamonds as a first choice. What happened next?
Two of them had received the ♠9 lead and won the ace and took a ruff with the ♥2. This was a bit lazy as a higher heart could be spared and they were dead when that was over-ruffed with the ♥4 and they were one off. Cue stories about sending a boy to do a man's work! A third table took the ♠A and tried (unnecessarily?) to cash the king immediately and that got ruffed - and again they were doomed.
The table whiich started with two rounds of hearts was in a better space, but they won the ♥K and cashed only one spade before taking a spade ruff. They won that trick, and had discovered that the spades we not going to work out - but they had used up an entry to the diamond hand in the process and that stopped them taking two diamond ruffs and still drawing trumps. Unlucky but perhaps a little careless - the second top spade might have been ruffed but if that was happening the contract was never making anyway.
The fifth table had the best chance. Here Peter Shelley won the club lead and played a trump at trick two to the ♥K (fair as he can afford two rounds of hearts being played) and then played ♠A and ruffed a small one. All South could do now was over-ruff with the ♥A and play a second club. He continued correctly with ♦A and ♦Q which held. There were five trumps left between the two hands, to go with the ♥K, two top spades, two diamond tricks and two club tricks. He needed either five trump tricks or a minor suit trick and four trumps. He went for the ♣K and when that got ruffed he was off. Could he tell? North was known to have five spades, three hearts and had shown up with two in each minor. It was all down to whether that thirteenth card was a club or a diamond. It's always hard to tell, but - because they cannot tell whether or not it will matter later - the defenders are often honest in the count signals they give in situations like this. If you are willing to trust that, then the ♣8 then the ♣2 might well have been an indicator (and you can add to that South is more likely to lead a sixth best than a fifth best club at trick one).
The analysis suggests that every declarer might have done better. What does this tell us? Maybe the reason we don't bid enough slams is that we are not making the ones that we do bid and should make?
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| HotD-wed : League 5 : 21dec20 : b4 |
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This was the first interesting game hand from Monday, with ten out of the twelve teams playing in 3N and only two succeeding. The crucial question was the opening lead from North, after West had shown hearts and a balanced hand. What should be the thought process at this point?
The two strongest rationales in choosing an opening lead are (a) setting up tricks for your side, and (b) not giving declarer tricks they do not deserve. The balance between the two depends on your assessment of whether or not declarer is about to have an easy time, or is going to be struggling. The answer to this is sometimes clear from the bidding, but here with East forcing to game opposite an opening bid, there isn't any certainty as to how many HCP each side has. The other piece of information you have is about the suits which have been bid. You know declarer has hearts and you know these do not split well for declarer. You might (some auctions were 1N-2♣-2♥-3N) know that dummy has spades and - because they have not chosen to play there - partner has four spades too. This "bad news" for declarer gives you a tendency towards being cautious in the opening lead department.
With a holding of ♦KQ64 there is always uncertainty about which to lead. It all depends whether or not one of declarer or dummy has four in the suit. If that is the case, leading high can harm your chances. [Sometimes when faced with such a dilemma the best answer is to lead another suit] There is no certainty on any hand - so let's look at what happened here on the lead of the ♦4. This happened four times, and on one occasion declarer was asleep at the wheel and played small from dummy, but the others were awake enough to put up the jack and win trick one in dummy. This gave declarer seven top tricks, needing two more to make the game. Clearly the best source of two more tricks is spades, and crossing to the tpo heart to run the spade queen seems to be clearly indicated. Yet it was only one - Judy Sanis - of the three declarers who managed to do this. The other two started playing clubs and tried to go down (although only one of them was given the contract back later).
On a top diamond, or any other suit lead, the contract was doomed as South had an easy play of diamonds as soon as they gained the lead.
This does look like a case where caution rather than attack was the right answer.
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| Careful Play Needed |
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West leads the ♣K. Can you see any dangers on this hand?
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You have 6 trumps and a trick in each black suit. Diamonds are sure to produce 2 tricks and probably more, so the contract looks easy. Now is the time to play carefully. Win the lead and draw trumps. Then run the ♦T. Let's say this loses to the Knave and a spade is returned. The critical point of the hand has been reached. If you play low from hand and win the King as West ducks, you can return to hand with a club ruff to repeat the diamond finesse. However, if this loses and a spade is returned, you lose 2 spades and 2 diamonds. When the first spade comes through, you must rise with the Queen. This limits the defence to one spade trick if the second diamond finesse fails, as you have severed the link between the defensive hands. |
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| All is not Lost |
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West showed 5-5 in the majors with his 2♦ bid. He leads the ♣K. You win the Ace and lead a diamond towards dummy on which West throws a heart. Now what?
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If you can make 6 diamond tricks, you could get home with 2 clubs, a heart and 3 spades. East's 5 card trump holding seems to make that difficult, but you can succeed provided West holds the ♠Jxxxx. Win the ♦A and finesse a diamond. Now cash the ♦K and play Ace and another spade, inserting dummy's ten. If this holds, you are home. Continue with a top spade. If East ruffs, you overruff, draw trumps and just lose a club. Hence East must discard on the 2 spades from dummy. Say he discards 2 hearts and you do likewise. Now comes dummy's ♥A and East has the same dilemma. Ruffing is no good so he discards a club and you do the same. Now you ruff and heart and exit with a club. You sit with ♦QT as you last 2 cards and must score them both. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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South's 2♠ bid is described as intermediate. You lead the ♥A on which partner plays the 4 (high0low for even/encurage) and declarer the 9. How do you see the defence developing?
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The first thing to appreciate is that you have a second heart trick. The missing hearts are the 6 and the 2 and partner wouldn't have played the 4 from an original ♥642 holding. Partner could well have a singleton heart and prospects in the minors don't look great so you should cash a second heart, hoping partner shows out. When he turns up with a doubleton, the best hope is for a second trump trick. Continue with a third heart for East to ruff. If he can ruff with the ♠7 or higher, then you have promoted your ♠9 to a second trump winner. |
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| Draw Trumps |
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West leads the ♣8. If you avoid a trump loser, you are home, so how do you set about drawing trumps?
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The only danger is that trumps are 3–0 , so how do you start the suit with nothing to indicate who might hold 3 trumps? There is a subtle reason to start with the ♥A. Suppose West shows out. You still have a chance to make. If spades are 3–3, you will be fine. Play the top spades, ruff the third round and then throw a diamond on the fourth round as the opponents get their Queen. The extra chance comes if spades are 4–2. If you lay down the ♥A and find RHO with ♥Qxx and a doubleton spade, you can still make your contract. Play the top spades ending in dummy, and then play a third spade. If RHO ruffs with his natural trump trick, you throw your losing diamond. If he declines to ruff, you ruff and go back to dummy’s ♥K and play a fourth spade. Again, if East ruffs, you throw your diamond. If he discards again, you ruff, ruff a club and play the fifth spade (now good) to throw your diamond loser. This won't work if you start with the ♥K because if LHO has ♥Qxx, you can’t benefit from 4–2 spades the wrong way. You have to ruff the third spade and LHO will overruff and cash a diamond winner. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 7 : 14dec20 : B16 |
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There were two part-scores (reasonably) and one odd ball choice (of 4♥) on this hand from Monday, but the vast majority played in 3N as North on an auction very like that which is shown. There were two instances of unprovoked club leads from East (why lead your weaker suit when it's also the suit the opponents are more likely to hide in the bidding?) and it was curious to see that - when the lead offered declarer four tricks in the suit, both declarers refused the free gift and played the ♣J at trick one, limiting themselves ot three tricks. They did however pick up the message that the clubs were not breaking 3-3, and so went after diamonds and made their contract eventually. So a club lead did in fact cost.
The more common, and more demanding lead, was a spade by East. North won the king either immediately or just aftter and could then start counting tricks. Clearly exactly five tricks in the majors, so a successful 3N needs four tricks in the minors. One option is four tricks in clubs and since it is very difficult not to lose two tricks in diamonds (creating a minimum of 5 defensive tricks), everybody went for clubs. It was curious to see that of all the declarers with a spade lead, only Peter Swales found the best play in the club suit - he started with small to the jack, which would net him four tricks if West had ♣T9, while all other declarers started with the ace, which would gain instead on a singleton offiside ♣Q (both less likely a priori, and more so given no club lead or discard from East). Today it made no difference, and on either route the queen shows up as onside and the key decision now comes.
With eight tricks in the bag, and the spades lookine to be splitting 4-4 (clearly for some, rather less so for others) declarer has a choice. if the clubs are 3-3 then cashing the king makes the contract, while if they are not cashing the king sets up the fifth trick for the defence. Is there an easy answer?
Not really. The key information you have gained in cashing the hearts is the discard from East of the ♦6 and then the ♦9. Absent anything else, once the clubs are not 5-1 and East has at least three clubs the odds favour a 3-3 break. The fact that the hearts break with East a doubleton swings things, but swings it to making a 3-3 break and a (losing) 4-2 break identical odds. Any more hints? Answers please on a postcard. None were found at the table, and everyone cashed the ♣K to go one down, where running the ♦J would have made the contract.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 7 : 14dec20 : B4 |
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There were only three pairs played in 4♥ on this hand from Monday but it illustrates well the importance of counting your tricks and the evidence is that none of the three did that.
The spade lead was the most common (and least helpful). How should declarer proceed? There are two basic options in any suit contract, either draw trumps and develop winners, or you aim for a cross-ruff - and that could be ruffing some winners and then cashing out or cashing some winners and then cross-ruffing. What are the options here? In terms of high cards, there is not a lot of prospect of side suit winners apart from ♠A, ♦K and ♣A. If that is the total then 7 trump tricks are needed. Is that possible? If we win ♥ A and two ruffs in East, that means four trumps in West. That would be one heart under the ace (surely they'll lead trumps when they can), and making all the remaining four trumps in West - ruffing diamonds and spades.
Are there any alternatives? We clearly cannot draw trumps unless a side suit can be set up - drawing trumps would generate four trump tricks, and we would have to find ourselves four spades tricks and two outside (or four club tricks and two outside). This would need spades 3-3 and trump behaving - but are there entries? If North plays a trump honour at any point the ace needs to win, and now there might be no entry to dummy.
So there seems to be only one line available - ruff a spade and play a diamond. The ace goes up and now you win the ♥A, ruff a diamond, ♣A and a ruff, diamond ruff, club ruff, spade - and at this point West has only the ♥Q left - but it is good enough as long as South holds the king - the spade break doesns't matter.
None of the declarers managed this line :( One did succeed however when the opposition failed to playa trump when they got on lead. Is this such a difficult game?
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 7 : 14dec20 : B1 |
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There were a few interesting points arose on this hand on Monday. One key issue was the choice of bid by South at this point, and what was key was the space left to West to show diamond support. Some players chose 3♥ at this point, and this left West few choices and the only way of showing primary support for partner was to bid 4♦ and it was a close choice then from East, with a pass being the winner here. It was quite different when South chose to bid only 2♥. This led to a different outcome as West could bid 3♥ to describe this hand and now East was able to bid 3N. This is clearly a viable (maybe uncertain) contract and much preferred to 4♦. This re-iterates a common theme - taking away bidding space does make life more difficut for the opponents - so well done the 3♥ bidders.
The play in 3N is quite interesting. South at the two tables playing 3N started off my playing hearts from the top. East won the queen and now had 8 top tricks. There were two options for the ninth but it was not certain which would survive. If South had the ♠A then clearly you need to go for the club finesse as the ninth, but it's not 100% who has the spade ace, as South would bid the same way with ♠63 ♥AKJT932 ♦8 ♣Q42. Attributing most of the HCP to South does bias you in favour of the clucb finesse - but there is a much better answer. That answer is to cash five diamonds and see what happens. When one East did this, South discarded three clubs. Now which line do you take? Not a guess any more! The general point here is where you have a choice, you should delay it when you can, and cashing your winners can often inconvenience the opponents and tell you a lot.
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| Timing |
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West leads the ♣2 to East's King. What should you be thinking?
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If the spade finesse loses you have a loser in each suit. If you cross to dummy with a diamond to take the spade finesse, the defence can continue diamonds and easily set up their 4 tricks. You need to play on hearts immediately to try and build a second winner in the suit. Win the opening lead and play a low heart to dummy. If West wins the King, your problems are over and the spade finesse is for an overtrick. If West plays low on the heart, it is best to assume he does not have the King (most players would rise if they held this card) so insert the ten and hope this draws the King. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♠Q. What is your plan for getting to 12 tricks?
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You have 2 potential losers in the black suits so it looks like you will need to find a favourable position in clubs (East having a singleton honour perhaps). Your first move should be to duck the first trick. Let's say that West continues with a second spade. You win and start to draw trumps and East turns up with 3 small diamonds which increases your hopes in the club suit. What next? You need to get a count on the East hand so play three rounds of hearts ruffing the third round. If East follows to 3 rounds, you know he started with at most 1 club so you can play him for a singleton honour. If East turns out to have started with a doubleton heart, then you know he started with a doubleton club and you are reduced to the slim chance that he holds QJ doubleton in clubs. Its all about counting. |
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| An Extra Chance |
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West leads the ♥T. East wins the Ace at trick 1 and returns a heart. When you lay down the ♠A, West shows out. How do you plan to get to ten tricks?
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On the surface, it looks like you need to find West with the ♦K, in which case you can pitch your club loser on the ♥K and just lose a heart, a spade and a diamond. You can however give yourself an extra chance if East holds the ♦K with a partial elimination play. Cash a second spade and enter dummy with a club. Pitch a club from hand on the ♥K and ruff a club before exiting with a trump. If East has only 3 hearts, he will have to open up the diamonds or give you a ruff and discard. |
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| What's the Best Line? |
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West leads the ♠Q. What's the best line?
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There are two key elements to the best line of play. The first is to duck trick 1, which is essential as you will see. The second is to win the likely spade continuation and cash one top trump followed by ♥AK. If hearts are 4–3, you can easily make a grand slam by winning the first trick and ruffing a heart, so you must prepare for a 5–2 or 6-1 heart break. Consider the possible distributions:- West has two clubs and one heart - he ruffs the second heart, but can’t put East in to lead a trump, so you can ruff a heart and get rid of your remaining heart on a diamond. If West has two clubs and two hearts. he ruffs the third heart, but can’t put East in to lead a trump, so you can ruff your remaining heart. If West has one club and two hearts. Cashing one club first allows you to ruff a heart and make an overtrick. Even if you failed to cash one high club first, you still make your contract. After West ruffs the third heart, he can’t put East in, you can ruff your remaining heart. What about East: If East has two clubs and one heart and ruffs the second heart, he can’t put partner in to lead a trump, you make the contract as you can ruff a third heart, etc. If, however, East refuses to ruff the second heart, you will eventually lose two heart tricks. This will beat the contract and full marks to East If East has two clubs and two hearts, you can’t make the contract. If. East has one club and two hearts. You make an overtrick. Had you not cashed a high club early, you still make your contract because East can’t put West in to lead a second trump after overruffing dummy on the third round of hearts. |
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| HotD-fri : Swiss Teams 4 : 07dec20 : B11 |
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It was curious to see how many declarers went wrong in the diamond suit on this hand from Monday (5 out of 7) and we need to ask why?
The bidding almost uniformly started with 1♥ from South and 2♦ from West; One might postulate that the next bid determined the fate of the likely 5♦ contract, but the evidence suggests otherwise!
Every North showed heart support, with equal numbers bidding 2♥ and 3♥, and one bidding a Bergen 3♣ (although his partner might not have been on this wavelength). East has of course a massive hand at this point, and some doubled (to bring spades into the equation) and some cue bid to show good support, but it was surprising that nobody produced a jump to 4♥ to show support and the heart shortage at once. It is hard to blame people for ending in a slam, although with AQ in clubs opposite a void it is poor odds. More of a surprise was the player who deemed the East hand worth only a simple raise - he must have seen some terrible 2-level overcalls from his partner in recent time to justify that.
Anyway back to the play in 5♦ where after losing the ♥A and having a strong expectation of losing a spade, all declarer's energy should be focused on how to avoid a diamond loser. The issue is a 3-0 break and the question is which opponent is more likely to hold a void. There are 16 hcp missing and held by a pair which opened the bidding and made a raise; Where North raised to 2♥ you might think they had shown little to get excited about and therefore a void diamond was unlikely; where North raised to 3♥ and there were so few hcp around, you might expect North to be more likely to hold the void.
What happened in practice? In all cases where North raised just to 2♥, declarer started diamonds with small to the king (catering for North having a void) and in the cases where North bid 3♥ two declarers played South for a void and one played North for a void. So only one out of six followed the above logic (and they were in 6♦ doubled, so it only saved an undertrick).
There must be some other logic - but what is it?
[I can report that one declarer who played North for a void after a 2♥ overcall was too focussed on making 12 tricks and was punished for that]
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| HotD-thu : Swiss Teams 4 : 07dec20 : B18 |
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This hand from Monday gave a swing in every match; in each match there was one table in 3N and one table in 6N. There two instances of the hand played by West, but the remainder were by East.
Should the slam be bid? There are 24 hcp opposite 8 hcp, so in theory it is just enough. What is often crucial is which cards are missing; clearly missing two aces is a killer, and here the missing AQJJ is not as bad as missing AKJ or AQQ. It is the combination of the suits which matters, of couse, and here there is a guarantee of 10 tricks plus extra chances, each of one trick, in spades, hearts and diamonds. Two out of three chances working comes to roughly 50% but here you don't really have a free hand to test them all. On the other hand, the defence are often helpful - particularly with the opening lead - and that might justify bidding the slam.
It is interesting to look at the play and defence in 6N. The advice in defending against 6N is always to make a passive lead, and in practice only one defender found a passive lead - the five Souths on lead all gave away something with the opening lead. The two spade leads went to the ace and now declarer had the comfort of testing the hearts, with the diamond finesse in reserve. Easy. The one heart lead cleared up the heart suit and brought declarer to 11 tricks, and they had the choice now of the ♠A onside or the ♦Q onside. They played a spade first and could not go wrong after that, as playing safely in diamonds meant they saw North show out on the second round and they knew to give up that option; so they survived. The diamond lead actually gave an immediate trick but left more uncertainty. Declarer now had 10 top tricks plus one guaranteed in spades; both declarers played a spade early, but rather than risk a second spade they both tested the hearts next; when the jack fell they were home but they would have gone down unnecessarily if North hed the spade ace and four hearts to the jack. The club lead (from North) gave the sixth 6N declarer more to think about; he played a spade to the king which held (and it was very easy for South to duck with ♠KQ in dummy here). He played a second spade up at his next chance and was home when the hearts came in.
Any conclusions we draw from all this? At first 6N seemed quite reasobable but even with a favourable lead the play suggested it was a bit shaky. While people spray tricks with opening leads against 6N, it's probably worth bidding, but once they cotton onto what a safe lead really is (and that has to be a club from this South hand) Ithe odds must favour playing in game rather than slam.
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| HotD-wed : Swiss Teams 4 : 07dec20 : B17 |
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We had a robot team again on Monday and they were doing quite well (lying equal second after three rounds) when they crumbled on the last round, and the crumble was very much to do with a known weakness of the robots - one you can sometimes take advantage of!
This board (and B19 is another example) illustrates the problem they have. The problem is that they cannot read or understand the announcements bidders make, and so simply assume that everyone is playing the same system as they play. The key point is that they believe EVERY 1N opener is a 15-17 balanced hand, and they judge their actions accrodingly. Here East doubled to show points with the aim of getting North out of a comfortable 1N, and when West later bid 3♦ there was no way that East - believeing North had 15+ HCP - could see game making. This was just a part-score battle, and so East passed.
If you look at B19, you will see that after 1N-P-P the robot passed with 20 HCP; this was because, from its perspective, the vast majority of the missing strength was sitting over these 20 points, and all finesses etc would be wrong and no contract would make for EW. That was very wrong.
The team playing against the robots on this round collected 20 VPs to win the session on Monday !
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| A Tricky Slam? |
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West leads the ♦2. You win the Ace over East's Queen. You cash the ♣A, cross to dummy with a trump and ruff a club, East producing the Queen. You go back to table with another trump and play a third club on which East shows out. The contract is now 100% if you find the right line - which is?
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You know the shape of both hands, so simply run the trump suit. On the last trump, West will have 3 hearts and 2 clubs and will have to find a discard. If he throws a club, you enter dummy with the ♥A and throw West in with the ♣K to lead a heart into your KJ. Hence West must discard a heart. You throw dummy's last club and the spotlight falls on East. He is down to 3 hearts and 2 diamonds and must make a discard. A heart discard allows you to cash 3 hearts as the suit must now be breaking 2-2 but if East discards a diamond, you just play a diamond from hand and establish a diamond trick in dummy with no need to find the ♥Q. |
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| Always Take The Extra Chance |
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West starts with ♠AK. How do you plan the play?
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You have 2 black suit losers and a heart to take care of. Can you see a way to avoid the heart finesse? Ruff the second spade and cash the diamonds, pitching a spade and a heart from dummy. Now exit with a club. If East wins this trick he will be stuck. If West wins, you will have to hope the heart finesse is working. |
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| Save the Children |
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West leads the ♣T against your thin game. How do you play?
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The lead looks like a short suit and your first thought might be to 'get the children to safety' - a slang term for drawing trumps. Later, you will have to find the ♦Q. However, when you are missing the 2 tops, drawing trumps without suffering a ruff may not be easy. If opponents win a spade and play a second club, they might then win the next trump and get a club ruff using the heart suit for communication. The solution is to 'save the children' later and play a heart at trick 2. This cuts the link between the defenders hand. Later you will finesse West for the ♦Q on the basis of the shape of East's hand and all is well. |
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| Count Your Tricks |
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How do you play in 3NT on the ♦Q lead?
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This is a very simple hand that declarer got wrong at the table. If the club ten drops you have ten top tricks so it looks tempting to play a club to the King and then reenter hand with a diamond to run the clubs. Unlucky, clubs are 5-1 and you have just gone down. The winning line is simply a matter of counting your tricks. You only need 5 club tricks so just lead clubs from the top. Your club pips guarantee you 5 tricks. |
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| HotD-fri : League 4 : 30nov20 : B10 |
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It was interesting to see the same (or a similar) auction happening at multipe tables on Monday with dfferent outcomes. The difference was generated by the choice of opening lead and it was the one peson who was listening most carefully to the bidding who obtained the best result.
The key thought which should be in South's mind in deciding on the opening lead is this - what sort of hand does East have? When East has bid two suits and then bid NT with no encouragement from partner, where will East's weakness be? The answer has to be in fourth suit - and it was only Ollie Burgess who got this far in the thinking and pushed out the ♥J at trick one. The jack was a combination of displacing honours from dummy but still retaining control of the suit. He was multiply rewarded when declarer showed up with a void, and when he won the ♣Q at trick two, he could clear the hearts and set up three winners for his partner. The other declarers were not presented with two heart tricks, but the other tables all ended up with 9 tricks while this declarer only managed 6 tricks.
The other situation where this approach is very common is when a 2♣ opener shows an unbalanced hand at first and then bids 3N when the weak hand bids a suit - that suit is usually the reason declarer did not bid NT on the previous round, and is often the best place to attack.
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| HotD-thu : League 4 : 30nov20 : B8 |
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It was surprising on Monday to see that there were five tables played this hand in 3N by East and that in only one case did the defenders manage to cash their club tricks.
At one table South led the ♦4 and given West had opened a weak two in that suit, it is hard to see why. At another table South led the ♠2 and there was a small reason for this as East had opened the bidding with 1♣ at that table. But there were three tables where South led clubs - what went wrong at two of those?
At all three tables a top club was led from South. At one table, North overtook the ♣Q (led from KQ because K is a strong lead) and switched to spades - and that killed the defence. The other two tables encouaged as North and South cotninued with a low club. One North won the ♣A and returned a third club which South won with the ten, and now the suit was blocked. At the third table Alan Wearmouth found the right answer - winning the second club with the jack. Now when he returned the suit partner could win the third round and the ace took the fourth, giving an entry to cash the fifth. So easy !
Since the contract is so easily defeated, why should people be bidding this game? Two pairs did better - one bidding 5♦ and the other bidding 4♠. For the former the auction was 3♦-5♦ but reaching a major suit game is more tricky. A straightforward Acol sequence might be P-1♥-2♦-2N-3♥-3♠ which highlights the club weakness and West will return to 4♥. Nobody actually reached 4♥ but it worth noting that it is quite possible to bid to the optimum contract. The strong&5 brigade have a more difficult time, and at the three tables where East opened 1N, two Wests pushed to 3N while the third put their side into 3♦.
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| HotD-wed : League 4 : 30nov20 : B7 |
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There were two slam hands for North-South in the first half of Monday's match. There was an above 80% slam available on board one; one pair did make a slam try (rather pointlessly bidding 4N as South) but nobody bid that slam. This was the other hand.
Making 6♠ on this hand is strightforward if the trumps break 2-2 or the singleton king drops - and if that all fails then a club finesse will usually give you 12 tricks - so we are looking at about a 75% slam. This was bid only once to slam, and that sadly failed when trumps broke 4-0 and the club finesse was wrong (although declarer mihgt have guessed better and made it). What's worth considering is why so few managed to reach the slam level here (and ditto for board one).
The first question is whether or not West opens the bidding; it is a close call here - the extreme shape calls for disrupting but second seat is not as effective as first seat, and this is only a 1-count, vulnerable. In the event two of the ten Wests had the opportunity to open 2♥ showing hearts and a minor, and duly did so. There is usually considerable value in denying the opposition a free run in the bidding, but the fact is that it was over one 2♥ opener than a pair bid slam (X-P-3♠ and onwards) while the other 2♥ opener could not keep quiet on the next round and the cost of that was -1700. Here there were zero out of eight North-South pairs got to slam after West passed - so maybe that was the right choice here!
After a pass from West there were three pairs opened with 1♣ and the other five opened a variety of things all geared towards showing 20-22 balanced. The three 1♣ openers all got different reactions from East, one case of 1♦, one case of 2♦ and one case of 3♦. The simple overcall allowed South to bid spades, but now North's jump to 4♦ (splinter) cramped the auction and it finished with South's rebid of 4♠. Where there was a jump overcall, it was passed around to North who made a takeout double over which the two Souths - having passed already - made minimal responses. With a decent five card suit and an ace, this was understating the hand. North could hardly get into trouble by making a slam try but both just raised to game. Opportunities missed all round.
The 2N openers might have had more success, except than in three of the five cases East came into the auction, again in three forms bidding 2♦ once, 3♦ once and 4♦ in the other case. Only one South bid at this point (3N closing the auction) and the others were passed around to North who make a takeout noise and passed out South's simple game bid (3N in on case, 4♠ in the other). As in the most cases over the 1♣ opener, South had bid the same way they would have bid holding ♠5432 ♥432 ♦J432 ♣32, when they had a much better hand.
There were two cases of no intervention over a 2N opener and here South was able to bid 3♥ showing spades; in one case North bid 4♠ to show a commitment to spades, but South added 8 HCP to a maximum of 20 HCP and decided that was enough. In the other case North accepted the initial transfer and then when partner bid 3N to offer a choice of contracts, they had a golden opportunity to show slam interest in spade by cue bidding 4♣ on the way there - but they didn't, simply converting to 4♠ where matters rested.
In fact there were opportunities at every table (except the 1700) to do better on this hand, but it was perhaps the last sequence discussed where the failure was most glaring. Which does restore the faith in the value of disrupting the opponents' bidding.
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| Play This Slam |
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How do you play on the lead of ♠A?
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| Show Answer |
You ruff at trick 1. Now what? If you play off the ♥AK and the Queen doesn't fall, you will have several spade losers, but you need to draw trumps if you are to enjoy the diamond suit. The solution is to play a heart to the knave at trick 2. If it loses, you can ruff any further spade lead with the King, return to hand with a club ruff and draw trumps. It it wins, you can cross to the King of trumps and continue as before. You will only be in trouble if the hearts break 4-0. |
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| Take All Your Chances |
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Plan the play in 6♠ on a trump lead, East following.
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This is a very good slam. Three suits have finesse possibilities, and you only need one to work. Still, there is a best line of play.Draw a second trump ending in dummy and lead a club to the jack If this wins you have 13 tricks. Say it loses and a club comes back to your king. Your next move is to play the ♦AK. If no queen appears, discard a diamond on the ♣A and ruff a diamond. If the queen still has not appeared, take the heart finesse. In total, this line is around 90%. The key is to not let East in early (via a losing diamond finesse) allowing a heart shift to occur before you know whether or not to take the finesse. |
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| What's The Problem? |
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West leads a heart against your game. This looks a trivial hand. Is there a problem?
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It looks like you can win, draw trumps and claim. On hands that look easy, you should consider what can go wrong. If trumps are 4-0 then you have a potential diamond loser to dispose of. You might be able to ruff it in dummy, but for this to work, you need West to hold at least 3 diamonds. There is a more elegant line which is 100%. Take the lead and ruff a heart with ♠A. Now a spade to dummy revealing the bad break allows you to ruff another heart high. Now is the time to draw the remaining trumps throwing a loser from hand. You make 6 trump tricks to go with 4 top red suit cards. A simple dummy reversal but a play that might easily be missed at the table. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♠J. How do you see your chances?
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The usual play with this spade holding would be to play the Queen at trick one and then hope to keep East off lead. However, it is quite likely that East holds the ♦K and quite possibly the ♥A as well, so that plan is most likley doomed. An unusual play improves your chances. Duck the spade lead in both hands. Say that West continues with Ace and another spade. Now you can win and try the diamond finesse. If it loses you will be defeated if West has the ♥A, but there are many layouts where ducking trick one will bring home the goods. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 6 : 23nov20 : B16 |
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Transfers are sometime thought of as protecting declarer from an attacking lead but on this hand from Monday, the fatal spade lead was easily found from North but just about impossible from South. But in practice it did not work out that way - only two out of the eight Norths found the spade lead - and one of those two was a robot! In fact declarer had to be rather nimble to avoid two down on that lead. Here's what happened ...
After the top spade won trick one, North continued with ♠Q and another (trusting that partner had not started with ♠Ax inwhich case they might have overtaken at trick one) and after winning the third trick South switched to a diamond. This ran to the king and a diamond came back, setting up a ruff for the defence. This declarer set about trumps but lost two trumps and the ruff on top of three spades and a diamond - down two.
One other declarer face the same problem but he diagnosed that the diamond king was offside and rose with the ace; he led a club to the queen and a heart to the queen. He was now ablt to ditch two diamonds on the ♣AK and then play the thirteenth spade to ditch the last diamond while the defence ruffed. Well done by Val Constable. She did have the advantage of having stopped in 1♥ - with essentially the same sequence but with the 1N hand opening 1♣.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 6 : 23nov20 : B12 |
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This was the "big" hand from the second match on Monday and it was handled in a variety of ways; we consider here whether the wisdom of the crowds is a good guide.
Almost all tables opened 1♣ - the exception being a 2♣ opening whose effect was primarily as a preemptive bid! Over the opening it is clear than North will bid spades - but how many? Every level got chosen, but 1♠ and 4♠ only once, and the majority came down in favour of 3♠ (6 takers) rather than 2♠ (with 4 takers). Does it mean anything that three of the 2♠ bidders and none of the 3♠ bidders were in the top two divisions? The vulnerability is key to the decision here - at this vulnerability the emphasis has to be on a making contract as opposed to being obstructive. If the vulnerability was reversed, we would expect a large majority for a 4♠ bid, and if both vulnerable then that would be too much and 3♠ would look correct. There is an argument that adverse vulnerability should pull that back one level, which leaves the argument in favour of a 2♠ overcall.
But in practice all that made no difference as South now (in all but two cases - the 4♠ overcall and one 3♠ overcall) bid game in hearts. It was natural for West to bid again at this point and everyone chose 5♣. There was one North who volunteered 5♠ at this point and got a -1100 penlaty as a reminder not to bid her hand twice, but the other tables all put the spotlight now on South. As Garry pointed out in the discussion, there is a common label for an nine card suit - it's called "trumps" - but there were only three Souths felt that calling - the other seven in this position all passed. Is it right to bid or right to pass? You are only dealt a 9-card suit one hand in every 2500, which means playing one session a week it will happen for some player at the table on average twice a year. Here there are two reasons to consider bidding - one is that you might make (a singleton heart with partner and two aces makes it odds on), and the other is that the other side might make (almost half playing in 5♣ did make).
Neither of these possibilities came to pass but the fact is that the 5♥ bidders actually scored well; one played there losing 100 and collecting 3.4 on the cross-imps, one heard the opposition bid 6♣ and collected 300 and 10.7 cross-imps, while the third is looking at -1100 and asking her partner how many times she has to bid hearts to get out of playing in spades. Those who passed 5♣ scored an average of +2.7 cross imps.This is only one hand but the bidders did come out on top. Remember that the next time you have a nine-card suit.
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| How's Your Defence? |
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Partner leads the ♦7 and declarer wins with the ♦Q. He now cashes the ♣Q and plays a spade to the Ace. He now continues with the top clubs, discarding a heart on the ♣A. How do you see the defence developing?
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You should determine from South's heart discard that he is 5-5 in the majors. Your only hope of beating the contract is to find West with the ♥K and pick up a ruff. Therefore you should ruff the club with the ♠K and continue with Ace and another heart to get a heart ruff. Note that if you ruff the club low, declarer will overruff and lead a trump, restricting your side to 3 tricks. South has played well by playing clubs before leading a second trump, giving you a chance to go wrong. |
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 6 : 23nov20 : B1 |
This hand from Monday was a non-event for most pairs as all but three tables played in game in spades, but there were interesting points in the bidding and the play.
The first question was the opening bid and we saw one pair open a strong club, three pairs open a strong 2♣ and the remaining nine opened 1♠. Of those nine, one got a pass, one got a 1N response (where 2♠ would have shown more strength) and seven got a simple raise. The question is how excited should North get after a simple raise from partner? We are taught to give up if it take perfect cards from partner to make a slam, but here a single raise with ♠432 ♥65432 ♦A32 ♣A2 makes a grand slam in hearts trivial. When perfect cards make a grand slam, it is surely worth checking out whether a small slam might be on. But of the seven who could only two offered hearts as a trump suit. And it is here we see some of the extra value in opening 1♠ rather than 2♣; those who opened at the two level were a level (or two) higher when they found the spade fit, and could not investigate hearts. Today all routes converged on 4♠ apart from the table where North drove straight to slam.
Looking at the North-South hands, slam is clearly odds against. You expect to make the slam if both major suits break 3-2 and the diamond finesse is right - which is about a 25% shot. But we have all been in worse slams than that, and when we are, you do want to make the slam 25% of the time. Here Deep Finesse tells us the slam cannot make, but when we look closer we find that East must lead a top club to beat the slam - and no East did. So the question is - should the slam be made on a trump lead? On a trump lead most declarers won that, cashed a top heart and ruffed a heart. There is no way to come off dummy to ruff another heart because the necessary 3-2 spade break means whoever wins the club can play another trump. So declarer plays a trump to hand, draws the last trump and cashes one more in the hope someone will discard a heart. When nothing happens (East ditched a club and a diamond, West a club) out comes another top heart, but this exposes the bad heart break. Do you give up?
You know at this point East has ♥J6 and you need East to have ♦K and that is still not enough unless East is under pressure in clubs - and this is not totally unlikely. Provided you have kept ♦AJ6 ♣T97 in dummy you can succeed. Look what happens if you play three rounds of diamonds ruffing the last. East must discard on that last trick and cannot afford a heart - so away goes a club honour. Now East has two hearts and one club, and declarer can exit in clubs and the defence is helpless - East can win and lead a heart into the ♥Q7 or West might get to overtake but then the top clubs in dummy become winners.
It doesn't always look the right thing to do, but the extensive simulations done of leads against a slam do suggest that leading an ace when you have one is the most effective choice.
From declarer's side, it is amazing how often, when there is only one option in a poor contract, that option actually works out if declarer can find it. A key point is that, in a contract you'd rather not be in, you must not give up until trick thirteen.
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| A Sure Thing? |
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West leads a top heart. How do you assess your chances?
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Two lines of play initially come to mind. You could play East for the ♠J, or the club finesse might work, after which you could probably set up a long club. However, the contract is 100% on the assumption that West holds the ♠A (almost certain on the bidding). Ruff the heart lead, cross in trumps and ruff another heart. Then draw the last trump and lead a spade to the King. Now a second spade inserting the ten either forces the Ace, or West wins with the Knave after which all he can cash is the ♠A before having to lead a club or a heart - either of which concedes the contract. |
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| Timing is Key |
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You receive the lead of ♠2. How do you set about making 9 tricks?
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You need spades to be 4-4. and you can't release the ♥K before making a diamond trick. The only chance is to time the play in a way that puts the defenders on lead when they could cash three spades and then be forced to give you a second trick in a red suit. As the only sure way of achieving this is to endplay the defence with a spade, you should win trick one. Cash the ♣A at trick two, then play a heart to dummy and run the clubs, throwing 3 hearts and a diamond from hand. Now is the time to exit with the ♦K. If this is ducked, get off play with a spade. The defence can take 3 spades and at most 1 diamond before having to give you the ♥K. If the defence win the diamond and take their spades and exit with a diamond, then you rise with the ♦Q and will only be defeated if East started with a singleton ♦A. Note that the natural line of trying to cross to dummy with a diamond fails. East wins the trick, the defenders cash the spade suit, then exit with a heart. You never make a trick with the ♥K, losing three spades and two diamonds. |
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| Easy When You See It |
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West starts with ♦AKJ, on which East throws two clubs. How do you play?
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You have 9 probable tricks in your hand and dummy has one more if you can get there. Ruffing clubs in dummy is futile as by this time it is likely that East has no more. Could the trumps be 3-1 with West holding 3 in which case a club ruff is still available? - impossible as that would give East 9 hearts and he would hardly have bid 3♣ with that hand. So ruff trick 3 and lay down two top trumps, West turning up with the stiff Knave. Now Play off the ♣A. If East ruffs, he will have to lead a heart into dummy's tenace. If he doesn't ruff, exit with a low trump to achieve the same result. As is often the case, West's bidding is fine when his side finishes up playing the contract, but gives declarer a clear map to the winning line otherwise. |
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| HotD-fri : League 3 : 16nov20 : B2.2 |
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This hand from Monday had a number of interesting points in the bidding and the play. We must note first that all but two tables ended up in game and although two made their game, the game was seriously odds against and better avoided. In the two successful games the opponents had easy options to beat the contract.
Looking at the bidding first, the two tables which stopped out of game were the cases where North could open a forcing bid at the 1-level, to which South was obliged to respond; when they gave South the option to stop out of game, South accepted. For the rest the plurailty choice (6 times) of opening bid was 2N showing 20-22 hcp; one cannot deny that the hand contains 20 hcp. It is wrong however to imagine that a singleton ace carries the same weight as say KJx. If you imagine how it combines with partner's Qxx the stiff ace gives you one trick from the combination while KJx gives you a guaranteed two tricks. Singleton honours need to be downgraded. This makes the choice of the other six tables a preferred choice. Why could they not stop out of game after opening 1♣ or 1♦? The answer is that South could not keep quiet; with 5 hcp and a 4333 shape there is every reason to keep quiet, but failure to do so meant North could not stop. There are many occasions we encourage bidding, but two of the reasons - to give partner another chance (not necessary where East overalled 1♠) or to block the opposition (who had both already passed) - can hardly apply here.
Playing in 3N as North the lead was always a spade, and when played by South it was a spade in all but one case (In the other case a diamond lead gifted the contract). All declarers proceeded by attacking hearts first - primarily because the other suits were better led from South. West beat the heart queen with the ace and continued spades, giving declarer an entry to the South hand. Having thrown clubs on spades, there was a choice now of two finesses - diamonds or hearts? In each case finding the missing honour onside and a 3-3 break would gain a trick, leaving you the option to play the other red suit from the top, hoping to drop the missing honour. The crucial difference is that a heart finesse and dropping the ♦Q will get you nine tricks, while the diamond finesse and dropping the ♥J also needs the diamonds 3-3 to get the ninth trick. But all declarers went for diamonds. The one successful declarer was the one who gave up a legitimate chance to play for a mis-defence - he led the ♦T which was not covered, a play which would lose a trick if West had held ♦Qx That gave four diamonds tricks bringing the total to eight - so how did he make? His ability to cash four diamonds put the screws on East who was squeezed out of a winner.
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| HotD-thu : League 3 : 16nov20 : B2.10 |
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This little hand from Monday saw 12 pairs play in 1N and four of them went minus (and anotehr four should have); we remember the big swings after a match, but it is on the accumulation of hands like this than the results often depend on.
It was curuous to note first that only two Easts saw fit to open the bidding; this was a surprise, Not for the weak NT-ers (1N vulnerable on 11 is dangerous) but for the those who could open 1♣ and had the prospect of finding a spade fit, as well as disrupting the opposition bidding.
The bidding shown was common, and others started with a minor from North and hearts from South to get there. After a spade lead found at all 11 tables, North can see three tricks in the majors and everything depends on finding the diamond queen.
While you might imagine that knowing something about the missing high cards and shape - which can be very meaningful when both East and West have passed - might help you make a winning decision in diamonds, nobody took the investigative route. Every table went straight for diamonds after winning the opening spade lead. On the two occasions where East led the ♠3, declarer had an extra spade trick and guessing the diamonds wrong didn't matter - but in all other cases this was the vital choice on the hand.
In practice only three of the declarers guessed the diamonds right - the other eight lost a trick to the ♦Q and after that sensible defence would have beaten 1N, but it did so in only 4 of the 8 cases. Should declarer have found the ♦Q on this hand? A little more information would have helped them on their way. One option for that is to pick up the spade distribution, from the opposition carding and by ducking one round if necessary. If you can uncover that the lead was from a four card suit, and deduce from that that East lacked a five card suit, then vacant spaces tells you that East has more diamonds than West (on average), and now you play the diamonds by cashing the ace and running the jack. Another alternative would be for declarer to play clubs at trick two, and again clues may arise from the actions of the defenders at this point.
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| HotD-wed : League 3 : 16nov20 : B1.2 |
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There were a bundle of slam hands again on Monday with four (plus one where a pair had illusions of a slam) in the first set of 12 boards. The fact that the respectable slam on B1 went off (when a bad spade break combined with a losing club finesse) the five times it was bid was not encouraging and in fact fewer than five reached the optimal level on the other slam hands. It was interesting to note the differences in approach on the board shown, which ended with just one pair in slam, and three pairs stopping in a part-score.
It all depended on the approach North took to competing over the 1♠ opening from West. In practice 8 Norths bid 2N at this point, while 4 Norths doubled (and two Norths faced a 2-level opener and didn't have the same choice). The key diffference that makes is that 2N by North competely rules out the heart suit from the bidding and this cannot be right on a hand whiere a heart slam is playable. It is surely rtight to treat a 5530 hand as a 3-suiter rather than a 2-suiter.
After 2N the choices made by East now varied; the two who passed over 2N reaped great rewards when South selected 3♣ and the auction finished there. This brings out another difficulty with the 2N bid - the range; the North hand is a lot stronger than it might be, but bidding on over 3♣ could generate a minus score. Some Easts chose 3♠ and that was enough to buy the contract once, but twice South thought it worth making a lead directing 4♦ bid and found themselves pushed up to game. Other Easts bounced to 4♠; one was able to buy that contract and escape for -150 (as happened after 1♠-X once). After the bounce to 4♠ two Norths continued unilaterally with 4N and escaped to their making game.
The cases of 1♠ - X where more interesting. Here every East bid 4♠ and South faced the key decision; one passed, one doubled and two bid 5♥ and it was just one of these that got raised to the slam (the other took 800 from 5♠-X).
The best line of play in the slam - after a spade lead - is still being debated. In practice declarer drew trumps and took the winning club finesse.
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| Not So Hopeless |
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West leads the ♦T. Given that the lead is almost certainly a singleton, plan the play.
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You do have a legitimate play for this contract. You need West to hold 3 trumps and the ♣J. Win the ♦A, cash the ♠A, draw two rounds of hearts ending in your hand, and lead a diamond. If West ruffs, and exits a spade, ruff in dummy discarding a club, cross to the ♣A and discard your remaining club on dummy’s fifth diamond, being sure to unblock the jack on the third round. If West exits a club instead, surely West cannot have the ♣K, as he would simply let partner win the third diamond and lead a club, so stick in the 10. There goes one of your club losers and the other goes off on dummy’s fifth diamond. Clearly, West should discard on the second diamond and not ruff air. After West discards, win the king and exit a diamond to East’s queen, unblocking your jack Now what can East lead holding the ♣K? If East exits a club, run it to the queen, cross to the ♣A, draw West’s last trump and discard your remaining club loser on dummy’s fifth diamond. If East exits a spade, discard a club, ruff in dummy, cross to the ♣A, draw West’s remaining trump, and discard your remaining losing club on dummy’s long diamond. Nor does it help for West to ruff partner’s good diamond, as any black-suit exit gives the contract. |
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| HotD-mon : RealBridge Teams Trial : 15nov20 : B8 |
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The GCBA ran its first event using RealBridge on Sunday and it went very well. Sixteen teams turned up and with help from Shirren Mohandes at RealBridge we were abe \to run a multiple teams event in a astyle we have missed since the bridge clubs all closed in March. The event was won with a decent margin by Malcolm Green & Mike Liews, Mike WIgnall & Roger Williams. This board was their largest gain.
The bidding to 6NT by North was very natural and the contract can actually be beaten but only by the right combination of leads; first East must lead a spade, and then when in with the ♦K, West must lead a club. That one combination gives declarer an unsurmoutable problem with entries and the 12 tricks are not cashable. The opening lead when played by South is similar - West must lead a spade or the doubleton club to set up two tricks for the defence. Malcolm got the lead of a heart and played out the diamond ace and another to quickly set up 12 tricks.
In the other room the contract was 6♦ which has exactly the same tricks to cash - but East found a way to get declarer to go wrong, How? What he did was made an early discard from his doubleton spade. When declarer came to cash the spades, Roger now showed out on the first round and declarer (having paid insufficient attention to the discard) registered that the spade suit was breaking 5-1; so after cashing the top four spades he gave up on the suit and played clubs instead. East's maneouvre there is one that has been seen before - and of course it should not work, but it did!
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| How do you Defend? |
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Your partner leads the ♣2, You win with the King as declarer ducks in dummy. How do you see the defence developing?
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You know from the opening lead that partner has 4 clubs, which means that declarer also has 4. He has bid both red suits so can have no more than one spade at most. Hence you should switch t♣ A♣ ♣ ♣ ♣
[Jack points out : declarer should not have given you the chance - rise with the ♣A and the contract cannot be beaten] |
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| Are you a Good Defender? |
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Your partner leads the ♦2 and you win the King. How do you see the defence developing?
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Partner has found a good lead and you must capitalise on it. The lead tells you that you can take a second diamond and your Ace of trumps is a third trick. Where will you find a fourth? Your have a key asset in the ♠A and partners lead tells you he holds the ♦Q - does this suggest anything? The solution is to switch to the ♣Q at trick 2. Then you can win the trump Ace, put partner in with the ♦Q, and get your club ruff. |
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| What's the Best Line? |
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West leads a low heart against your slam and you are able to win with the Knave. What's the best line?
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One line would be to draw trumps and then try to hold the diamond losers to one. However, it is better to cash three rounds of hearts and then play Ace and another diamond. You will make whenever diamonds are 3-2 and still have lots of chances against a 4-1 break. |
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 5 : 09nov20 : B9 |
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It was curiuous to note that there were only three tables missed the game on this hand from Monday. You might wonder how a 20-count sitting West let the opponents buy the hand at the 2-level.
It happened twice and it was because the same situation arose at exactly those two tables - that situation was that both opponents had already bid before West got a chance. After 1♥ - P - 1♠ both Wests chose to double and then never bid again. It must be admitted that game is far from certain - and if the defence happen to start on declarer's shortest (combined) holding with a diamond lead, then there aren't even enough dummy entries to pick up the heart queen (unless doubleton) and still lead up to the top club. So sympathy to the pair who bid to 1N but lost a bundle of points.
Do the two pairs who kept West out of 3N deserve credit or mockery? They managed to keep the other side out of the "normal" contract, which as we noted might be a Good Thing or might not. It will lose sometimes, but on average any bidding activity - and in particular opening before they do - will pay for the side that bids more. Here there are three points which encourage opening as North - first is the position (much less advantage if one of the opposition have already passed), the vulnerability (less to lose, more to gain) and the convenience of the suit order (if partner bids your singleton
The answer is credit.
It's worth noting that there were four other instances of bidding by North-South but where only one of North-South bid, it was easily swept aside by West who just powered into game as the best bet on the hand.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 4 : 09nov20 : B15 |
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The boards on Monday were noticable for the appearance of a numebr of slams; there was a 63% slam on B2 (going down on a bad diamond break) and a 50% slam on B7 (nobody bidding close to this) which were flat boards but the slams on B1 (bid by 7/13 all making) and the slam on B5 (bid by 7 but made by 4) and the slam on B15 (bid by 5, all going off) generated a number of swings.
In the case of B1/B5/B15 the decisionmaking was all up to the pair with the big hands, but curiously as the movement went, there were only two pairs (MR & JC, BH & RH) who never had control of any of these auctions - and our sysmspathy must go to the pair whose opponents chose the winning option on all three hands.
Board 1 was just an issue of evaluating the opening bid with six solid diamonds opposite partner's 18-19 balanced - and there should have been no hesitation in pushing to a slam. Board 5 was a much more iffy contract with 29 HCP and a minimal trump fit; those in 6♠ found a decent lie of the cards while the three pairs in 6N were clearly OTT. Boiard 15 was a decent but uncertain slam and it was interesting to see how the play unfolded.
The lead against 6♠ was a heart four times and a club once. The spade suit by itself offers a 10% chance of 6 tricks by running the queen, and if you plan on a diamond finesse should that fail you get to about a 55% chance of making the contract. Of the four with a heart lead, three won trick one and ran the ♠Q and found that they could not make the contract even when the ♦Q dropped under the AK. The fourth started with a spade to the ace and a spade to the queen and was also doomed.
The one declarer who had a club lead got closest of all. He won the ♣A at trick one and ruffed a club to lead the ♠Q. This lost to the king and a spade was returned. He continued with a second club ruff, leaving his spades as J9 over West's T7. The contract can now be made if he can cash winners and then be in dummy to lead through West. He failed to spot the one option that would give that - which is the ♦Q dropping from East. This allows declarer to cash the jack and then cross to the ♥K to run diamonds through West. It was the only possisble line - and the cards were lying perfectly for it!
Could the others have done better too? The answer is yes - if they had played a club and a ruff at tricks two and three before running the ♠Q. There is a slight risk involved in that but here it would set the timing right for a trump reduction and lets you make the ocntract. Shortening trumps like this falls under the category of "good technique" so it is worth watching for cases it might help. Here it makes a big difference.
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| What Can Go Wrong? |
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West starts with a top heart and switches to the club King. How do you play?
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You have plenty of tricks and 2 losers outside the trump suit. Your plan must be to avoid 2 trump losers if the suit breaks 4-1. To this end, win the club and play a low spade towards dummy. If the Jack wins, return with a diamond to play another low spade. West can rise and force you in hearts, but you can cross to the spade and return in diamonds to draw the last trump and enjoy your winners. |
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| Defensive Thinking |
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You lead a top club which is ducked all round, partner showing an odd number. How do you see the play developing?
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You should be thinking along the follwing lines: On the bidding, partner can't hold much, and the bidding indicates that N/S have a double fit. You have 3 tricks with a club, heart and diamond, but the bidding has marked the position of key cards to declarer and a competent South will win the second club, draw trumps, eliminate the club suit and throw you in with the second round of diamonds. Then you will have to open up the heart suit or conced a ruff and discard. You must be ready for this and unblock your King of Diamonds under the Ace whenever that card is played. If partner holds the ♦J, you beat the contract. If not, you still make a couple of hearts at the end so are no worse off. |
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| Part-scores can be Hard |
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West starts with the ♦A and switches to the ♣T. East plays an encouraging card to this trick and you win with the King. How do you see the play developing?
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Part-score hands are often hard to play and indeed to analyse, since the nature of them involves many variations as the defence are likely to get more opportunities to cause you to vary your plan. On this hand, if you assume the heart finesse is working, you have 3 tricks outside trumps, and hence will need to generate 5 tricks from the trump suit. Your first thought might be to ruff diamonds in dummy, but whilst the first ruff is easy, you lack re-entries to your hand to take more ruffs. A better line is to ruff hearts in hand. Finesse the heart and cash the Ace before ruffing a heart in hand (say East discards a diamond on this trick). Now consider how you think the spades are dividing. East did not respond 1♠, so probably doesn't have 4, hence you can now take 2 rounds of trumps before leading the last heart from dummy. You can ruff this in hand and this gives you 7 tricks and the trumps in dummy will furnish 1 extra trick to see you home. |
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| HotD-sat : MOnday Swiss Teams : 02nov20 : B1 |
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The intiial choice made here by North on Board 1 generally mapped their path through the rest of the bidding, and there were two options.
- There were five who opened 1♠ and they all heard a response from partner, with invititational or more values from all except the 1N response. Four showed no ambition beyond game, even with nine solid playing tricks, while one (Paul Denning) got a hint of spade tolerance and then pushed to slam.
- There were seven who opened 2♣ and duly showed a near-game-force in spades and left the rest to partner. Ignoring the mixup at one table (playing complicated responses to a 2♣ opener) we saw two Souths drive on to a slam, while four were happy to stop in game despite holding three card support and an AK.
Clearly slam is where you want to be on this hand - so which path is preferred? Given so few got it right there could be flaws with both paths. Let's consider them in turn
- After opening 1♠ and hearing something positive, it is criminal with 9 top tricks not to make some move towards a slam. For sure partner could have an unsuitable hand but making a move is not a commitment to slam. If North does make a movement to slam, South will surely cooperate and if that happens momentum will carry them to the right contract. So this path should always work.
- After hearing partners' 2♣ opener, the failure of South to make any move towards slam must show an expectation of partner having a much weaker hand than this. Why would that be? The answer must be in the expectations from a 2♣ opener; these Souths must have been expecting partner to bid this way on much weaker hands. There is a need for partnership calibration here.
Conclusions? There seems little excuse for not bidding the slam whichever way the bidding starts. It was odd to see that the partners of many 2♣ openers expected a weaker hand from their partner than that which others deemed to be only a 1♠ opener. With nine clear playing tricks and a decent set of controls, the auction is much more comfortable if North opens 2♣ and then leaves the driving tio slam up to partner. The only pair whose auction we get close to recommending is that of Alan Wearmouth and Tony Hill.
Bidding to the right contract is only part of the game. The Great Shuffler on Monday did give the defenders a chance, alrthough it was only at one table that the winning defence was found. When David Atthey had bid 2♠ over a 1♠ opener, and led a heart against a spade contract, Alison Pritchard recognised the failure to lead a singleton club as significant and found a club at trick two to give partner a ruff and hold declarer to 11 tricks.. Well done with that defence.
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| Play This Slam |
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Your very agressive opening leads to playing a thin slam. West leads the ♥K. You win and play a top trump from each hand, East following on the second round with the Knave. How do you continue?
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You should play clubs without drawing the last trump. Ace, King and a third club ruffed low sees an honour is still outstanding, but now you can cross to dummy with a spade to ruff the last club with the ♦T. As it turns out, West has 4 clubs and hence his shape is marked as 1534. Now you must not play a second spade, else West will ruff and have a heart to cash. Instead, exit with your top heart and West will have to give you access to dummy through a heart ruff to draw the last trump before cashing your remaining 2 high spades. |
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| HotD-thu : Monday Swiss Teams : 02nov20 : B18 |
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This was the auction at three tables on Monday (and a few others started the same way but passed over 3N) and each of these tables got the lead of ♥7. You have only 6 top tricks but prospects of three more in spades, which leaves you one trick short if you are playing in 4N. A second heart trick is one possibility but there is a danger of having four losers. How should declarer proceed?
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One easy answer would be to win the ♥Q at trick one, and that is tempting but before you play a high heart from dummy you need to look at the opening lead and imagine what hearts South holds. The key options to consider are ♥KJT7(x) or ♥7x. In terms of the odds of these holdings there are three doubletons, three five card suits and one four card suit which means that the odds on South having length is greater. There is also the possibility of ♥KJ7 or ♥KT7..
The key question however is whether South would lead the ♥7 from a ♥KJT7 holding, and and the answer is (generally) no, You should therefore expect that the leadmust more likely to be from two small cards than from a four/five card suit. Playing the queen is not appealing.
So you play low and North plays the ten (ruling out a lead from KT7); your choice now? It is important now that you stick to your first judgment; if you win then the defence might get to run the heart suit later, but if you duck then they cannot continue the suit and you will be protected from a heart continuation. Because the heart entry has been preserved, declarer now had a valid option of coming to hand in spades, giving up a club and using the heart ace entry to cash the club suit.
On the layout from Monday this is the vital play. Well done to Toby Roberts getting that right, while the two Advanced Robots playing in the same contract won the ace at trick one and - despite the good news in clubs - could no longer make their contract. |
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| HotD-wed : Monday Swiss Teams : 02nov20 : B7 |
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This hand from Monday produced some of the biggest swings and a lot of problems stemmed from early decisions in the auction, notably at this point.
It's worth noticing first how awkwardly a strong minor suit hand bids after a 2♣ opener; the first step in describing this hand comes with a bid of 3♦ - even if there is no intervention to cope with. However with 24 HCP nobody could resist and all twelve tables opened with 2♣ (or for two, an equivalent 2♦). It was encouraging to see almost all Norths came in with a 2♠ bid at this point; the value of bidding is clear when you look at the auction where North passed. At that table it proceeded 2♦ - 3♦ - 3♥ making the best trump suit visible and bidding a slam was straightforward.
After a start of 2♣ -2♠ there were only two Easts who bid; one was with a double to show some values and create a game force and the other was a bid of 3♥; the latter choice made bidding the right slam trivial and that produced the second successful auction. There was also one table where the auction started with 2♣ - 3♠ and at that table East bid 3N which ended the auction. That leaves eight tables where the auction started as shown. What should West do now?
There was a curious choice by the two robots who were in this position; the both upgraded their hearts to be a five card suit and bid 3♥; they were raised to game and played there. We cannot recommend that. The mainstream choice was between X and 3♦. Two Wests in this position (and the West whose partner doubled 2♠ to show values) bid 3♦ now and heard partner bid 3N. Amazingly all three now jumped to 6♦ and that contract drifted off when there was a diamond to lose as well as the space ace.
Double, found four times after 2♣ - 2♠ - P - P, had a much better chance but there were four different responses from East. One choice was a pass by East which did not fare wll as North always had 7 tricks available. Another choice arose when North bid for a second time with 3♣ which got a 3♠ bid from partner and a second double by West. East chose to defend and when declarer misplayed the hand that collected +1100 (which should only have been 500).
That leaves us with two auctions where after the double East bid 4♥ and West bid 6♥. This was a very simple way to get to the best slam, and was rewarded with a score of +1430. Could you ask for a simpler auction?
Once again we see an enormous number of ways to bid any hand, and here only a minority of paths reached a successful ending place.
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| Insurance |
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You play in 6NT on the ♥Q lead. How do you play?
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If either black suit breaks, 13 tricks are available. Hence you should take out insurance in case neither suit breaks. You cannot afford to give up a club if that hand can then cash the fourth spade, so your safest choice is to win the lead, cash the ♠A and duck a club. On the layout shown, no return can harm you. |
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| What are Your Chances? |
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West leads the ♦J. You try the Queen, but East covers with the King. What are your chances?
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You have 4 losers and so need to set up a club for a discard. You need to be careful how you do this. You hope for split honours (or both with East). Win the lead and cross to the ten of spades to lead a low club. You hope that East plays low and your Queen loses to West. Say they cash a diamond and then play a heart. You win and cross to dummy with a second trump to lead the ♣J for a ruffing finesse. If it is not covered, you pitch a heart. Note that it is important to play the first club from dummy in the hope of slipping past East's high card. If you lead the ♣Q from hand, East can win and switch to hearts and your ruffing club finesse will lose, leaving you with 4 losers. |
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| Communicate |
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West leads the ♥9 to East's King, who then switches to the ♦2. How do you play?
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You plan to ruff your losing spades on the table, but you need to be careful. If you return to hand twice with ♣A and a heart ruff, you will eventually have to come off the table with a club or a heart, and you will then suffer a trump promotion, allowing West to score the ♦Q. The way to play is to ruff a spade and lead the ♣Q from dummy. When East covers, allow him to win the trick. Now you have an easy club ruff back to hand at the critical juncture to draw the last trump. |
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| Be Careful |
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West leads the ♥5 to East's Ace. The ♥8 is returned. When you win the King, West drops the Queen. Plan the play
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If hearts are 5–3 as it would appear, you need to score 9 tricks without letting them in. Obviously no problem if diamonds behave, so plan for them not to. If diamonds are 4–1, you need four club tricks. With the lead in dummy, the best play for four club tricks is low to the 10 catering to Qx with East and still picking up the suit if it is 3–3. Therefore, the best line is to cash the ♦K and ♣A before playing a second diamond. It can’t hurt and it might save the day if West has a stiff queen. You can still pick up Qx or Qxx with East, so you have the best of both worlds. You need to be careful not to commit either of the following careless plays: - (a) not cashing a high club before leading a second diamond to dummy (b) leading the ♣J once you are in dummy having discovered diamonds are not 3–2. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 4 : 26oct20 : B15 |
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The South hand in today's deal was handled in two different ways by the various players on Monday. Clearly you expect to play this hand in hearts and the one concern you might have is that the opposition have a spade contract and can outbid you.
The opening bids were divided into two camps - there were four who opened at the 1-level, and nine who opened at the 4-level, and of those nine there were eight instances of a 4♥ opener and one who could open 4♣ to show a solid heart suit. One could argue for opening at either level, but the fact is that the 4-level openers all felt happy that they had bid their hands with one bid, while two of the 1♥ openers could not contain the urge to bid 5♥ (offering 800) on the next round. Everyone who played in hearts - and all but one was doubled - went off, which is not what you are looking for at this vulnerability.
There was only one table where East-West were silent on these handsand they did collect +200 but that was the worse East-West score of the night. Was West right to pass? In fact there was only one other tables where West was silent, and that resulted in the best East-West score of the night - when East "sacrificed" in 4♠ and partner pushed to a slam for +980. There is a lot to admire about that auction. There was some variety in the interventions by West but most Wests doubled whatever the opening bid was; the exceptions were one instance of a 2♦ overcall and three cases where West bid 4N over 4♥.
What is the best East-West action over 4♥? The style has moved these days very strongly to a double being takeout oriented even at the 4-level, but the catch is that over 4♥ it strongly encourages partner to bid 4♠ and in three of four cases of 4♥ - X that is what happened, The uncharted nature of these auction was evident in the three different choices made by the Wests in these cases - one passed, one bid 5♦ and the other bid 4N intended as "pick a minor" but read as ace asking! The case for passing improves.
In practice every East-West contract made, so what does all this tell us? The key point is a reminder that people are bidding up these days, and so more and more auctions start at the 4-level. We will struggle to do well with uncharted territory in common auctions, so partnerships need to talk about what the various bids mean in sequences like these, as next time there might only be one rather than three denominations in which East-West can be successful.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 4 : 26oct20 : B8 |
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It was slightly unusual to see on Monday all 13 tables make the same opening bid on a balanced hand - but that's what they did on this board. Then it diverged.
One divergence was because North at table 1 opened a 16+ 1♣ and East was able to bid an artificial 1N showing the majors. This did not stop that North getting to play in 3N along with most other tables.
Over a natural (or just balanced) 1♣ opener the field split, with 6 bidding 1♥ (one bidding 2♥) and 5 passing. It's a very weak hand on which to overcall, but bidding can often have a good effect. Here bidding was effective in a couple of odd ways. The consequence of the overcall at three (!) tables was that North-South stopped in a spade partscore. With 25 HCP and a 4-3 fit that is not expected to be the right contract. The reasons they struggled are not clear but competitive bidding does generate a lot more uncharted territory than non-competitive bidding, so we must put down some of the gain to the fact of an overcall.
At the tables where East passed, most (all but one) North-Souths bid up to 3N and that's the interersting contract to play. [The 5♦ bid by one pair is in some ways a safer contract - so well done to them - but was a different play problem] Against 3N all Easts led the ♥Q and when that was ducked (everyobody did duck) they continued with the ♥J which was covered by the ♥K and the third heart was won by the ace. With 7 top tricks declarer must find either two more in spades, or set up the diamonds. The danger with the diamonds is that the defenders can cash one or more hearts together with the ♦AK to beat the game. Do you go for the diamonds or the spades?
For the diamond play to succeed you need to find both top diamonds with a three-card heart suit; for the spade play to succeed you need to find ♠Qxx sitting under the ♠AJ8. Which is better odds? Ignoring other issues both diamonds honours in the one specific hand is about 25% while spades behaving as nicely as this is just under 18%. What we need to factor into the first of these numbers is the question of the hearts breaking 5-3, and here it is a judgment call based on what has happened so far. With an overcall there was near-certainty, and even without there are good reasons to expect a five card suit was led. Most importantly West could not afford to play the king on the jack with four, in case the lead was from QJT tight, and if West had five again they would have held back the king lest the lead was from QJx. With a little help from vacant spaces the odds are actually more biased that the earlier figures - 29.4% for both diamonds with West, and 18.1% for the spades.
With this in mind two of the Norths (two out of eight tables facing the problem - the ninth had a nonsense defence) played on diamonds to make the contract while the others all played on spades and that didn't work. Why did so few choose the better line? I can offer two reasons : one is that they did not think through the calculation of the odds on the spades behaving, The other is the second reason why the heart overcall helped - the fact of East bidding persuaded declarer that both diamonds with West was impossible.
It all goes to show that bidding pays.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 4 : 26oct20 : B2 |
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The choice of opening bid on today's hand had some surprising effects on the final contract.
Over the years the attitude to opening a weak two bid with a 4-card major on the side has changed from being never done to being done frequently. This reflects the move in the game today to bid as often and as high as you can. But is it right?
For any weak two opening you are performing two functions - you are being obstructive to the opponents and you are informing partner about your hand to allow your side a constructive auction. The balance between the two functions changes with vulnerability and seat, and for most people in this seat and this vulnerability the obstructive aim dominates enormously. Consider this hand; it is 8 HCP but with a fit in a major it is a 6-7 loser hand, which is usually an opening bid. The side major is a strong major and is not a suit you want to lose in a constructive auction. This all argues that the hand is not a weak two opener.
What did people do in practice? There were 13 tables in play and 5 of them opened the bidding; at four tables West responded with a raise whcih made life difficult for the other side. Two raised too high and ended in 4♠x going down, one played 3♠ making (with a silent North!), and one raise pushed the opposition to 4♣ (a contract one should alwys be happy to defend). The fifth - where West passed the opening bid - was a failure for East-West as it gave the opposition room to find their way to 3N by South - the best game for NS to bid. What do we learn from that? The opening bid did prove disruptive as this time North-South did own the hand - but it was only disruptive enough when raised by West to the three level.
How did passing on the first round work out? For three Easts there was no second chance - North upgraded their hand to open 2N in fourth seat after three passes, and were raised to game. East led a top spade and the defence cashed six tricks. Silence is golden sometimes!
This leaves five tables where East passed on the first round and came in later. The instance where East-West later bid to 4♠ (doubled, down two) was not a success, nor was the instance of bidding only 1♠ (and then defending 3♣) - but the cases where East came in with spades later and West supported to the three level did have the right effect.
What's the verdict? East-West have a 9-card spade fit and bidding to the level of the fit generated a successful outcome whenever it was done. And you can get there even if you pass on the first round.
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| Read the Cards |
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West leads the ♣Q. How do you plan the play?
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You might hope for the ♠A to be onside, in which case you have a parking place for one of your small hearts. However, East did open the bidding at the one level and must surely be credited with the ♠A and ♥K. If indeed he does have these cards, you can still succeed if you read the cards correctly. You draw the trump and eliminate the clubs, followed by running all your trump suit. In the 3 card ending, dummy has ♠K ♥AQ whilst 2 of East's cards are ♠A and ♥K. If you think East has bared his spade, throw him in to lead a heart. If you think he has come down to a singleton heart, then drop his King. How can you tell? - Well, in view of West's spade preempt, it is likley that East started with 3 spades, hence it shouldn't be too difficult to work out what he has left provided you keep track of his spade discards. |
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| Easy! |
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West leads the ♠2, East contributing the King. How do you play?
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It looks like West has led from ♠Txxx and you can set up a long spade. If clubs break, or a critical red suit card is onside you are home. You are however, vitually certain to make this contract if you play correctly. Win the lead and cash 3 rounds of clubs and only then follow with three more rounds of spades. West can win and perhaps cash a club, but will then have to give you an extra red suit trick at his next lead. |
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| Just One Trick Short |
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West leads a heart. Plan the play.
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With 11 top tricks and 12 if spades are 4-1, there may be a spade-diamond squeeze against the defender with long spades if they break 5-0. If you cash even 1 spade and duck a diamond, the defender with 5 spades might win and return a spade, killing the squeeze. The timing is key. Win 2 top hearts and 2 top clubs before playing a spade to dummy. If they prove to be 5-0, play a diamond and cover East's card. If East has 5 spades and inserts the ♦J, win the King and pass the ♦T. Say East wins and exits with a spade. You win on the table and cash the ♦A, discarding the ♥Q. Now you can cash the ♥J and discard a top club. Now the ♣J from dummy squeezes East when he holds the long diamond as well as his 5 spades. If East had played low on the first diamond, you insert the ten. If this loses you can unblock the diamond King before crossing in spades to achieve the same ending. If West had the long spades, the your play would be the King and duck the next diamond. |
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| Insurance |
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West leads a spade and the defence cash two spades and switch to a diamond. You win and play two rounds of trumps, East showing out on the second round. Now what?
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You are in danger of losing control of this hand. Suppose you play 2 top clubs with the intent of ruffing the third round. If West has a singleton club, he will ruff the second round and force you with a diamond and your clubs are not set up. You can take out insurance against a 4-1 club break by playing Ace and then Knave of clubs. East can win and play a diamond to force you but you now just lead winning clubs. You can overruff West and draw his last trump and claim. This hand might have proved trickier if the defence had given you a ruff and discard at trick 3, but that is not so obvious for them. |
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| HotD-fri : County League 2 : 19oct20 : B2.1 |
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There were a variety of leads and results on this hand from Monday and it is interesting to look at the pattern.
The first curioisty was the choice of opening bid by North; there were five whose system led them to open 1♣, six whose approach led to a choice of 1♦, and two who opened 1♥ (plus one who upgraded the hand to a 2-level opener.) All Souths (who could) responded with one spade - and that was the only suit bid at all tables.
All four suits got led but the heart only when South was declarer; when North declared we saw three lead ♣Q, five lead ♠J and four led a diamond, You would expect to see these leads correlate to the opening bids, and indeed the most common combinations were a 1♣ opener and a diamond lead, and a 1♦ opener and a club lead (each three times). But there were spade leads against all opening bids - which is why that choice dominated.
The hand looks straightforward - declarer can make three spades, three hearts, two diamonds and a club. The catch is that in setting up the red suit winners declarer has to lose the lead twice and the defence can set up three club tricks to beat the contract. This involved the defence playing clubs, so you would expect the opening club leads to be successful, but only one of three was. Why was that? In one case it was because declarer won ♣K at trick one and played back a club which East ducked; this blocked the suit and cut off the fifth defensive trick. In a second case East later switched to a heart away from the queen. Which left one successful defence.
The analysis tools tell us that any red suit lead from East lets the contract make, and any black suit lead beats it. Why is that? In the case of a heart it clearly costs a trick; in the case of a diamond it is more subtle - it is because it gives declarer their second diamond trick cheaply (without giving up one) and the defence now only had time - when it wins ♥Q - to set up the clubs and it doesn't get to its diamond trick. After the ♠J lead the contract can always go down but nobody found the winning defence and most declarers actually went down themselves rather than were defeated by force; the reason for this is that the sight of ♣T876 in dumy put East off the crucial attack on clubs.
Defence can be difficult.
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| HotD-thu : County League 2 : 19oct20 : B8 |
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As last week, it's a small 1N contract that is most amenable to analysis - but not enough Wests did the analysis. They may claim that they were actually playing for a defensive error, but we suspect there are many cases of autopilot around.
There were 11 tables played this hand in 1N (all but one was a strong NT opener) and one had an easy time after a heart lead but the remainder were faced with the lead of the ♣3 to the ace and a club back. You might thing there was nothing to this club combination but there was; two declarers failed to make any club contracts and can offer respectable reasons why. What happened? After the ♣A South returned the ♣3 and declarer stopped to think about where the jack was. With the ten in dummy, the opening leader might have held ♣K973 and in that case South's return of a low club would be almost criminal - giving declarer a trick they did not deserve. Why would they not return the club jack? Because they didn't have it - so up went the ♣Q and the defenders had four club tricks and the contract had no chance. This dilemma was presented five times and three declarers did play small to preserve their club tricks. Three declarers missed the problem because South returned the jack, and two declarers avoided the issue by playing the ♣T from dummy at trick one - after which the ♣9 on the second round was clearly better odds. After the first three tricks, eight declarers of the ten declarers facing a club lead still had the chance to make their contract.
Now look at declarer's problem; with one club trick and four heart tricks, it will take both pointed kings to make 7 tricks. From the other side the potential losers are three clubs, two aces, and then the queens once the kings are released. There is no choice about what declarer's winners should be, and so attention needs to be paid to what the losers (ie the defensive winners) will be. The key here is that once you win the ♦K the defence has two diamonds and a spade to go with its clubs which is fine, but after you win the ♠K they have three spades and a diamond to cash and that is one too many. So diamonds must be played before spades. The answer is to cross to the heart jack, lead to the diamond king, and now lead to the spade king. Easy seven tricks, but a sequence of plays only found by two players - well done Harry & Alison. [Two other declarers were allowed to make on a misdefence]
Is this really such an easy game?
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| HotD-wed : County League 2 : 19oct20 : B4 |
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This was the most spectacular hand from the first set on Monday evening, and the very natural bidding sequence shown here did actually happen (at only one table athough two tables managed the first five bids but passed the hand out in 3N!).
This does look like the contract you want to be in with 10 top tricks and possibilities from the ♠9, the long diamonds, the ♣QJ and even from the heart suit. The lead is the ♦J. How should one proceed?
The first thing to note is that if the diamonds break you are up to 12 tricks immediately, so your only concern is when they don't break. If they don't break you can lose one diamond to reach 12 tricks and then will choose to rely on ♠T falling or the club finesse. Finding out about the bad diamond break and having an entry at the right time to cash the spades is awkward.
The two declarers in 6N won the first diamond in East and crossed to the ♦K to get the bad news. This forced them into cashing the spades now. One declarer threw a club then a heart and then a diamond. The other threw two hearts and then a diamond. On the fourth spade they both threw a diamond. When one North discarded a second heart on the next diamond, Jim Grant was able to make the contract by playing three rounds of hearts, leaving North to lead away from the ♣K. The other 6N declarer having thrown a club had less flexibility, North kept his hearts, and now in a similar position he had an extra winner, so 6N failed.
A more popular contract than 6N was 6♦ by East. Here the good news was that no South led a safe diamond - so every declarer had some good news to start with (although advantage was not taken when the ♠8 was led by playing the nine, and that declarer went off). On a club lead declarer could afford to give up a diamond and enough winners were cashable to make the slam easy. It was curious to see that the extra element of control mean that declarer in diamonds had an easier time (even without the lead) than declarers in 6N.
With one exception - that was when West played in 6♦ at one table and rose with the ace on the initial club lead. Now after two diamonds showed the bad break, there were only 11 tricks in sight. He started by cashing three rounds of spades, at which point a light dawned. With South holding a 6-4- shape there were only three cards outside. He left the ♠J9 stranded, ruffed a club and drew the last trump. Now came the top hearts and South had no answer; when he didn't ruff he was thrown in with the top diamond to lead a spade to the J9. Contract made.
A little surprising how more flexible the suit contract turned out to be.
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| Simple Stuff |
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West leads the ♦2 to the King and Ace. How do you play?
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Instead of thinking that 3NT would be easy, concentrate on making 4♠. If you ruff the diamond and try to draw trumps you will go down as the trumps break 5-1 and East sits with the clubs over your King. This hand is very simple. Jus discard a club at trick 1 and you are safe for ten tricks. |
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| A Tricky Game |
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West leads the ♦J, continuing the suit at trick 2. You ruff and lay down the ♠A but West show out. The ♣QJ are not doubleton. Can you see a possible way home?
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You need to engineer an endplay on East, else you have 4 losers. You will need to cash 2 high clubs and use the heart entry in dummy to ruff the last diamond. Now if the ♥K and a heart ruff stands up, you are home. Exit with a club. West wins and must play a red card on which you discard a club from both hands. East only has spades left so must ruff this trick and concede the last 2 tricks to the split spade tenace. |
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| Star Defence |
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West leads the ♠T, covered by King and Ace. What do you play at trick 2?
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South will have very good hearts and a singleton spade for his bidding. There is a danger that South will be able to use dummy's diamond suit and so you need to attack the entries in dummy. Did you switch to the ♣K at trick 2? Sorry but South has the ♣Q and claims. You are right to think that dummy entries need to be attacked, but you should assume that South has just 2 diamonds for with 3 you either do or do not have a diamond trick. If South has say ♦Kx he will need two outside dummy entries to set up and cash the suit and the entry to attack is therefore the heart - of course you don't know that the ♥9 is a winner, but if it isn't, then dummy never had the 2 required entry cards. A heart return at trick 2 kills the contract on the layout shown. On a spade at trick 2, declarer ruffs, plays 3 rounds of diamonds ruffing high. Then a trump to dummy allows the long diamond to be set up with the ♣A as an entry to cash it. |
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| How do you Play? |
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The defence start with two rounds of hearts, won by East with the Ace a nd Queen. East switches to a club on which West shows out. How do you play?
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One of your spade losers can go on the ♦A, but barring an exceptionally lucky layout in the spade suit, you will need a squeeze for your eleventh trick. If West holds length in spades (or QJx) together with the ♦Q, he will be stuck in the end-game. Take a second top trump and cash the ♦K. Cross to dummy in trumps and play the ♦A, then if the Queen has not fallen, run your trumps. Dummy comes down to ♠Kx ♦J, whilst you have ♠ AT9. If West started with the diamond and spade guards, he will have to relinquish one of them on the last trump. |
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| HotD-fri : Pairs League 3 : 12oct20 : B17 |
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This was a much less exicting hand than the last one discussed but with five plus scores for North-South and five plus scores for East-West on the traveller there were plenty of swings and these part-score swings can quickly accumulate.
The first thing to note is that 7 of the 10 tables saw South open a strong 1N - not a pattern we would have seen in years gone by. Against all of these 1N contracts the lead was a spade, but the results were down two, down one (thrice), making (twice), and plus one. Why is there such variety?
Two instances of the contract making must be attributed to lunacies by West who led the ♠7 on the first round and played the ♠8 on the next round of the suit thereby making South's ♠6 into a winner. The other successful 1N happened when West abandoned the suit, switching to diamonds on winning the ♥K and setting up a trick for declarer in that suit before the defence returned to spades.
The most sane results all started with two rounds of spades after which declarer played ace and another heart; one West rose with the king but the others all ducked - this being very necessary to cut off the fourth round if declarer had started with only three hearts. What should declarer do when the heart is ducked? The answer is that it is even money whether or not to play the queen and in practice more ducked than won. When the heart was ducked and West won the ♥J, the third round of spades was played and now the ♥K was dislodged. West could cash one top spade and then had to decide which minor to play. East's discards were important - with absolutely no interest in the suit it was natural for East to discard two clubs and this is what happened. In making two discards East can tell partner more than just about the lack of interest there, the informative partner also shows the count in clubs. West needs to look now at the hand as a whole; the count in clubs shows that South started with ♣KQ doubleton and it is here you must remember that partner's discards were information and not commands - partner might be suggesting you play a diamond but West knows better, and playing ♣A and other now sets up the ♣J for the defence where a diamond would set up a diamond trick for declarer. Only one defender found this line, to put 1N two off after South had misguessed the hearts. If South chooses the winning option in hearts it is more tricks but it is still settig up the ♣J which beats the contract.
Being on the right side of these little hands is a winning strategy.
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 3 : 12oct20 : B13 |
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The hands on Monday were not generally exciting but this hand was an exception - at least if you were sitting North. Bidding after a 2♣ opener is notoriously difficult, so it's worth going through this auction in detail.
It usually starts with 2♣ - 2♦ - 2♥ and the next choice is partly system dependent. Many today play 2♥ in this sequence as a two-way bid, either hearts or game-forcing balanced, and over that 2♠ is a waiting bid to find out which option. After 2♠ here the 3♦ continuation (slam is good odds opposite just four small diamonds and nothing else, and skipping the 2N bid which would show the game-forcing balanced) promises the opener has hearts and diamonds. South is still not excited, and the most neutral bid that can be made is a preference to 3♥. This is preferred to a 4♣ bid as that would exclude playing in 3N which might be the right place. There is quite a wide range of hands that South could have at this time, so it is important for North to take it easy. Here that is best done by a continuation of 3♠ and that doesn't tell you much but when South now bids 3N (natural, a stopper in clubs) North can tell that (a) the heart support was only a doubleton, and (b) partner's values are in the wrong place. This allows a stop in 4♥ which is much safer than the higher level reached at 8 tables (out of 12) on Monday.
One pair nearly reproduced the sequence shown but their final bid was not 4♥ but 6♥. At four tables West produced an overcall of 3♣ on the first round; all Norths at this point bid 3♥ where a takeout double would have netted a score of up to 1400. There is a good case for double as after 3♥ South will be forced into bidding 4♥ on an enormous variety of hands leading to a missed diamond or spade slam (and all four tables bid 4♥ on this hand).
Having said that we want to stop at the 4-level, we have to report that three of the five pairs who bid the slam actually made it. The first making slam got a spade lead, and when West won the ♦A at trick two back came a spade rather than a heart. This allowed declarer to cash two diamonds discarding dummy's losing spade, and then a spade ruffed with the low heart and the diamond ruffed with ♥8 (phew!) was enough to make 12 tricks. It should have been clear to West that there was never any hurry to play spades - where could a quick spade loser go? A heart switch means one less ruff and the slam goes down, The second making slam came from East leading a diamond despite West having overcalled clubs (now declarer needed one less ruff), and the third making slam came where East preferred at trick twelve to hold onto the thirteenth spade rather than the winning ♦8. Who says overbidding doesn't pay?
Most of the pairs in 5♥ had an easier time, but at one table Richard Harris found the winning heart lead at trick one. Declarer could lead a top diamond now but when Betty followed her husband's example with a second heart, declarer was held to ten tricks. And that is why we want to stop at the 4-level.
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| HotD-wed : Paris League 3 : 12oct20 : B3 |
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This hand from Monday was subjected to inadequate analysis by most (was it all?) players on Monday. The contract was always spades, for some it was 1♠-P and for others North responded and the result was 4♠. In either case the same questions arise.
In all case West was on lead with no guidance from parter as to which suit to lead. Three chose a spade - with some rationale if North had indicated preference for the suit - and four chose a club and two chose a diamond. The diamond lead allowed declarer to go to ruff one heart, win the spade return when West rose with ♠T and continued the suit, and ruff another heart. Easy ten tricks. Those with a spade lead, or a club lead to the ace and a spade switch, were not going to be able to do that. But they tried anyway, playing three rounds of hearts with West ruffing the third and playing a second spade - so that the fourth heart was another loser and declarer was held to 9 tricks.
Could declarer have done better? As soon as one spade has been played the only chance for avoiding a heart loser is the suit breaking 3-3 which is only a 35% short. But in fact the heart suit is worth a lot more than that - if you ignore the idea of a ruff, you can get 4 tricks in hearts a full 61% of the time. Can you see how?
The key is not to waste the ♥T or the ♥9. starting the suit with a heart to the ten works when the suit breaks 3-3 and when it doesn't but either both honours or a short honour in hearts is with West. Here, the play gains because West has ♥Q7.
It's not quite as simple as this as the 3-3 break could get you 11 tricks if all suits break, and sometimes the heart over-ruff is with a natural trump trick - but it is worth noting how best to play this heart suit, and if you are playing in game where making 10 tricks is paramount, then that's the line to take.
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| Play This Grand Slam |
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How do you play in 7♠ on a trump lead, East following?
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You probably can't cope with spades 4-1 and hearts 4-2, but you must try and set up the heart suit. Win the spade in dummy and cash ♥AK and ruff a heart high assuming East follows to the third heart. If the hearts in dummy are now high, you have 13 tricks. All you have to do is draw trumps and you can handle 4–1 spades. Cash two high trumps in dummy, return to the ♦A, discard a diamond on a high spade, cross to dummy with a diamond, etc. Say that the hearts are not good and the ♥Q remains at large. Cross to dummy with a spade and ruff a second heart high establishing dummy’s two remaining hearts. Dummy remains with a high spade, two good hearts, three diamonds and a club. You remain with a low spade, the ♦AJ and four clubs to the ace. You are reduced to finding the ♦Q with West. Cash the ♦A and run the ♦J. If it holds, cross to dummy with a trump and the rest of the tricks are yours. |
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| Defence Isn't Easy |
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West leads a diamond. You cover dummy's Queen and South wins and draws 2 more rounds of trumps, West turning up with a singleton. Declarer now advances the ♣J, West playing the 3. Plan the defence.
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You know declarer has at least 5 hearts along with 5 diamonds. South probably has a spade since West did not go on to 3♠ by himself as he might have done with six. In any case, it is difficult to see how you can beat this if South has no spade loser. Therefore you should defend on the assumption that South is 1552, and this is reinforced by partner's play of the ♣3. The defence has reached a critical point. If you win the club then no matter what you play next, declarer will set up the clubs and have a heart ruff as an entry to dummy to cash them. You need to duck the ♣J. Although this gives up a club trick, you effectively eclipse dummy's club suit. Now all you need is for partner's hearts to be good enough to leave declarer with three losers in the suit. |
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| Rate Your Chances |
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The defence lead hearts and take the first 4 tricks, West holding ♥KJT9. West switches to ♠ J. Plan the play.
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You have 8 top tricks and there will be no problem if the spades break 3-3. You will also succeed if one of the defenders holds a spade stop along with the ♣K. Win the ♠A and cash the ♣A. Now take your 4 diamond tricks, discarding clubs from dummy. If either defender has the desired holding, they will be squeezed into parting with a trick. |
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| Better than a Finesse |
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You play in 7♣ as South and West leads the ♠K. Can you see anything better than the heart finesse?
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Rather than take a heart finesse, you should first cash 10 winners outside the heart suit. On the eleventh trick, dummy is down to ♠J,♥AQ. West is known to hold the ♠Q from his opening lead, and he has to keep this card to prevent you scoring the ♥A and ♠J. You throw the ♠J and then play a heart. If the King does not appear, you play the Ace and will succeed in dropping the King when the layout is as shown. In effect, West is squeezed, for although he holds nothing in hearts, his discards have to give you the count in the suit. |
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| HotD-fri : Monday Swiss Teams 2 : 05oct20 : B6 |
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This looks a straightforward hand to play in 4♠, a contract the the majority of tables reached on Monday, There might seem to be little excuse for going down - but at two tables South laid a trap into which an unwary East fell. Here's how the play went ...
The opening lead was the ♣K and declarer won that with the ace and took a spade finesse. Since declarer has six spades, South knows the full layout of that suit, and what Waggett & Watson both found was a duck on the first round. Declarer thought it safe now to cross to the ♥A to take another finesse and duly did so, but now South won that and played a diamond. North was able to get in now and play a heart to give the fatal ruff.
One other South found the duck of the spade, and declarer did cross to the ♥A but, when in with the diamond, North failed to give the ruff. Would you have avoided the trap laid for East?
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| HotD-thu : Monday Swiss Teams 2 : 05oct20 : B1 |
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There were some interssting points on the very first board from Monday's game. The opening bid depended on what style of NT opener was being used, and we saw half the field open 1N showing 11-14 and the other half all opened with suits (mostly hearts). This was unfortunate for the NT openers as South lacks the values to bid and when South passed West was able to bid diamonds and bought the contract there. Not all NT openers were doomed, as two Souths dredged up a 2♣ Stayman response and when it went 3♦ - 3♥ - P to them they were well placed (and one bid game while the other passed).
In total we have eight tables found the heart fit and only two of those stopped ourt of game. Over one 4♥ game West sacrificed in 5♦ (losing 300) leaving five declarers to play in 4♥; only one succeeded. Four Easts were on lead and three led a diamond in response in resoonse to partner having shown that suit; the fourth led a spade despite partner's suggestion. The key question is how do you play 4♥ on the lead of a diamond to the queen, king and ace.
You can see three black suit losers and you also have the ♥K to worry about. What do you do first? Two declarers won the diamond, ruffed a diamond and came back to a top spade. Next was a losing heart finesse and the defence had no problem setting up a spade to go with two clubs and the contract was off. The opening spade leads (one from East, one from West) both got a heart finesse at trick two and another spade doomed the contract.
Clearly a spade lead gives declarer no chance with the ♥K wrong but can the contract make on a diamond lead? The answer is yes, and here's how the fifth declarer in 4♥ did it. Diamond ruffs and heart finesses are tricks which will wait but the one thing that cannot wait is trying to dispose of the spade loser. This declarer played a club at trick two, running the ♣8 to the ace; he ruffed the diamond return, crossed to a top spade and played another club. East could win and play a second spade but now declarer was in control. He won that trick, ruffed a diamond and led a top club. What could West do? Declarer's plan was to over-ruff if necessary, cross to ♥A and ruff another club to set up the fifth. A diamond ruff would give the entry to cash that and discard the losing spade. It was not fool-proof but was good enough on today's layout.
The key message was to be doing something constructive, something which could not wait, at trick two. The big candidate was disposing of the spade loser. Miss that and your contact is doomed.
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| HotD-wed : Monday Swiss Teams 2 : 05oct20 : B20 |
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This hand was played in hearts at three tables on Monday, and at very different levels. One table got to overcall 1♥ and hear P-P-2♣ and now their 2♥ bought the contract while East continued to doze. The other two tables started 1♣-X and found themselves introducing the heart suit for the first time at the 4-level; one got to play there and the other ended up bidding 5♥ over the opponent's 4♠ bid (necessary if the East-West hearts split 3-1).
All the other tables played in spades - four at the 3-level, four at the 4-level and one at the 5-level. The defence in each case started with the ♥Q and the number of tricks made was 7 (once), 8 (four times), 9 (three times) and 10 (once). How can we see such variance?
North had an easy task at trick one to overtake the heart and could see from the dummy that the only tricks to chase were in the red suits. Many Norths played ♦A at trick two and the best Souths signalled their pleasure very clearly by dropping the king. At this point North must remember that partner might have led a singleton ♥Q, in which case it is important to cash the second heart. If this is followed by a second diamond South will wiwn the fourth defensive trick. After that there isn't anything to try but a third diamond and when North ruffs with the ♠Q that is the fifth defensive trick. So the optimum outcome is 8 tricks.
What went wrong at the other five tables? Seven tricks was an aberration by declarer who failed to over-ruff the third heart when it was played after the above start. Nine tricks happened in three different ways (a) North played a second diamond before the second heart (b) South won trick four and tried a club rather than a diamond, and (c) one North cashed two hearts and (defending 4♠ which gives some justification) underled the ♦A in case declarer had a guess in that suit and now the wrong hand won trick four.. Ten tricks came when South failed to signal strongly enough on the ♦A and partner presumed no future there and tried playing three rounds of hearts.
So the play was not without interest but what is most curious about this hand is looking at the double-dummy contracts which can be made; it is rare that you see that whichever side plays the hand in no-trumps will make ZERO tricks; that's an enormous advanatage for the defence from being on lead. There's a similar variation in suit contracts - North/South can make only 7 tricks with diamonds as trumps at the same time as East/West cannot make any tricks (on best defence) if they play the hand.
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| Careful! |
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You get the ♣J lead. A reasonable start is to cash the two top clubs discarding a diamond from the table and then take the spade finesse, but what do you do when it loses and a club is returned?
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If you ruff the club in dummy, you will be able to set the spades up whenever they are 3-2, but you will be short of an entry to cash them after drawing trumps so you will be reduced to finding the ♦A onside. A far better play is to discard another diamond fom dummy on the club lead. If the defence plays a further minor, you then make 2 minor suit ruffs in dummy, whilst on a trump switch,you make whenever the majors break. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♥Q. Plan the play.
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You might be in danger if everything lies badly, but you do have some chances extra to those offered by the play in the diamond suit. Win the lead and play a spade from dummy. Assume East follows. You win and eliminate hearts and clubs before exiting with a spade. If West wins he must open up the diamonds or give you a ruff and discard, seeing you home. If East wins, you will have to hope that East holds at least one diamond honour. |
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| A Simple Slam |
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You play in 6NT on a club lead. How do you play?
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You only need 5 diamond tricks to make the contract so win the lead and play the ♦T. If West plays low, you must let this run. If East shows out, you can duck a further round of diamonds. If you carelessly play a top diamond first then when diamonds are 4-0, West can restrict you to 3 diamond tricks and you will fail unless both major suit kings are onside |
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| HotD-sat : Pairs League 2 : 29sec20 : B14 |
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This hand from Monday was interesting because the natural bidding chosen at this table was so amazingly descriptive. It didn't happen this way at many tables however; the first difference was that not all Souths opened the bidding - and the five who passed all ended in a part-score on tbhis hand (where it says you can make 13 tricks!), Everyone else (including the one who opened South as 3♣) ended with one side or the other in game. Should one open? There are big advantages to getting in first and the vulnerability is favourable - but it is only a 9-count. The margin of 6/12 opening at the one-level reflects how close the choice is.
Cleary from West's perspective hearts is a better suit than spades, and you usually want to play there. The issue with just bidding 1♥ is that you need so little from partner to make game, and you don't want it to go three passes. At the table we saw two choosing 1♥ while the other four all showed a two-suiter. And here North doubled to show values and East showed a preference for spades. At this point paths again diverged and two Souths bid clubs again, while two passed (one over 2♠, one over 3♠). West's 4♥ bid is now very descriptive, and must be either 56-- (occasionally 57--) shape. North knows to bid the club game when South bid clubs twice.
The play in 5♣ (or indeed the 6♣ reached at one table) is very interesting. West starts off with a top heart and declarer starts by taking a ruff and then cashing ♣A. Suddenly you know that West is 5620 shape and that means you can always cash three diamonds. With one heart and all your trumps in hand that guarantees 11 tricks and if you can get in a second ruff in dummy that's 12 tricks. Two things are important here - to use your small trumps with spade ruffs, and to cash the diamonds. If you go about the ruffs using the diamonds as entries the good news is that the ♦J appears setting up an extra trick for you there. Your ending is ♠97 ♦43 ♣Q in dummy and you are in hand with ♥T9 ♦Q ♣KT and now you cash the diamond queen, ruff a heart and sit back for your two trump tricks. Sadly of the four players in 5♣ two made only 11 tricks and two made 10. Not a good day.
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| An Extra Chance |
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West leads a low diamond to East's Queen. You win, perforce. Play from here.
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Prospects are not that good. For his 1NT bid West must hold a high spade and hence the ♣A is virtually certain to be offside leaving you with 4 black suit losers. You do have a chance however. West didn't double 1♠, so probably doesn't hold a 4 card heart suit. Also, if someone ruffs one of your heart winners, it may well be from a doubleton trump. Hence, attempt to cash three hearts, using dummy's heart entry to ruff a diamond en-route. Now a trump exit allows you to endplay East when he holds a singleton spade honour. |
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 2 : 28sep20 : B9 |
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When today's hand was played on Monday there was only one pair in a part-score (the auction shown except West passed) and two pairs bid to 5♦ as East-West, leaving the majority to play in the (odds against) 4♠ game. Against that game there were three instances of a heart lead, two instances of the lead of ♦K and then a heart switch, and four instances of the lead of ♦K and a second diamond (mostly where North had bid hearts).
On the play of diamond - diamond there was no way declarer could succeed and those declarers all went off. With a heart lead, or a heart switch, it all depended on what West played on the first heart. In practice, all five players in that position covered dummy's card, giving declarer the chance to draw trumps ending in South to take another heart finesse and make 10 tricks. If they had not covered, there is no line of play by which declarer can succeed. Should they have known to duck?
It is very easy to be on auto-pilot and play "third hand high" without thinking. The first step you should take in third seat at trick one is to consider what partner has led from. An honest heart lead from East must be either ♥K75 or ♥54 or ♥43 or ♥5. Given the knowledge that East has a diamond suit biddable at the 3-level vulnerable (and supported), a lead from the heart king is too dangerous to make any sense, so that option can quickly be discounted. If the lead was from a doubleton there is nothing to do in the suit as declarer has AK7 - so we are left with the (very likely on the bidding) lead of a singleton. Placing declarer now with 55 in the majors, you have three defensive tricks in the minors and need one more.
Goven the scenario described, you need to think through how the play might go. You will see that with a 55xx shape, declarer cannot deny you the one heart trick you are due as long as you duck the first round.
The key learning point is to avoid auto-pilot, always stop at trick one to work out what holding partner has (or might have) led from, and act accordingly.
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 2 : 28sep20 : B1 |
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This innocuous hand from Monday offers a number of points of interest. The auction at all 12 tables started with the same three bids (1♦ - P - 1N) and the fourth bid was the same (2♥) at all tables except at the one where East-West were using their defence to 1N openings (after any 1m-P-1N) and bid 2♦ to show a single suited major hand. The first question is what does North do over a 2♥ bid, and it was here that the community split. After the first round of bidding, North knows that there is a 8-card fit available in one minor, but will bidding 3♣ suggest more values than just a 12-count and lead to partner bidding too much? Seven of the twelve tables thought so while five pushed on with 3♣.
Was bidding 3♣ justified? Probably not, and for those well enough organised there was a way around : this is the use of the "Good/Bad 2N bid" (you can read about it here) and this was exercised by exactly one pair on Monday; unfortunately they got mixed up about it and ended (uniquely) playing in 3♦ going well off. One other pair could (and did) show a limited 3♣ bid and that was Keith Sharp who was able to pass over their 2♦ bid (mentioned above) and then back in with 3♣ on the next round. That strategy, plus the immediate 3♣ bid, all led to East supporting hearts and South continuing then with 4♣. That was enough to end the auction four times but twice West thought they had enough extras to bid game and duly did.
Both 4♣ and 4♥ should be defeated but in practice only one pair defeated 4♣ and nobody defeated 4♥. The failure in both cases was - curiuously - the same. The defence's suit was led and the suit continued even though it should have been apparent to all that it was about to be ruffed. In the case of defiending against 4♣ declarer was able to set up the diamonds to discard losing spades, and in the case of hearts, declarer escaped the diamond ruff and now with the spade finesse onside could make the game. Should the defence have been found in both cases - the danger is very apparent defending 4♣ as if partner lacks the ♠A they will need to provide both the ♠T and the ♠9 to beat the contract making ♠A better odds. In the case of 4♥ it is more difficult, but one could argue that to get 4 defensive tricks North needs partner to provide two tricks in the majors or just ♦A - which looks less to ask for in the sight of dummy's major suit holdings.
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| Keep Safe |
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West leads the ♥J. Plan the play.
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You have 3 hearts and 2 diamonds so need 4 club tricks. This layout offers a classic sfety play for 4 tricks in the suit. Lay down the King and then play towards the A9 allows you to make 4 tricks whenever the suit breaks 4-0. However, there is a further consideration on this hand. If you lose a trick to East, the defence can never take more than 3spade tricks whereas if you lose a club to West, you may find that you have 4 spade losers if a clever West switches to the ♠T from ATx say. This influences the way you play the club suit. Start with a low club from hand and if West plays the 7 or eight, insert the 9 from dummy. Even if this loses to a singleton ten (when the standard safety play would have gained an overtick) you are still home. In theory you can't keep West off lead if he started with ♣ QTx as he can always insert the ten on the first round. In practice, he may not do this as it would burn a trick if his partner started with a singleton King. |
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| Which Suit? |
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West leads the ♣J, East following with the ♣3. Plan the play.
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You have 8 top tricks and diamonds or spades could provide an extra trick, so which suit do you play? If you look closely at the spot cards, you will see that in spades, you are guaranteed to develop an extra trick even if you lose 3 tricks in the process. Win the lead and play the ♠Q. Win the next club and play the ♠J. Win the next lead and play your third spade. The ♠9 is now set up as a winner with the diamonds providing an entry to cash it. |
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| Maximise Your Chances |
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West leads a spade. Spades break 3-2. How do you play?
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Assuming clubs aren’t 5‑0, this contract is cold if East has the ♥A. The idea is to try to make it even if West has the ♥A. A little subterfuge can’t hurt. One possibility is to win the opening lead in dummy, cash the ♣AK of clubs, cross to dummy and lead a club. Another possibility is to win the lead in dummy, lead a club to the queen, cash the ♣A, return to dummy with a trump (always keeping a later trump entry to dummy) and lead a club. In both cases you are leading towards a high club with a trump outstanding. If a second round of clubs is ruffed with the outstanding trump, you need to find the ♥A onside to make the contract unless West ruffs and errs by leading a heart from the ace. If clubs are 3–2 and the player with the long spade also has the long club, you are home: Your third high club lives, so you can cross to dummy with a trump, pitch a diamond and a heart on dummy’s winning clubs and lead up to the ♥K, trying for an overtrick. Say the player with the doubleton club has the odd trump. If it is West, and he ruffs looking at both red aces, he then has to underlead the ♦A to get the heart through to defeat the contract. This Ace underlead is far from clear as from West’s point of view, declarer might have the ♦K and the ♥Q. The big gain comes when East has the doubleton club along with three spades and no ♥A. East must ruff, though not sure that you have the winning club. In any case, you are giving each opponent a chance to err with no risk yourself. |
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| What's the Best Line? |
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West leads the ♠8. What's the best line?
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You have 11 tricks and several chances for a twelfth. For example, you can take two club finesses and come home 76% of the time. You can do better, however. Win the ♥K, cash the ♠Q, cross to the ♥A and cash two more spades, discarding diamonds. If everyone follows to three spades, play a fourth round and discard another diamond (reducing to the blank ♦AQ in your hand), and lead the ♣J from dummy. If it is covered, you’re home. Just win the ace, cross to dummy with a heart and play the fifth spade, discarding the ♦Q, and concede a club. The rest are yours If the ♣J loses and a heart comes back, win in dummy, discard the ♦Q on the fifth spade and repeat the club finesse. This line gains when West has one or two hearts and fewer than five spades (as in the diagram) as when he wins the first club, West must return a minor suit giving you your twelfh trick If West has five spades, you will see East show out on the third spade. Stop playing spades (you will wind up squeezing your hand) and run the ♣J. Say it loses and West exits a heart (best) if he has one. Win in dummy, discard two more diamonds on winning spades and repeat the club finesse. If West started with five spades but has no more hearts when he wins the club finesse, West’s best return is a spade to dummy as you pitch a diamond. Now you can give yourself a small extra chance by crossing to the ♦A, and if no stiff king falls, return to dummy with a heart, discard the ♦Q on the fifth spade, and repeat the club finesse. |
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| HotD-fri : League 1.2 : 21sep20 : B3 |
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This hand from Monday generated plenty of swings with just under half the 13 tables playing in 4♠ making that contract. All but one table played the hand as North and ten declarers had a club lead. How should the play develop?
In order to make a trick from the clcub queen you need to duck this, and West wins the king and returned a club which you win. The hand looks straightforward and you continue almost on auto-pilot, starting with the ♥A and a ruff before coming back to hand in trumps. When West shows out you see a problem. as another heart ruff will generate an extra trump loser and so does not benefit you. You win the ♠ A. You can afford a heart loser as long as you don't lose a diamond trick - and an easy option presents itself for that. So you take the diamond finesse and ditch your losing diamond on the club ace. The position is now
NORTH : ♠J432 ♥Q opposite SOUTH ♠Q9 ♦542 and South is on lead
and you need three more tricks. East is known to hold ♠KT8 and two other cards. Can you see what to do?
The answer comes by a process of elimination; if you lead a spade you give East two spade tricks to go with a top heart, so you must lead a diamond. When you do this and West plays the ♦J you go through the same process. If you ruff low then East will overruff and you still have ♠K and ♥K to lose. If you ruff with the ♠J it does not work for East to overruff but if East simply discards a heart what can you do - nothing works? Ergo you must discard the ♥Q. If you do this you find that the defence has no remedy. - they can only make one more trick.
There were other successful lines on this hand - and the majority of successful declarer did in fact tackle diamonds early, and when the king was onside and they broke well, that turned out quite advantageous.
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| HotD-thu: League 1.2 : 21sep20 : B2 |
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It was surprising that only 5 tables reached 3N on this hand, with 24 HCP between East and West, stoppers in every suit and a good diamond fiit on the side. This was the auction at one table.
In the bidding here, 1♦ was always an unbalanced hand, 2N showed an invitational raise in diamonds, and 3♣ was a range enquiry showing some interest in game. After South's double West felt that the onside ♣K was enough to justify bidding 3N and against 3N a club was led, covered by the jack and king. Over to you now to play this .....
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The key issue on this hand is how to play the diamonds. With no further information the default play in diamonds is to cash the ace and king, succeeding 58% of the time. Here however you might have some extra information - you have the fact that RHO is keen on clubs. If you make the assumption that South has at least 5 clubs to justify asking for the suit to be led, then the odds change. It is now better odds to play the short club hand for three diamonds - and your chance of success moves up to over 66%. Filip Kurbalija duly did this and collected when North had started with ♦Q73.
In practice only two tables made the game; one was a gift from the opposition and the other was this table. The other tables in 3N bid the game against silent opposition and had no useful inferences to draw, so they got the diamonds wrong and went off. Silence can be golden! |
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| HotD-wed : League 1.1 : 21sep20 : B8 |
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This hand from Monday illustrates a number of interesting plays as well as bidding developments. In traditional Acol the West hand would be a 1♥ opener but only 3 of the 14 tables opened 1♥ here; there were two opened 1♦ (playing 5-card majors) and the remaining 9 opened a strong(ish) 1N. Over the suit openings we find three Easts responded 1♠ (raised to 3♠ by the heart openers) and two Easts responded with 2♣. These all got to 4♠. For the 1N openers, every East investigated the spade fit; in almost all cases South showed hearts and that led two EW pairs to play in 3N and a third to doduble South (in 3♥). So the majority did reach 4♠ but there were 12 distinct auctions took place (only 2 auctions were repeated and one of those involved a slight variation).
Of those playing in 4♠ six were by West and four by East. The real interest is in the play, and across the ten tables all suits were led. North led the ♥J three times in response to South's bid and declarer could now count a certain 5 tricks outside trumps. There would always be 5 trump tricks on a 3-2 break but the one cautious declarer played safe by ruffing a heart at trick two and engineering another heart ruff later to go with the AKQ to make five trump tricks. The other two declarers played ace and another club and in tne end needed helpful defence to make 10 tricks.
The two cases where South led ♦A were times when West had opened 1♥ and declarer had no knowledge as to where the ♥K was. They both refused the heart finesse and went down. Is that a minus for the 1♥ opener? The two cases of North leading the ♦8 also led to a refusal of the heart finesse and the contract was off at both tables until one defender returned it to declarer. With a bad trump break, the heart finesse was more necessary that realised.
Three leads left : on the ♥7 lead declarer rose with the ace and went about clubs; to make ten tricks now he had to pick up on the fact of the 4-1 trump break and he didn't, so one down. On the ♣J lead (despite dummy having bid the suit) declarer had an easy time setting up the clubs and made 10 tricks. Finally we get to the ♠9 lead by South. Declarer won and started clubs but ducked the ♣J. North played a diamond to the ace and a diamond came back. Declarer drew two trumps and ruffed a club which was overruffed. He won the diamond return and now cashed his winners in the process of which South, holding ♥KT9♣K, was squeezed out of a winner and the last three tricks were dummy's three hearts.
What do we learn from all this? Firstly that even a simple looking hand offers an enormous number of bidding sequences even if most ended in the same contract, and a large variety of lines of play. On the bidding, the three tables which started to investigate spades but missed the suit after South overcalled hearts need to work out how to find spades the next time. The pair who bid 6♠ need to calm down a little. On the play, we must admire the simply approach taken by the declarer first described, two heart ruffs and nothing can go wrong. For declarer in general - with only two losers outside trumps, there should be an increased alertness for the 4-1 trump break, as it can be handled. And what about the defender whose partner was squeezed for the tenth trick - he needed to count declarer's winners, for he could foresee the ending and he can counteract it by playing a heart into the AQ when he wins his last trump.
Will we ever get on top of this game?
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| Make them Pay |
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West leads the ♣9. The lead suggest that West has little in clubs so he is sure to have a good trump holding (probably all 5 of them). How do you rate your chances?
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You can make West pay for his double provided the other suits behave. Win the ♣A and cash 3 diamonds discarding clubs, followed by ruffing a club in hand. If this passes off OK, then play the top spades. You are now down to 1 spade and 4 hearts in hand, whilst West has 5 trumps. When you lead your last spade, West is stuck. He cannot win by ruffing high so he ruffs low but now you overruff and ruff a minor card in hand with the ♥Q, West is limited to 1 heart trick however he defends. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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Partner leads the ♦T. Declarer plays low in dummy. Plan the defence.
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If partner gets in and plays another diamond, you will have enough tricks to beat the contract. How likely is this? Not very since you can account for almost all the missing points. Declarer has denied a spade suit and your best chance of beaing the contract is to find West with ♠Jxxx or perhaps ♠9xxxx. Win the ♦A at trick 1 and switch to the ♠K. |
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| Play This Slam |
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West leads the ♠K. Plan the play.
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You need to cater for both red kings being offside. Fortunately, your spot cards in hearts are good enough to ensure the contract. Ruff the spade lead and come to hand with a trump to ruff another spade. Another trump to hand allows you to lead the ♥9, playing low in dummy unless West covers, in which case you just cover his card. East may win but then must concede your twelfth trick whether he gives you a riff and discard or leads a red card into your tenaces. |
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| HotD-sat : CBC Imps Pairs : 18sep20 : B17 |
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This hand from last night's game was dropped on the floor by the three tables who bid as shown (or veyr like as shown) to 3N. At the fourth table South did not overcall and after 1♣ - 1♥ - 1♠ - 3N, North chose to lead a diamond and that made the game very easy.
When South bid hearts, the lead was the ♥6 covered by the jack and queen. What should declarer's plan be?
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Thee are six top tricks in the majors and three more need to be developed from clubs and diamonds. And this before the defenders can set up five tricks.
The big danger is the defence running heart tricks and the best way to avoid that is to cut off the heart suit. By ducking at trick one and winning trick two, declarer will exhabust North of hearts and provided South has only one of the key cards in the minors, the heart suit can never be set up.
One sequence of play is to duck the heart, win the next and lead the ♣T which should be covered by the queen and king, Now is the time to lead a diamond (through the hand likely to be short in the suit); if the ace rises you can set up two tricks on diamonds to make nine, and if it doesn't North will beat the jack with the king. When a diamond is next led towards the queen, declarer must duck to allow South to win the doubleton ace. The odds on all this working were not great, but it is clearly the best line and all the cards are lying nicely for declarer - but only if declarer takes advantage of them.
In practice all three declarers won a top heart at trick one and were now doomed and went off. |
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| How do you Play? |
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How do you play this hand on a low heart lead?
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Your first thought is that you probably have 3 club losers and must therefore avoid losing a spade. The spade finesse offers far better odds than trying to drop a doubleton Queen. However, you should consider the hand as a whole. If spades break 4-1 you have very little chance, but if they are 3-2 the hand is virtually certain. Win the lead and play off the 2 top spades. Follow with the other top heart and then play diamonds. Whoever ruffs a diamond will have to play clubs or give you a ruff and discard. If no-one ruffs a diamond, simply exit with a trump to achieve the same result. |
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| HotD-thu : Pairs League 1 : B17 |
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The bidding options on this hand are discussed in the commentary with thr results, but the play is also of interest and is covered here.
The auction took p;lace as shown and the lead was the ♠2 to South's ace and he continued with the ♠Q which was ruffed. How should West continue?
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The answer is going to depend on how alert West was.
On this hand you have eight diamonds between the two hands so setting up some diamond tricks looks best; on an even break you will lose one diamond and ruff one, making four tricks in that suit. Add that to one heart and you need just six club tricks to get home. If the diamonds break 4-1 and you need to ruff two of them, you get one less diamond trick and need a seventh trump trick (which is easy if trumps break 2-2). In both cases your best start is an immediate ace and another diamond. But how will the diamonds break?
The answer lies in the opening lead. This was NOT a fourth best lead. It must surely be telling partner (who in practice noticed nothing) something about diamonds - and the most likely is that opener has a void diamond. Now what can declarer do? The answer is nothing with the diamond suit - attention must be switched to the heart suit. What could be done there? Cashing the ace and taking some ruffs might set up a trick or two there; it will be a second heart trick on most 4-3 breaks, but you get two extra tricks if you find the short heart hand with both the king and queen. If you want to set up the hearts, you need to start on that suit first.
You need to judge this well. Declarer was strongly expecting that void diamond but didn't back that judgement and played diamonds. Playing on hearts at trick three would have results in 11 tricks. Declarer's choice saved South considerable embarassment but damaged the East-West score. |
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| HotD-wed : Pairs League 1 : 14sep20 |
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This was the first board from this week's new Pairs League, for which there were 21 pairs taking part. It is a hand on which only one pair got close to the optimal contract (7♣ rather than 7N), three were one step removed from there (6♣ or 6♠), another six were two steps removed (playing game) and one was even two steps further away than that.
The last one first is worth noting, and it is a problem we will see more often. North at that table opened 2♦ showing in theory a bad weak two in either major, but with an expectation that it was quite often only a five card suit. East doubled and South passed showing diamonds. West decided that they could descibe their hand better once North had exposed which major, but in this case North had a very suitable hand to play in 2♦ and passed it out. The defence slipped and allowed 8 tricks to make. The key error was not realising that after South has passed to show diamonds, you need to defend as if partner has made a takeout double of diamonds - to avoid this danger.
Back to constructive bidding which at all tables (except the twice North opend 2♥) started as shown. How should it proceed? The majority choice was fourth suit forcing with 3♦ (4 times) and there were two tables with inexplicable choices (2N and 3♠) but it was another option still which led to the best seqeunce, and that bid was 3♣. Only two pairs had the confidence to know that this showed 3 cards support and game going values - which can be the case as long as you have agreed that over a reverse you bid 2N on any bad hand (Lebensohl style). One of the tables which bid FSF 3♦ managed to get back to play in clubs when West was able to jump to slam in that suit, but all the others converged on spades. The catch with spades is that you are missing the queen and so can never bid the grand slam comfortably.
How did it proceed after a 3♣ choice? In one case East continued with 3♠ and over West's 4N jumped to 6♣; there the robots stopped. The other pair continued over 3♣ with 4♦ asking for key cards. When West showed two, East continued with 5♦ promising all the key cards; West bid 5♠ to show the king and East ccould tell that the only possible losers were in hearts, and so took a chance on bidding the grand slam. That was the only route taken to 7♣.
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| Coping With The Break |
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Partner's 2♣ bid was Drury - showing a good raise to 2♠. You get the ♦J lead which you win with the Ace. You run the ♠J but West shows out. Play from here.
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Best play is to throw a club on the ♦K then call for the ♠T from dummy. East covers with the king and you win the Ace and lay down the ♣J. This play guarantees the contract provided East has at least two clubs. If the Queen of clubs is taken, the ♣T is an entry for a further spade finesse. If the ♣J holds, continue with Ace and another club, ruffing on the table. This may get overruffed but then your hand is high. |
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| Play Carefully |
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West sarts with ♠ KQ. You ruff the second round and play..?
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If trumps are 2–2, declarer will be able to make 12 tricks. But at teams, first priority is to make the contract. On the bidding, East may have all the missing trumps, and you can cater for this by leading a low diamond to dummy's 8. If both opponents follow in trumps, you can win the next trick, draw trumps and claim. If East has 4 trumps, he will win and let's say he returns a club. You can win in dummy, finesse trumps, return to dummy with a heart and repeat the trump finesse If clubs (or hearts) are 3–3, there will be no problem. But, if East has four (or more clubs), trouble lurks. If West has short clubs (two or fewer), he will have at least four hearts. There will be nowhere to put the club loser. So, before drawing trumps, declarer should test clubs, ending in dummy. If they are 3–3, he can play diamonds and soon claim. If they are 4-2 as is the layout shown, you can ruff your fourth club and use that entry together with the ♥K as entries for the diamond finesses. |
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| Your Chance to Shine |
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South gets to game after opening a strong no-trump. Partner leads the ♥8 which declarer runs to his King. The ♦9 comes next from South. How do you see the defence developing?
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A count of points shows that West can't hold more than a Knave so propects are poor. Spades offers the only hope of establishing enough tricks to beat the contract. West might hold the ♠J but even the ten will be good enough most of the time provided you switch to a low spade. Switching to the King gives South an easy second trick whenever he holds the Knave whereas if the layout is as shown, he is likley to play low and West's ten will be good enough.
[You may care to note how West's lead of a high heart gave South an extra trick in that suit] |
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| Choose Your Line |
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West starts with the ♥K and continues with a heart to East's Ace. A third heart is returned and West, who started with ♥ KQTx, cashes a fourth round on which East discards a spade, whilst you pitch a club from dummy and a diamond from hand. West gets off play with the ♦J, East following suit. How do you play?
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You need the rest of the tricks, so you need one of the minors to break, or a minor suit squeeze, or possibly a defensive error. Which suit should you test first? The answer in these situations is to play the suit that the defenders can see (diamonds in this case). Win the ♦Q and continue with 2 more top diamonds. Clearly if the suit breaks you are home, but when it is 4-1, one defender has to make 2 discards. On the layout shown, East is under pressure as he does not know declarer's holdings in the black suits - can you blame him for letting go a club? If he does the game is yours. |
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| Hotd-fri : BBO Swiss Teams 1 : 07sep20 : B14 |
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This hand from Monday offers traps to the unwary. The first point of curiousity is that at two tables North did not bid - but all the others overcalled with a weak 2♠ at their first chance. The overcall led two teams to play in 3N and both made this despite having five top clubs to lose if the suit were led. The others all played in 4♥.
The reason the two 3N contracts made, and the reason why one of the 4♥ contracts made was because the declarer listened to the bidding. The fact that the spades are splitting 6-1 is a key peice of information, as it changes the odds on how to best play the heart suit. With seven vacant spaces in North and twelve in South, the best (but not guaranteed) play in the heart suit is to cash one top honour and then to run the jack, The three who did this notched up their game.
Four tables went off in 4♥ - and three of those made the defence too easy. Those three all started with a spade lead and declarer bashed out the top hearts. With the prospect of a heart and two clubs to lose, these declarers continue by testing the diamonds, hoping for the 4% chance that they could avoid losing a trick there. In doing so they set up a defensive diamond trick. The fourth table started with a diamond lead which made the defence easy.
The other three declarers looked at the diamond suit and recognised that this was a suit they wanted the defence to lead. So they played on the other suits. At one table South ruffed an early spade and played a club to the queen and king. North switched to a diamond won by the king, but declarer crossed to dummy and led a club towards hand. South needed to - but failed to - resist rising with the club ace and now he was endplayed (ducking would let North win and play a second diamond). At another table South refused to ruff, and when clubs were played (there was a club lead at trick one too) North did find the diamond switch but now South got endplayed with the ♥Q. The third table failed to find the necessary diamond switches and again South got endplayed.
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| HotD-thu : BBO Swiss Teams 1 : 07sep20 : B13 |
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There were a number of interesting points on the defence to 3N on this hand from Monday. All tables got to 3N, except the one where East was playing a strong NT opener and West was assuming a weak NT opener. 3N was played by West at one table, and at another, East played 3N after North has overcalled in hearts; these two tables had a heart lead and that doomed the contract.
The other eight tables played 3N by East on a spade lead. It is surprising to note that three different spade pips were led - four led a fourth best ♠7, three led the ♠2 (presumably because they thought partner might misread the 7 as second best from a bad suit), and one person led the ♠9. You might not think it mattered but it did!
On the spade lead a few declarers were very lazy and played the ♠4 from dummy but most tried a high spade from dummy, and now the spotlight was on North. If we look at the actual layout, playing the queen at trick one gives declarer two tricks in spades - while if North ducks trick one then the spade king will shortly fall under the ace and the queen will make, depriving declarer of a second trick in the suit. Surely you should therefore duck? Not so simple - as
If the opening lead was from ♠AK97x or ♠AK87x, then North must not duck as there are five defensive tricks to cash. How can you tell? The bidding might be an answer this time, but more generally the answer is to make a different lead from ♠A987x and ♠K987x - the top of the interior sequence (♠9 here). If you do that North will know when to cover and when not to cover.
Curiously the defence goes more easily of North does cover. Declarer plays a club to the king and ace, and North returns a second spade ducked by South, and when declarer gives up the ♣J there are three spades to cash. Only in practice that didn't happen - either North went after the heart suit or South took the ♠A rather than duck. If North does duck trick one, declarer plays a diamond to hand and a club to the king and ace. North can play a second spade to the ace and get the ♠Q as the next trick, but the defence are now stuck and only get two tricks in each black suit. So if you deprive declarer of a second spade trick, you let the contract make!
But it actually gets more complicated than that. On the best defence of spade, club, spade ducked - declarer can still succeed. Can you see how? Declarer must play a third spade and force South to take those winners. In doing so, North gets squeezed and declarer makes either an extr heart ot drop the club jack. Tricky game this!
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| HotD-wed : Last Open Teams : 16mar20 : B22 |
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This hand from Monday was a flat board at the three tables who played in 4♠, and at some tables it was made easy, but there was one interesting point hidden away.
After the auction shown happened at (at least) two tables, all Norths found the lead of the ♥J and there was a mix of continuations or overtake and club switch. West got on lead at trick two and led a spade to the king and then another spade. The key question now is whether to play for the ♠T onside by finessing the nine, or to play an honour which wins on a 3-3 break or when North has the ten?
The answer comes from the opening lead, and your ability to diagnose that the lead was a doubleton. The time that playing the queen or jack of spade gains is when North started with ATx or Tx or Txx in spades; we can rule out the last two as South would have won the spade ace. In the remaining case that North has three spades and if North has three spades then surely that means a singleton (or void) in a red suit. That suit would surely have been led or played - so we deduce that North lacked a short suit and is very likely to be a 2227 shape. Therefore finessing for an onside ♠T is indicated.
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| How do you Play? |
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How do you play on ♣K lead (trumps are not 4-0)?
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Win the ♣A and play the ♠K and a spade to the ace. If the suit breaks 2–2, ruff a club and then try a diamond to the jack. If the finesse loses, you will have to take the heart finesse after cashing the ace first. If the jack holds, ruff a club and exit with the ♦A and a diamond to West. West is endplayed to give you the remaining tricks.
If spades are 3–1, play to the ♥A and then back to dummy with a spade to take the heart finesse. If it wins, you are home. If it loses, ruff the club return and play the ♥K. If hearts are 3–3, you can pitch a diamond from dummy on the fourth heart and need a simple diamond finesse to bring home the slam. If hearts are 4–2, you either have to play West for both the ♦KT and take two diamond finesses starting with the queen, or alternatively play West for ♦Kx and lead a low diamond to the jack. Of course, the double finesse is the percentage play, but the distribution of the other three suits may tell you otherwise. You will know the count in the major suits so if you can get the count in clubs, you will know how to play diamonds. For example, West might have show up with a 3424 shape, making a low diamond to the jack the winning play. |
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| A Simple Play |
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West leads the ♠6 against your thin game. East playing the Knave. How do you play?
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From the lead it looks like West has a 5 card suit and East a doubleton (if the lead is fourth highest and there is only one card lower that you cannot see then West can't have more than 5). On the bidding, West is likely to have all the missing Kings so the heart finesse looks doomed to fail. There are a number of lines that you could consider but a simple way to succeed would be to win trick one, cash enough diamonds to exhaust West of that suit and then exit with a spade. West can cash 4 spades but then will have to concede your ninth trick by leading from either his ♥K or ♣K. |
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| HotD-sat : CBC Pairs League : 11mar20 : B14 |
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This looked like a routine hand on which sensible bidding and play was rewarded - but then I started to delve a little deeper.
Looking at the bidding first - it is hard ot imagine divergence before we reach 2♠ as shown, but most lessons don't discuss what to do next. The best answer is to keep everything natural - any bid should show the location of extra length, so that 3♣ would imply a 5413 or 5404 shape , and similarly 3♦ would show short clubs, 3♥ would be 5-5 and 3♠ should be 6-4, leaving 2N for 5422 shapes. Here 3♠ describes the hand well. The only uncertainty is about whether or not 3♥ is forcing; on the basis that the bidder could jump to 4♥ (unfortunately by-passing 3N) most players will treat 3♥ as a non-forcing game try. Here once North learns of a 64xx shape, there is no doubt that both the ♥Q and ♣A will be useful cards, and the hand can justify a raise to game (for some it could also justify stopping in 3♠). In practice 6/16 pairs bid game, 8/16 stopped at the two-level and two ended in 3♠.
Against 4♠ the opening lead was three rounds of diamonds; declarer ruffed and drew trumps and then had to play the hearts for one loser. Ideally you would tackle that with a double finesse leading twice towards the AT95 but here there is only one entry to dummy. It feels close to a double finesse to test initially for West having the jack by leading to the ♥8, and when that loses crossing to the club ace to lead the queen - testing now for the king with East. That might feel like a 75% shot but I was surprised when I checked with the SUITPLAY software to find that this wasn't and that the optimal line only had a 59% success rate. How could that be?
The answer lies in how the defenders play. Suppose you started with a heart to the eight and it lost to the king - how would you proceed? It seems natural to assume the jack is with West and to ruff the fourth diamond to lead the ten next towards the queen of hearts. That works fine if East was not too devious - but if East had started with KJx or KJxx hearts then winning that first heart with the king would have put you on the wrong track and you would lose two hearts. So on best defence you cannot cater both for KJx(x)(x) with West and for KJx(x) with East. In fact, after the ♥8 loses to the king, it is a tiny bit better to play East for both the king and jack by now crossing to the queen and finessing East for the ten, but even better than that is the combination of crossing to the queen and then cashing the ace picking up all 3-3 breaks and neither xx-KJxx or Jxxx-Kx.
Do we thing such a defence could ever be found? Think first of the case of ♥KJx with East. East should have been preparing for how the heart suit will go on this basis : declarer surely has the ace and with ATxx or less opposite Q84 then the best play is clearly to lead to the queen. So when declarer plays to the eight, the hidden hand has to be AT9x in hearts, and that means that if you win the jack declarer's only sensible line will be to cross to the North hand and play the queen to pick up your king. So winning the jack is a doomed effort, and you should try something else. Clearly ducking never gains, so the answer has to be winning with the king.
I often say that this is a simple game - but I cannot say so this time!
BTW the best play in the heart suit - against perfect defence - is to cross to the ♣A and start by running the ♥8, which works when the jack is onside or East holds a short K-holding. But in practice you need to assess your opponents before deciding on the best play at your own table.
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| Every Little Helps |
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How do you play this grand slam on a trump lead?
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Without the annoying trump lead, a heart ruff in dummy would have sufficed. Still - you do have some chances. Clearly you draw trumps and hope to make something of the club suit. The best play in clubs is to cash the ♣AK and then ruff the third round. This gains on a 3-3 club break or any Queen doubleton. So after drawing trumps you cross to the ♣A. There is no need to continue clubs at this point. Play ♦A pitching a heart and then ruff a diamond. Suppose the Queen drops on the second round. Now cross back to dummy with a second top club. If nothing significant has happened, continue by ruffing a club, hoping for a 3-3 break. However, on the layout shown, West will discard on the second club so you know there is no future in the suit. This is where your foresight may pay off. If you ruff a further diamond and find the other top honour falling, you can cross back to dummy with a heart and your diamonds are good. A small extra chance but one that is no cost to play for.
[LATER NOTE: an alternative is to lead to ♣K to play ♦A and one ruff and if an honour falls (which might be a falsecard), followed by a heart to the ♥K and another diamond ruff. Good news in diamonds (KQ doubleton or KQx) will emerge 10.3% of the time, and when that fails you still have the club finesse and possibilities of a squeeze if West has the long diamonds. It looks like the extra from diamonds dropping outweighs the advantage ruffing out the clubs has over a club finesse] |
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| HotD-thu : Spring Swiss Pairs : 9mar20 : B3 |
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There were plenty of slam hands again on Monday. There was one 91% slam bid at only one table (B9), one 89% slam bid by nobody (B10), one 85% slam bid by nobody (B3) , one 73% slam bid by nobody (B17), one good grand slam bid at only two tables of nine (B5), and one poor slam - a balanced 31 count - bid at three tables (B14). There is obviously a lot of potential there to improve. It is worth bidding each of the hands mentioned off-line with your favourite partner to confirm you have a decent and successful sequence available on each.
This hand was the one 2♣ opener in the set, and brought out a few interesting questions. The first was what South should bid at the point shown. The big danger (admittedly at its lowest at this vulnerability) is that West bounces with diamond support, and therefore the most important message for South to get across is that the hand is playable in all the other three suits. You would like to have a takeout double, but double is an illegal bid. What is the answer? It is to have agreed (as a few of us have) that XX here is for takeout. If you do redouble, the bidding could proceed 3♦ - P - P - 3♠ - P - 4♣ - P - 6♣.
In practice most Souths bid 2♠ and North - to shut partner up - raised quickly to game and that was the final contract. Your 2♣ openers are your most previous hands, and it pays to have considered how to behave after the opposition interfere.
Notice how with preparation the position was recoverable - but from East's perspective - would not a 3♦ overcall have taken away a lot more space from the other side? In all cases except this vulnerability that would have been a worthwhile choice, and this issue is sufficiently common that using 2♣-X and 2♣ -P-2♦-X for some hand other than the suit shown (most commonly both majors) is well justified.
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| HotD-wed : Spring Swiss Pairs : 09mar20 : B13 |
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This was an interesting play hand from Monday. This contract - probably on this auction - was the one most commonly played, and it was natural for East to lead their longest suit - diamonds. [There were two 3N contracts by South and they both had gentle leads, and were not so interesting]
From declarer's perspective there are plenty of tricks to set up but also the need to lose the lead in clubs, and probably lose the lead in each of spades and hearts. Losing a trick in all three of those - and expecting the opposition to set up some diamonds en route - is not a winning choice. The question is how to set up enough tricks without letting the opposition cash too many diamonds.
The key is losing tricks to the safe hand at the right time. Working on the assumption that the opening lead will have any extra length in the suit (by no means a given on this auction) you would select East as the danger hand, and importantly West as the safe hand. Looking at the three suits you might play, you can see that spades is the one suit on which you can surely restrict the defneders, so that only West might win a trick.
So spades get postponed. Since the club ace is always an entry for whoever holds it, the danger is that the long diamonds has that card - so playing clubs first becomes the only option. East does best to win the third round, and continue diamonds. In order to exhaust West of diamonds you now need to duck one diamond and win the third round. This gives you seven tricks outside spades, and you come to hand with the ♥A and take a spade finesse. You need to be careful after the ♠T holds. It is necessary to cash the other top heart and the last club at this point, before finessing again. When you do West will grab thei king, but be left with bothing but spades and giving dummy the last two tricks. Plus one!
You might survive with an early spade finesse, but only if West decided to duck the first round - and they should not! If during the play of diamonds you became convinced that West rather than East held the length - you might still recover by going for your extra tricks in hearts, running the ♥T after winning the third diamond. Watching the opponents' play in the diamond suit becomes very important.
The other candidate contract is 4♥ and looking at the North--South hands, you would rather be playing there as you have decent prospects of 11 tricks. Should South have bid 4♥ instead? It is hard to tell, as if North held a singleton spade and three diamonds the picture is rather different. On the day however, 4♥ was made by all its declarers - while three in 3N went off for a worse score, and three made an overtrick for a better score.
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| Manage Your Chances |
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You play in 7♥ on the lead of ♦K. How do you play?
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Ruff the opening lead (you don’t want to commit to a black-suit discard at this point), and draw trumps, discarding a spade from dummy. Cross to the ♣A, ruff a diamond, return to the ♣K, and assuming the queen hasn’t appeared (your 13th trick), discard a club on the ♦A and ruff a club. Assuming clubs were not 3–3 and dummy’s fourth club has not set up (your 13th trick), you still have good chances. All hands have been reduced to four cards. You have Kx of spades in dummy along with a low club and a low diamond. In your hand are four spades. If either defender started with four spades and four or more clubs, that defender has been squeezed and either the club is high or the spades will run. If either defender started with four spades and six diamonds, that defender has been squeezed and either dummy’s diamond is high or the spades will run. In addition, you make the contract if spades were 3–3.
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| What's the Best Line? |
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West leads the ♥4. What's the best line?
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It’s tempting to play three rounds of hearts and pitch a diamond, but it’s a risk. If West has led from a doubleton heart, and ruffs the third heart low, you are at the mercy of the club finesse. A better idea is win the lead in hand and push out the ♠J. West may duck with Ax and that gifts you the contract. Suppose West wins the ♠A and leads a diamond to East who returns a club. Then you should take the Ace, draw the last trump and pitch a diamond on the third heart. If East wins the ♠A at trick two and leads a club, win the ace, draw trumps and pitch a diamond on the third heart. If the opponents cash two diamonds and then East leads a club, win the ace and discard both clubs on red-suit winners. If the player with the ♠A has at least two spades along with a doubleton diamond, you have a problem. That player can win the ♠A and shift to a diamond. Three rounds of diamonds, East ruffing the third, kills your club discard after you overruff. Now you need the club finesse. If the third diamond comes from East you have to decide whether to discard a club or ruff high. If you ruff high, you will need the club finesse. If you discard you need to find West with at least one more diamond. If West has one more diamond, you won’t need the club finesse. In this unlikely scenario, it would have been better to play three rounds of hearts immediately, hoping they lived. But don’t take any credit if you played hearts before spades! |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads a trump and East shows out, discarding a low diamond. How do you play?
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If East had followed to the trump lead, you could have ultimatelu ruffed a spade and a diamond in dummy for 10 tricks. Now it looks as if West wil get in enough times to lead 3 rounds of trumps and spoil that plan. Could the diamond finesse work? - hardly. West didn't lead a spade from so probably doesn't have a solid honour sequence. Neither did he lead a club as he might if he held K in the suit. Hence it looks as if East has a couple of black honour cards leaving the diamond King with West. You must therefore look elsewhere for your tenth trick. Win the trump lead and play a club. Say West wins and leads another trump. Win in dummy and ruff a club. A trump and the ♠A remain as two further entries to ruff out the clubs and cash the last club whenever they break 4-3. |
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| HotD-sat : Spring Teams : 2mar20 : B16 |
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This was an interesting slam from Monday, bid by very few but actually quite a respectable contract. From West's perspective if East has a K-KQ combination rather than a K-K-QJ combination the slam becomes a certainty.
The interesting point was the play. Looking just at the East-West hands - you have at least 6 diamond tricks and at least AK-A-AK outside. All you need to make the slam is one more trick, which could be either by avoiding a diamond loser, or by a ruffing heart finesse.
Playing in 6N you have no option but to go for the diamond finesse as hearts involves giving up a trick; a problem is that although you can collect from an onside king most of the time, you cannot collect from ♦K974 onside, and that happens almost 5% of the time - so your success rate is only 45%. [How two tables made 6N with the ♦K offside is a mystery]
There are better chances with diamonds as trumps, because you can take advantage of the heart king being with South. This is a 50% shot, but importantly it can be combined with some chances in diamonds. If you are using one entry to dummy to lead hearts, you only have one entry left for diamonds and you have two choices. If you start with the ace you will avoid a loser whenever there is a singleton king - that's about a 10% chance, which would raise your overall success rate to 55%. Even better is to go for hearts first, and if that option fails then go for a diamond finesse; a single diamond finesse will only deliver no loser when South has a singleton or doubleton king, but that is a 26.6% chance, so now your success rate is a healthy 63%.
This is a good advert for choosing a trump slam over a NT slam - there are often extra options when you do that. Well done to Joe Angseesing & Paul Denning - the only pair to bid it.
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| Any Chance for the defence? |
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When partner bids 5♥, you interpret this as showing good cards in the black suits but with 2 losing diamonds, so you take a pot at 7♥. West leads the ♦J. How do you plan the play?
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You see that you have a losing minor suit card, but that the spades might break 4-4 and that you have the necessary entries to dummy. There might also be some squeeze chances. Win the lead and play ♥A and then an heart to dummy's 9 (retaining the 3 in hand). Now cash the ♠A and throw? - the answer is a club because if spades don't brek, you might need the ♦9 as a threat card for a squeeze. Then ruff a spade high and cross back to dummy with a trump for a further spade ruff. Now a club to dummy and spade ruff reveals the position. If spades have broken you are home and if West has 5 spades, then run all of your trumps. In the end position, West will need to keep a spade and East will need to keep a diamond. Hence they both have to come down to a singleton club and dummy wins the last two tricks in that suit - a classic double squeeze. Do you see how the defence could have done better? Leading a diamond is automatic on the bidding, but if West had led a low diamond, East could have thrown all his diamonds away and kept a club guard, defeating the contract. |
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| HotD-thu : Spring Teams 3 : 2mar20 : B24 |
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It was a surprise that East got to play this hand so often in 1N undoubled. As you can see, the defence runs well, with five club tricks, two diamonds and two spades. What happened?
There are two philosophies to doubles of 1N. One camp looks to have confidence that the contract will go down before doubling. This means either having a clear majority of the HCP, or when making a minimal hand double, insisting on having a plan for generating tricks - usually in the form of an attractive lead. That camp passes 1N on the South hand here.
The other camp takes the attitude that 1N is a very attractive contract to play in and often generates a good score; it is therefore incumbent on the other side to get the 1N bidder out of that contract as often as possible. Doubling on less strong hands is one way of doing that; a double can result in third hand running from 1N-x, or can encourage fourth hand to take out into a suit that would not have been bid otherwise. Or, as here, it could result in a sizeable penalty.
The camp you choose to live with affects the behaviour of the fourth hand; in the first camp any fourth hand with 8+ HCP would expect to be going for game, but in the second camp the fourth hand might be more circumspect.
A single hand is no guide to the efficacy of the two methods, but there is increasing momentum behind the latter. Either approach can go wrong - which is why the weak 1N opener has a positive reputation. Because the weak NT has such limited following world-wide, there is snot developed evidence to prove which is better. Monitoring the boards you play is the best way to form your own judgment.
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| HotD-wed : Spring Teams : 2mar20 : B21 |
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This was the good slam hand from Monday which proved most difficult to bid (8/12 bid the slam on B7, and the other slam candidates were only so-so, and only 4/12 bid this slam). The crucial bid on the hand came at this point. What should East bid?
It is surely right to introduce the spade suit - the question is just at which level. Some tables overcalled 1♠ ; over this North will want to show heart support and should recognise that the opponents have at least 9 spades between them and they are going to be bidding more spades. It is vital therefore to get the strength of support over to partner, so that partner can later decide on whether to bid on. The one bid which does this best is 3♠; it is a slight overbid, but shows the fact of heart support and spade shortage and firmly leaves it to partner to decide on how to proceed. At the table is went 3♠ - 4♠ and South was able to sensibly cue bid 5♦ indicating slam interest but lack of a control in clubs - and now it was easy to bid the slam.
Some tables saw West overcall 2♠; at this point there are fewer options available to North to show support - basically, in order of strength 3♥, 4♥ and 3♠; that's useful but unfortunately none of them is specific about spade shortage. In trying to help partner decide what to do over a likely 4♠ by East, it is hard to choose between 3♠ which suggests more high cards and 4♥ which suggests more distribution. When East does bid 4♠ however, the idea of spade shortage in North should come through to South and bidding on makes sense. South is likely to bid on but slam is not so visible and the position is fraught as sometimes East-West will be in a 6-3 spade fit and there will be two spade losers and possibly something else to worry about.
The key here is that West has removed bidding space from North, and as always taking away bidding spade hampers bidding accuracy.
Declarer needs to be a little careful playing in the slam. The key asset in the North hand is the long club suit, and declarer will need to play ♣ A and another early enough to be able to enter North twice to ruff out the suit, in order to make the slam.
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| Basic Stuff |
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West leads 3 rounds of hearts. You ruff the third round and play?
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You have a diamond loser (possibly two), so you have no chance unless trumps break 3-2. If you draw trumps you need to find the diamonds 3-3. A better play is to start on diamonds before drawing trumps. It won't be any good to play diamonds from the top as you may then have to ruff the fourth round with the Ace of trumps, setting up a trump trick for the defence. Best play at trick 4 is to duck a diamond. Now win the return and cash the ♠AK, followed by the diamond AK. If diamonds are 3-3 all is well and if the hand with 3 trumps holds 4 diamonds, you can ruff a diamond in dummy for your tenth trick. |
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| The Choice is Yours |
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West leads Ace and another diamond. East continues with a third round of diamonds. You ruff high, West discarding a heart. How do you continue?
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Your problem is how to avoid 2 heart losers. The hand screams endplay but you have a choice of which endplay to make. Start by drawing trumps and eliminating the clubs finishing in hand. At this point you will know that East held 2 spades, 6 diamonds, 3 or 4 clubs and hence 1 or 2 hearts. If West started with ♥KQ then a low heart toward the Knave will bring the contract home. If the heart honours are split, then Ace and another heart will either force East to give you a ruff and discard if he wins the trick, else the defence must clash their heart honours (or a singleton heart honour with East will have dropped). So which endplay do you make? Given that East opened with a vulnerable weak 2, he probably has a heart honour, so I would go for the A and another heart play. However, at more favourable vulnerability, and against some players, the other option may work. Really, the choice is yours. |
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| How do you Play? |
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You get the lead of a low heart. What is your plan?
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You have communication problems. Unless hearts break 3-3 or the ten falls you only have 3 heart tricks, so which suit do you develop? If you play the ♦A and another diamond, East follows with 2 low cards. Do you play the Queen or the 10? It is a good idea to know this suit combination. If diamonds are 3–3, it would just be a pure guess as to which card to play on the second round. If they are 4–2 then the Queen is the correct play as this may drop a doubleton Knave. If the King is doubleton, you always have 2 losers in the suit. However, you must consider the hand as a whole. Rather than play diamonds when an unfavourable lie or wrong guess will likely see you defeated, you should play on clubs by winning the Ace of hearts at trick 1 and leading the ♣K (you never know, the Queen may drop singleton). As long as the clubs are no worse than 4-2 Your plan is to later play another high club and as long as clubs are no worse than 4-2, you set up 3 clubs to go with 3 hearts, 2 spades and a diamond.. |
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| A Safe Line |
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West leads the ♠T. Plan the play.
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You don't want West switching to a diamond so your first move must be to cover the lead with the ♠J. Say East wins and continues the suit. You ruff and draw trumps. The diamond finesse is unlikely to win and you might consider an endplay on East. This line is fraught as West may be able to gain an entry for a diamond through. Although you can always ruff 2 hearts on the table, the safe line is to run the ♥J. It may lose but then you discard 2 diamonds on your hearts and ruff 2 diamonds in dummy. If the heart finesse wins, you only need one discard so either way you score your game. |
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| Hotd-fri : Winter Swiss Pairs : 24feb20 : B2 |
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This auction and contract was what happened at four tables on Monday; there were also four heart contracts played by East (2-level, 3-level and 4-level and 4-level doubled) and two contracts in black suits. But let's focus on this position.
What should North be leading against such an auction? Three suits were chosen in practice - the ♠7 twice, the ♥5 and the ♦J. In double dummy play the lead makes no difference, but you can see here that a diamond gives away a trick, and that is the reason the tendencies these days are much stronger towards passive leads than they used to be. With a singleton trump lead in danger of helping declarer more than helping the defence, the spade lead therefore stands out.
After winning trick one, it is natural for declarer to start working on trumps, and with only one entry to dummy, leading out the queen looks very attractive. When South wins and a spade comes back, declarer will be thinking that if everything lies well there might only be the top clubs and the ♥A to lose, and at matchpoints you need the overtricks, so playing a second heart looks right. When North shows out you must duck to South who will now play another spade and we hope to win that with the ace. The only chance for eight tricks now is three spades, two diamonds, and three trumps. So the line is a diamond to the queen, aiming to cash the ace and ruff a diamond and be sitting with six tricks and dummy left with ♥KT ♣Q86. But the diamond finesse fails; North can safely return a diamond and declarer gets one ruff and we reach the same ending but with only five tricks in the bag.
The result would have been different in teams, where the focus would be on getting eight tricks rather than the maximal number. The position that became the target gives a hint of the winning play. The key is getting two diamond ruffs early. Winning the spade lead and taking one ruff, then a heart to the queen and a second ruff, and then spades will get you to an ending with dummy holding ♥KT ♣Q865. It's not all over yet - you are holding ♠9 ♥4 ♣T973 in hand and it might natural to play a trump but that is fatal - the point being that is a heart works just as well late as it does now - so play the other suits first.
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| Your Lead |
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You find yourself on lead after a simple auction. What is your thinking and wich card are you going to lead?
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You know that you hold virtually all your sides assets so it looks like a club is the only suit worth attacking. You could hope that partner holds the ♣J in which case a low club lead will likely set up enough club winners to beat the contract, but that is putting all your eggs in one basket. If you lead the ♣Q you will score a goal when South hold ♣Jx, but it won't be so good if North holds ♣Kx and South has ♣Jxx. How can you tell? The best lead is the ♣A to have a look at dummy, before continuing appropriately. This lead gains whenever partner has the Jack, or declarer or dummy has Hx. If the club suit is Kxx with North and Jxx in South, you are never going to beat the contract whatever you do. |
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| HotD-wed : Winter Swiss Pairs 3 : 24feb20 : B3 |
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There are a lot of different rare events in bridge - but so many that we come across something "rare" all too often. Take this hand from Monday, 29 HCP - how often do you get that? The answer is about one hand in 100,000 which means if you play four duplicate sets a week (say 100 hands) every week, then this happens to you about once every 20 years. You might see it more often than that, as one of the other three players might hold this hand - so you might see it once every five years. But the bridge club here in Cheltenham plays more than four sessions a week - more like a dozen sessions a week, so the average wait for a repeat at the club will be under two years.
Is it worth having some system bids prepared for such an eventuality? Not really. But you do need to be able to plan how to handle these rare hands. What would you do here? [Notice that you are not guaranteed even with this holding to make 3N]
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Everyone starts here with their strongest bid - usually 2♣ and will hear from partner a neutral/negative response (as you might expect) of 2♦. What next?
There are two difficulties here - one is getting over the enormous strength to partner (and the fact that the hand is relatively balanced) and the second is getting cooperation from a partner whose hand might be pitifully weak. Clearly a NT bid would be descriptive but you need that bid to be game forcing as you are very very likely to make at least 3N on this hand. Many people use the (artificial) sequence 2♣ - 2♦ - 2♥(two way) - 2♠(asking) - 2N to show game forcing balanced and that would be one option here. That start was found by one pair, and now East was able to use Stayman to investigate a major suit fit, but the particular sequence (3♦ one major - 3♠ showing hearts) led to opener bidding 3N and there it rested as East thought the opener, though strong, might be as few (!) as 25 hcp.
Another pair started 2♣ - 2♦ - 3N but that also ended the auction and they missed out on better things.
The most common winning start was 2♣ - 2♦ - 3♦ which uncovered the diamond fit and with so few losers outside, opener could now insist on a slam - and two tables saw the 29-count put down in dummy, letting East play the handa in diamonds. But actually the diamond fit can only generate an extr trick if there is a spade ruff to be taken, so - the game being matchpoints - the more alert Wests convered to 6N at the end. Another winning start was 2♣ - 2♦ - 2♠; this shows a suit which is quite happy with three card support, and could often lead to an easier auction that a diamond rebid would. At the table, East jumped to 4♠ showing support but no high cards, and West bid the slam in spades - looking forward to ruffing some diamonds in dummy - but that was not to be. Still 6♠ made easily and outscored 6♦.
There were two noticable accidents, which meant that the pairs who felt so bad about bidding just 3N on this hand still scored 30% on the board! One accident was a 2N opener by a player whose system said that 2N was weak with both minors; partner knew the system and expressed a preference for diamonds, but this was interpreted as a transfer to hearts and the big hand decided to gamble on that being the right denomination and bid 6♥; that drifted down two. The other accident came after finding a fit and multiple cue bids pushed pair 23 to bid a grand slam in NT. If the diamonds had broken 2-2 and the heart finesse was winning, that would have been a success - but not this week.
Are we all better prepared for the next time we have 29 HCP to bid? Yes, but more importantly we might be thinking more clearly on the next game forcing hand we have, and 25+ HCP is twenty times more likely than 29+, so it will happen before we forget all this! |
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| HotD-tue : Midlands League : 23feb20 : B11 |
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There was a good sprinkling of slam hands in Sunday's match, with three excellent slams (bid twice by Gloucestershire across the six tables, but never bid by Warwickshire) and two reasonable slams (five instances bid by Glos, one by Warw - and all but one made) and four bad slams (two bid by Glos, five by Warw - and one success for each team). Glloucestershire gained 161 imps across the slam hands. This was the most interesting of the good slams.
There were two common starts to the auction, of which one is shown. The key question is what to bid next; you will clearly support diamonds and for those well organised 3♦ is known to be natural and forcing. This is however not the best choice as it leaves open the option of 3N and that muddies the waters, while a bid of 4♦ declares that diamonds will be trumps and initiates a cue bidding sequence. It's not all over then - when West bids 4♠ denying a heart control, East cannot just ask for aces as the danger is partner bids 5♥ or 5♠ and you are in a slam missing two key cards. One answer is to guess to bid the slam, but a better one is to cue bid 5♣; this promises a heart control (else you would have signed off when partner denied one) and allows opener to identify the problem and bid the slam.
The other common start to the auction (1♣ - 1♦ - 3♦) faces the same sort of dilemma about how to avoid bidding a slam missing two aces; the answer again is for East to give the task to West. Over the 3♦ raise, the winning choice is a 4♥ jump - showing shortage in hearts (where 3♥ would have shown a high card) and letting West continue to slam.
The third and least common start to the auction was the one which made slam bidding most difficult. It was where North overcalled 1♠. The bid is on the aggressive side with a suit as weak as 86542, but the fact is that if you do find a fit in the spade suit you have hit the jackpot and if you do find a fit in any of your suits, this hand should work well for partner. Perhaps it's the standard picture - every time you enter the auction you seriously dent the accuracy of the opponents' bidding. After the 1♠ overcall what can East do? Bidding 2♦ is so likely to get hearts from partner that it feels doomed; and once you pass partner can double but the opponents will surely rescue themselves to 2♥. Not easy!
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| Think! |
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West cashes 2 top hearts and continues with the ♣K. Plan the play.
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The danger on this hand is that both trumps and diamonds break badly. One line you might consider is to cash a top diamond and then cross to dummy with a trump in order to play a second diamond. Then East cannot profitably ruff in if he holds 1 diamond and four trumps and you score the ♦K. The problem is that you still need to ruff two diamonds on the table to set the suit up and that means having three entries to hand to set up and cash the diamonds. Your only entries are in trumps and if they break 4-1 you will lose control and suffer defeat. The winning line is to play off the two top diamonds. If the ♦K is ruffed, the long trump hand is shortened and you now have enough trump control to ruff two more diamonds and get back in trumps to cash your winners. |
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| Read the Signs |
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West leads the ♠Q, East following with the 6. How do you play?
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Once you have knocked out the ♦A, you clearly have plenty of tricks. Hence the danger is that the defence will cash enough spades to beat you when they win their diamond trick. If spades break 4-3 then this can't happen but what if they are 5-2? Your first thought might be to duck trick 1 and hope that the hand hand with 5 spades doesn't hold the ♦A. but you should consider the opening lead carefully. If West has 5 spades then East has ♠K6 and taking the first trick will block the suit. East played small because he could not afford to unblock the King as this would set up a second stop for declarer. As is often the case, reading the signs at trick 1 points the way to the winning line. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♠4. East plays off ♠ AK9. Plan the play.
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On top, you have 1 spade, 2 hearts, 3 diamonds and 2 clubs for 8 tricks. With no obvious source of an extra trick, and considering that if you let East win a trick in a side suit, he will have enough tricks to defeat you, consider a squeeze to gain that vital extra trick. It is quite likely that West holds 4 cards or more in both hearts and clubs, and this is what you should play for. In order for the squeeze to operate, you need to rectify the count i.e. get to a postion where you need all of the remaining tricks. Spades is the obvious suit in which to lose tricks. The best play is to duck the ♠9 at trick 3 and also the next spade if East continues the suit. On these tricks you throw 2 small clubs from the dummy. When you ultimately play off your winning spade and cash the diamonds, West is in an impossible situation where he cannot guard against your scoring either the ♥8 on the table or the ♣8 in hand. The contract cannot be beaten once East takes his second top spade at trick 2. If East continues instead with a heart or a club, the defence has the time to kill declarer's entries needed for any squeeze to operate. |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Pairs : 18feb20 : B9 |
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This was a fun hand from Tuesday's bridge. You can see that each player has a decent suit, and in the auction shown can bid them around the table. Where would you expect it all to end?
The board was played eight times, all with plus scores to North South, but it is curious to record that
- North played the hand in clubs at three tables,
- East played the hand in hearts at two tables,
- South played the hand in diamonds at one table,
- West played the hand in spades at two tables.
All the contracts were at the same level - the five level - and the best results for NS came from playing in 5♣ (twice doubled for +650), and the next best came from East playing in hearts (down 500), follwoed by South playing in diamonds (making +440), and the worst NS came from West playing in spades going down.
There phrase oft-quoted that "the 5-level belongs to the opponents" but West here might prefer to disagree.
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| HotD-thu : League 7 : 17feb20 : B16 |
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This hand from Monday raised a few interesting points. The first quesiton is, on the sequnce shown using Simple Stayman, you show slam interest in hearts. The answer is easy - you bid spades! Why does this work? We have to go back to why Stayman was chosen as a bid; it only happens when the user has a four card major and over 3♥ any bid of no-trumps (3N or 4N or more) has to show spades. This includes a bid of 5N (pick a slam) which is primarily offering the option of 6♠ or 6N. Because of this you never have to bid spades to show them, so any bid of spades is free - and here it is very useful to agree hearts and suggest some slam interest. In this case 3♠ will lead to a 4♣ cue bid by opener, and now South can complete the description of the hand by continuing with 4♠ (now a cue bid) and opener can take charge - checking for key cards - before bidding the slam. Played by North, the slam depends just on the trumps breaking evenly, and they do.
Commonly amongst tournament players, the sequence 2N - 3♣ is used to ask first about 5-card majors, and in the simplest form a 3♦ response is used to deny a five card major but promise at least one four card major. At this point again there are multiple choices; the simplest is to bid majors up the line but what happens here is that responder ends up as declarer in hearts. Does that matter? Just occasionally and you can see from the results on this board that it mattered this week. If the heart slam is played by South, then a diamond lead defeats the contract - and this happened at two tables.
The most advanced form of 3♣ ask these days is known as MUPPET STAYMAN. It focusses on making the strong hand declarer in all situations. Details on (at least one variation of) this can be found on page 21 of this bulletin.
[LATER: Patrick Phair poiinted out that on a diamond lead you can still make the slam; if you know or can guess to avoid the diamond finesse, you can aim to run the ♠J and when that holds you have two spades on which to discard the losing diamonds]
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| HotD-wed : League 7 : 17feb20 : B1 |
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This hand from Monday generated some discussion on the best way to play the heart suit. Everyone (except the one North declarer) had two top clubs to start with and then a trump switch. With spades and diamond tied up, it all comes down to not losing two hearts. Most commonly it will be two losers but there are some layouts where declarer can hold it to one.
The three vanilla options to consider are these : (a) singleton honour with West, (b) doubleton king-queen in either hand, and (c) doubleton honour-ten or singleton ten in East. In the first you would cash the ace and then lead up to the jack, but you would have to draw trumps first and be left with two losing diamonds to take care of; this scenario won't work. In the second case you can cash the ace or lead small from the ace first. In the third case you must start with small towards the jack.
In order to delay the decision a little, the natural choice is to lead small away from the ace at trick four. West rises with the king and plays a diamond which you win. Now is the time to draw trumps and decide on which way to jump.
The two options remaining are to cash the heart ace (gaining from KQ doubleton), or to lead the jack (gaining from KT doubleton). A priori the two options are equal and there is some chance (Restricted Choice overtones) that with KQ East would (carelessly) play the queen so that does push in one direction. But there is another consideration - when you led the heart from dummy East did not know your problem. What would East have played at trick four holding KT8 or KT2 or KT8? The answer is that it would be very difficult to play small on any of these in case declarer held Qx. This swings the odds back, and leading the ace next is best - and works here.
[It is worth noting that would happen if East played the ten from KT - you would cover and when West wins and plays a herat back - would you not finesse?]
If you were playing the hand in hearts there is a big difference - South is dummy and when North leads a heart East is under no pressure to rise with the king. In hearts we fall back to a priori odds and would favour KT doubleton (failing here).
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| How do you Defend? |
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West leads the ♣K in response to your lead directing double. You overtake and cash 2 more clubs, partner discarding a small diamond on the third trick. How do you defend from here?
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Where is the setting trick coming from? Partner might hold the ♥A or the ♦K/A. A red Ace can never run away and if partner holds the ♦K he would have given you a strong signal on the third club. Hence you conclude that the best source of a setting trick lies in the trump suit. If you continue with a fourth round of clubs, conceding a useless ruff and discard, what is declarer to do when he holds a hand such as that shown? If he discards from hand, the ♠8 forces the Ace from dummy and sets up West's King. If he ruffs high in hand, West discards and later comes to a trump trick. Of course, if you switch to a diamond at trick 4, declarer might still go down if he fails to guess the trump position, but why take that risk. |
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| Read the Cards |
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E/W are playing a 15-17 1NT opener. West leads ♦2 (3rd highest in partners suit) and East plays off the AKQ, West following as you ruff the third round. When you draw trumps, East turns up with 3 small cards. When you next play clubs, East wins the Ace on the second round and returns the suit. Plan the play.
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You must avoid a heart loser if you are to make this contract and you consider the opponents bidding. You know that East is either balanced or is possibly 3154 in shape. If he is balanced and playing a strong NT then he cannot hold the ♥Q as else he would have opened 1NT. If he has a singleton heart, it may still be the Queen. However, in either case, the way to play the heart suit is to lay down the King and then run the Knave. This picks up a singleton Q or T with East and also Tx. If West started with both heart honours then no winning play is possible. |
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| Play Carefully |
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West leads the ♣T. You duck the first trick and ruff the next club lead. On the second round of trumps, East shows out. How do you play?
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It is going to take take rounds to exhaust West of trumps and by that time you will only have 1 trump remaining. You can always force a tenth trick in spades but there is a danger here. If West wins an early spade and pushes another club through, you will lose control of the hand and lose both the Ace of spades and other clubs. You can be sure from the bidding that East holds the ♠A and hence once trumps are drawn, you should continue with the ♠K. East can win but cannot profitably attack clubs from his side. Then you are safe when you lose the second spade. |
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| Sure Tricks |
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West, whose overcall promised hearts and a minor, leads the ♦7 (2nd and 4th leads) against your game, East contributing the 8. Plan the play.
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The only worry on this hand is that clubs break 5-0, else you have 4 club tricks, 3 spades and 2 diamonds at least. If you win the ♦T and advance a low club from hand, West shows out and when East wins the ♣K, a diamond return sets up at least 3 diamonds if diamonds are 5-2, to go with a club and the ♥A, spelling defeat. The sure way to make this contract is to win the first trick with the ♦A rather than the ten. Then after a low club and a diamond return, dummy has a diamond entry to lead the ♣7 and finesse against East's marked ♣9. This ensures 4 club tricks with the spade entry the means to get at them. |
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| HotD-fri : Gloucester BC Pairs : 13feb20 : B6 |
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It is often a bonus when the opposition make an artificial bid and you can double for a lead, but sometimes it can backfire. Look at this hand from last night ..
South's 3♣ bid showed some positivity about diamonds, but even with that North wasn't interested in trying 3N. Following the double East led a club won by partner, and West continued with ace and another spade. The defence got their three spade tricks and now switched to hearts and declarer won the ace. He crossed now to the ♦A and led out the ♣Q trumping the ace. A second diamond went to dummy and declarer got to cash two winning clubs to discard his heart losers before claiming the rest and making his contract.
Was it all down to the lead? It wasn't - the defence could still have survived if West had refrained from covering the second club. The queen would win and provide one discard but ducking the jack would be safe while partner still had a trump as declarer could not discard for free. So after that lead the contract should go one down. However that's still not best, as on a major suit lead the contract would go two down.
Should West feel guilty about doubling 3♣? The answer is yes; it is important to look at more than the suit concerned when deciding on whether to make a lead-directing double. You need to look at the other suits, and ask whether a lead of a different suit is likely to cause damage for the defence. In a case like this - with honours in all three suits - you don't mind which suit partner leads, so it is better to leave that choice up to partner.
Which is not to say partner will always lead the right thing - and leading a club here could happen - but at least it is not your fault if it goes wrong!
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| HotD-thu : CBC Pairs League : 12feb20 : B7 |
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This hand from last night was the best slam going, with 12 top tricks in clubs as long as you don't lose a trump trick to the missing Q54. None of the sixteen tables bid it.
The auction above happened at table B2, and might have offered North-South a chance. Where West jumped in spades on the first round - say to 3♠ - then it might seem more difficult. But is the slam biddable?
Let's look at the auction first of 1♣ - 3♠; North might at this point consider a negative double but the question is - why would hearts ever be the right answer? With 17 HCP opposite a partner playing a weak NT and 4-card suits, the odds on partner having 5+ clubs are enormous, and the big question isn't what suit to play in but how high to bid. There is a case at this point for bidding 4♠ to show partner a good raise in clubs and some slam potential. With the 1246 shape in South, there is a possibility of rolling out an ace ask at this point and bidding the slam.
One difficulty is however than many today do not play that a 1♣ opening guarantees four - which makes the denomination quite uncertain , and a negative double necessary. After 1♣ - 3♠ - X - P - 4♣ there is still the option to bid 4♠ to show a club slam try, but there is a danger here (not so much in the previous sequence) that partner might read into that a spade control.
When the bidding starts more gently, as in the example shown, you are much less willing to commit to clubs and a negative double is inevitable. With a very limited opener South will make a minimal rebid and you reach the position shown. At the table North chose to bid 3♠ which should logically agree clubs, as a further negative double would be an easier mechanism to give South a second chance to bid no-trumps. Now it could proceed 4♦ - 4♥ - 4♠ and so to slam. But it didn't.
As always there are many more slams missed than failing slams bid.
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| HotD-wed : Winter Swiss Pairs : 10feb20 : B11 |
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Sometimes it is the slam hands which are interesting, but sometimes there are few of those, and on Monday the only attempts at slam all failed. [Although board 2 is an odds on slam, bid by nobody]
This small part-score however was quite interesting; all ten tables played 1N and nine of those were played by South, and every South got the same lead the ♦3. The results show that three declarers managed 4 tricks, three declarers managed 5 tricks, and three declarers made 6 tricks. What should have happened?
On the small diamond lead, declarer has to duck in dummy to ensure a diamond trick, but East wins the queen. Aiming to set up the fourth diamond for partner, East returns a diamond and West wins the ace and plays a third round. It's not clear whether to play hearts or clubs next, and at table three declarer chose a heart to the queen and then led a club towards the jack. West hopped in and cashed the fourth diamond, and when partner threw a club, he knew to play on spades. Declarer ducked the jack, and ducked the second round to the king before winning the ace on the third round. Now a club towards the ten set up two club tricks for declarer and that was six tricks.
Could the defence have done better? Yes - the key was the fact that the fourth diamond squeezed South out of a heart - and that after winning the second spade West could have earned an extra trick by switching to hearts to declarer's now bare ace. Should this have been found? Really it should - the play of the third spade was bound to go to the ace and partner was known to have no entry.
Could declarer have done better? The defence would not have been able to set up the third round of hearts as a winner had not declarer played one round early. Declarer avoids that by never playing hearts but playing the club jack at trick four. West can win and play the diamond and spades as before but when declarer wins the ♣T he can now finesse in hearts.
Does that mean there are always six tricks? Not so - what happens if West ducks the ♣J? Now there is no late club entry to dummy to take a delayed heart finesse - and if the finesse is not taken now the ♥Q will lose to the king.
How people ended up with only 4 tricks remains a mystery.
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West leads the ♠K. You duck trick 1 and win the spade continuation as East throws a heart at trick 2. How do you play?
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To come to 9 tricks, you need to bring in the diamond suit and the double finesse is the recommended line, catering for West holding either honour. At trick 3 therefore you lead a diamond and finesse the 9, losing to the Jack. A heart is returned. You must not finesse on this trick as if it loses, West will have several spades to cash. So play the ♥A and a second diamond. Your problems are over on this layout as the ♦K appears giving you 9 top winners. That is all good, but do you see how the defence could have done better? If West had inserted his ♦K at trick 2, you would have been defeated. You have to take this trick else West cashes his spades, but now the diamond suit is eclipsed and you are held to 2 tricks in the suit. Is this defence too difficult? - Not really. West can see that his diamond King is dead anyway and playing a high card in front of such a dummy should be a fairly standard play. (Perhaps more people would go in with the King if dummy held AJTxxx) |
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| How's Your Defence? |
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South wins partner's opening lead of ♣Q and lays down the ♦K. Partner wins and continues clubs, again won by South who continues with the ♦J to your Queen (partner following). How do you defend from here and why?
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One question to ask yourself is why declarer hasn't used his spade entry to dummy to take the diamond finesse. Perhaps he considered it unlikley that you held precisely ♦Qx and is saving his entry for something else. If that something else is a finesse against your spade Queen then you can do nothing, but it may be that declarer is hoping to set up a heart trick and get there with the ♠K. You therefore need to attack this entry by switching to a spade. It is important to lead the correct card. If you play the 7, declarer can pick up the whole suit. Since the ♠8 is in dummy and you hold the surrounding 9 and 7, you should lead as if the 8 is in your hand. By leading the ♠ 9, You limit South to 3 tricks in the suit and you have the heart entries to ensure that the ♠K is knocked out before the established heart tricks can be accessed. |
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| Don't Mess Up |
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West leads the ♣T. You win the Ace and play a diamond to East's Knave and your Ace, West following small. How do you plan to bring this contract home?
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You need to dispose of your club loser. Should you play the top spades to throw a club from hand (you survive on 4–3 spades) or play the top hearts to try to throw a club from the dummy?. Given you have 7 hearts between the 2 hands and only 6 spades, it looks superficially attractive to play spades. However, it seems that west started with either 2 low diamonds (East having KJ doubleton) or with Kxx. If you play spades and West started with shortness (fewer than three) and ♦ Kxx, you will be down. West will ruff low, and still have a winning trump trick. Playing on hearts is better. The big difference is that if hearts aren’t 5–1, you are in great shape. After a low heart to the queen and a heart back to your ace, you can safely try the ♥K. If West follows, you throw the club from dummy and East can’t hurt you (if he is out of hearts, he is presumably ruffing with the ♦K . If West ruffs low on the third heart, you can overruff and then play spades (throwing a club from hand on the third round, losing only to the master trump. |
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| Just a Partscore |
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West leads the ♠6 against your mundane part-score. The 7 is covered by the ten and your King. How do you continue?
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You have 6 top tricks and if you play clubs, you will most likley develop a seventh trick. This line is fraught with danger however, as the defence might easily be able to take 5 hearts and 3 clubs, putting you 2 down. Consider the opening lead. It clearly isn't fourth highest and the 6 would be an unlikely lead from J6x. The logical conclusion is that West has led from a short spade suit and therefore the best line is to cross to dummy with a diamond to the Knave, follwed by running the ♠8. This will give you 4 spdes and 3 diamond tricks. Being careful in part-score contracts can earn you hundreds of imps over a season. |
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| HotD-fri : Spring Teams 2 : 3feb19 : B28 |
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This hand from Monday was played at nine tables in 4♠ (once in 2♠) but only one table found the winning defence. How should it go?
Declarer on this bidding (which happened at a number of tables) must have a 4351 shape and dummy with be 44 or 45 in the majors. A trump lead could be useful but of more concern is the fact that you have little in diamonds, and the diamond suit may well take care of dummy's losers if you fail to attack. So either a club or a heart stands out. In practice the leads were a club three times, a diamond once, ♥K three times, and a spade twice. At this point three defenders had blown their chances but six could still beat the contract.
Let's take the club leaders first. What should North be thinking on winning the ace? When the queen drops the club position is clear; the ♣JT can be made into a trick when declarer pleases and declarer has too many diamond to discard usefully on those, but heart losers might go away. Defensive tricks have to come from hearts, and that before declarer gets to set up the clubs. A heart switch is indicated, and South needs to continue hearts if declarer ducks - but in practice the two plays were never found!
Let's take the top heart lead. Declarer, seeing this, knows that the defence are onto something. A shrewd declarer will duck and it looks like two declarers did. It is important at this point (and similarly on the king lead if dummy has only small cards) for North to signal attitude - and this must override any agreement you have that king is for count! [Any time a BATH COUP might happen, signalling to avoid that takes first priority] When North discourages, South knows that a switch is needed, and now a club to the ace lets North play a second heart. If South doesn't get a signal from North and continues hearts that gives away the vital trick. The winning play never happened - the one time that the contract went off was after South led ♥K and declarer took the ace immediately. There was no trap for the defence to fall into and North could play a heart on winning a minor suit ace.
Opening leads and defence can be difficult - but for only one of nine to succeed here (and that with kindness from declarer) is not a good show. The secret is to treat every hand like a set-hand from a text book - always to be on the lookout for irrefutable logic which tells you what to do, and to avoid playing on auto-pilot.
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| HotD-thu : Spring Teams 2 : 3feb20 : B22 |
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There were three hands where slam came into play on Monday for North-South. First was the cold 6♦ or 6♥ available on B2, but nobody bid it in practice. One way you might get there is after a weak 1N - 2♠ start is if North is able to bid 4♦ as "Leaping Michaels" shows 55 or better with diamonds and hearts. This will induce South to continue over East's 4♠ and North might now take a punt at the slam. But that's still a guess. The second was the no-play slam off two aces on B15 which was bid twice(!), and the third was the cold grand slam on B30 which was never bid (but should have been). The success record for North-South was 0 out of 26 chances!
There was less going for East-West, but this was the other slam hand for them (following yesterday's hand). What is surprising here is that the hand was always played by East-West but the scores included a part-score going off and a slam making. There were in fact five pairs in a part-score and that all came about because of their choice of opening bid here. What should East open? Captivated by the spade suit, the guilty parties opened a weak 2♠ and partner declared that was high enough. The part-score should make (it didn't always); but given that game and even slam in hearts is possible, it was embarassing.
The key qeustion is whether or not to open 2♠. Here's the theory - any time you make a jump bid it delivers a combination of obstruction to the opposition and constructive bidding to your side. The proportion of these two varies with vulnerability and position. There is least value in obstruction where you are vulnerable and the opposition are not, so the emphasis on this board should have been being constructive and describing your hand honestly to partner. To describe a 6502 hand as a single suiter is a mis-description and therefore not an appropriate move.
Where East passed and West opened 1♥, East was able to jump to 4♦ showing a void and this - even opposite a passed partner - raised the possibility of slam in West's eyes. After cue bidding 4♠ and hearing 5♣ from partner, West could bid the slam. Missing ♥KQ7 meant that success was not a foregone conclusion, but of the two who bid the slam one made and the other deeply regrets his failure to cash his club winners at the right time, as by doing so he would also have made.
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| HotD-wed : Spring Teams : 3feb19 : B3 |
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This hand from Monday produced a plethora of bidding decisions of which the second is the one shown.
The first decision was actually South's choice of what to open : given we would all want to open 2♠ in first seat at green with ♠QT9753 ♥72 ♦T8 ♣J92, doesn't this hand feel rather strong? With so little defence to the red suits, it is a close call whether to open 2♠ or 3♠. All we know of chose 2♠.
West's hand is too strong and too flexible for anything other than double, despite having a little dread of the double being passed out. How high should North raise at the point shown? The first question to ask is who can make what? Clearly East-West will have the majority of the HCP, and there will is an expectation of no defensive tricks in spades. How many defensive tricks will a frist-in-hand-at-green 2♠ opener provide outside spades - the answer is very few and often none. The expectation therefore it that the opponents have a slam to make, and if they do that you would be best to sacrifice in 6♠. Reasoning thus, table one's North bid 6♠ immediately and all the opponents could do was double. Others tried 4♠ over which it proceeded P-P and West had a second chance; there is some temptation to bid 5♥ but partner could have short hearts and even four spades sometimes, so double looks best.
Opposite a second double - still takeout but with extra values - East can be confident that they have a contract to make. The choice of suit is not clear, but East has a tool to deploy here - bidding 4N will shows two places to play (2PP). When East bids this it conveys a message beyond just shape to West - it suggests that East expects to make a contract at the 5-level. With a void and such good suits, West can see even better chances - the possibility of a slam. The question of what suit is as yet unclear, as the East shape could even be 3055 on this bidding, so West needs to hear about East's suits. This is handled by bidding 5N, and when this was done East bid 6♦ and West converted to 6♥, and at table three this is where the bidding finished.
Across the eight tables who played this board, slam was bid at five tables and at four of these North sacrificed in 6♠. At table three, Mick Bird took a different view and took his chance on defence. At trick one, he led a club to his partner's ace and a ruff at trick two scuppered the slam.
Back to the bidding after 2♠ - X ? As argued above the odds favour sacrificing if the opposition bid a slam, but as seen bidding just 4♠ gives them room to find their fit and bids to a contract they like. How about bidding 5♠ over the double? This doesn't stop you sacrificing if they bid a slam, but they lack the potential safety of the five level and might well be more inclined to double than to bid on. One table did get to play 5♠ (doubled) but how that came about is unknown.
There were two tables played the hand in 5♣ and curiously they were in the same match. At one table that contract failed quickly when declarer tried to ruff the opening spade lead with a heart, only to realise too late that clubs were trumps. The failure of the defence at the other tables meant that this hand was a fortunate gain for the evening's winning team,
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| Don't Despair |
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West leads the ♠3. When you play low from the table, East wins the Queen and returns the ♠8. When you test the diamonds, East turns up with four. How do you continue?
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You still have plenty of chances in this contract. You have 8 top tricks and a 3-3 club break or a successful heart finesse will see you home. You might also be able to endplay West in spades to lead hearts for you. Your exact line depends on how the clubs play out. Play ♣AQ and a third club to dummy. If clubs break you can claim. If West turns up with 4 clubs, the heart finesse represents the best chance. If East has 4 clubs then return to hand with a diamond and exit with a spade. If West has led a true card at trick 1, he will only be able to cash 3 spades before leading a heart. |
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| Basic Play |
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West leads the ♦Q. How do you play?
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The opening lead marks East with the ♦A and this in turn means that West will hold the ♥K and ♣A to justify his opening bid. If East gets in and fires a club through you are in danger of losing 4 tricks. However, the only card that East can get in with is the ♦A and you can nullify his entry by playing low from dummy at trick 1. Now if East uses his entry for the club play, he sets up the ♦K for a heart discard, If he plays low, you set up the hearts for club discards in hand. |
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| Play Safely |
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How do you play on the lead of ♦K?
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This hand is a sure thing provided trumps aren't 5-0. To retain control of the diamond suit, play low in dummy and ruff in hand with a high trump. Now cross to dummy by playing the ♠8 to dummy's 9. Now ruff a second diamond high before drawing trumps by overtking your ♠J. Cash the remaining trumps, discarding your 2 losing clubs. Now you can finesse in hearts and lose at most 1 heart trick - all without having to touch the ♦A, so that you have protection in that suit if the heart finesse loses. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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West leads the ♠4 and when you play the Knave on dummy's 9, it holds the trick. How do you continue?
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On the bidding, you possibly have a trick in each suit. However, if you switch to a club, declarer may be able to ruff a club in dummy, and if you draw dummy's trumps, declarer may well be able to set up the heart suit. A neat solution to this dilemma is to switch to the ♦T. South can win but your diamond Ace wins the next trick and now you can play a club. This way you come to 2 clubs and a trick in each of the other suits. |
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| HotD-fri : Rank Xerox Teams : 27jan20 : B10 |
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This hand from the Rank Xerox was played in 3N at three tables, twice by North on a club lead and once by South on a top diamond lead. What should have happened?
Firstly from declarer's perspective there are no chances of tricks in spades, four tricks in hearts and surely exactly two in diamonds. Clubs are therefore needed for three tricks. The bidding makes the play in the club suit obvious - playing first the ace and then towards the Q9xx. If the opposition play spades there may be problems, but you have little other choice.
Now let's look from the defender's perspective, particularly East. You can see what is happening in clubs and have to decide on whether to switch, and if so to what? The key is partner's discard - not discard system, for it is just logic which applies here. Partner throws away a heart (ideally showing an odd number, and anyway they'd have bid the suit with four) and from that you can deduce that declarer has four heart tricks, to go with potentially three clubs and surely, having bid 1N over 1♦, there will be a diamond stopper to go with dummy's ace. That means nine tricks, unless ... yes you must switch to spades. Playing ♠AQ and another will beat the contract.
Is this too far fetched? No; the same hands were used in a Gold Cup match and against 3N, Paul Denning discarded a high heart and Garry Watson found the spade switch to put the game one off.
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| HotD-thu : County Pairs QF : 27jan20 : b18 |
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This hand from Monday needed some analysis in the play, but before we get to that there are a few interesting points in the bidding. The first is South's evaluation over 1♠; this hand counts out as a 6-loser hand, and the queen is well placed, and it is so much better than J95 - AJ953 - 5 - KQ92 which would also open 1♥ and raise partner's spade response. It is therefore worth a raise to 3♠ and partner should expect about a trick more than a minimum opener and not go overboard. Here partner is expecting a 45xx shape and the key wil be whether the singleton is opposite the ace of clubs or the king of diamonds. One way to find out is to give partner space to show, and here the 4♦ bid shows a short diamond and that discourages North from continuing.
Playing in 4♠ on a club lead you first consider how to play the trumps. Leading first from dummy, finessing the ten, and returning to lead again from dummy is easily recognised as the best odds play in that suit, giving a 73.20% chance of only one loser. The catch is that if you do that you will not be able to take the heart finesse, and will need to play for the drop in that suit, hoping the queen falls. The alternative is to keep the ♥K for the heart finesse and relying on at most one entry to dummy when tackling spades (it turns out ace and another is best if only one entry). This gives a lower success rate on spades of just 61.61% but a better chance in hearts.
Which is best? Calculating it with SUITPLAY suggests that one line has an 81.95% chance of delivering ten tricks while the other is an 81.90% chance. In practice both lines give you ten tricks, but the difference is that one line delivers eleven, and that line is the second choice - and that is just random luck.
It is difficult to care which line one chooses, but in practice some people didn't have to think about this. Why was that? It was because West could not keep quiet after the 1♥ opening, and overcalled 2♦; this made West a big favourite to hold the spade king, and it indicated the second line (leading spades from hand) is best, and that line delivers an extra trick. There was little reason to bid at the 2-level with a weak NT hand; if you do that you will sometimes suffer penalties and at other times partner will not dare continue buty you turn out to have a better hand and need partner to bid. Silence is golden!
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| HotD-wed : County Pairs QF : 27jan20 : B4 |
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This was the best slam hand from Monday (three of the others were about 50% and a fifth was 25% - but all finesses were onside and they all made) and it was only bid once. The key issue was how to proceed from this point in the auction.
Your basic system affects the choice; if 2♥ was forcing for only one round (traditional Acol) then you must bid game now and bidding 4♦ to show shortage there is clearly best. Unfortunately this discourages East who now sees his/her diamonds as wastage. West has however shown some extra values, so East can decude that West has some hight cards in clubs and might still push on.
If the 2♥ response was forcing to game (playing 2-over-1) then you also have the option of a simple raise to 3♥. Why might that be attractive? The answer lies in the theory of splinter bids; when you make a splinter you are describing your hand to partner and leaving them with the decision to make. For them to do that successfully the description must be fairly complete, and in particular the strength of the hand needs to be fairly tightly defined. For that reason we treat a sequence such as 1♠ - 4♣ as showing short clubs in support of spades, but just a minimum raise to game. This hand is not only a robust 14-hcp (where this shape might have opened with as few as 10-hcp) but it has a void rather than a singleton. The combination makes it too strong for a splinter in this context; it's not certain a 3♥ bid will reach the right solution, but it definitely gives more scope.
What will happen after 1♠ - 2♥ - 3♥? Many now play the lowest bid in these circumstances as limiting the hand - declaring it (via a "non-serious" bid) not to be a trick better than an opening bid. The misfit in spades is discouraging on this hand, but the losing trick count makes is a 5-loser hand, so it cannot be declared a minimum. As long as East makes a bid denying a minimum, there should be no stopping West.
You do want to bebidding the slam on this hand, but did you notice what happens in the play? If South leads the ♣2, the best slam of the day goes down - while all the other slams made!
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♥3 and you play the Ace on East's Queen. You cross to dummy with a spade to take a winning club finesse. Play from here.
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It look tempting to cross to dummy with another spade to repeat the club finesse, but there is a danger in this. If West has ducked holding the club king, he can win the second round and play another heart. East can duck this trick and leave you stranded in dummy, forced to concede five further red suit tricks. You can avoid this by refusing a second club finesse. Just continue with 2 more rounds of clubs, discarding the heart from dummy. Now if the defence plays hearts, you have the entry to hand to cash your clubs, and if they dont play hearts, you have the time to set up the diamond suit, losing no more than 1 heart, 1 club and 2 diamonds. |
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| Timing |
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West opens a 15-17 no-trump and North's double showed a 6 card minor. West leads the ♦2 to East's 8. How do you play?
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Often the technique on hands like this is to run your long suit, but here this would be a mistake as you would have to make discards from your major suit holdings, fatalyy weakening your hand. You can tell from the opening lead (low from an honour holding) that West holds the ♦Q. West needs a diamond honour to make up his minimum 15 points and if East held that card, he would have played it at trick 1 if he did not hold the Jack. Hence you can play to keep East out of the game. Win the opening lead with the ♦K and play a top heart. West can win but if he continues with the ♦Q, you duck and win the next lead to knock out the remaining heart honour. This way you come to 9 tricks. If West leads a low diamond on the second round, you rise with the Ace to block the suit. |
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| Play the Odds |
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How do you play this contract on the ♥Q lead?
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You clearly need the trumps to break to have any chance. The odds of diamonds producing 2 winners and only one loser are very remote, so your best chance lies in establishing the club suit where a 4-3 break is around 60%. Duck the opening lead and win any lead from West at trick 2. Now play Ace and another club, ruffing in hand. 2 rounds of trumps finishing in dummy allow you to play the ♣K, discarding a diamond from hand, followed by a club ruff. Now a heart ruff on the table lets you lead the fifth club for a further diamond discard. The defence can only make a trump, a heart and a diamond whenever the clubs are 4-3. |
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| Simple Stuff |
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West leads the ♥K against 4♠. How do you defend?
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It looks like you have 2 hearts and a spade trick and some hopes of making your ♣K to set the contract. However, declarer will note from the lead that you are heavily odds on to hold the ♣K, so may well get the clubs right. There is no need to take this chance. Overtake the heart at trick 1 and return your club. Win the Ace of trumps and play a heart to partner to get your club ruff. Simple stuff. |
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| HotD-fri : League 6 : 20jan20 : B17 |
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Thuis hand from Monday proved a test for some, with a small majority if those in 3N failing to make it. Some Norths stretched to open 2N on the hand (not recommended) but many bid liek this - with South's delayted 1N showing a weaker hand than an immediate 1N would have shown. After a spade lead to the singleton king, how should declarer proceed?
There are communications problems, but eight top tricks and surely another can be generated in hearts. Declarer started off at trick two with hearts, and West won to play a high spade. South won this (discarding a heart from dummy) and then cashed the six card club suit. The ending is four cards and dummy has ♥J ♦K98 at the point where East has to discard from ♠J9 ♥Q ♦A9 in front of declarer's ♠T7 ♥T9 ♦T. East discarded a diamond, as did South. Now exiting with a heart to the queen put East on lead to cash the ♦A. As long as South holds onto the right card, the contract makes. This is a case where watching the opponents' discards is vital.
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| HotD-thu : League 6 : 20jan20 : B12 |
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The results on this board from Monday surprised. With 25 HCP between the two hands, a majority (9 out of 16) chose to play in their 6-1 fit at levels ranging from 2♥ to 5♥ and only those at the lowest level made a plus score. The other tables reached other games, with five tables playing in a "hopeless" 3N and a mere two playing in the practical 5♣.
Looking first at the bidding, a natural start would be 1♥ - 2♣ - 2♥, although one might stretch and bid 1♥ - 2♣ - 2♠. How should South continue? The natural choice of 3♣ seems to lead to support from partner and the 5♣ game but was rarely found. The best lead against that game is a trump and when declarer wins the first trick in dummy there is something of a dilemma. Assuming you can find the ♠Q, you have ten tricks in the black suits and need another one - which will no longer come from a diamond ruffed and must come from hearts. Declarer needs to come to hand in spades and play a heart towards the KJ9 and guess right when West ducks. A close call, only managed once.
Some Souths on the second round, rather than bid 3♣, chose 2N and this North would naturally raise to game. After a diamond lead from West to the king and ace, you would expect that the defenders would cash five diamonds and the heart ace and that happened at two of the three tables who got a low diamond lead. One table didn't cash the diamonds, and at a fourth the lead was a diamond from East as North was declarer (perhaps this was a cheeky 1♥ -2♣ -2♥ - 3♣ - 3N) and now the king scored. The last NT table got a spade lead, picking up that suit and giving declarer nine quick tricks. So 3N had a 60% success rate. Does that make it a better contract than the 5♣ which only made 50% of the time?
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| HotD-wed : League 6 : 20jan20 : B4 |
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This hand from Monday was played at all sixteen tables in spades by West, and excatly half made the game and half went off.
Declarer starts with only 8 top tricks, and needs to find two more. Three Norths, feeling that there was very little chance of making tricks in diamonds and with East having bid clubs, led the ♥Q and that made life very easy for declarer. The queen was covered by East and South, and declarer won the heart return. When the ♥9 fell declarer could set up a tenth trick with the ♥87 and didn't even need the club king.
The play is much more interesting on a diamond lead (the choice at 11 tables). How should declarer proceed?
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The first step is surely to win the ace, draw trumps and lead the ♦Q. There are two options now (ruff or discard) of which discarding a club is the more appealing. This leaves South on play and guarantees a ninth trick. South's best exit is the ♣Q and this forces declarer to eventually lead hearts for themselves. From declarer's perspective the contract is doomed if South has both heart honours (North will switch to hearts) but if that is not the case, declarer is now home if the clubs break 3-3 (by winning ♣K and ruffing one round). In practice declarer gets bad news is clubs and resorts to leading up to the heart ace. Down one.
An interesting position arose at table one when declarer chose to ruff the second diamond and led a club; North rose with the ace and South found a fine play of dropping the queen. If he had not done that, then when declarer ducked the next club (en route to trying for the suit 3-3), South would be endplayed and forced into leading a heart.
How the other five declarers made their game has yet to be uncovered. |
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| What's the Best Line? |
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West leads the ♥A. How do you play?
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It looks like you need to find the club finesse working or avoid losing a diamond trick. On the surface of things, you would be tempted to play West for long diamonds as you know that East has great heart length. However, if you play carefully, you can improve your chances. Ruff the lead and draw trumps (say this takes 3 rounds), followed by a further heart ruff. Now play the ♦K and a second diamond. If East follows, finesse your ten. If it loses, West must concede a ruff and discard or give you the club finesse. If East show out on the second diamond, you rise with the Ace and endplay West with a third diamond. You will only be defeated on this line if West started with 4 diamonds and the club finesse is wrong - unlikley given that East may well have doubled the contract with his diamond void.
Patrick Phair commented on the bidding and the lack of a heart sacrifice; the problem is that it isn't clear to either East whether or not partner will have hidden defence to this contract, and not cleat to West that with a 4333 shape that it will be so cheap. The reason the sacrifice is cheap - which nobody yet knows - is that each side has a double fit. |
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| Play This Slam |
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West leads the ♥Q. How do you play this slam?
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If the ♣K is right, then you can afford a trump loser, so the first priority is to win the opening lead in hand and finesse the ♣Q. If this holds the trick then you safety play the trumps by playing the King from hand and then a low one towards dummy, inserting the 9 if West follows low. This way you can handle any 4-1 split. If the club finesse loses, then you cannot afford a trump loser and you will have to take the percentage play of Cashing the Ace and finessing the Knave on the second round. |
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| Careful Management Required |
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West leads a low diamond to East's Ace. You cover the ♦Q return but this is ruffed and a trump is returned, East contributing the Knave. Play from here.
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You have 2 further diamond losers to dispose of and your plan must be to discard them on dummy's heart suit. You will need to find the ♥K with West. Draw trumps and cash the ♥A. Now play ♣A and a low club to dummy. On the lead of the ♥Q, you discard your ♣K. West can win but his return gives you access to dummy to discard your 2 diamond losers. |
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| Listen to the Bidding |
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When 7♠ was doubled, you removed to 7NT as a first round club ruff was likely looming. How do you set about making 7NT on the lead of the ♥Q?
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If you get the spades right, you have 7 tricks there plus 5 more top winners. You will need the ♦Q to drop or a minor suit squeeze for trick 13. Before playing the spades, you might as well find out the position in the minor suits. Play off the 2 top diamonds and the ♣K. If West shows out on the club King as you expect and the ♦Q hasn't dropped, it is time to get the spades right. You know that West most likely has 7 hearts and at least 2 diamonds, hence 4 unknown cards, whilst East is assumed to have 3 hearts, 5 clubs and at least 2 diamonds, hence 3 unknown cards. If a squeeze is going to operate you need East to hold the ♦Q, leaving just 2 unknown cards. Consider the bidding - is it likely that East raised to 5♥ with ♠Qx or ♠Qxx in a flat hand? More probable is that he has a bit of shape. On the basis of this, you should finesse the ♠J on the second round and run the suit. If East holds the ♦Q, he will be forced to give up either a club or diamond trick at the end. |
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| HotD-fri : Winter Swiss Pairs : 13jan20 : B21 |
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This hand from Monday was an awkward bid for East, and this was the path chosen at table six. Where East overcalled 1N the outcome was simpler. The question on this contract is - how many trump tricks did East make?
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The answer is three, and this is how it happens.
After cashing two top clubs, East might well have switched to a trump but instead played the ♥J. Declarer won the ace and played a diamond, and East won to play a second heart. To get a diamond ruff (and to score their smll trump) declarer tried a club from dummy aiming to score the ♠3 and then take a ruff. But West popped in with the ♠8 forcing declarer to over-ruff with an honour. Now came the diamond ruff and declarer tried the same - but now West ruffed with the ♠6 to the ♠K and out came the third round of diamonds. But this time East was able to ruff in with the ♠7 and lead the ♠J to take the last trump off dummy and knock out declarer's ace. Declarer tried again but East ruffed the fourth diamond with the ♠9 and drew the remaining trumps with the ♠T and cashed a winning club.
It is just possible for declarer to get to seven tricks against best defence, but the defence must play the same game as above. After one top club and a trump switch, should declarer play diamonds, at this point East must play a second club and give partner a ruff with the third club. That will beat the contract by one trick, and any other defence on winning the first diamond will let the contract make. Seven tricks come about because East has to ruff the third heart, allowing declarer four trump tricks in hand, one ruff in dummy and two hearts. |
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| HotD-thu : Winter Swiss Pairs 1 : 13jan20 : B4 |
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This was the auction which on Monday propelled a solitary pair into the heart slam, played by East. The contract went two down, and nobody playing in 4♥ made 12 tricks. But twelve tricks are there to be made. Is there a sensible line which generates 12 tricks?
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In the event, East won the diamond lead and ruffed a diamond at trick two. Unfortunately he ruffed small, was overruffed and faced a trump return.
Suppose he ruffs that second round of diamonds "high" (ie with the ♥8 or ♥9). This wins and North shows out. East can see good prospects now as one more diamond ruff, four trumps in hand, and six tricks outside will give 12 tricks.
So declarer crossed back to ♥A and cashes ♥K before ruffing again. Declarer now ruffs a small club and draws the last trump. It just remains to cash the spades but when declarer plays off the ace and king, South shows out. All dummy has left is ♠Q7 and ♣9, but look what happens when declarer exits with the club. North - who has been seen to play ♣QJT already - has to win the king and lead away from the spade jack.The slam makes!
Are there any alternative lines? The only logical variation is not drawing the second trump after the first but taking a ruff before that, so you can return to the East hand on the second trump and now draw the third round. If you get that far, you have only the danger of a 4-1 spade break to worry about. Were South to have four spades, then North would have a 1318 shape and surely you would have heard from North during the bidding (they might be forced to pass once, but can surely bid clubs naturally on the next round). So you rule that out and focus on North having a 4315 shape. If that is the case, there is just one line of play that makes sense and it is to cross to a spade, play ♣A and a ruff before playing a second spade. And now you are in the position just described.
It all depends just on ruffing high at trick two - would you have found that? |
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| HotD-web : Midlands Counties League : 12jan20 : B3 |
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There were 7 hands on Sunday where slam bidding came into play, and across those there were four excellent slams and three so-so slams. We must not disparage the so-so slams as in practice they make remarkably often; that wasn't the case with this small sample where in the four instances a slam was bid across those three hands, all four declarers went off.
The record however on the four excellent slams still needs improving. One was never bid and the other three were bid 3,3 and 5 times across 12 tables. This was the first of those slams. How should it proceed?
The first trap some fell into was treating the West hand as a strong 1N opener; it is more than that, with the AJT of spade at least as good as AQ2 would be, and the good five card heart suit. We need to upgrade this and treat it like 18-hcp. When the East hand hears of partner having 18-hcp opposite their 14-hcp, and this control rich hand finds that partner has five hearts, there should be no stopping.
For the weak NT players, after 1♥ - 2♦ - 2N the West hand is still rather wide ranging (15-20 for some). A useful tool here is a 3♣ asking bid, to which the usual pattern is that partner replies 3♦ with 18-20, and with a major or 3N on the 15-17 hands. That would clarify the position here and now after 3♣ - 3♦ - 3♥ (three card support) - 4♣ (cue) is should be 4N and so to slam.
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| Easy |
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West leads the ♣2. Plan the play.
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As always, count your tricks. You have 9 obvious winners so one diamond ruff on the table will suffice. Win the club lead and play ♦Ace and then a small diamond from hand. You can then ruff a diamond and make 10 tricks. If you try to cash the ♦K and diamonds are 6-1, you will be defeated if the hand that ruffs then returns a trump. |
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| A Difficult Defence |
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Your lead of the ♥T holds the first trick and your heart continuation sees East winning trick 2. At trick 3 South ruffs East's ♥A and leads a low diamond. How do you defend?
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Surely South holds at least ♣AQ and therefore it is difficult to see where the setting trick is coming from. However, you can see that if declarer holds a singleton diamond, he will lack the entries to dummy to enjoy the diamond suit if he has no more than 6 spades. You can tentaively reconstruct the South hand as a 6214 shape. Give declarer ♠AJxxxx ♥xx ♦x ♣ AKxx. Can you find a defence that gives you a chance? A trump return sees South discard a club on a top diamond and ruff a club on the table. The same is true on a club or diamond return. You are therefore left with winning the ♦A and continuing with a heart, conceding a ruff and discard. On your heart, partner can discard his second diamond. Now East can ruff in when dummy's top diamond is played. If partner's spades are good enough, he will be able to ruff again when dummy plays another top diamond and you will find that your ♠9 becomes the setting trick when the layout is as shown. A difficult defence - certainly. |
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| Take Care |
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West starts with the ♣K. How do you set about this contract?
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A friendly trump break gives you 11 tricks, so you must guard against a 4-1 split. Clearly if you play off 2 top trumps, the defence may be in a position to draw your trumps when in with the Ace of spades. They would then be able to cash a load of clubs. Take just one top trump and then play on spades. That way you retain control of trumps and cannot lose more than 3 tricks |
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| Hopeless? |
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West leads a heart. Can you conceive of any way you might bring this contract home?
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You need an entry to dummy to allow you to discard your losing diamonds on ♠AK and clearly you don't have one. However, you may be able to fool opponents. Win the lead and lead a low trump from hand. If West holds ♣Jx or ♣Qx, he may err by rising with his honour and that will then allow you to get to dummy with the ♣T. |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Pairs League : 8jan20 : B18 |
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On Wednesday fifteen of the sixteen tables played this hand in 3N and nearly all got a spade lead at trick one - to the jack and queen. A surprising number made their contract, but it was very tricky at some tables.
Looking (after the opening lead) at four sure tricks in the black suits declarer just needs five in the reds. The concern is that you have to lose two tricks en route and on the first loss they clear the spades while on the second they cash the spades. What can you do to avoid that problem?
The answer is to get a quick trick in hearts under your belt before playing diamonds. Leading a heart through the ace is the target, as if the hand with the ace rises you might well get four heart tricks and that means you never need to give up a diamond. So declarer started with a heart at trick two towards the queen, and when that held he went back to diamonds. He played the diamonds from the top (the best option for four tricks - always at least as good as a finesse and sometimes better) and South won the third diamond while dummy threw a heart and a club. With no more spades, and all those hearts in dummy, South tried a club. Declarer won and played a heart, after which North continued spades. Declaerer could duck one and win the next one but by now South was short of discards and the ♥9 had to go. With South only holding clubs and diamonds, declarer could bash out the clubs to put South on lead at the end to lead from the ♦96 to declarer's ♦T8. Hard work but that's what was done by Division One winner Paul Denning.
In fact South could have defeated the contract by not taking the ♦Q when it was offered (question - if declarer wants you to do something, should you always refuse?). But going back another trick, declarer can alway make the contract if they play ♦A then ♦J first; not cashing the king avoids an awkward discard from dummy; there is a case for this as the second top diamond only gains when there is ♦Qx in on hand (6 possibilities) while the alternative keeps options more open when someone holds ♦xx (15 possibilities).
And of course there are easier ways to make - if you don't play hearts early you can fall back on the heart jack being onside with a 3-3 break and that delivers your nine tricks (win spade, three diamonds ditching clubs, win club, heart to king).
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| HotD-thu : Spring Teams : 6jan20 : B18 |
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There were only 6 (out of 12 tables) played this hand from Monday in hearts. Admittedly three North-South pairs pinched the hand and went off playing in spades, but there isn't much excuse for playing in diamonds as East-West with a 9-card heart fit. At other vulnerabilities/positions a weak 2♦ opener might get you to stop there but in this position and vulnerability the last thing you should have for such a bid is 10 HCP and three honours outside of diamonds.
The auction shown happened at table 11, and declarer wrapped up 10 tricks. Of the six who played in hearts - with four heart leads and two diamonds leads - only two took the ten available tricks. How should the play go?
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The answer here - as in so many hands - is that the first step is to pay attention to the side suit. Andrew Urbanski, after the above bidding, showed how it should be done by the following sequence : he won the heart lead with the ace, played ♦A and ruffed a diamond, and then went back over to the ♥Q to ruff another diamond. The failure of the diamonds to break 3-3 meant another ruff was needed to set the suit up, but the even heart break meant that he could rely on a spade ruff as an extra entry to dummy. He played spades, ruffing the third and then ruffing another diamond, making the last two diamonds into winners. Finally he played a club towards the KJ and found he could not guess wrong. His third club went away on the long diamonds.
Could the contract have been beaten? The answer is yes. The key is to take an entry away from the dummy before declarer has started to ruff diamonds. Either an early club or three rounds of spades is good enough. Notice how there were the two suits nobody led! Some lead problems are just too difficult. |
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| HotD-wed : Spring Teams : 6jan20 : B16 |
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This hand from Monday resulted in a number of red faces, and we need to consider whether or not we have sympathy with those who suffered.
The start of the auction is simple but how it should continue is not clear. One pair started as shown and continued 3♦ - 3N - 4N - P, and that contract was very straightforward. But their retraint was only shared by one other table and ten of the tables reached the impossible 6N contract. Against the slam, there were six instances of a diamond lead, two spades and two hearts. The last two saw the contract off quickly, but all the others left declarer with a chance.
When South led a spade, East won with ♠J to lead a club to the ten. South was now on lead and had to find the right red suit to beat the contract. And didn't. When North led a spade, the red suits in East were visible on the table, so that South had no problem picking a heart and so beat the contract.
When a diamond was led the position, the choice on winning a club was between hearts and spades. Four of the six were allowed to make.
Which means five defenders our of eight found the wrong switch. Should they have done better? On the spade lead by South and a club at trick two, there isn't much to go on - apart from the spade played by North at trick one. SInce neother count nor attitude in spades matters here, that signal should have been the ♠T as a signal for hearts. On the diamond lead it is hard to see why declarer should be allowed to make. Maybe someone will tell us!
Mark Rogers wrote in : after a diamond lead won by East, declarer played a spade to the ♠J and led a heart off the dummy. North ducked, and now declarer cleared the clubs from the top and South failed to unblock (if declarer is playing sensibly then South should unblock), and declarer had enough tricks with the ♥A unaccessible.
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♥J. You try the Queen from dummy but East plays the King. When you play 2 top trumps, East shows out on the second round. Play from here.
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If the club finesse works then you will have no problem, so can you cope if the finesse is wrong? If East wins a club and switches to a diamond, you will be defeated if West can ruff the third round of clubs and cash a diamond. The solution is to play to the King of clubs and then back to the Ace before leading a third club. Whenever clubs are 3-2 or 4-1 with West holding Qxxx, you are a tempo ahead. |
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| A Cold Contract? |
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West leads the ♥K and switches to a low club to east's Queen. Can you ensure your contract on the likely assumption that West holds the ♦K?
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On this hand, you need to appreciate the value of dummy's heart suit. Win the ♣A, Cross to dummy with a trump and lead the ♥8. If this is covered , ruff and return to dummy in trumps to lead another heart, discarding a club. Ruff the club return and cross again in trumps to cash your established heart. You just lose 2 hearts and a diamond. If East does not cover the ♥8, you discard a club and later 2 diamonds on dummy's heart suit.This time you lose 3 heart tricks but that is all. |
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| What's the Best Chance? |
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West leads the ♦Q against your game and you ruff the diamond continuation at trick 2. You draw trumps in 2 rounds, finishing in hand. What now?
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Superficially, you could rely on the double heart finesse, offering a 75% chance of success. You can improve on this by playing on clubs first. If you play the Ace and King of clubs and the Queen drops the worst that can happen is you lose two hearts. There is an endplay available if East started with ♣QTxx as you next lead a club towards your Jack and eliminate the suit before hearts get played. If the third round of clubs loses to West's Queen, then the clubs have divided and a heart lead from West to dummy's ten will again endplay East. The only difficult situation is when West started with ♣QTxx. In this case he wins the club and returns the suit. Now you ruff in dummy and cross back to hand with a trump to try the heart finesse. If it loses and a diamond is returned, you need to ruff in hand and try a second heart finesse. It is only now that you have a 25% chance of not making. The trap is to not take an early club finesse. If West has ♣Qx or ♣Qxx and East both heart honors, West, upon winning the ♣Q, can shift to a heart, leaving East with a safe club exit after winning the first heart. Then you will be forced to take a second heart finesse. |
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| Maximise Your Chances |
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West leads the ♦K against your slam. Plan the play.
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You have 3 potential club losers. One can be discarded on the ♦A, and if the spades break kindly, another trick is available there provided you can get at it. You will be OK if the ♣K is with West, so let's assume that East holds this card. If spades are 3-3, we can still succeed if the club King is singleton or doubleton provided we play as follows. Duck the opening lead in dummy and ruff in hand. Draw trumps and play off the top spades. Now Ace and another club, playing the Queen from dummy if West follows small. East can win but if he has no more clubs, he must return a diamond which gives access to dummy for 2 discards from hand. You would have gone down if you had played the ♦A from dummy at trick 1. |
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| HotD-thu : YEAR END PAIRS : 30dec19 : B23 |
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This was one of two hards from Monday where there were twelve tricks available; the other was B10 where - if you can see the two hands - it is clear you want North-South to be in 6♥ as the club losers can be discarded on top diamonds. But on that board there was an opposition pre-empt in first seat and bidding a slam proved too difficult for any pair. This hand is actually a less good slam, but the hand deserves a little thought as more pairs made game in the other direction (3 in 4♠), and more were in a part-score making overtricks (3 in club part-score), than played in game in the suit which can make a slam (just two).
The first question in the bidding came at the point shown. It's a close call what East should do, with a weak NT strength and a poor suit opposite a passed partner. In fact the strongest case is for passing; if you do want to bid on these hands (and it is a bidder's game, and we'd always bid if partner had not already passed) then the bid has to be a takeout double. Partner won't know you have five hearts but partner - when you double one major for takeout - will always strain to bid the other, so the worst case is you miss a 5-3 heart fit; any better fit should be found. After double South will raise, both preemptively and constructively as it happens, to game, and the next bidding question falls to West. Which suit, if any to bid? The answer is none but to let partner choose; bidding 4N here shows two place to play and passes the buck. It's not the ideal bid for East to hear - as there is a danger on this hand of choosing hearts. If East was to do this (not recommended) then the pair might actually stumble into a 6♣ contract, but it is safer for East just to bid 5♣ and that should finish the auction. Two pairs ended in 5♣.
Making twleve tricks in clubs depends on bringing in clubs (26% chance) and diamonds (70% chance) for no loser, but today the diamonds break badly. The computer told us that 12 tricks are available in clubs - but it is not obvious how. One answer is for declarer to run the ♦9 through North on the first round, picking up the diamond suit for no loser. We cannot see any player without x-ray visiion doing this. Given some pairs got to play in 4♠ as North-South, bidding and making 5♣ should be considered a sufficient success (and earned 17 msp out of 18 on the night).
The play in 4♠ is interesting too - declarer has only three losers (all aces) but to make 10 tricks, needs to take three diamond ruffs in the South hand. The defence can counter this as long as they play trumps themselves early enough. It's not obvious to do that, which is why the three pairs all made their 4♠ contracts.
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| HotD-wed : YEAR END PAIRS : 30dec19 : B24 |
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This looks to be a straightforward hand from Monday, with five top losers to e cashed against the spade contract. Every one played the hand in spades by North, but half the field made 8 tricks and half made 9 tricks. What went wrong? We cannot be sure, but here's what should have happened ...
Against North's preemptive opening, there is always a danger of losers being thrown on dummy's winners, so it is "normal" for East to start off with their strongest suit, and in this position it is not uncommon to lead an unsupported ace. Leading say the diamond ace here does give a chance to look at dummy, but it will only attract a discouraging signal from partner (who does not hold the king) and partner will not know the location of the king. That makes the king a better lead here, and in all such circumstances to adopt the practice of second best from a sequence of honours. Whichever you lead, you see dummy and can sense that only the heart suit is a danger, and that the only winners you need to establish (since the diamonds either cash or don't) are clubs. So out comes a club, but you are disappointed when it goes to the queen and king (marking declarer with the jack).
There is still a trap left, if declarer cashes the ♣J and then leads a spade. This play would be completely pointless unless holding a doubleton club, so you know that declarer is heading to cash the ♣A to discard a loser. There is a slight danger (that declarer started with ♠JT876543♥Q♦xx♣ KJ) but you cannot afford to take that risk and should rise with the ace. It is clear to you that clubs are dead, and that you need diamonds and hearts to beat the contract. You cash the other top diamond and lead a heart to partner; partner can now cash the ♦Q to hold declarer to eight tricks.
It doesn't need any special system in defence here - simple logic leads you to the winning choices.
Could North-South have avoided bidding too high on this hand? It is just about possible. Holding four honours outside the long suit, as here, does not feel right for a preemptive bid which has a primary obstructive element - as you are holding too much defence. There is a good case for simply passing, because the hand is also unsuitable for a constructive 1♠ opening. It is possible that if North does pass that the hand will be passed out, but more likely is that East (provided North has not taken too long to pass) will open 1N, and now when North bids 2♠ that might buy the contract.
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| Watch the Cards |
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You lead the ♥K. Declarer wins and draws trumps in 3 rounds. He then cashes 4 rounds of clubs (South holding 4) and exits with the ♥T, everyone following. You win the heart. What do you play next and why?
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You have a count of South's hand. He started with 4 diamonds, 4 clubs and 2 hearts. Hence he holds 3 spades. If you play a heart you give a ruff and discard and South will ruff in hand and play a spade to the King, making his contract. So you have to play a spade - but which one? If partner holds the knave, it won't matter what you do, but if South holds that card, you must switch to the ♠Q to have any chance of beating the contract. |
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| Play Carefully |
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West leads the ♣J. East overtakes and continues the suit. How do you play?
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If trumps don't break you have no chance so you must work on the assumption that they are 3-2. You might try a heart to dummy's Queen at trick 3, hoping to ruff a heart on the table. However, on the bidding, East is favourite to hold the Ace and he can win and play clubs to possibly promote a second trump trick for the defence. If you cash a couple of rounds of spades, East can play a third round when in with the ♥A, leaving you a trick short. The winning line is to cash 2 trumps finishing in dummy and lead a low heart away from the Queen. If East wins the Ace, you have no second heart loser, so let's say he ducks. Now you win the King and cross to dummy twice in diamonds to ruff clubs and then continue diamonds. This way the defence is limited to 1 heart, 1 spade and 1 club trick. |
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| How Good is this Slam? |
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West leads the ♠K. How do you assess your chances?
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Provided you make the right play at trick 1, your chances of making this slam are pretty high. If you duck trick 1, what can the defence do? If they continue spades then you win, release the ♦A and ruff a spade in dummy to cash diamonds and throw losers. If the defence switches to a trump, then the ♠A remains as a sure entry to dummy. |
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| Don't Worry |
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West leads the ♥T. Plan the play.
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Having escaped a spade lead, you will be fine if the diamond suit comes in. You also have a chance if they are 4-1 offside. Cash all your winners outside of diamonds, throwing 2 spades from hand on dummy's clubs. Now play off ♦AQ. If East still has a diamond trick, he must have come down to a singleton spade. You know this will be a top spade honour else West would have cashed ♠AK at the outset. If so, exit with a spade. If East wins, he is forced to lead a diamond. If West wins, then he will have to give you a spade trick when the layout is as shown. |
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| HotD-fri : League 5 : 16dec19 : B15 |
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The difficulty in forecasting what will happen on any bridge hand was well illustrated by this hand fom the last League Monday. Here are three auctions, which led to very different outcomes ...
The first decision point is whether or not South opens. With 11-hcp vulnerable, opening 1N is generally considered too dangerous so it comes down to the acceptability of a 1♠ opener. The plus sides include getting into the auction first, and the attractiveness of a spade lead from partner. The minus sides include poor value from QJ-doubleton, and the fact that the opposition are not vulnerable. Only one of our three stories started with 1♠ and over that opening, West will want to show the two minor suits. There are two options here - if you are willing with this shape to defend a major suit game, then 2N will be your choice but if you were always going to bid above their game, then bidding 4N immediately stands out as a better choice (would your partner treat this as minors?) as it stops North from describing their hand before deciding on whether to penalise the intervention. In practice 2N was chosen, and over this North bid 3♣ to show a good hand with spade support. This created an opportunity for East to ensure the right lead against the spade game, so he doubled. On hearing this West bounced to 5♣ and North was able to double. South was happy to defend and on a spade lead the contract went two down (it takes a ♠Q lead to put it three down).
A second table saw South pass and West had the chance to open, but a second seat opener should be up to strength (since in opening you are getting in the way of partner as often as the way of the opponents) and this two suiter can be described better later - so both of our story tables passed and that left it up to North to open. One table opened 1N showing 14-16 hcp, and over this East was keen to bid (in a disruptive sense) and chose 2♦ to shows a six-card major (bidding 2♣ would have been better). South knew his side had the values for game and jumped to 3♠ (an action which would not have happened over 2♣ showing the majors). Convinced now that 4♠ was easy, West decided to show a two suiter by bidding 4N (this could not be ace asking by a passed hand) - only to find partner misread this and bid 5♥. This was doubled but the defence failed to put this down six, and settled for a +500 score. Now you know that the 5♥ contract on the traveller was not a typing mistake!
Our third table has North playing a 15-17 NT opener, so after P-P it had to be 1♦ after which everyone bid their suit : 1♥ - 1♠ - 2♣. Notice how the diamond opening has much subdued West's enthusiasm on this hand. North supported spades (2♠) and over this South bid the spade game. West led his singleton heart and dummy won trick one. Now came ♠Q, covered twice, and back to dummy in hearts to finesse again in trumps. There are eight tricks in the majors, and in the ending West failed to realise that partner had to have the ♣A (South had passed initially) and kept diamonds to stop dummy winning tricks there, and lost the third club trick. So the spade game made!
Who could have forecast those results?
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| HotD-thu : League 5 : 16dec19 : B21 |
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This hand from the lasr league session didn't really deserve to be bid to slam, but two tables did that.
Question 1 : how do you play to make 6N on this hand?
Question 2 : does the opening lead matter?
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There are four sure club tricks, at least three diamonds, at least two hearts and at least two spades - so that's 11 tricks and there are chances of more; we have all been in worse slams. The danger is that you lose two tricks - as you will if you give up the ♥A and ♦K. Left to your own devices you will take the diamond finesse (twice) and test to see if the king falls. If the finesse succeeds and the king falls the fact of four diamond tricks means you need only knock out the ♥ A to make twelve tricks. This gives you a 27% chance of making the slam (half the 3-3 breaks is 18%, a sixth of the 4-2 breaks is 8%, plus a little for a singleton king), which isn't great but can happen. If the diamond king had not dropped, you probably resort to the spade finesse, and that gives you a further 11% chance of making. So this is far from the worst slam we will ever bid.
But now what about the lead?
- If we get a spade lead into the ♠AKJ we have gained one trick and now a straight diamond finesse is all we need, making it a 50% slam.
- If we get a heart lead, presumably to South's ace, then nothing has changed from our original analysis, leaving it as a 38% slam.
- If we get a club lead, again nothing has changed and we play the same line for a 38% chance of success.
- If we get a diamond lead - we need to stop and think. Would you ever lead from a diamond king against 6N? If you wouldn't do it, why would your LHO choose to make that very dangerous lead? The answer is they would not, so on a diamond lead you should "know" that the diamond finesse is doomed, and rise with the ace. You are not feeling positive but every so often, the cards are lying like they did last week - and you drop the singleton king and now your slam rolls home.
The one West who played in 6N is recorded as getting ♦9 lead, and a swing of 22 imps depended on their trick one choice. Would you have got it right? |
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| HotD-wed : A CHRISTMAS PRESENT |
There are a growing number of treasures to be found within the services offered online by BBO - are many of them remain free.
A great one - in the tradition of many of the problems presented here - goes by the name of BRIDGE MASTER. This could be your most useful Christmas present of 2019 (for which thanks to Fred Gitelman).
To get at this you need an account on BBO (bridgebaseonline.com and free of course) and then take the option labelled SOLITAIRE (which I had long ignored) and there you will find BRIDGE MASTER.
You will be offered five different levels of problem, and you can choose whichever suits you best, and most sets contain over a hundred problem. The WORLD CLASS level problems are far from easy, but at every level the offered SOLUTION steps you through the reasoning behind the best play, and you can swap between levels at will. The system tracks which problem you have tackled in the past and whether you succeeded (marked with a star) or failed (marked with a cross).
The display is in the style of BBO, and very easy to read. You can do these problems on a PC or on a mobile phone (Android) using the BridgeBase app.
Once you have done with the Hand-of-the-Day here each day, BRIDGE MASTER gives you a great way to continue and make sure that even on days you don't get a game, you fully exercise your bridge brain.
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| Technical Skill Required |
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How do you play on the lead of ♣J?
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The problem on this hand is that regardless of how many club tricks you take, you need to knock out 2 aces to make the contract and hence you must avoid the loss of 3 clubs in addition. You dont know who holds the ♣K, so one option is to play the Queen at trick 1. However, if this loses to the King and a club is returned, you will be defeated if clubs are 5-2, unless East has both red aces. It is better to play the Ace at trick one and knock out a red Ace, say that West wins and a second club comes through. Now if you play the Queen and it loses to the King, East will have no club to return when the suit is 5-2 so you will only go down when West has both Aces. There is a flaw in this play though. If East started with ♣Kx, then he can unblock the King at trick 1 and you be dependant upon guessing which red suit to attack first. The best technical play is to duck the first club completely. Now it does not help East to unblock and you will make the contract whenever clubs are 5-2 and the Aces split. Of course, if clubs are 4-3 and the King is wrong, you are likley to be defeated however you play. |
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| Trick 1 |
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West leads a low club against your game. Plan the play.
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If you study the hand carefully, you will see that this contract can only succeed if the trumps are 2-2 and the hearts 4-4. In that case, you need to win the first trick on the table as you need the entries to set up the hearts. Don't get careless, play a top club from dummy at trick 1. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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West leads the ♠3. Declarer takes dummy's Ace, crosses to hand with the ♣A, and plays a trump to the Jack, partner following small. How do you see the defence developing?
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You know from the lead that you have a spade trick, and it looks like you have a diamond trick to come at some point. You therefore need 2 trumps tricks to beat the contract. At trick 3, you should smoothly drop the ♥8 on dummy's Jack. It may well be that declarer - fearing it was a singleton ♥8 - will return to hand with a club to lead the ♥Q, giving you 2 trump tricks. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads a trump against your game, East following suit. Plan the play.
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The defense will certainly play another trump when they gain the lead, so you will make 3 additional tricks by ruffing either in dummy or in hand. You maximise your chances by playing your diamond at trick 2. The defence win and play a second trump but now you succeed whenever spades are 4-4 or diamonds 4-3. |
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| HotD-fri : Leage 5 : 16dec19 : B1 |
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This was an interesting hand from Monday, in that game was made in three denominations, in two directions, and in all cases could have gone down. The crucial point in the auction often came at this juncture - and Norths were seen to choose three optons. Some raised to 4♠ and this East could not resist doubling and that finished the auction. Some others passed and some raised to 3♠ but in both those cases the next step was for East to describe their hand by bidding no-trumps. Where that was 3N the auction finished, but when it was 2N that left room for West to continue with 3♥ and at this point North woke up with 3♠ and East supported the hearts making 4♥ the final contract.
Against 4♠ first; this was played at 8/14 tables, and it is good to see Norths all raising to the level of the fit in the bidding position shown. Notice how a tendency to make jump overcalls on five card suits would make that raise much more problematical. After a diamond lead the first choice is declarer's; if the diamond is ducked then West can se there is no future in diamonds and should find the heart switch easily. It is therefore important for declarer to cover and now it is much harder for East to find the heart switch. After two diamonds, declarer can ruff and cross to dummy in clubs to lead spades. East will win the ♠A and this is the last chance for the defence. If West is looking now at ♣AQ then anything will beat the contract, when it can be beaten but if not that, then a heart is the only option, If instead East goes passive, then declarer can draw the last trump and give up a club, setting up the thirteenth club for a heart discard. Only two of the five defenders who led a diamond beat the game. [Two tables saw East open 1♥ and now they got a heart lead and it beat the game]
Against 4♥ by East, both defenders led the ♦5, but only one of the two Norths led back a heart after winning the ♥A - and without doing that the game gets to make.
Both major suit games should have been defeated.
Against 3N by East it is much more difficult; if South leads a spade then declarer has time to knock out the heart ace and later take the diamond finesse. Should South avoid the spade lead? There is a strong expectaiton that East has the ♠AQ so that one cannot be surprised by the fact that a spade lead costs a trick. But what else to lead? The only winner is the least attractive option - to lead a low club and for North to win the king. That choice of lead is dangerous, and North will almost inevitably play the ♣T at trick one - so I would accept that beating 3N is "impossible".
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| Make Them Pay |
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West leads the ♦3. Plan the play.
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It looks like you are running into a bad trump break, but if you play carefully, you can overcome this. At trick 2 you should play a club to the Ace and ruff a club. Then play the ♥K. Whether or not East wins this trick, you come to 1 heart, 2 diamonds, ♣A and 2 club ruffs. That is 6 tricks and you remain with ♠KQJ9, good enough to secure 3 more tricks as West is trump-bound. |
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| HotD-wed : League 5 : 16dec19 : B27 |
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Monday this week was not a great day for bidding slams, although the scoresheet tells us that there were slams to be made on six out of 28 boards (21%) - which is way above the average we experience, In practice there only 13 instances of slam being bid (ie 3% of all contracts) and of those only 5/13 succeeded. Some slams (eg the 4-3 club fit on B10) were quite unbiddable and others were quite lucky (eg the 6♦ on B24 which requires roughly three finesses). The last three boards provided increasingly good slams starting with 39% chance of making 6♦ on B26 rising to just under 50% for 6♥ on B28 - but those calculations are based on best defence and that doesn't always happen. This board was the one of the three (quite reasonably) bid most often to slam, but two of the five who bid slam went down.
Against 6♠ three defenders found the (recoomened, attacking) lead of a club - without which the odds on the slam are much better. Since the ace of hearts had to be lost, this lead forced declarer to trust that the club king was on lead, and they were able to run trick one to the queen. After that it looks plaing sailing, as you expect six spade tricks, two in hearts, two in diamonds and two in clubs. There is however one danger and you must guard again it - that the spades break 4-0; if they do you can recover but only if East has the spades, and for that reason it is important to play the spade king first. When you find out the bad news you lead the ♠9-♠T-♠Q and need to go back to dummy to lead spades again. You cannot use the ♣A as this is the entry to the hearts - so you need to play hearts first and East wins the ace and returns a club, covered by the jack, king and ace. This forces you into cashing the hearts now, and it looks awkward when you play the third heart and East ruffs your winner. But you can cope with this - you can now afford to ruff a diamond in dummy, as you no longer need to lead spades through East as all that they have left is the jack. After the ruff you return to hand, draw the last trump, and claim. Well done by Jack and the others who found the winning line.
In the match between the two teams leading Division One, only one of them bid the slam and their declarer missed the winning line, as a result of which his team is now second rather than first in the league standings at the half way mark.
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| The Killing Lead |
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You are on lead after this unusual auction. What do you play and why?
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Partner's double is Lightner, asking for a lead that he can ruff. You might think he is asking for a heart or a diamond as you have length in both suits. However, this analysis makes no sense. Declarer can only be bidding like this with a second suit that will provide tricks. This suit can only be clubs, and a club lead is required. Declarer's hand was ♠AKQJTxxx,♥ -,♦ -,♣ AKQJx |
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| Increase Your Chances |
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How do you plan the play in your slam when West leads the ♥J?
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There is no sure way to succeed, as you will need a good guess in the club suit, but you give yourself the best chance as follows: cash 2 top trumps in hand and your remaining heart winner. Cross to dummy with a trump and cash the ♥Q, discarding the ♣J from hand. Now play a club from the table. If East follows with a low club, play him for the Queen rather than the Ace by inserting your 9. |
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| HotD-mon : Teltscher Trails : 14dec19 : B1 |
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Two from the county (Richard Chamberlain & Patrick Shields) played last weekend in the trials for the England Seniors team for the Home Internationals. This was the second board. Playing in 3N, North leads a low club and you win, and cash a second club but South shows out. How are you going to find nine tricks?
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Your prospects are not great - with at most three clubs to take and at most three spades, you need a third red suit trick to go with the two aces. There is only one way to set up another trick and that is to get South to lead a red suit for you. You need to cash a third club and three spades (finessing South for the queen). Once you've done this you need to play a small diamond from each hand, letting South win. At this point South - having discarded a heart and a diamond on the clubs - is down to ♥KQ8 ♦KQT. Leading a top diamond postpones the inevitable choice, as you duck that. The best chance is then to play a top heart hoping their partner has the jack, but you win the ace and lead upo to your jack and that becomes your ninth trick. Neat, and well done to RC for finding that. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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You lead the ♠J against 3NT. South wins with the Queen and plays the ♣K. How do you defend?
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The only chance for the defence is if declarer has only a doubleton club and that partner hold the ♦A. Even then, you can see that he can develop an entry to dummy. You must attack this entry by winning the first club and switching to the ♦Q. East must duck if declarer covers with the King. This way, declarer is denied a slow dummy entry to enjoy the clubs. |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Pairs League : 11dec19 : B11 |
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This hand from Wednesday had a very natural but unusual sequence that is worth noting. The game was bid at exactly three of the sixteen tables, and was made much easier because the pairs concerned were playing four card majors.
The 1♠ opening was good news to East who lacked the values to introduce a new suit but who could happily support. The 2N game try by West now showed 17-19 hcp, and East's removal into hearts promised five or more. It was a simple matter to raise. This gets to a sensible, but not quite certain contract.
If South was to lead a top diamond, then declarer would know to duck that and in due course would lead through the jack finessing the nine and forcing the ace, to restrict the hand to two diamond losers. Then a heart break would bve enough for ten tricks. Nobody was so kind!
If South doesn't lead a top diamond - and most people led a trump - then declarer must negotiate the diamonds for two losers. The winning option - chosen by most - is to draw trumps and lead a diamond to the ♦9, gaining today when the QJ are onside, and with the intention of leading up to the king later if the queen or jack is with North and wins the first round of the suit. The option of leading to the ♦9 is not risk free and if you are forced to come back to hand with a ruff to lead to the ♦K, then an onside ace could lead you to being forced again - embarassingly as that is your last entry. You could go off with Ax or Axx diamonds onside. We are still trying to work out what is the optimal play!
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| HotD-thu : Autumn Pairs : 9dec19 : B6 |
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This hand from Monday illustrated well a dilemma that can arise on any hand - namely, whether the focus is to be winning tricks or avoiding losers. After mild support from partner, East leads the ♠T against 3N and North wins the king and plays out the ♥K. You should win this as you might well cost your side a heart trick if you dond't (when declarer has Kx). But what do you play now?
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Your normal approach in trying to defeat 3N is to seek out five tricks and establish them. Here, by continuing spades, provided partner turns up with just the jack (partner would have overtaken/unblocked at trick one with the QJ, so you know declarer has the queen), you have three spade tricks and two aces - perfect.
What can go wrong? The one thing that can go wrong is declarer can run nine tricks first, which is indeed the case here as declarer has five clubs to cash - and with two spades and two hearts that is enough to make the contract. That happened at both tables where 3N was played.
The defence can clearly do better by not setting up the spade queen, but should they know to avoid that? It's not easy. The only chance is for West to recognise the fact that East will have this dilemma at trick three, and to use the play to trick two (the heart) to make a signal. Here dropping the ♥T under partner's ace (where West's length is expected as hearts were not supported) should be a signal suggesting diamonds, and if that persuades partner to lead the suit then you will beat 3N by three tricks.
This is a difficult defence, but is the sort of thing we need ot be on the look-out for. |
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| Careful Play Required |
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West leads the ♥J. Assuming that all three missing cards are offside, can you make this contract?
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You can afford a loser in each minor but not 2 hearts in addition. You must play low from dummy at trick 1 and win with the Ace. This way you avoid 2 immediate heart losers. Now draw trumps and run the ♣J. When it loses, the defence cannot play a second heart and if they play a diamond through, you must be careful to rise with Ace and cash the clubs for a heart discard before conceding a diamond trick to West. |
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| HotD-tue : Midlands Leagues : 8dec19 : B3 |
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On Sunday last, three County Teams headed to Nottingham Bridge Club for our annual match against Nottinghamshire. This is the board on which we lost most imps (104 across the three teams). What contract do you want to be in and how should it be bid?
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If the spades behave you have 12 top tricks with extra chances through a club ruff, setting up some diamonds, or the heart finesse. And there might be squeeze chances. The spade break comes in at 68% which is just with the odds for bidding a grand slam. So in pure theoretical terms, the answer is we should not mind whether we play the hand in 6♠ or 7♠. The fact is however that the grand slam was bid and made, twice by our pairs, but six times by the opposition. The loss was 8 instances of 13 imps.
How should we be bidding this hand? The NS players are silent and it will surely start with 1♠-2♦. In a world increasingly playing that 2♦ here is game forcing, a 2♠ bid now shows six and instantly identifies a viable trump suit. The simplest route is now for East to raise spades, and on the next round bid 4N to check on key cards. Once these are all accounted, you can see 11 potential tricks and partner can turn up with two outside kings, or the ♦J or a KQ-holding in a rounded suit. The only worry is spades but the 68% identified above is the worst case scenario; the ♠T increases the odds on no spade loser to 73.5% and the ♠J would raise it to 96%. You just cannot tell about these cards, and of course there is a chance partner has seven spades. Which means you should guess to bid 7♠.
It gets more difficult if 1♠ - 2♦ - 2♠ - 3♠ is not forcing, as it was for some. Here over 2♠ (which might only show five) the hand was forced to bid 3♥ but now 3♠ promised a sixth and East could agree the suit by bidding 4♣, and continue with 4N on the next round - reaching the same position as the others.
The odds add up to making the grand slam a good bet, and it feels like general momentum should get you there. |
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| A Subtle Defence |
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Your Partner starts with the ♦AK. Declarer ruffs the second diamond and plays ♣AK7, ruffing on the table as West follows small each time. How do you see the defence developing?
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This is one of those hands where the defence appears helpless. Declarer can ruff his fourth club on the table and the heart finesse (if needed) is known to be working. When all looks lost, it is a good time to try a little deception. If you play the ♣9 and ♣Q on the second and third round of clubs, declarer's ten will be good and he will not need to ruff it on the table. If the layout is as shown, he may well play the ♠Q and ♠A. When you show out in trumps, he may think he can avoid the heart finesse by cashing his club, throwing a heart from dummy, and then ruff a heart on the table. He will be defeated when your partner makes a trump trick by ruffing the ♣T |
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| Play This Slam |
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West leads the ♠J against your slam. Plan the play.
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You have plenty of tricks on this hand and you should appreciate that your only losers could come from the trump suit. The danger is that trumps might break 4-0 but if you are careful you can cater for this. Win the opening lead and play a small trump towards dummy. If West has 4 clubs, then you restrict him to 1 winner by leading towards dummy twice. If East has the trump length then you later play trumps towards hand to avoid a second loser. |
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| Plan The Play |
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West leads the ♠9. Plan the play.
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It looks likely on the bidding that the club finesse is working so you appear to have plenty of tricks. Suppose the lead is ducked around to your King and you play diamonds, expecting East to win. He may switch to hearts but you can unblock the diamonds and take the club finesse for 9 tricks. However, when you play diamonds, to your surprise, West wins the trick and pushes another spade through dummy, allowing East to take 4 tricks on the suit. As is often the case, the critical point of the hand was at trick 1. You can be sure from the lead that East holds ♠AJ, so the correct card to play from dummy is the Queen. If East ducks, you have 2 spade tricks to go with 4 diamonds, 2 hearts and at least 1 club. If East wins trick 1, he cannot return the suit without conceding a second trick. Let's say he switches to a heart - win the Ace and clear the diamonds. If hearts are continued you can win, unblock the diamonds and take a club finesse for your contract. |
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| HotD-fri : Swiss Teams 4 : 2dec19 : B20 |
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There were two contracts considered on this hand from Monday (with one exception) and these were 3N and 4♥. And in both contracts there were roughly as many succeeded as failed. What should have happened?
Let's look at 3N first - a contract reached at some tables after North opened 2♠ (spades and another suit) and East bid 3N. At two 3N tables South led a spade and declarer was able to win that and bash out the clubs (AQ and another) and come to four clubs, three spades and two or more red suit tricks. Easy game this! Two tables found a diamond lead against 3N and this killed the game. Isn't defence simple? When partner has shown a two suiter, the second suit might well catch declarer out, but the difficulty is guessing which suit it is - as if you lead thre wrong one you have seriously helped declarer. The right openign lead is very important to find, but without knowing the bidding it is unfair to critique these choices.
The game in hearts was played more often by East (7 times) than by West (3 times). Taking the latter first, the lead was most often the ♣9 and the message this gives to declarer is that the king is offside. The big danger on the hand is therefore losing one trick in each minor plus the ♥K and a ruff. Declarer could try to avoid a heart loser by coming to hand and finessing, but there is only one quick entry to hand, so you loseat least heart unless North has exactly ♥Kx. An alternative in hearts is to bash them out from the top. This avoids the ruff if the short club is with the short hearts, or if the defence lack the entry for the club ruff. A third approach is to use the spade entry to West to lead diamonds, creating more entries to West for later heart finesses.
Which is best? It's very hard to measure, but the last choice (come and play diamonds) looks like a line to make 11 tricks rather than just 10. Bashing out the hearts loses against the finesse when North (who we presume has the short club) has ♥Kxx hearts and South has an entry - but gains when North has a doubleton heart of any nature. The hand with the short club is likely to have more hearts - but roughly in a ratio of 3:2, so that ♥Kxx onside is slightly lower odds than a doubleton onside, and so bashing out the top hearts is clearly best.
Played by the other hand, that damaging club lead is never going to happen, and this could be a clear advert for the 3♣-asking systems which ensure that the strong hand is always declarer. Yet when 4♥ was played by East three declarers went off - two on a spade lead and one on a diamond lead. A key difference in these cases is that declarer lacks the strong hint that the club king is wrong, and could therefore easily take an innocent finesse and run into an unexpected club ruff.
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| HotD-thu : Swiss teams : 02dec19 : B5 |
This hand from Monday was the big slam bidding challenge. East starts with a choice of openings, and some went for 1♣ while more often people opened 2N. Opposite the latter it is not often West will be looking at such a powerful hand, and few have planned their system to cater for this. Although it is not impossible for the opponents to cash two top diamonds against a slam, the odds massively favour partner having a top diamond - so you will not stop out of slam on this board. One option is to transfer first to spades and then bid 6♥; the other option is to start with Stayman 3♣ and then show a 5♠4♥ hand and see how it develops. When the transfer was chosen, over 3♥ showing spades, East broke the transfer bidding 4♣ to show good spade support and a control in clubs. West can cooperate here with 4♥ (cue bid) and the East hand is so slam suitable that opposite any suggestion it can now afford to take control.
If East bids 4N to ask for controls, West has a choice of responses here; two issues must be resolved. The first is whether or not to show the void as part of your response (some bid 5N to show two key cards and a void, others bid the "normal" response at the 6-level to show a void) and the second is whether the length in spades justifies declaring that you have the queen of that suit. On the first point, when you have said nothing about your void yet, partner - to justify taking charge - must have a control in that suit, and this will be wasted values; this argues (quite strongly) that you do not show. On the second question, there is considerable merit in showing the queen - if that is all partner lacks then his/her ♠Kxxx will be enough for slam purposes, but perhaps more usefully, when partner has the queen partner will recognise that you have extra length and that extra length is an extra trick or two - so partner will evaluate more accurately. If we make a response of 5♠ at this point, partner will know there are no key cards missing, and since West is unlimited, East must pass on this knowledge by bidding 5N. Although nominally asking for kings, the more important function of this bid is to confirm all the key cards. West will be very interested to hear this and could almost chance the grand slam.
A useful alternative is available with the more modern style of responses to this 5N bid; that style is to show the kings you have rather than to show the count of kings, as some kings might be much more valuable than others. That works nicely here as West can invent a bid of 6♦ ostensibly showing the king, which allows East to show the king of hearts, and at that point West knows to bid the grand slam.
Was the transfer break vital to get to this slam? I'd argue not and if the bidding went 2N-3♥-3♠-6♥ all it takes is for East to try to imagine what hand partner has to bid this way which - given it is missing the minor suit aces and the ♠KQJ♥K - could not have both the ♠A and the ♥A. Here bidding 7♠ is the stand-out option.
If the Stayman route was chosen over 2N, then the response would be 3♠ and at this point West should bid 4♥ to tell partner of slam interest, and the immensely suitable East hand can then take charge as before.
Not all tables had a free run after a 2N opener; some had a 3♣ overcall and when West here bid 3♠, partner could cue bid 4♣ in response and the position described earlier re-emerges. Curiously a 4♣ bid by West - while showing 55 in the majors for most - would not have worked as well, as forcing partner to choose a major will mask East's suitability for spades. Still, raising 4♠ to 6♠ should, on the argument given for no transfer break, lead to the grand slam.
Finally, after a 1♣ opener, it might take a little more time to get to a grand slam but it should be possible; one sequence might be 1♣ - 1♠ - 4♠ (balanced, 18+, sometimes not as good as this) after which 4N might be the best route to the grand.
Three tables out of fourteen earned themselves an extra 11 imps on Monday by bidding the grand slam when others didn't.
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| HotD-wed : Swiss Teams 4 : 2dec19 : B11 |
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The final session of the Swiss Teams took place on Monday and team 13 (Tony Hill & Alan Wearmouth, Mark Rogers & Peter Waggett) completed their undefeated run with their two narrowest wins, which still left them 13 VPs ahead of second place. Their biggest gains of the evening came from bidding a grand slam (on B5) and from this hand (which was the swingiest of the evening). A key moment at their home table was the choice to make at this point - what should South bid?
The difficulty is that you have two things to show - the extra heart length and the club suit. Mark Rogers chose the hearts and the bidding proceeded 3♥ - 3♠ - 4♥ - end. The play was straightforward - losing just three trumps. The opposing table had a 2♠ overcall and when South rebid 3♣ it seemed normal for North to try 3N. This went two down when East led spades, and the winners picked up 11 imps.
More interrsting was the play in 4♠ at the seven tables (half the field) who played in that contract. All were doubled and every one of them got the ♥J lead. Declarer is only looking at four potential losers - two in spades and two in diamonds - and with the ♦Q sitting onside and the ♥Q available to take care of the fourth diamond, what can go wrong? It all depends on North getting some value out of the ♠3. If declarer wins trick one and sneaks a spade to the ten it is all over, but if North rises and continues hearts the defence are in control. After winning the second spade North needs simply to put partner on lead to play a third heart, and the discard of the last diamond vanishes from sight, and declarer loses two diamonds and the contract.
How would North put partner on lead? It takes a lead of a minor suit, and it must be diamonds. Here any club bid by South becomes an important part of the calculation. If South has four clubs then West has none and North will know that a diamond is the only hope of a quick entry. Can North be sure that South has the diamond ace? Yes, because otherwise South has opened the bidding in a bad suit first in hand with at most 10 hcp - and that doesn't seem right. But leading diamonds is not without danger even if South is known to have the ace, as if South has say ♦AT, then the defence has two diamonds tricks if it just waits, but only one if it attacks. Beating the contract however is paramount, so a diamond should be found.
Even on a club, ruffed, declarer is in trouble. The ♦K is vital as an entry to the ♥Q, and if the king is beaten by the ace there is no entry. South should try the ♦9 on the first round, and to beat the game by force West must cover at this point. If West ducks this and East ducks, but West covers the next diamond, declarer needs to refrain from playing the king. Perhaps too difficult!
Four declarers in 4♠ made their contract, three went down.
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| What Can Go Wrong? |
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West starts with a spade to the Jack and Easts's King. East switches to the ♥9, West following suit. How do you come to 10 tricks?
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You have 1 trick outside of trumps so need to make 9 tricks from trumps. You can do this by embarking on a cross-ruff, just losing 2 tricks at the end. However, you must be careful at trick 2. If you win the heart return in dummy, you will have to take 2 club ruffs with low trumps and it is possible that East may over-ruff. This hand is very simple once you have applied the 'What can go wrong" principle. If you win trick 2 in hand, you only need one low ruff on the table. Don't throw away contracts by careless play. |
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| Just a Little Thought |
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West starts by leading ♥AKQ. Plan the play.
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You have 9 tricks and a ruff in dummy will be enough. If you ruff the third heart with dummy's ♠9, you will succeed if West started with the ♠T or if East held 3 hearts. However, a little thought will show this is a needless risk. On the third heart, discard a diamond from dummy. Win the next lead and draw trumps. If trumps are 2-1 you have a diamond ruff for your tenth trick. If trumps are 3-0 you will still succeed if the hand with 3 trumps has at least 3 diamonds. |
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| HotD-sun : Squad Practice : 27nov19 : B3 |
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This hand from Wednesday's squad game was navigated successfully by most declarers, but the winning choice was not obvious.
The auction shown is fairly standard and the defence starts with North leading a singleton diamond and South playing ♦9, ♦K, and ♦A. You ruff high and draw trumps, finding North with three. You have to lose to the club ace and need to avoid losing to the club jack. How do you proceed?
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The first thing you need to do on this hand is to learn what you can about the side suits. Here you cash the hearts and find that North started with five and South with two.
This is the time to count out the distribution, and when we add up all we know then we discover that North started with four clubs, and South with three. Since one of South's clubs is the ace, South has two spaces which might include the jack while North has four. The inidcated line is therefore to finesse for North having the club jack.
And that works! |
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| A Simple Slam |
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How do you play this slam on a club lead?
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Making 7 will be easy if both majors break 3-2, but you are only in a small slam and you should take care to guard against the majors breaking 4-1. Win the lead and cash the ♠A. When both opponents follow, play Ace and a low heart from hand. Say that East shows out on this trick and that West plays another club. Now you can cross to hand with a trump, ruff a heart with the ♠Q and return to hand with another trump. Draw the last trump and your hand is now high with the ♦A in dummy. |
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| Many Routes |
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West leads ♦ AK and another, East following to all 3 rounds. Plan the play. |
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Having lost 2 tricks already, you need to avoid 2 club losers if you are to make this game. In addition, a bad trump break might prove difficult to handle so let's hope for a 3-2 break. There are several ways that you could play the club suit: the Ace might drop a singleton honour; you could finesse the ten and hope East started with Hx or both top clubs: you could lead a low club from hand, playing West for a doubleton honour and later guessing the suit correctly. There is also another way to succeed. West passed originally so won't have both club honours. His overcall on a flimsy suit suggest that he has something in clubs. If you conclude that the ♣KQ are split then try the effect of this line. Unblock the ♥K and draw trumps in 3 rounds. Now take the 2 top hearts discarding clubs from dummy, and exit with Ace and another club. The defence wont be able to untangle their second club trick, instead having to concede a ruff and discard enabling you to get rid of your losing club. |
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| HotD-thu : Mixed Pairs : 25nov19 : B13 |
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This hand from Monday was played in the same contract at every table, and resulted in either 10 or 11 or 12 or 13 tricks. How could there be so many variations? It wasn't all down to the opening lead. A spade won the ace happened at five tables, and South led a club at the other two. On a spade lead and continuation, there are two equally good sequences for playing the heart suit. You will always take the finesse for South holding the queen - but starting with the ace gains when North holds a singleton queen, while starting with the ♥5 gains when South holds a singleton queen. [Take away the ♥8 and the first of these gains disappears, and starting with the ♥5 is definitely best] On this auction there is nothing to tell, and either path allows you to draw trumps in three rounds. After that you need to tackle the club suit and missing the KJ the right play is to go for a double finesse. hoping first for the jack onside and then the king onside. You need to start the suit from the West hand and this might involve crossing to ♦A before leading a club to the nine. When this wins, you go back to dummy with a spade ruff, cash dummy's two diamond winners to throw the ♣86, and then finesse again. You find you have 12 tricks, but have no regrets about not bidding the slam as it took four cards sitting onside, and a trump break to let you make so many tricks. On a club lead you don't have a spade trick to start with, but you can do even better than those who made the ♠K as a trick. The answer is to win the first club (beating North's jack with the queen) and draw trumps. Now comes the ♣T and a successful finesse against the king, and you can collect five clcub tricks. This lets you throw both of dummy's losing spades and you will be able to ruff dummy's losing diamond and collect 13 tricks. Is it that easy? Not quite - North's play of the ♣J at trick one was very helpful to you, as now you needed only one later finesse. If North - who should recognise the lead as a singleton - correctly plays small at trick one, you will still need two entries to dummy to pick up the clubs and that means you must use a trump entry and a diamond entry for that purpose. You'll be fine if you played ♥A first and drew the third trump with the jack. Curiously it is a diamond lead, taking out the entry to the West hand, which makes you work hardest for your tricks. To get 13 tricks from that start, you need to play at least one round of clubs before drawing trumps. |
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| HotD-wed : Mixed Pairs : 25nov18 : B10 |
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There were plenty of slam hands on Monday but a couple of them presented stories we don't usually hear. Standard stuff first - B6 was a playable slam bid by no-one, B13 was game values with four finesses working and allowing a slam to make, B16 was a great grand slam bid only by two pairs, and B19 had slam on a finesse bid by one table out of seven.
The two other relevant hands were B3 and B10. On B3 the East-West hands have 33 hcp and a very respectable play in 6N but things lie badly and there is no way to make that contract. Commiserations to the four pairs who bid sensibly to 6N here.
B10, featured, was of the same (unusual) nature. Looking at the two hands you expect most days (90% of the time) to make seven diamond tricks and six outside, and will make 7N (or 7♦). Monday was part of that other 10% and the grand slam cannot make. The "problem" is that no pair managed to bid to that excellent contract. Should they have reached a grand slam? The answer is yes everyone should, and the key issue comes up at this point in the auction.
At this point West knows that together the partneship has over 30 HCP and a long and respectable diamond suit. It is imperative therefore to support diamonds, so that slam can be investigated. There are two paths over 3♦ - one is a simple raise, and the other is to bid a new suit at the four level. This latter choice does not make sense as a trump suit suggestion, so it always shows support for the last suit bid, and slam interest. When it happens over a major suit it is a general slam try with no more implicaitons, but over a minor suit - when a raise is forcing - it also shows a control in the suit bid. The bidding here should proceed 4♣ (diamond support, club control) - 4♥ (cue) - 4N (key card ask) - 5♦ (zero or four out of five). At this point West can stop to count; if East has seven diamonds then there are 13 top tricks, and if East has only six then a trick out of any of ♠J, ♥K, ♣Q would suffice and if none of those are available then ruffing out the long spade must be an option. The odds enormously favour now bidding a grand slam, and because of that last mentioned option we have to allow 7♦ as an alternative to the optimal 7N.
Easy game!
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| What Can Go Wrong? |
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West leads the ♠Q. How do you play this slam?
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If you make 4 diamond tricks that is enough for your contract, so a 4-1 break is not a problem. Hence you should plan the play based on the chance that the diamonds are 5-0. If West has 5 (unlikely on the bidding) you are doomed unless the trumps are 2-2, but you can cater for East holding 5 provided you are careful with your entries. Win the spade in hand and draw trumps (let's say that takes 4 rounds). Now a diamond to the King and another diamond towards hand. If East has 5 diamonds he must split his honours on this trick., but now you can return to dummy with a spade to lead another diamond through East. Your diamonds are good enough to win 4 tricks in the suit. If you had called for the Ace of spades at trick 1, you would have been defeated through lack of a dummy entry. |
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| Plan the Defence |
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N/S are playing 5 card majors with a forcing 1NT response. This sequence shows a limited raise with 3 trumps and South may only have a 3 card diamond suit. No lead is massively attractive but in the end you decide to lead your singleton and dummy's King is headed by the Ace, partner returning the ♦J at trick 2. How do you see the defence developing?
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One possibility is that you can get 2 diamond ruffs. If you interpret partners ♦J as asking for the highest outside suit, then you may be able to ruff this trick, cash 2 hearts if partner has the King, and then get a further ruff to beat the contract. Very occassionally, this might be the only way to succeed. However, consider partner's diamond holding. He would only return the ♦J with a good holding in the suit, and therefore it is most likely that partner has a winning diamond of his own. It is generally not good play to ruff partner's winners and you do much better to discard at trick 2. The layout is quite likely to be similar to that shown, and on this hand, declarer will have to guess the hearts correctly to get out for one down. Ruffing costs your side a trump trick as well as a diamond, and if you had indeed followed your ruff by playing Ace and another heart, declarer would be able to come to 10 tricks by setting up a long diamond for a club discard. Ruffing prematurely is a common defensive error - always consider whether it is likely to actually gain you a trick. |
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| Read the Signs |
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West starts with ♥AK. How do you plan the play?
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You will make the contract unless you lose 2 clubs and a diamond. You ruff the second heart and draw trumps. Now it looks obvious to play a club towards dummy. However, if East holds the ♣A, you will be defeated. The safe line is to play a low diamond towards the table. If West rises with the ♦K, you later have 2 club discards on the diamonds. If West ducks the diamond, you don't lose a trick in the suit. If East is able to win the ♦K, then you can be sure that the ♣A is onside so you will have no problem. |
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| Improve your Chances |
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You play in 6♥ and West leads the ♣8. You win and lay down the ♥A but disappointingly, East shows out. How do you continue?
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You will succeed if you take a winning finesse in spades or diamonds, whereas a losing finesse spells defeat. Which suit to play? It is a pure guess as to which finesse is working (if any) but you can find a way to effectively try both. Cash the ♠A and your remaining clubs before exiting with a heart. West wins and must play either a spade or a diamond. A diamond immediately concedes the contract so suppose he plays a spade. Now you can put up the ♠Q and if this holds you are home. If it is covered by East's King, then you ruff, cross to dummy in trumps and try the diamond finesse. |
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| HotD-fri : Tollemache QF : 17nov19 : B25 |
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The County team played last weekend in the major inter-counties championship - the Tollemache Cup - and survived the first round, for the first time since 2013. The team which won the qualifying heat (the top two go through) was Berks & Bucks, who would have beaten the Gloucestershire team 20-0 had not our team gained points on this hand. The opening bid by South rather propelled West into 3N, and the opening lead was ♣4 to the ♣A, after which South switch to ♦K(ducked), ♦Q(ducked) and ♦7. Over to you as declarer ...
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The key issue now is not to lose a heart trick to someone who can cash a diamond. There are two scenarios to consider; the first is when South holds a fourth diamond in which case you cannot lose a trick to anyone, and the second is when South holds only three diamonds in which you can afford to lose a trick to South.
In the first case, South will have just 3 major suit cards, while North holds 8 major suit cards; here the odds on a singleton 9 or singleton T with South are better (about 18%) than the odds on a doubleton queen anywhere (about 17%). The winning play is to run the jack.
In the second case, South will have 4 major suit cards, while North has 7 of them, but this time you can win by running the jack and then finessing again if covered - which works unless North holds all of the QT9 or you lose two tricks to South, and you are home about 38% of the time, while dropping Qx is only about a 33% shot.
Both cases are remarkably close, but our man went for the winning line by instinct rather than calculation, and was rewarded on running the jack when the singleton ten appeared and he was able to collect five tricks in hearts and make an overtrick.
It is worth noting that where South did not open the bidding, the lead was either a diamond or spade from North, and in those cases the best play in the heart suit is different; it is to play the ♥AK and hope the queen drops, with a 27% success rate - and that results in the contract going one down, The 4♥ game also faces three losers and should take the losing line in hearts. |
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| HotD-thu : League 4 : 18nov19 : B4 |
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This hand from Monday was the only real slam hand, and it proved too difficult for most pairs. [There was also a slightly against the odds slam on B3 bid at three tables, a hopeless slam bid once on B12, the luckily making slam bid once on B16, and the poor failing slams on B17, B18, B20 and B25]
This was the bidding by the one pair who reached the excellent grand slam. Worth noting in that auction is the fact that 2♣ was game forcing, which allowed the East player to continue and hear partner bid diamonds for a third time. At this point he leapt to 4N to ask for key cards (which many would treat 4N as a natural, slam-invitational bid) and he heard of ♦AKQ from the 5♠ response. He continued with 5N to ask for kings and heard from partner about the ♣K (bidding specific kings is now the favoured was to answer 5N) and that made it easy for East to bid the grand slam. Well done to Mike Letts & Andrew Urbansksi for showing us how to handle this hand.
Without 2-over-1 game forcing, it is only a little more difficult to bid the grand slam. It would not be out of place for the bidding to go 1♦ - 2♣ - 2♦ - 2♠ - 3♦ at which point, if the leap to 4N is asking for key cards then the same sequence could be produced.
Why did 10 pairs only get to game on this hand?
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| HotD-wed : League 4 : 18nov19 : B8 |
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This hand from Monday had some interesting choices to be made, both by declarer and the defence. It was played in the spade game at 7 tables, and in 3N at 8 tables (2N at one).
Playing in 4♠ happened from both directions; the two instances from West benefited from a heart lead into the KJ7, after which declarer could afford to lose two spades - and so was under no pressure. A positive benefit is seen here from the use of transfers. Played from East the opening lead against 4♠ gave nothing away and - with a diamond weakness visible and a possible heart loser, declarer will want to play the spades carefully. The optimal choice is small towards the ♠AJ9 and putting in the ♠9; followed by a second finesse. When the lead is made from East, South traditionally rises with the ♠K on the first round to give declarer another choice, but the odds still favour finessing the nine on the second round. The spade game always succeeded.
When 3N is played by West, a key choice is made by North on the opening lead. In practice all four suits were led at different tables, and the only lead to give declarer an issue was diamonds. Should this lead have been found? North - on the bidding shown - has a fairly even choice bwteen the red suits. Current wisdom says that the weaker suit is less likely to give away a trick (true here) but when it comes to majors and minors which nobody has bid, we need to factor in that the declaring side would often investigate a major suit fit, and often ignore a minor suit - and this pushes North to leading a major. Perhaps there is no surprise that equal numbers led each red suit.
The trick given away by the heart lead makes the contract easier but still not certain, so spade have to be tackled. The diamond lead created worries, but declarer must duck twice and then win, and again tackle the spade suit. The interesting thing about the spade suit when playing in NT is the limited entries to the East hand. Playing for the KT(x) or QT(x) onside gives a 40% chance of a second trick - and this uses both dummy entries. And using both dummy entries leaves you no way to take the heart finesse. Which is best? Surely the latter. You can actually combine both chances by using the first entry to try a spade towards the jack - which will succeed with KQ(x)(x) onside, and use the second entry to take a heart finesse.
In practice, sadly, playing purely on spades would have succeeded, while taking the heart finesse was a losing option. All three defenders on a diamond lead were held to eight tricks.
CBC played the same hands, and there six declarers succeeded in 3N on a heart lead, and four failed in 3N on a diamond lead.
If only we could find the best opening lead every hand!
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| How do you Defend? |
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West leads the ♥5 against South's slam. Declarer plays the Queen from dummy. How do you see the defence developing and do you cover with the King at trick1?
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If South has any problems on this hand they will revolve around the spade suit. You don't know what partner has but on the bidding he is marked with 4 spades, so you have to hope they are good ones. If declarer has 2 losing spades he may be able to discard one of dummy's spades on a club and try to ruff 2 spades on the table. Declarer will achieve this in comfort if you squander your King of hearts at trick 1. If you retain the King, then when the layout is as shown, you will be able to overruff North on the third spade and return your last trump to kill the contract. Well done West for finding the right lead. |
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| Play This Slam |
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West leads the ♥J. Plan the play.
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It is no use planning to ruff spades in dummy as East is marked with a shortage in the suit. You need to set up the diamonds. You can cope with a 4-1 diamond break provided you are careful. Win the lead and draw trumps. Now play a diamond towards dummy and finesse the Knave. This will probably lose but you are safe. If East returns a spade you can win in hand, ruff the diamonds good and return to dummy with a spade to cash them. |
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| Play Carefully |
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West starts with the ♥K. How do you play?
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You appear to have 6 spade tricks, 1 heart and 3 diamonds - making the contract. However, if spades are 3-0 offside and the ♣A is with East, you may go down on a trump promotion. If the cards lie as shown, you play ♠AQ at tricks 2 and 3 but West wins and switches to the ♣Q. Now you lose 2 club tricks and a third club promotes the ♠T - unlucky. You could have made the contract however by winning the ♥A at trick 1 and continuing with a second heart on which you discard a club. West may win and switch to clubs, but you can ruff the second club and then play the top spades. With defensive communications destroyed, you can win West's return and draw the last trump, making the 10 tricks you appeared to have from the outset. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♣AK and switches to the ♥J at trick 3. How do you play?
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Do you cover with the Queen? Why on earth would West switch to a heart holding ♥KJ? There may be a use for the ♥Q later and you should preserve it. Win the ♥A, draw trumps and eliminate the clubs. Now cash the diamonds. If they break 3-2 then you lose a heart at the end. However, if they are 4-1,with West holding 4, you appear to have a diamond loser but all you then need to do is exit with a heart and East will win and present you with a ruff and discard. |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Pairs League : 13nov19 : B21 |
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This hand from Wednesday proved difficult for many to evaluate - with only 3/16 reaching the excellent slam. The bidding often started this way, with a sequence where South shows game forcing heart support and then North shows a hand with extras but no shortage to declare. The key question was what South did next. A number of Souths felt contrained at this point by the limited nature of the hand, and their 4♥ bid finished the auction. The fact remains however that this is a 7-loser hand, and that would be true if we replaced the ♠K and ♥J by small cards. It therefore deserves a more positive view and here the least you can do is offer a cue bid in clubs, aiming to stop at 4♥ unless partner insists on going further. An alternative, played by some, is that 4♣ here shows a basic opening bid (non-serious slam try); this is attractive as it doesn't overstate the hand but allows North to bid 4♦ (Last Train) to show continued interest. Hearing that was enough at one table to propel South into slam.
Playing in 6♥ by South on the club queen lead you must pause at trick one as you have a choice of plays. Can you see what possibilities you need to balance?
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You have no shortage of tricks on this hand - so the issue is not losing two tricks. You have two concerns
(a) there could be a 4-0 trump break and in order to cater for that happening either way around, you need to start hearts by leading the queen.
(b) but if you run the ♥Q at trick two, you could run into a club ruff at trick three.
Which is more likely?
The calculation comes out as follows : missing four cards the odds on splits are 40% for 2-2, and 50% for 3-1, leaving 10% for a 4-0 break. Starting with the ♥A would lose out therefore in 5% of cases (East holding ♥KT54). In the club suit, missing seven cards, the odds on splits are 62% for 4-3, 31% for 5-1, leaving 7% for a 6-1 break. Running the ♥Q only costs when it loses to the king and that hand has the long clubs - roughly a 2% chance.
The correct choice is therefore to lead win the ♣A at trick one, and lead the ♥Q. After you see ♥K-♥A the contract is safe. On the next round do you rise with the jack or finesse the nine? The trade-off here is against East holding exactly ♥K or exactly ♥KT. In every situation a single more balanced break of the cards is more likely that any single less balanced arrangement, so the odds favour rising with the jack. You end up with 12 tricks. |
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| HotD-thu : Autumn Pairs : 11nov19 : B16 |
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This hand from Monday had two curious aspects to it, quite unrelated.
The first set of questions arise around the bidding. Those sitting East and playing the (newer, and generally recommend) 2-over-1 game force, had to respond with 1N to partner's opening of 1♥. Over this one South chose to bid 2♥ (still a Michaels cue bid in this position, showing 55 spades+minor) and North quickly bid 4♠ to end the auction. The contract succeeded and everyone put their cards away, oblivious to the fact that East-West had a game on in diamonds, and also in hearts if the defence wasn't on its toes. Could anyone have done differently? Nothing suggests itself.
Where the 2-level response is not game forcing, it would be natural for the auction to go 1♥ - P - 2♦ and then South has a choice of actions. While showing a two suiter might appeal, the opposition have surely found a fit by now, and that makes it best to make an obstructive bid in spades. Over any spade jump, West is unlikely to support diamonds, but might try 4♥ with suich a good suit. North can bid 4♠ and the spotlight falls on East. Bidding 5♥, as chosen at one table proved a winning action when North with two aces doiubled but failed to find the diamond ruff his partner needed.
Three pairs bid on over 4♠ on this hand - well done to all of them. It turns out that in all three cases South bid just 2♠ on the first round, giving West much more space in which to describe their hand (two showed the sixth heart while the third showed diamond support). South had made it easy for the opposition and suffered as a result.
On the play side there was actually a curiosity when North played 4♠. After the lead of ♥A and a diamond switch, declarer drew trumps in two round and set about clubs. After leading the ♣7 he paused, noting that the contract was guaranteed as long as the king of clubs didn't lose to a singleton ace - and on the bidding that was not impossible. It looked very like the ♣A would be offside, so he duly ducked in dummy. As East had played the ♣4, the seven forced the ace and that meant only one club loser, so a bonus overtrick. The dilemma for East is that while inserting the ♣T does guarantee a second club trick, if there was a singleton ace and declarer had ♣J76 and played the king, then the defence would have three club tricks and would beat the contract. Which way would you have jumped?
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| HotD-wed : Premier League D1 : 09nov19 : B12 |
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The team of four locals (John Atthey & Garry Watson, Richard Chamberlain & Patrick Shields) struggled in the top division of the national league over last weekend, winning only two of their seven matches. There was only one bad loss however (42 imps over 16 boards) so they managed to retain their position of seventh in the table quite easily. The eventual winners were the first team they played over the weekend and our locals beat them by 11 imps (they lost only one other match). This board was flat in our match but saw a swing in others; it looked reasonable to bid a slam here, and three tables did while five stopped in game.
When we sat East-West the auction was 4♦(weak) - X - P - 4♠ - end. Notice how West was willing to give up on a potential heart fit, since obstruction has so much to gain at this vulnerability, and East avoided raising to 5♦ as South's action over that would show positive values (unlike the sequence which occurred) and that might well propel the opposition into slam.
When we sat North-South the auction was P - 1♥ - P - 1♠ - 4♦ - 4♠ - end. Again the intervention was nicely timed, taking away all the space where North could show the strength of the raise. South knew that North could have a wide variety of hands and felt he had to pass.
At both tables the defence started with ♦A and another, ruffed. Declarer was able to continue with ♠A and the ♠K; when the ♠J9 had appeared declarer came to hand with ♥ A and a heart ruffed, ruffed his last diamond, and then returned to hand with the ♣K. He was able to draw the last trump, discarding dummy's ♣T and make 12 tricks whoever had the club queen. Both North-South pairs felt disappointed in the result and apologised to team-mates for missing the slam.
Two tables bid to 6♠ by South and at a third table it started 4♦ - X - 5♦ - X - P - 6♥ - end. It's not often you play a slam with fewer trumps than the opponents, but this is what was done. With trumps breaking it looked like it depended just on finding the club queen; unfortunately (for declarer) East's ♦K was allowed to win trick one and he found the club switch to beat the slam. And what about the 6♠ contracts? Both we played by South and at both tables West led the ♦2. When East won the king, the club return was obvious and was found. Slam down one.
So there was no need to apologise for missing the slam after all!
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| How do you Defend? |
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Your partner leads the ♥K. How do you see the defence developing?
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You have 2 heart tricks and hopefully 2 clubs at some point. Indeed, if declarer has a singleton club it is difficult to see any chance for the defence. Your best hope is that partner has a singleton or doubleton club and that you can generate a trump trick for him by means of a promotion. How do you get him to switch to a club? Playing the 2 of hearts at trick 1 might be seen as showing count, or discouraging/encouraging a heart continuation according to your methods, and if partner does switch, it might be to a diamond, looking for 2 diamond tricks. The best way to proceed is to overtake the King at trick 1 and return the 2 of hearts. Now this should be seen as a clear-cut suit preference signal. When partner plays a club through you continue with 3 rounds of the suit. On this layout, you generate a trump trick for West to beat the contract. |
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| Timing |
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West leads the ♠K. How many tricks might you make on this hand?
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Given that West holds the ♠Q, you have a chance of 12 tricks provided you get the timing right. Duck the opening lead and see what West does. He is very unlikely to cash the ♣A at trick two so lets say he switches to a trump. You win in hand, cash the ♦A and take the spade finesse. Now pitch your remaining diamond on the ♠A and ruff a diamond. Go back to a trump and ruff another diamond. Now if diamonds have broken, you can enter dummy with a trump and get rid of both your clubs on the good diamonds. If the diamonds are not good, then at least you have 10 tricks with the remote chance of an eleventh should the ♣A be onside. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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West leads the ♣J, covered by the Queen in dummy. How do you see the defence developing?
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From the lead, you know that partner has a singleton or doubleton club and hence you have a club ruff. Hopefully, you also have 2 spade tricks with which to defeat this contract. Can you see what might happen if you play King, Ace and a third club? - Your third club is the 2 and partner will certainly interpret this card as suit preference for diamonds, rather than spades. You should not be surprised therefore if West ruffs the third club and switches to a diamond. How can you get partner to do the right thing? The answer is you can alert partner by winning trick 1 with the Ace of Clubs, rather than the King. Now when you continue with the ♣K and ♣2, a thinking partner should be asking himself why you have adopted an odd way to play the suit, and should draw the conclusion that you could not send an accurate signal with your third club. A spade switch is thus indicated. |
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| HotD-sat : CBC MIxed Pairs : 5nov19 : B17 |
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This monster hand turned up on Tuesday evening and curiously rings a bell with Wednesday's hand of the day. Can you see how to decide on the right level to which to bid? It clearly depends on one card.
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The key card is the ♥ K - so the question is how you can ask partner about that card? We have three styles of asking on offer - ace asking bids like 4N, cue bidding for controls (aces and kings), and trump asking questions. Which might work here? The winning answer is the third of these, but in order to make a trump ask in hearts we must first agree hearts as trumps.
The easiest way to do this is to continue at this point with 3♥ (natural, forcing) which partner will then raise to game. After 3♥ - 4♥ you can invoke the Josephine convention described a few days back, bidding 5N. Partner's response of 6♥ shows one of the top three honours, and you know which that is. You can now clearly bid 7♠, and trust partner to pass this,
Was this sequence too fanciful? Nobody found this at the table but various people suggested it off-line. The small slam was bid at neary every table. There was one table did bid the grand slam, but the auction cannot be repeated on an open forum - it was too horrible! |
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| Play This Grand Slam |
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West leads the ♥T. You win in hand and play a trump towards dummy but West shows out, discarding a diamond. Play from here.
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If the trumps had broken, you could have discarded a diamond on the fourth round of hearts and then ruffed a diamond on the table for your thirteenth trick. Well that plan is no longer available, but a dummy reversal could come to your rescue. Play the ♣AK and ruff a club with the ♠K. Now play the ♠Q to dummy's Ace and ruff the last club high. Now a trump to dummy allows you to draw the last trump (discarding your losing diamond from hand) and claim thirteen tricks. |
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| HotD-thu : Swiss Teams 3 : 4nov19 : B26 |
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This hand from Monday provided rather an unbalanced beast to handle, and a number of declarers didn't get to the contract they desired, while a number of defenders also missed the boat. The bidding as shown was the slightly pushy auction at table 10 (after a most surprising pass from East on the first round). Notice that South doubles 2♣ before bidding diamonds for two reasons : one is to bring the possibility of hearts into the game, and the other is that double then 3♦ sounds stronger than 2♦ and a possible double later.
The question is should the contract make?
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The answer is yes, and indeed of those in spades three made 11 tricks (impossible without help), three made 10 tricks and four made 9 tricks.
The best defence starts with a club ruffed at trick one. If declarer draws trumps then when the defence get in with hearts they can force the last trump and when they get in with diamonds they can cash clubs. That line fails. So declarer cannot draw trumps.
As so often, it is best first to set up some outside tricks. Here the top heart looks good at trick two,and West will win and should continue clubs. Declarer needs to ruff, and again - need to lose the lead again in diamonds - trumps cannot be drawn.
Declarer must now go about setting up the other suit wanted - diamonds. After ♦A and another, what should East do? If it is anything but a club, declarer will ruff and play a third diamond - so you either play a club now or a minute later. Decalrer takes a third ruff.
Declarer now has no outside losers, so uses the last two trumps held to draw some of the opponents' trumps. It's then about cashing winners, and whether declarer plays on hearts or on diamonds - the contract falls into their lap. If East uses the last trump, dummy can over-ruff and continue with hearts.
Maybe the bidding was justified! |
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| HotD-wed : Swiss Teams 3 : 4nov19 : B28 |
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This hand from Monday provided too difficulty for the community, with only one pair reaching the best contract.
This start to the bidding is worthy of comment - you need to know that a change of suit by responder is always a one round force (bidding too many hands becomes impossible otherwise) so that it is safe for South, with this powerhouse, to bid a simple 2♥ on the second round. It is a slight surprise to see partner support, but havibg recovered from that, you must decide on how to proceed. Clearly the most important card to you is the heart ace. What next?
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The answer comes from one of the oldest conventions on our books. FYI, the oldest three that we would recognise seem to be
- Blackwood, which was first published in 1933 - but today this has been generally overtaken in tournament circles by the variation known as Roman Key Card Blackwood.
- Josephine, which was first published in 1936 - invented by Ely Culbertson but publicised by his wife, Josephone.
- Stayman, which went into print first in 1945, but was actually invented earlier and by two others (Rapee & Marx says the wikipedia entry).
And the winner is Josephine. This convention is a jump to 5N after a trump suit has been agreed, and it asks aboput how many of the AKQ of trumps are held. The answers are always 6♣ with none, something above six of the trump suit with two or more, and something in between these options with just one. Here 5N would get a response of 6♥ promising one of the top three hearts, which can only be the ace - and this allows South to bid the grand slam with confidence.
No table found this approach. :(
As with many conventions, we only get to use this one once a year (or sometimes less) but if we lack these tools we are forced to guess on hands like these and we lose out as a result. It is therefore worth while having a good set saved away,
[Guy wrote in with, and others have mentioned, another suggestion - using 5♦ over 3♥ as Exclusion Blackwood; this would also work perfectly as long as partner was on the same wavelength. The danger is that partner thinks your heart bid was not a proper suit, but angling for partner to bid NT with a club stop] |
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| Maximise Your Chances |
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West leads the ♥J. What is the best way to 9 tricks?
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You have 7 top tricks and spades offers the best chance of generating 2 more: you also have the chance of a diamond trick if things don't go according to plan. What is the best way to play the spade suit? Bashing out AK and another wins when the suit is 3-3 or there is an unlikely QJ doubleton (in all about 39%) However, if you first play a spade to the 9, and then later lay down the K and Ace, you score 4 spade tricks when the suit beaks 3-3, there is QJ doubleton with West, QJxx with East, or any doubleton honour with East. In all this comes to over 60%, so a significant improvement on the first option. |
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| Play This Slam |
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West leads the ♥2, confirming that the heart suit is breaking 6-3. When you play trumps, West turns up with ♠Txxx. How do you play?
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Win the lead and draw trumps - that takes 4 rounds, during which time East throws 3 hearts. Now play ♣KQ and another club. If West follows 3 times rise with ♣A. If the ♣J falls you have 12 tricks. If West has ♣Jxxx he must be 4324 shape and hence playing AK and a third diamond gurantees you 3 diamond tricks. If West shows out on the third round of clubs, he has to keep 4 diamonds else you always have 3 diamond tricks. Hence he must throw a heart. Now ruff a heart and play a diamond to the King and a diamond from dummy. Just cover East's diamond and you end-play West to give you a diamond trick on his return. |
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| Obscure Odds |
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The opening diamond lead is ruffed in dummy. You continue with ♥Q and both opponents follow. Play from here.
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It looks like you have 4 trumps, 1 ruff, 3 spades and 5 clubs for 13 tricks. Alternatively, you could cross to hand with a spade and ruff a second diamond. Come back on a spade, draw trumps and make 4 trumps, 2 diamond ruffs, 3 spades and 4 clubs. The first line goes off with clubs 5-0. The second line fails if spades are 6-1. Whilst most players are familiar with basic bridge odds such as a finesse 50% or a 3-2 break 68%, they are unaware of the relative odds of the more obsure distributions and you would not find many players who could tell you that a suit breaks 5-0 roughly 4% of the time, and a suit breaks 6-1 roughly 7% of the time, making the first line mentined above nearly twice as good a line albeit on this layout, it fails.
Mark Rogers writes : knowing the odds returning to hand for the second diamond ruff, declarer should use clubs not spades, but if clubs are holding up the second diamond ruff is not necessary! |
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| HotD-sat : Trial for Europeans : 1nov19 : B25 |
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The trials have started for the English team for the European Championship, and four members of the county team are taking part. None of them are currently above average, but there are 112 boards to go, so lots of time. Here's a hand from the first day, just to illustrate that even at this level people find ways to go wrong. What do you think happened next?
At the table East chose to bid 5♦. This got doubled by North and the East-West pair let that go. [A rescue would have saved them a fortune - perhaps North should have let 5♦ be passed out] South led a heart to the bare ace, and declarer tried a trump, which North ducked. Then came a club which North ruffed, and after three more rounds of trumps, declarer was left with only the ♠A to cash and the penalty was -2000. I trust you could avoid that!
More interesting was the play in hearts; four pairs played in 5♥, all doubled and one pair bid to 6♥ (missing two aces makes this a BAD contract). Against hearts by North the leads were a heart six times, the ♠A once, and a club twice.The heart leads were attempting to stop diamond ruffs and two instances did hold declarer to ten tricks. For this to happen, West needs to win and play spades, so that East can play a second trump. Most failed at this step. Theclub suit lead also holds declarer to ten tricks; after ruffing in, declarer tries a top diamond and a diamond ruff, takes a ruff back to hand and a third diamond. West will over-ruff with the ace, but that makes the ♥J into a trick - to go with a spade. The spade lead allows declarer to make 11 tricks via one diamond ruff and then a trump - as West cannot organise for a second round of trumps to be played.
But the best East-West score didn;t come from defeating a heart contract - it went to the pair who were allowed to play 3N by West. There are ten top tricks here and declarer had no problem taking them. SO the range of scores was from 2000 to one fortunate North South pair, to 600 to a fortunate East West pair in the otehr direction.
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| A Simple Part-score |
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West leads the ♥AK. How do you play?
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You ruff the second heart lead. Now what? If you cross to dummy with a trump to play a spade up, you are doomed to fail. West will win and switch to a trump and now you can only ruff 1 spade, so you will be limited to 7 tricks. Just give up on trying to establish the spade suit and instead concentrate on getting 2 ruffs in dummy. Lead a spade from hand at trick 3, Now you have a trump and the ♣A to ensure 2 spade ruffs on the table and an easy route to 8 tricks. |
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| HotD-thu : Knock Out QF : 28oct19 : B16 |
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There was one set of boards on Monday with three slams there for those sitting North-South. Admittedly the slam on Board 17 depended on two finesses working which is only a 25% chance, but we have all been in worst contract than that at times. The others were better slams with 13 top tricks in three denominations on Board 16, and a grand slam available in clubs on Board 18. How many slams were bid - there were three instances from 8 tries on Board 16, and only one out of 8 tries on Board 18. We'll look at the first of these, where the crucial point comes after the bidding illustrated. What comes next?
Here is another place where some conventional agreements do help - and here the useful extra is an agreement that 2♦ after the 2♣ rebid is a general game force. Without this you are forced into guessing the final contract, or inventing a bid and hoping partner does not pass. In fact there is one natural offering that might work - and that is a raise to 4♣; common sense suggests that this should be forcing and it sets up the ability to cue bid to slam, but how many have checked this with partner?
After a forcing 2♦ bid we might well find the bidding continues with 2♥ or 2N or 3♣ from North, but after all of these the most useful continuation from South is 4♣, promising four card support and slam interest, and that puts all the different sequences in the same position. Can we cue bid to the grand slam from here? Try this ...
North cues 4♥, the only control they have and now South cues 4♠, and with no diamond control North must sign off in 5♣.No choices so far. South will of course continue and there is little point in bidding 5♦ at this point as any continuation from South (other than 6♣ which must end the auction) promises the ♦A. Why? Because anything here is a grand slam try and so must promise the top diamond as partner has denied any control there. So over 5♣ South can continue with 5♥ telling partner about both ♥K and the ♦A with one bid. This is very good news for North as four heart tricks are now in sight and it is clear that partner needs exactly AAAK outside hearts now to make the grand sensible. The key question to ask is whether partner could be making grand slam tries opposite a 2♣ rebid with anything less. The worrying hand partner might have is ♠ KQJx♥ Kx♦ Axx♣ Axxx where the spade ace opposite makes such a great difference. North's only chance to keep options open is to bid 5N which at least shows grand slam interest but denies the spade ace; how South will interpret this is not clear, but there is a chance still.
In reality, the answer is that we don't know enough to bid the grand slam. So we settle for the small slam instead - but that's not all bad news; anyone who bid 6♣ on Monday would have found that they had earned 11 imps from doing that. Well done those who did bid it.
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| HotD-wed : KO Qualifying : 21oct19 : B9 |
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This hand from Monday offered nice opportunities for each hand to describe their holding; let's look at the sequence.
The first choice is for North whose hand is in the strength for opening 1N showing 11-14 hcp, but could also be opened 1♥. The key question when you have both options is how the bidding will proceed. When you don't know who will finally own the hand, a priority is to help partner understand how far to compete. The strength of the heart suit argues that a 1♥ opener will have positive value if the opponents compete, and makes that our first choice.
From East's perspective next, the hand is a strong two suiter and there is one way to show that easily is to overcall an unusual 2N. There are times when partner will expect a weak hand intent on obstruction from that bid, but when you are vulnerable against not, the emphasis changes and being constructive comes first. This hand matches the constructive intent, and with a little to spare. Nothing else gets close and again; we cannot be sure who owns this hand, and letting the opponents bid spades at the 2-level cannot be in your interest - and that's the main issue with a 2♦ overcall. So 2N does look like just right.
South now is forced to come in at the 3-level. Bidding 3♥ would be expected to be a stretch in any competitive sequence but the catch with bidding 3♥ here is that when 3♥ is the contract you want, partner will be expecting more from you and bid on. Bidding spades is an option, but you need to have firm agreements with partner here that a bid of 3♠ is not forcing, and that you will cue bid one of the minors if you want to make a forcing bid with spades. There are two pretty close options here - either pass and bid a major on the next round if the bidding is not too high, or pushing the boat out with 3♠. Neither could be criticised.
From West's perspective life is simple; if West doesn't have to bid the answer is pass, and if West does have to bid (when South passes East's 2N) then the standard pattern is to bid the lower of equals, so 3♣ here.
North has already bid their hand, so next comes a pass.
East now has a second chance, and there are two things that East might like to show - the extra strength and the extra diamond. Neatly there is one bid that does exactly that - correcting 3♣ to 3♦ promises both of those things and does complete a full description of the hand.
And now South can come to life again and show the spade suit by bidding 3♠.
At this point everyone should feel comfortable that they have told partner about their assets, and will be comfortable to let the bidding stop. Looking at just the North-South hands now there are three sure losers and you then need to avoid losing a heart and a second spade, and have hopes that one of those might work out. So 3♠ is where you want to be (for sure in preference to defending 3♦)
Now let's look from the East-West perspective, seeing only their hands. There are two clear losers (missing aces) and potential losers to navigate past on the third round of diamond and the third round of clubs. With no certainty about any entry to the weak hand, you might need both the ♦J and the ♣Q falling to make game - but one of these might happen, so you'd be willing to take a chance in 4♦. Could this contract have been reached? It is hard to say.
Supposed East did get to play in 4♦; South would normally start off with the ♠A and on seeing dummy has so many hearts South would know not to play that suit. A second spade goes to the king and East is in dummy for the only time. To make 4♦ now declarer must take a first round finesse in one of the minors - and playing a small diamond to the king is fatal. So in practice East is unlikely to 10 tricks. [The case of 4♦ x making arose because North had bid 3N over 3♠ and advertised their diamond stop]
Which leads us to feel thart South playing in 3♠ making a fortunate overtrick when West didn;t know to lead a heart, is a very fair result. And of course, it never happened!
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| A Simple Hand |
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West starts with ♦AK and another diamond. East started with a singleton diamond and ruffs your ♦T at trick 3 with a low trump. He now switches to a heart. Over to you.
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Your problem is to avoid a club loser, so you need to divine the club position. This is where a little counting helps. You know that West started with 5 diamonds and 3 hearts from the bidding. That leaves him with 5 black cards. Surely these will be 4 spades a just one club, for if West held fewer spades, East would have more spades than hearts and would have responded 1♠ to the opening bid. Therefore you play a club to King to collect West's singleton and now just run the ♣8. A simple hand that quite a few people got wrong at the table. |
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| Find The Extra Trick |
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West leads the ♦J. Plan the play.
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You have 4 clubs, 2 diamonds and 2 hearts and need to generate an extra trick. Where will this come from? The spade suit will not do as the defence will surely take at least 2 diamonds and 3 spade tricks, so that just leaves the heart suit. On the bidding it is quite likely that West holds 4 hearts and if they are headed by the QJ then you have no chance. You must cater for East holding ♥Qxx or Jxx. Win the diamond lead and play the ♥A and a heart to your 9. This will be good enough to generate 3 heart tricks when the suit behaves as you wish. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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You lead the ♥4. Partner plays the King and declarer wins the Ace. At trick 2 South plays a diamond to dummy's King and Easts's Ace. East returns the ♥9, coverd by the Jack. How do you defend?
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On the bidding, South cannot hold 3 aces along with his knave of hearts. Hence partner holds one of the missing aces as an entry. The play in hearts suggests that partner holds 3 hearts and thus declarer has 4 cards in the suit. It is important not to cash the ♥T and set up a heart trick for declarer, and a club switch could give away a trick if South holds the ♣A. Your safe exit at this point is a spade. If declarer has the ♠A, he cannot cash more than 6 tricks before you get partner in to play a heart through. |
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| What's the Best Chance |
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West leads the ♠4 against your game. How do you play?
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You have 7 top winners and an extra trick available in hearts. The ninth trick might come from a 3-3 diamond break or you might be able to generate a second heart trick. If dummy had ample entries you could play hearts twice from dummy and succeed whenever the ♥A is onside - a 50% chance. Unfortunately, dummy does not have the requied entries. Still, you do have a 50% chance available and that is better odds than playing for a 3-3 break. You need West to hold the ♥J. Win the spade lead and play a low heart. If West holds the Jack, he can win and clear spades, but if West's lead promises no more than 4 spades, the defence cannot take more than 2 hearts and 2 spade tricks. |
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| HotD-fri : GCBA Squad : 23oct19 : B1 |
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This hand was bid uniformly to 3N. What should South lead?
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Souths chose three different suits in practice. Given no investigation of major suit fits, South should have preferred a major suit lead, and steered clear of diamonds. Of the majors, both are cases of trying to set up the 8 as a trick - but there is a positive danger with hearts of giving away a trick if declarer has ♥K and ♥Q in different hands. This makes a spade the clear winner, but only one table found this way to beat 3N. In practice declarer on the diamond lead gained a tempo but when South got in with the ♣K he worked out to lead spades after which the contract was doomed. South did well to find that spade switch given the holding in dummy. The heart lead was a gift.
Worth noting also is that in clubs, declarer should consider leading small towards the queen on the first round, as that enables a second club trick if South has a stiff J/T/9 which is better odds than North having a stiff K. You do however trade that against sniffing out a doubleton king with North and ducking the second club to set up the queen. |
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| HotD-thu : Everett Cup : 19oct19 : B6 |
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The Everett Cup took place last Saturday and 22 pairs put their names into the hat to be drawn for team-mates. Winners were the combination of Andrea & Stan Powell with Linda Barrett & Steve Tedd.
This hand from Saturday provided opportunities for declarer to shine and for the defence to shine. The bidding was straightforward, and it was natural for South to start off with a high spade. From East's perspective there are plenty of tricks to be had, probably four spades, two diamonds, two hearts and a spade. The only concern is the other side getting five tricks first. Since it is not clear who might win a club trick, and the spade suit is the big danger, it looks best for East to duck trick one. It is important for South here to have received an attitude signal from partner, and to know not to lead a second spade (else declarer gets an easy time). Playing "low for like", North should have dropped the ♠7 on the first trick, and this strongly suggests to South that East holds at least ♠AJ4. So South knows to switch and the key thing is which suit to switch to.
Playing your short suit is most often playing declarer's long suit and so it is to declarer's advantage. That makes a club look wrong. The diamond position looks very unattractive given dummy's pips are so much stronger than yours, and here again you might help declarer - by finding a missing jack or queen. What about a heart? Given the layout you see (South and West) there is little prospect of giving away a trick, and if partner can win the king that's great. So we try a heart.
On a heart switch if declarer might let this run - hoping to win the jack, and setting up three tricks in the suit if North wins the king - only to find that North will get in and play through a spade. This sets up three spade tricks for the defence and given a heart trick has been lost, this means declarer cannot set up the clubs - else the defence have five tricks. There are eight top tricks on the spade return and prospects do not look good. But on Saturday declarer could still succeed, but only by taking the winning view in the very fortunate lie of the diamond suit.
There was a better answer for declarer. When South switches to a heart here, you should know where the heart king is - and it is not with South. For if South held the heart king, switching to a heart would give away a trick so often, it would be avoided like the plague. Since North is the danger hand, the answer is not to let North in - to rise with the heart ace and play on clubs, aiming to lose a trick in that suit to South. Here a club gets ducked to South, who continues hearts. North can win now but when the spade comes through declarer can rise and cash four clubs, two hearts, and after the first two diamonds suddently there is an extra diamond trick to be taken. That comes to 10 tricks, and the contract has made.
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| hotd - weds |
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It was surprising to see only three tables try for a penalty on this hand from Monday, as the auction shown looks very standard. The important thing when you choose to defend is to defend accurately. The three tables who defended resulted in down two, down three and down four. What was the "correct" result?
The answer is the last of these - the contract should go down four. The key on hands like this is to ensure that the declarer doesn't make too any cheap tricks - and cheap here means tricks with small trumps. When Joe Angseesing & Keith Stanley defended, the defence started very naturally with one top spade, and then the club ace and a heart. West was on lead and returned a club and then won the third round. The carding suggested North had no more clubs, so now it was time to switch, and the defence cashed two diamonds and a spade. At this point declarer was down to ♥QJT85 and nothing else. When the next card was ruffed, declarer had to lead hearts and West, with ♥9632 had to get a trick.
At the companion table, the defence played a fourth club too early and declarer - when on lead - was able to get out with a plain card and in the end position was sitting with the ♥T8 over the ♥96.
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| A Cutting Edge Deal |
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West leads the ♦A on which East drops the Queen (promising the knave). West now switches to the knave of spades. How do you plan the play?
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The spade switch looks like a singleton and if you play trumps then West will win his Ace, put East in with the ♦J, and get a spade ruff to defeat you. Can you counter this? A scissors coup could well come to your rescue. Play the ♣AKJ and on the third round throw your losing diamond when East does not cover. This swaps a club loser for a diamond loser but severs the link between the 2 defenders as East can no longer get in to give his partner a ruff. Well done if you found that line and perhaps you earned a good result. Unfortunately at the table, the layout wasn't quite as anticipated. When West won the third round of clubs, he played another spade. Then after winning the ♥A he was able to give his partner a spade ruff for the setting trick. West has found a brilliant defence to beat a stone cold contract! |
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| A Thin Slam |
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You play in a very thin 6♠ on the ♥K lead (denying the Ace in this partnerships style). Do you see any chances if spades are 3-2 other than drpping a doubleton ♠QJ?
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On the bidding, it looks as if West will hold the ♣K, and if he happens to hold 3 spades, you may be able to make this contract regardless of which spades they are. Ruff the opening lead and cross to dummy with a spade to ruff another heart before laying down the ♠K. Now run your diamond suit. If West ruffs at any point he has to lead away from the ♣K or concede a ruff and discard. If he refuses to ruff any diamond, he can eventually be thrown in with a trump to lead a club. He may come down to 1 spade, 1 club, and 1 heart in the end position, but the opening bid marks him with the ♣K so you can now drop it singleton if West unguards it. |
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| Plan the Play |
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How do you play this hand on a low diamond lead from West?
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You could come to hand with a trump and play a spade to the King but on the bidding the Ace is probably with East. The issue is that then East may be able to continue with a trump each time he wins a spade and you may be denied a spade ruff in your hand. The winning line is to play a low spade from the table at trick 2. This way you are sure to be able to ruff a spade in hand and make the contract whenevr the ♠A falls in 4 rounds (very likley given the bidding) |
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| A lead problem you can solve |
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Opening leads are often categorised as the most difficulty part of the defence, as there is least information available to the defenders. It's different here. Can you find the best opening lead here?
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The key is what hand could opener possibly have? There is only one hand which makes sense ♠A ♥A ♦AKQT98765 ♣AK. Looking at this we can see that we will - unless we lead the suit - make a diamond trick and whatever else we can cash at that point. A club sets up no extra trick for us. A spade sets of one extra trick for us.
But what about a heart? As long as we don't lead the king we get at least one heart trick. If we lead the two is depends on who has the queen, but also who has the ten. We lose by leading out the jack only when partner has a singleton or doubleton queen, but in scenarios like the one shown - it can be worth extra tricks for us to unblock at trick one. So this has to be the right lead.
Did you find the ♥J lead? |
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| Play This Grand Slam |
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West leads the ♣J against your slam. How do you play?
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You need to set up the heart suit. There will be no problem if hearts are 3-2: draw the trumps and use the ♥A and ♦AK as entries to ruff the heart suit good and get back to dummy to cash your winners. However, you will defeated if hearts break 4-1. Now you will need an extra dummy entry. This can come from a club ruff provided you don't draw trumps prematurely. The winning line is to win the lead and play ♥A, ruff a heart. Now if hearts are 4-1 you ruff a club and ruff another heart before drawing trumps. The diamonds are the 2 entries you need to ruff another heart and get back to cash your heart winners. |
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| HotD-thu : Autumn Pairs : 14oct19 : B19 |
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It was curious to look at the traveler on this hand from Monday and see that everyone who stopped in game made exactly 11 tricks, while the two pairs who bid slam both made the necessary 12 tricks there. Here's how the 11 tricks emerged at one table ...
South was on lead and started with a top club; partner showed an odd numbe. East's bidding made it far more likely that it was East with a singleton, and South therefore switched to spades. Declarer won that with the ace and focussed on the fact that dummy had a losing spade and it could be discarded on diamnonds. He drew trumps (in three rounds) and cashed the diamonds throwing away that spade. He had a trump left in each hand and that brought him up to 11 tricks. Could he have made 12 tricks?
The answer is yes and the approach it to focus not so much on what losers you have as declarer, but on what winners. With five diamond tricks and one spade trick, to make 12 you need six trump tricks. That means two ruffs, and that must happen before drawing all the trumps. What you need to do is focus on ruffing two clubs; the winning line is - after the ♠A wins, ruff a club and go back to dummy with ace and another trump. When this confirms that trumps are not 4-1 take another club ruff. Now back to dummy with the ♦K to draw trumps and you are home with twleve tricks - the losing spade and the last club going on the diamonds.
This line of play is only frustrated by a spade lead, but unsurprisingly no South found that.
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| HotD-wed : MCL match : 13oct19 : B31 |
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This hand from Sunday's match was the most interersting play problem. A few tables ended in NT and not all bid game, but the big swing depended on the outcome of this spade game. The defenders annoyingly start off with a diamond - over to you ....
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| Show Answer |
With four red winners, your concern is to avoid losing two tricks in each black suit. The awkwardness on the hand is that you have only one entry to the North hand to allow you to lead towards South.
Looking at the spade suit in isolation, leading from North and picking up KT/QT doubleton onside or KQx onside gives you a 13.6% chance of success. If RHO follows small you can rule out the first option and play the jack - but if anything higher appears you play for doubleton ten (somewhere, playing the jack as early as you can). SUITPLAY provided this figure but you can get close to it by recognising that these layouts are 4 of the 10 doubletons, and the doubleton will be the right way round only half the time, and the 3-2 break is around 70%. So multiply 70% by 1/2 by 4/10 and you get 14% which is pretty close.
Looking at the club suit in isolation, leading from the North hand you will succeed with Qx or Kx or KQx onside (and if RHO splits with KQxx). SUITPLAY tells us that gives you a 25.7% chance of success. You get at this figure by seeing this as 1/4 of the 3-3 breaks (a quarter of 35%) plus on the 4-2 breaks we gain on 6 of the 15 doubletons (Hx onside), and the shortage held by East (so a fifth of 50%), plus the singleton honours with East (a sixth of 12% for a 5-1 break) and KQ-doubleton in either hand (a fifteenth of the 4-2 break) - which comes to 24% in round numbers.
Clearly the answer is to play clubs, but in practice that option was not chosen; the declarers we know of led spades. It is important now for East to recognise that playing the ten gives declarer too easy a time - and inevitable success. It is therefore standard to rise here with the honour from HT-doubleton. Richard Plackett duly did this and declarer won the ace but then erred by playing him for KQ-doubleton - ducking the second round to the ten to go one off. Maybe he deserved to go down by chossing the wrong suit to play! |
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| The Advantage of No-Trumps |
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West leads a low diamond to the ten, jack and your King. You play a heart to the Ace and East drops the Jack. How do you continue?
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The principle of restricted choice applies here. With the ♥QJ East would play the Queen some of the time whereas with a singleton Jack he has no choice. In 7♥ you would enter the South hand and finesse in hearts as the percentage play. However, the advantage of playing in no-trumps rather than hearts is that you do not need to commit yourself to playing the heart suit immediately. The best line is to cash ♠AQ,♦AQ,♣AK,♠K,♣Q and count the oppponents hand. On this layout you discover that West holds 6 spades, 2 diamonds and at least 3 clubs. He cannot therefore hold 3 hearts and hence you play a heart to the King and drop a doubleton QJ. Grand slam made. |
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| How do you Play? |
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You play in 3NT on the lead of ♥4. You win the knave over Easts's nine and to protect your heart holding, you play a diamond to the Ace and finesse on the way back, losing to West's Queen, who now exits with a club. How do you play?
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Now you have lost a diamond trick, you have only eight winners and need to make 2 tricks from your spade holding. You should realise that there is no point in playing a spade towards your Queen, for if East holds the King, he will rise with it and push a heart through. You are now down even if the hearts are breaking 4-3. On this hand you must play West for the ♠K. Cash your minor suit winners and watch West's discards. He will probably keep his ♠K guarded, in which case you can exit with a heart and end-play him. If you judge he has bared the ♠K to keep hearts, then play for it to drop. On this layout, it will probably be easy to take the right view. |
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| Cater for the Bad Break |
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You play in 4♠ and get a low club lead. You win the King over East's Knave. You play a spade towards dummy and West plays the King. What now?
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If you treat West's card as a singleton, you might still make the contract with a favourable position in the other suits. 2 diamonds, 2 clubs and 2 hearts gives you 6 tricks, 2 top spades and 2 further spades by ruffing a heart in dummy and a diamond in hand would see you home. Hence the best play is to lead the ♦K from dummy at trick 3 and hope for the best. It would be fatal to cash a second top trump as this might allow the defence the opportunity to play 2 more rounds of trumps when they win the ♦A. Were you lucky with the distribution? - Afraid not as a look at the four hands will show. When you play the ♦K, West wins the Ace and gives his partner a diamond ruff. A club ruff in West is followed by a further diamond, promoting East's ♠T. You have been fooled by a brialliant false card from West (playing the King from KJ doubleton). |
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| Play this Slam |
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West leads the ♠K. Plan the play.
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You have no losers outside the trump suit, so how should you play hearts? Many would lead low towards the Queen, but this is poor play. If the hearts are 3-2 you will have no problem in holding your losses to 1 trick. If the suit breaks 5-0, you have no chance, so just consider the 4-1 breaks. A low heart towards the Queen only gains when West holds a singleton King. Cashing the Ace is better as this picks up a singleton King in either hand. Best play of all is to lead the ♥Q from dummy. This picks up a singleton 8,9, or ten with West as you return to dummy and intend to finesse the 7 on the second round. You will be unlucky on the actual hand as given, but at least you can take comfort from finding a superior line. |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Pairs League : 09oct19 : B26 |
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It was disappointing to find that on this hand from Wednesday that there was only one table played in slam, and that was in a 5-1 fit and that wasn't best.
The sequence shown is how the bidding should have started. After the takeout double from North, South invokes the Lebensohl mechanism whereby 2N forces partner to bid 3♣ after which 3♥ shows a heart stop and a 4-card spade suit. A direct 3♥ bid would have shown four spades without a heart stop. The use of this approach allows you to avoid bidding 4♠ and then finding that partner has onlt 3 (or fewer) of the suit. After the spade fit has been confirmed, South can start cue bidding and surely the slam is now biddable.
The play is also interesting as exactly one line of play stands out, whether the contract is 4♠ or 6♠. Having won the heart lead, declarer can see the heart losers being thrown away on the top diamonds but first should draw trumps. After the ♠K drops the queen, the spades can be identified as breaking 4-1, and that means drawing trumps leaves declarer with only ten tricks. The answer to that problem is to take two ruffs for additional tricks. So the play should be a diamond to dummy and a diamond ruff, over to a top spade and another ruff, and finally over to the ♣A to draw the remaining two trumps.
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| HotD-thu : Swiss Teams 2 : 7oct19 : B7 |
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This hand from Monday produced enormous swings when four pairs went off in slams (two in 6♣ , two in 6♥) while three others made slams (two in 6♣ and one in 6♥).
The best line in either slam is not clear, and the entry position is affected a little by the opening lead. The 6♣ slam played by East got three different leads, one spade, two hearts and one diamond. The expectation is that the slam is trivial if the clubs break, and you mustn't go off if they do - so it seems right to start with two rounds of clubs. Which to choose should be driven by concerns of a 4-1 break, which on this bidding is more likely to be length with North. If there is a bad club break, declarer will need to bring in the heart suit. Again a 3-2 break is trivial, ruffing in the East hand; if the clubs are 4-1, you want to be able to ruff one heart then draw the last trump - so starting with ♣A,♣Q seems right as after a heart ruff you can then return to the ♣K and run the hearts. So as long as one of clubs or hearts break evenly, then you are home.
But it doesn't work out that way. After two top clubs you try two top hearts and find the suit doesnt break. When South wins and puts you back in, you draw the last trump and set up the hearts and then cross to West to run them. This works as long as there is an entry to West at the end of the hand - and the only suit in which that is guaranteed is spades (a diamodn lead with the jack covered by the queen compensates, if North is so kind). Which is why the opening lead is actually crucial here - the defence can alway beat 6♣ on a spade lead, but cannot beat it on any other lead.
The 6♥ slam is also dependent on the opening lead. On a spade lead declarer can play out trumps and find a loser there, ruff the spade continuation and test clubs. When there is a loser in clubs the diamond finesse becomes a necessity and if declarer has prepared sensibly (ie thought about a 4-1 club break before deciding that the possibility of that drives you to cash the ♣A♣K as your first two clubs) then the diamond finesse can be taken and the third diamond trick reached. If the ♣Q had been played too early, then North could block the dimaond suit by covering the jack on the first round. This highlights the vulnerability of the 6♥ slam to a diamond lead; declarer does not know at that point that both hearts and clubs will have a loser, and will view the diamond finesse as an unnecessary risk; refusing the finesse at trick one - or if North leads a diamond after winning ♥Q - will mean the slam goes down.
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| HotD-wed : Swiss Teams 2 : 7oct19 : B16 |
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This was the most spectacular hand on Monday - it's not often you get what looks like a 1-loser hand (East here), and on this particular hand there is a conventional opening which solves all your problems for you. In practice few remembered to use it and the one we know did got the wrong response from partner! It's a bid that only comes up once every three years, but when it comes up it really helps.
The bid is a 4N opening, asking partner to show exactly what aces they have. The responses are 5♣ with none, 5N with two, and bid the ace you have if you only have one (three is probably an excuse to bid 7N unless one of the aces is a singleton). Here the 5♦ response will get you to the grand slam with confidence.
Some of the 2♣ openers as East did manage to get to the grand slam; one such instance was team 2 who bid 2♣ - 2♦ - 2♠ - 3♠ - 4♣(cue) - 4♦(cue) - 7♠. This was not without risk as partner's diamond cue might have not been the ace (but it was).
Not all the 2♣ bidders had it so easy. A more common start to the auction saw South overcall and the bidding went 2♣ - 3♦ - X - 5♦ - ?? and at this point East could only bid 6♠ and there matters rested.
Another grand slam bidder had a harder time, at their table North opened the bidding, so it went 3♣ - 6♠ - P(after some thought) - 7♠. West had deduced from the pause that South was thinking of sacrificing, and therefore had enough clubs to show that East had a void. In that case the ♦A was probably working (but not opposite ♠AKQJ8652♥KQJT9) so he raised to the grand slam.
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| Play like an Expert |
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West leads the ♥Q. You win the Ace and lead a club to dummy's King and East's Ace. A heart is returned. Plan the play.
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You need to make 3 diamond tricks to bring this contract home, and that may or may not be possible. However, playing off the club suit first costs nothing. The way you play the club suit is important. When the suit breaks 3-2, one opponent will have to make a discard and the other opponent 2 discards. It is important that you make the defender who has 2 discards to make play before his partner so that he cannot see an informative discard from partner. On this hand you play the ♣Q and then the ♣8. If West follows to the third club, you overtake with the ten and play a fourth club from the table. If West shows out on the third club, you keep the lead in hand to play the last round of clubs. On this layout, the only winning defence for West is to discard 2 spades - coming down to singleton King. At the table, he is much more likely to discard a dianmond, and now you have the 4 tricks and not just 2 tricks in the vital suit. [If West had ♠KQ then it would have been a true squeeze] |
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| Improve your Chances |
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West leads the ♥J. How do you play?
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A good guess in diamonds will see you home, but you can improve your chances and may be able to avoid a diamond guess altogether. Win the heart lead and cash a second heart discarding a club from dummy. Now eliminate the clubs and lead a spade from the table. If West wins (and trumps are not 3-0) he will have to open up the diamonds or give you a ruff and discard. If East wins and plays a diamond through, you can cover his lead. If the Knave (say) is played by West, you win with the Ace and then exit with a trump. You are not guaranteed success with this line, but there are many diamond suit layouts where you cannot go wrong. |
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| HotD-sun : Premier League M4 : 5oct19 : B28 |
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A Gloucestershire team (John Atthey, Richard Chamberlain, Patrick Shields, Garry Watson) was promoted last year in the Premier League and started their campaign in Division One yesterday. This was an interersting hand from match four. The opening lead was a top heart and declarer ducked that, won the ♥Q continuation and played a third heart to put East back on lead. East switched to the ♦K and declarer could win that and now returned the suit, and that went to West's ♦J. Back came the ♠5.
You have lost three tricks in the red suits and surely have a spade loser and the ace of clubs to lose. Can you avoid losing to the club jack? If North has it, then you can lead up to the club queen and finesse on the way back - but on the bidding it is much more likely to be with South. Can you make the contract if South has the jack?
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The answer is yes. You need to endplay East to do that. You might consider played three rounds of trumps, but that fails if East has a red suit card left to play (here the ♥2). The winning choice is to win the first round of spades with the ace (or king) and to lead out the ♣K. East has to win (or you make a second club by leading to the queen) and after winning there is no good choice for East. A club would run round to the ten, a spade would be won by the jack, and if East plays a heart you can ruff with the spade jack and discard the ♣T. John Atthey found this play which none of the other tables (including the World Champion at the other table in our match) missed it. Unfortunately he was in a higher contract and all this did was save him an undertrick.
Three interesting points. Firstly note North's keenness not to tackle either black suit - putting East back on lead with the inevitable red suit losers maximised the chance of a gift from the defence. None was forthcoming here because East worked out to play diamonds rather than clubs when in with the third heart. The second point is how to know to play diamonds? Because of West's signals; West's first heart card gave the count in the suit but there was a choice of two cards to play on the second round, and on tricks two and three West played high-low which indicated (if anything) a preference for the higher suit. That didn't promise diamonds but it did guarantee that West did not hold anythign useful in clubs, so East tried diamonds. Finally, why was North too high? The answer is that West opened a weak two bid in diamonds and the bidding proceeded 2♠ - 3♦ - 3♠. Of course 3♦ was going down, but without the opener from West, North is not under the same pressure and that pressure is what wins matches. |
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| Simple Stuff |
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West leads the ♣K and the Ace holds the first trick. What now?
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Start by drawing the outstanding trumps - say they are not breaking so it takes 2 rounds. Now your problem is to avoid 2 diamond losers and there is a simple way to do this. Leas the ♠K from hand. If West covers you can ruff in dummy. Later you throw a diamond on your ♠Q and concede a diamond. Dummy has enough trumps to ruff your remaining losers. If West plays low on the ♠K, discard a diamond from dummy. Either the King wins in which case you just lose a diamond as before, or the King loses to the Ace with East. But now of course, you have a spade winner on which to discard dummy's second diamond loser so you make the contract (just losing one spade trick). A simple loser on loser play. |
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| Technique |
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West leads the ♠5, east contributing the ten. How do you plan to get to 9 tricks?
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You have 2 spades and 5 clubs and need to develop 2 more. Hearts is an obvious choice but you don't want East winning an early heart and pushing through a spade. Win the opening lead with the queen (concealing the knave) and play a club to the queen in dummy. Now lead a heart from the table. If East holds the ♥K he will not know whether to cover or not - he may place partner with the ♣K and not the ♥A. If you manage to lose the first heart to West, he will not know whether he should be looking to put partner in for a spade through you or to continue spades hoping his partner holds the ♠J. You have no guarantee of success, but following this line of play makes it as difficult as possible for the defence to do the right thing. |
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| HotD-thu : League 2 : 30sep19 : B20 |
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This hand from Monday needed a little forward planning. On a trump lead, you can see four diamond tricks and need only two ruffs to get you six trump tricks. The problem is entries. If you start on spades and they lead another trump, you will need to win that in dummy to ruff your first spade, then back to dummy with a diamond to take the next ruff. If you go back to dummy with diamonds again to draw trumps, you have cut yourself off from the third and fourth diamond. That won't do.
You need to go for a different ten tricks. If you only get five trump tricks and four diamonds, you also need a club trick. The answer is to win the heart in dummy at trick one, and lead a club. With the favourable lie in the suit, you will be able to set up a trick there and taking one club ruff in dummy to get your fifth trump trick will make the game. Careful timing is needed even at the end.
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| HotD-wed : League 2 : 30sep19 : B28 |
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The last board on Monday produced double figure swings in all matches but one. There was game making in both directions in a minor suit (only bid three times by North-South and twice by East-West) but also viable trump fits on each side which would fail. The other big scores came from a double part-score making and a 5♥x contract which suffered a 5-0 trump break.
The auction shown, from table three, seemed "normal" but there were a number of decisions en route which are worth discussing. The first is the opening bid - to open 1♣ (longer suit) or 1♠ (higher, more preemptive suit). The key point to make is that if you open 1♣ you are committing yourself to bidding spades twice to get the hand shape over, and doing that with such minimal HCP is too much for some (and if the opponents compete you might never get the chance). When you add to that the fact that for some a 1♣ opener could even be a doubleton in a weak NT hand - which means it provides very little lead directing or cometitive advantage - the 1♠ opener becomes the more attractive.
After the takeout double, there is a very strong take-up these days by tournament players of transfers, starting with 1N showing clubs and here exhibiting 2♥ showing good 3-card support (weaker bids 2♠ directly). Now for South, who is clearly going to game on this hand but needs to work out which suit is best; partner has implied hearts with the takeout double, but might only have three. Bidding 2♠ to create a game force here looks the right thing to do.
Although the West is a relatively weak hand in some way, passing here would leave partner with an expectation of perhaps a boring 5332 minimum hand, and the hand is much more than that, especially as a spade fit has been now uncovered. It seems natural therefore to show the club suit; it will help partner judge the hand and if defending could help the defence. North had an easy pass at this point. The club bid was appealing to East, but whether than justifies a jump to game, having already shown a good raise, isn't clear; a bid of 3♥ to give partner the choice might have been prudent.
South now had to do something. Partner had not taken the chance to bid over 3♣ and this tells South that North has no strong suggestion of the best trump suit. This makes diamonds a standout, so South's bid of 5♦ is the obvious choice. East's double when this comes round seems unnecessary. West started off hopeful, as all it takes is partner to get in and deliver a heart ruff to put the contract in doubt. He led the ♠Q, trying to avoid giving away a cheap trick but encouraging partner to win the ace and work out what to do. The effect was unfortunate; winning the ♠A, drawing trumps and continuing spades allowed declarer to set up a spade trick to take care of a heart loser, and the diamond game was home. [South can organise an endplay on East even without the help in spades]
At table one the bidding died in 4♠ after West had opened 1♣ and then bid spades twice. North led the ♦A and could see from dummy that partner was going to be very short in clubs. His club got one ruff, and when in with the ♠A he was able to lead a second club and get a third trump trick to beat the spade game. His team-mates had also opened 1♣ (which silences North given North's short spades) and ended in 5♣. It takes a very good view in spades to make this game, but North started by cashing two aces and then it was an easy make. Bidding the right game in just one direction was good enough for a double figure swing.
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| Choose Your Line |
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West leads a low heart against your slam. You hope that East will produce the ten so that you have a late entry to dummy, but instead East plays the 5. What options do you have?
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There are two possible lines of play. Clearly West is void in diamonds. You can draw the outstanding trump and cash the top diamonds, then exit with a club. If West has the ace, he will have to lead a black card and that will take care of your losing spade. If East has the ace and returns a spade after winning the first club, you will have to finesse, and if West has the king you will be defeated. There is an alternative line - you can play East for a singleton spade and the ace of clubs. If he has that, you must cash the top diamonds and the ace of spades before playing a club – East, with nothing but minor-suit cards left, will be a stepping stone to the two winners in the dummy. Anyone can make a slam by taking a finesse, but if the second of these lines happens to be the only way to succeed, you can dine out on it for months. Is there any clue as to which line is better? Possibly - you need to consider West's lead. With a void diamond and a collection of low black cards he would surely have tried a black suit lead at trick one hoping to get his partner in for a ruff. His trump lead looks like he has values in the black suits so play him for the ♣A (as well as the ♠K). |
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| Use Your Imagination |
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You lead a trump and East's King is beaten by declarer's Ace. South draws a second round of trumps and continues with the ♦A. Do you see any chance of beating this contract?
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Since East passed your opening bid, he can't have another King and hence your chances are very slim as declarer has 6 trump tricks plus another 4 in diamonds. You must offer declarer a losing option by throwing the ♦K under the Ace. If South has 3 diamonds, he may place East with ♦Jxx and go up with the Queen on the second round of the suit, hoping to get rid of his third diamond via a thrown in play in hearts. If he tries this you will win 2 hearts, a club and a diamond. When all seems hopeless - don't give up - try something unusual even if you can't work out exactly what might happen if you do! |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♠K against your slam. Trumps break 2-2. What is the best line?
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This hand revolves around the heart suit, with the odds favouring a second round finesse of the Knave. You can increase your chances however. Win the spade lead and draw the trumps. Cash a top heart and 2 top clubs pitching a spade. Now ruff a club and exit with a spade. If West wins and plays a heart, you finesse as before. but if West started with a singleton heart, he is endplayed to concede a ruff and discard. Of course, it does no good for the defence to win the spade trick in East. |
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| Maximise Your Chances |
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You reach game after East kindly reopens the bidding. You get the lead of ♥5 to East's Ace, and a low heart is returned. You win the King and West follows with the 8♥ Given that East is likely to hold the ♣A for his double, how do you plan the play?
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First of all, do you still have the ♥5 in your hand? A strong player will have retained a possible entry to dummy in the trump suit. What layout do you need to give you a chance? If you cross to the ♥7 to finesse in spades, you will have nine tricks - five hearts, two spades and two diamonds, so you will need a trick from clubs. One possibility is to finesse the ♣9. If West holds the ♣T, you will be able to set up a club trick. That might work but not on this layout. Suppose that before finessing the club, you cash ♦AK. Now, what is East to do when he wins the first club? If he plays a diamond, you ruff high, and now dummy has two winning diamonds when you cross to the ♥7. If East plays a spade instead, you can finesse the queen, and your tenth trick will come from a spade ruff in dummy. And if East leads a club away from the ace, that also provides a tenth winner for you. |
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| HotD-fri : World Championship SemiFinal : 25sep19 : B21 |
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England had four teams in the World Championships and all four of them reached the knock-out stages (by being in the top 8 of the 24-team round-robin). The Open team went out at the quarterfinal stage, and the Womens and Mixed teams went out at the semi-final stage - but the Seniors team didn't and will now play against Denmark for the Gold Medal. In their semi-final the seniors were behind for a lot of the time but this board - in the fourth stanza out of six - was the point where they drew level and after that they never looked back.
The key decision was for Alan Mould sitting East at the point shown - what do you return after partner leads the ♥4 to your ace?
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The big danger looking at dummy is the (looks like it is) running diamond suit, so it is important for you to cash your winners quickly. Partner on this auction is known to have four spades, and if they include the king then there are four spade trick to cash. If they don't then you need to play hearts.
Can you find out? Easily - Alan played the ♠A and looked to see whether partner encouraged or discouraged. When he got an encouraging signal he continued the suit and they cashed out. The other table played back a heart at trick two and declarer cashed out. The gain was 13 imps, to bring the teams back to exactly level. Over the remainder of the set, England gained 56-6 imps.
In the Womens match, both England and Sweden returned a heart to give declarer 12 tricks. In the Mixed teams the English pair bid up to 5♦ down one, but Graham Osborne (for England) defending 3N found the ♠A and continuation to beat that game. |
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| HotD-thu : CBC Swiss Pairs : 24sep19 : B9 |
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It was curious to note that when this hand was played on Tuesday, half the field played 3N-1 while half played 3N-2. Why the difference? Here's a couple of stories.
With a top club lead, declarer ducked ducked and won. There were now six top tricks and two potential tricks in diamonds but to make the contract at least one heart was needed, so declarer played a heart. South could see five tricks for the defence, so he leapt up with the ace and cashed the clubs. Declarer now had eight tricks and was one down.
After a similar start another declarer tried a heart but South played small and the queen won the trick. The contract was now in sight and declarer turned attention to diamonds. After cashing the top diamonds it seemed safe to give North their diamond trick to set up the fifth diamond (equal to setting up a heart) but when this was done, North won and played to partner's heart ace to beat the contract by two tricks. Sneaky defence!
BTW : the English Senior team has just qualified for the final of the D'orsi Bowl (Seniors World Championship) in China. The final is 96 boards over Friday and Satruday and can be viewed on BBO.
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| HotD-wed : Ladies/Mens Pairs : 23sep19 : B28 |
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The GCBA Ladies & Mens Pairs Championships took place on Monday. The turn-out was the smallest for as long as our records go, and as we often see, the scoring in the Mens Pairs was very flat. The Ladies event was won by Val Constable & Alison Pritchard, pulling away from the shared lead with Corrie Bowyer & Gill Wilkins at the very end. In the Mens Pairs there was nothing to separate two pairs in the end, both scoring 53.57% (exactly one top above average over 28 boards), so it all came down to the boards played by Tony Letts & Allan Sanis against Richard Harris & Patrick Shields, to determine which pair wins the trophy. This was the deciding hand ... it illustrates a couple of aspects of the pairs game that we all need to remember.
After a weak NT opening from North the question is what should happen. Let's consider first what happens if East passes. South will now take out into spades and playing in two spades declarer will have AK to cash in both minors and will always make three trumps tricks and should make no more - and that scores 100 for East-West. The alternative to East passing is for East to use one of the popular NT-defence conventions; the most convenient here, as is often true, is bidding 2♣ to show the majors but if you are playing an alternative such as Asptro then it pays to bid even if partner is going to expect a 5-4 shape in the suits you show. On this hand Tony chose 2♦ showing spades and a second suit and when Allan bid 2♥ to find out the second suit, that bid was passed and they were in the best contract. That scores +140 (beating 2♠-1) which turned out to be a complete top on the hand, and was enough to win the trophy. The message from this is to bid over their 1N opening, because otherwise you are leaving them to reach an optimal contract.
The reason this score was a top was because it was the only plus score for East-West. All the other EW pairs had overstretched and played at a higher level and went down. This illustrates another key message for all matchpoint pairs games - and the message is that plus scores are good, so that it pays to go low in pairs games to ensure that.
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| Not Too Difficult |
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West leads the ♠J. Plan the play.
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If the diamond finesse loses you have no chance. Hence assume it works. Win the first spade in hnd and try the diamond finesse. That holds but do you now see a problem? You have no sure entry to hand to repeat the finesse and pick up the suit when West holds 3 diamonds. How do you get the extra entry you need? - The answer is you don't. Just lead the ♥K from the table and give the defenders a dilemma. If they take the ♥A then your ♥Q is an entry. If they duck the ♥K, you have scored a heart trick without losing a tempo so you now just clear the diamonds and make 2 spades, a heart and 6 diamond tricks for your contract. |
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| Options |
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West leads the ♠Q against your slam. How do you play?
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A simple line is to pin your hopes on the trump finesse, in which case you will ultimately just lose a club. There is an alternative line however. You may be able to set up a long diamond for a club discard. Win the lead and lay down the ♥A. If the King drops then you have 12 tricks. Let's say both opponents follow small. Now play Ace and another diamond ruffing. You have 2 spade ruffs and the ♣A as entries to dummy to ruff 2 more diamonds and get back to cash to last diamond. All the defence can make is the trump King. The chance of a 4-3 break is around 60% so this line represents a better chance than the simple finesse.
A reader (Roger Miles) wrote it to suggest that testing the diamonds before the hearts gives you an even better chance. By winning the spade and playing ♦A and ruff, spade ruff, diamond ruff high - you will find out if diamonds behave in time to switch to taking the heart finesse when they don't. This combination adds up to a 78% chance of making! [And the 60% above is probably an underestimate - it's more like 70%] |
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| The Contract is Safe |
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West leads the ♠J. How do you play?
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On the lead given the contract is secure provided you play properly. If you cover with the ♠Q and East plays the King, you can win and knock out the ♦A. You have an entry to dummy with the ♠T and must make at least 5 diamonds, 2 hearts and 2 spades. The problem arises if East does not play his ♠K on your Queen at trick 1. Now the defenders can duck a round of diamonds and prevent you from entering dummy. The mistake on this hand is to play the ♠Q and West's lead as this gives the defence a chance to shine. If you play low from dummy and win the Ace, you will later always be able to force a dummy entry in spades and make your contract. Always consider the play to trick 1 carefully as this is where many a solid contract is lost. |
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| Plan the Play |
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How do you play 6♠ on the ♣K lead?
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If suits break reasonably, you can virtually guarantee this contract. Win the lead and cash ♦AK. Now play a third diamond and discard a heart. If both opponents follow you can claim but if diamonds are 4-2, you can later ruff a diamond with the ♠A and a heart with a low trump. |
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| Hotd -fri : World Championship China : RR15 : B7 |
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England have four teams in the current World Championships taking place in China. After five days of play the teams are lying 5th in the Open Teams, 7th in the Women's teams, 1st in the Mixed teams and 2nd in the Seniors Teams; this is very impressive and the top eight out of the 24 in each event will qualify for the knock-out stages which start on Monday. You can watch on bridgebase.com (in the morning).
This hand was an interesting one to watch although England lost out on this in the Open teams and the Mixed teams (and in the Womens, but gained in the Seniors). Against 4♥ the lead was a spade to the queen-king-ace, and the Norths fell into two camps - some returned a spade immediately (as if they were trying for a ruff) while the others led a diamond at trick two.
In the Mixed teams, our North tried diamonds and East won, cashed a spade and exited with a second diamond. The best chance for declarer now was to avoid a club loser, but when she led ♣J to the king, there was an unavoidable heart loser and the game was off. In the other room, declarer returned a spade at trick two won by the ten, and East played on hearts. In again with the ♦A, another heart picked up the suit and game made. Loss of 13 imps.
In the Open teams, our North stopped in 3♥ after a very controlled sequence in which North had shown six hearts, four clubs and about an ace above an opening bid (he was on the strong side for this). That made +140. In the other room North was in 4♥ and tried a spade at trick two. East (having led the jack) was brave enough to duck this to partner, who could win the ♠8 and lead a club. This went to the king and East cashed the ♦A and played a second diamond. This didn't give away any tricks but it gave declarer a vital entry, and he knew he needed to play hearts for no loser, so he led ♥5-♥8-♥T to make his game. Loss of 11 imps.
It is a difficult game sometimes.
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| HotD-thu : League 1 : 16sep19 : B25 |
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The best bidding test from Monday was on this hand. It is very easy to see that 13 tricks are there in either of the two major suits - with two clubs ruffs adding to the top 11 tricks in spade, and two diamond ruffs (most easily) adding to the top 11 tricks in hearts. The only pair to bid the grand slam went off, but we have not yet uncovered what accident happened in the play there.
Most tables had a quiet run as East-West in the bidding, and it always started (from East) 1♠ - 2♦ - 2♥; now a lot depended on your style of system. Those playing that 2♦ (2 over 1) was game forcing could just raise to 3♥; the others were fortunate also that they could bid 4♣ to agree hearts and show slam interest. At table five after the raise to 3♥ the bidding continued with 3N as a serious spade cue bid, and 4♣ cue from West and East might have won the day with a jump to 5♦ as Exclusion Blackwood but wasn't sure partner would be on the same wavelength. This choice would have been dangerous as West has so far only promised an opener by bid with a club control. In quencethe real world East will cue bid spades and West might now continue with 4N but even were East to jump to 6D over that (showing an odd number of key cards and a void diamond) West cannot identify enough tricks to bid the grand slam. So no sequence has been identified yet as a candidate for bidding the grand slam confidently.
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| HotD-wed : League 1 : 16sep19 : B28 |
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This hand from Monday was the most interesting play hand. There were two tables not in 4♠ and of the others 10/12 declared the hand in 4♠ as North.
The key issue for East in making the opening lead is to recognise that partner cannot have much in the way of values on this auction, and because of that the lead of either red suit is very dangerous. Only one East fell into the trap of leading a heart. Although it might sometimes cost a trick, the club combination is reasonably safe and seven of the remaining nine led a top club (the others a spade). Declarer can expect five spade tricks (four winners, one ruff) and four outside, so is only one trick short. After a black suit lead declarer played trumps and West was in with the ace; in practice, the choice now determined the fate of the contract.
Returning a club might seem natural but this gives declarer an easy answer - win the second club and draw trumps before exiting with the third club. East is on lead and must lead a red suit. [A ruff and discard would in fact not give declarer an extra trick, but on this layout East has run out of clubs].
Returning a diamond leaves declarer a winning option which a number of players missed. The winning option is to play the nine (or lower) and when West wins this trick (s)he is endplayed to give the tenth trick. Most Norths played ♦Q instead and East won the king, and returned the jack. The contract can still be made but in practice North drew the last trump, ruffed the third diamond and now tried to end play East in clubs. East could exit with the ♦T and wait for the heart king to beat the contract.
Returning a heart gave the defence the best chance, although when the finesse loses to East only a heart return doesn't give away a trick and East might not realise this. Actually a heart return isn't enough to beat the contract if declarer squeezes East out of the long heart (by drawing trumps) and eliminates hearts before exiting in clubs. But in practice this won't happen.
Of those who got a spade lead, one made 4♠ and one didn't; of those who got a club lead, three made the game and four didn't.
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| Back Your Instincts |
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The defence lead the ♠K. The second and third tricks are taken by East's ♠A and West's ♠Q. At trick 4, West switches to the ♣7. How do you plan the play?
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There is no reason to not take the trump finesse, but the card you lead from hand is critical. If you play the ♥Q and West covers, you will naturally play a heart back to your ten and will discover that you have a heart loser when West started life with a singleton King. Much better is to lead the ♥T from hand for the finesse. If West plays the King on this trick, there is a fair inference that it is a singleton as covering with say ♥Kx would blow a trump trick whenever partner has ♥Jx or ♥Jxx. Of course, if West does play the King on your ten, you need to back your instincts and take a deep finesse on the second round of trumps |
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| How Should you Defend? |
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You lead the ♦A on which East drops the Queen. What do you think should happen at tricks 2 and 3?
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East's card at trick 1 guarantees holding the ♦J. You should therefore play a low diamond at trick 2. When partner wins this trick he might well know how many diamond tricks are cashing and when the answer is only 2, he will switch to a heart. You simply cover declarer's card and sit back and wait to take the setting tricks in hearts. You don't need to play partner for a singleton heart as that would leave South with 4 cards in the suit which aren't being discarded anywhere. Look what happens if at trick 2 you continue with King and another diamond. South ruffs, draws trumps and eliminates clubs. He now leads the ♥Q from hand and your second heart trick disappears.
Patrick Phair writes : The comment "that would leave South with 4 cards in the suit which aren't being discarded anywhere" isn't necessarily true. East: T9, 8, QJT85, T8765 South: AKQ853, QT52, 96, Q |
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| Be a Good Partner |
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You lead the ♣A on which partner plays the 2 and declarer the Knave. Now what?
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Clearly you should switch to hearts. The bidding indicates that South has a singleton club and you need to either cash heart tricks or set up a heart trick before the spades are established (if they are not already solid). However, if you switch to a low heart and partner wins the Ace, can you be sure that he will do the right thing? He might play you for a spade void and return to spade to give you a ruff. Be kind to partner and switch to the ♥K at trick 2. This way you will beat the contract whenevr it is possible so to do. |
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| Take Care |
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West leads the ♣3 to his partner's Jack. How do you plan the play?
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You might duck trick 1 and hope to ruff a club on the table, but surely the defence will play 2 rounds of trumps if they can and spoil that line. It must be best to take trick 1 and at trick 2 lead??? - the right card is the ♦Q. If the defence wins the King, they only have 1 club and 1 trump trick before you can get to dummy to make use of the top spades. The play of the ♦Q virtually gurantees the contract. |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Pairs League : 11sep19 : B12 |
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It's not often you see a 7600 shaped hand and it is even more curious that we were able to report on one last week (B13 from 02sep19) and we have another one from this week.
Almost everyone started the North hand off by bidding the longest suit first, and this is the generally recommended pattern with extreme shape. The first crucial decision came at this point - what should South bid?
Where South chose 3N, North expected South's values to be predominantly in the red suits (where it is almost half and half) and continued the description with 4♠ which for some finished the auction.
Wheere South here chose 4♣ North felt more enthused and a few from that position pushed into a small slam in clubs. We prefer 4♣.
Only 2/16 tables managed to bid a slam on these hands, but more worrying is that 3/16 tables played the hand in a part-score!
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| HotD-thu : Autumn Pairs : 9sep19 : B17 |
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This hand was a potential slam on which most played in game. A consequence of that is that the defence becomes even more important. The auction shown is that of table nine. 2N showed a good raise to at least 3♠ after which South signed off to show a minimum before cue bidding in hearts.
The lead was ♥2. Should the slam be made?
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There is clearly a trump loser, and declarer must avoid any other loser. The two options with which you start for avoiding a heart loser are ruffing out the diamond ace, and discarding South's hearts on winning clubs and then ruffing a heart in South. In both cases a major concern is the club suit.
Playing West for the king could prove successful if West has doubleton or tripleton king. Playing East for the king with a ruffing finesse will generate the club winners desired if East has Kxx or Kxxx. It is best therefore to take the ruffing finesse and this was done. Once the club king was gone, declarer played trumps and West won and tried a diamond to their partner's ace. But declarer ruffed and cashing all the black winners squeezed East in the red suits and the slam made.
On winning the spade ace, West needed to play a second heart, to break up the squeeze. In situations like this you sometimes have to trust that the opponent's bidding is honest. |
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| HotD-wed : Autumn Pairs 1 : 09sep19 : B14 |
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This hand from Monday produced a problem for East-West and a variety of results. A number of pairs started with a strong or strong-ish 1N opener from East; if South passes , what should West bid?
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Clearly 3N might (as always) be the right contract but you could be wide open in hearts and need to avoid no-trumps. Making 5♣ is another option but might that be too high?
Rather than have West guess, the real answer is for West to describe the hand and let East decide; for some pairs this can be done via 2♠(transfer to clubs) - 3♣(quite liking clubs) - 3♥(shortage) after which West should respect East's decision. On this occasion it is a close choice and if East chooses 3NWest cannot argue as the heart stopper might be ♥KQT. This was not however the most common route to 3N - that route was a 1♥ opening bid by East followed by a NT rebid; West did not feel inclined to challenge this but whether South still led a heart or instead led a diamond, the contract was doomed. Two declarers (one on a spade lead, one on a heart lead) got to make 3N.
When West shows clubs and a decent hand, East might take a different tack - with some club support and a very suit-suitable hands and a ruffing value in diamonds - it looks good to support clubs. Those who did ended in 5♣ and that contract was unbeatable. In fact 6♣ is a very respectable contract, having a similar chance of success to 3N but scoring a lot more. Nobody bid 6♣.
It is much more difficult to explain the fact that two pairs, with a 25-count and a 10-card fit, stopped in a part-score. [One pair actually heard a 14-16 NT from East and West was concerned therefore that they might have only a 23-count between them; a bid to show clubs and invite would be useful but lacking this West took a pessimistic view this time] |
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| Champion Defence |
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You lead a heart to partner's Ace. At trick 2 East returns the ♥Q, covered by declarer's King. Where will you look for the 3 tricks you need to beat the contract?
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If you ruff at trick 2 and return a minor suit card, South will win and lead a trump from hand. He will rise with dummy's King for if East holds the Ace, he is doomed anyway. On the next round, the outstanding trumps fall together and declarer is home. You have 2 chances to beat the contract. If you refuse to ruff at trick 2, partner's ♠Q is an entry to cash the ♥J. An alternative is to ruff trick 2 with ♠A to achieve the same result. The former line is better, as declarer may well go down when East holds the ♠J and declarer the ♠Q as the refusal to ruff may well suggest 4 trumps, causing declarer to place the ♠J with West. |
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| Simple - so Don't Mess It Up |
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West leads ♦J. How do you play? (West holds ♠ QJ5)
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You have a potential loser in every suit, but you should be able to set up a heart for a minor suit discard if you are careful. Win the diamond lead in hand to preserve entries to dummy. Cash the ♠K and then play ♥A and another heart. Say that West wins with the ♥K to play a second diamond. Now win with dummy's Ace and lead the ♥J. You must discard a diamond on this trick, even if East covers with the ♥Q. You later cross to the ♠A and pitch a club on the established heart winner. You only lose a trump and 2 hearts. If you make the mistake of ruffing the ♥Q, West can overruff and put his partner in with the ♦Q for him to play a further heart, promoting a second trump trick for the defence. |
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| How Good is this Game? |
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West leads a top club, and continues with ♥ AK8. How do you rate this game?
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At first glance it looks like you need to find the spades 3-3, so the game is quite poor. However, when you consider the bidding, your chances are a bit better than this. West has 4 diamonds for his bid, and if he happens to hold 4 spades as well then he will have real trouble discarding. All you need to do is cash dummy's remaining two trumps, discarding clubs from hand, and watch West squirm. A diamond discard allows you to overtake dummy's Queen and win 4 diamond tricks, whilst a spade discard sets up dummy's spade suit. |
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| Hotd-fri : Swiss Teams : 02sep19 : B6 |
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Here's an excllent slam to be in from Monday's teams. You get a club lead at trick one. Do you start the hearts by leading the king or by leading the ace?
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Before you decide you must count your tricks. With three in spades, one diamond and three clubs, you need only 5 trump tricks. That will come about if you keep yourself to one trump loser but manage one ruff in the short (West) hand. The important thing is you don't lose two trump tricks.
So the answer to the original question (whether to lead the ace or the king) is neither. You should start the hearts by leading small toward either hand, and if the second hand plays low you insert the 9/T. You will never be in trouble with a 3-1 trump break, and this play keeps you to one loser with a 4-0 trump break (a 9.6% chance). You run a danger of finding a 6-1 spade break (a 7.3% chance) and a ruff, but accept this is lower odds. |
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| HotD-thu : Swiss teams : 02sep19 : B16 |
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This hand from Monday generated disappointment for some and relief for others. There were 11 pairs played in 3N and 6 of them made the contract while 5 went down.
The key issue is how you play the club suit, needing at least 4 possibly 5 tricks from the suit, with only one dummy entry outside clubs. On a red suit lead, how do you proceed?
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There are two options to consider in clubs - one is playing them from the top and the other is leading up to and finessing the ♣T. All options work when the suit breaks 3-3 or when there is any doubleton from QJ9 sitting onside.
Playing from the top gains when there is ♣Q9 or ♣J9 or ♣ QJ offside which is three useful doubletons.
Playing up to the ten gains when there is ♣95 or ♣93 or ♣92 offside which is three useful doubletons.
It is a tie, and one should not feel bad (just lucky or unlucky) therefore from choosing either line. It is important whichever you choose that you continue next with top clubs. One might break the tie in favour of the second line as with ♣QJ9x SOuth might decide it is better (lest declarer has two clubs) not to split the honours on the first round.
It was the first line which succeeded on Monday. |
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| HotD-wed : Swiss Teams 1 : 2sep19 : B13 |
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This hand from Monday was one of the most awkward hands to bid that has been seen for many a year. There were a number of different starts to the auction, of which the one shown was the one reported most often. The 3♦ bid will usually have some high cards outside, but if all East's points are in spades and diamonds then 4♥ might be the limit of the hand. Today, with East holding the ♥A and ♣AQ, you want to reach either a small or grand slam in one of hearts or clubs. Is there any way to tell? Answers please on a postcard.
From the event itself, we can report
table 1 : started with 1♦ - 1♠ - 2♥ - 4♠ at which point East doubled and that was the final contract. It went for -800 but still represented an above par result. The spade overcall was rather pushy, but if the auction does start 1♦ - P - 1♥ then North might well bid 1♠ and disrupt the conversation - but few did at this point.
table 2 : started off (East-West only bidding) 2♣ - 2♦ after which West ended as declarer in 5♦ and North led out the spade ace to beat the contract.
table 3 : the bidding was 1♦ - 1♥ - 3N(long diamonds, too good for 3♦) - 5♣ - 5♦ - P and here South failed to lead a spade. Winning the heart, cashing two diamonds and then crossing to play hearts allowed declarer to throw away enough spades to make the contract. A fotrunate guess as playing out clubs is almost equivalent (but fails on a 4-1 club break, while all lines fail on a 4-1 heart break) and on that choice the defence get to ruff with a small diamond and not the queen, and defeat the contract.
table 5 : possibly had the best chance for successful bidding here as this pair were playing an "Unbalanced Diamond" system so that after 1♦ - 1♥, East was able to bid 1N (not needed for balanced hands which all open 1♣) showing a 16+ hand with no easy choice of bid, and over that West was able to create a game force by bidding 2♣ (showing 8+). Unfortunately they did not use the space to good effect and ended in 5♣.
table 6: here it went 1♦ - 1♠ - 2♥ - 3♠ - 6♦ - end. The 6♦ bid was a reasonable evaluation but it was not catering for the hand be by West, but who could?
table 8 : West saw the auction above and settled for a "pragmatic" 4♥.
table 10 : started as shown, and over 3♦ West bid 4♣ and over 4♦ West bid 5♣ . This was enough for East who passed.
table 12 : the auction was reported as (East-West only bidding) 2♣ - 3♥ - 3N - 6♣ - P and this got the best score of all the tables.
table 14 : the auction started 1♦ - 1♠ and West chose to double (!) to show the other suits. Over North's raise to 4♠ East bid (only) 5♦ and West converted this to 5♥ and that finished the auction.
A different approach at every table (of the nine we know)! Across the field of 14 tables, five tables played in hearts, five tables played in diamonds, three tables played in clubs, and one in spades.
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| Spot the Danger |
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In your system, 3♠ is invitational and North raises to game. West leads the ♣2 to East's Queen. At the second trick East leads ♣A, West following with the 9. At trick 3 East continues with the ♣K. How do you play?
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From the carding so far, you know that West has a third club, so it is safe to ruff low. There will be no problem if trumps break 3-2, but there is a danger that West may hold ♠9xxx and that if you lead the ♠K from hand, East will win his Ace and lead a further round of clubs, promoting a trump trick for West. Once you have spotted the danger, you can easily avoid it. Cross to dummy with a diamond and lead a trump from the table. When East wins his Ace, your KQJT remain intact and you can safely ruff the next club high and draw trumps. |
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| A Thin Grand |
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You reach a grand slam after a game forcing 2 over 1 response to North's opening bid. West leads the ♦J. How do you assess your chances?
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You had hoped for something extra in dummy, and although it is very minimum, North does at least hold the ♥8 which is an extra entry. Win the lead in hand and play a spade to the Ace and ruff a spade high. Now a trump to the 8 allows another high spade ruff. If spades have broken 4-3 you now just need a 3-2 trump break. Cross to the ♥Q and ruff another spade establishing the long card. Draw the outstanding trump and dummy has a diamond entry for the last spade on which you discard your losing club. Note that a trump lead would have defeated the contract as it would have removed an entry to dummy before it could usefully be used. Spades 4-3 and hearts 3-2 do not represent good odds for a grand slam but you do in fact have some other chances. If the ♠KQ fall in 3 rounds you are OK, and the ♣Q might be singleton or doubleton. There are also some squeeze chances if the same player holds long spades and the ♣Q |
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| Your Lead |
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What do you lead against this doubled contract?
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When partner doubles in this situation, he is showing a good holding in dummy's suit and this is the suit you should lead. On this auction, you might say that North has not bid a suit, but in reality, North has shown 4 spades and hence partner is calling for a spade lead. A further indication if one were needed is that East did not make a lead directing double of 2 clubs, so he won't be doubling on the strength of his club suit. Also you have length holdings in the red suits so East can't have enough in those suits to make him think that he could beat 3NT. Lead the ♠Q and watch declarer go down. Don't forget to thank partner for his action. If he hadn't doubled you would have been unlikely to find the killing lead. |
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| HotD-sat : Gold Cup QF : 29aug19 : B2.7 |
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The bulk of the County team played their Gold Cup Quarterfinal match this week. The match was lost but by only a respectable amount. The visitors to Cheltenham got lucky in the first stanza, bidding a slam needing to play AT542-J63 as a trump suit for one loser, and this 37% chance came home; if that had gone down the match would have been tied. This hand from the middle of the match was well played by Garry Watson.
After the bidding shown North led a low club which immediately gave Garry the message that North had a diamond void. So he rose with the ace and drew trumps in three rounds. Expecting South, on the bidding to hold both the ace and jack of hearts, there is the potential for five losers and it will take two endplays to recover.
Garry started by exiting with a club and since South had failed to unblock at trick one, that produced the first endplay and South played a heart round to the ten. After continuing hearts, declarer was put back in with the third round. But he could now continue by ducking a diamond from both hands leaving South on play and endplayed again. Neat!
Could South have done better by unblocking at trick one? Yes, North could then have won the second round of clubs but there is still an answer. When North plays through a heart, declarer must rise with the king, forcing South into an impossible position. Contract makes.
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| Sound Technique |
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West leads a low trump. You win and play a second trump but East show out. How do you continue?
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If trumps had broken 2-2 you could have eliminated the major suits and run a diamond to West. The enforced ruff and discard or minor suit return would yield a twelfth trick. That elimination play is no longer possible when the trumps break 3-1 so you draw the last trump. Now it is good technique to cash your heart tricks before running the ♦9. If West has no more hearts he concedes the contract on a minor suit return. If he can exit with a heart you can ruff in dummy and play ♦A and ruff a diamond. If the ♦K is still out, fall back on the club finesse. |
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| HotD-thu : Summer Pairs : 26aug19 : B3 |
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There were three good slams to bid on Monday but on only one of those (not this one) did anyone reach slam, and that was only 2 pairs out of 8 in slam. This hand offered a chance for some very natural and elegant bidding that was not taken up.
The start depends on whether or not South decided to open the bidding. The hand is either a pass or a weak 2♦ opener; is it worth opening? The hand has more going for it as defence (the ♥A and ♣Q) than it has in attack (a poor suit and minimal shape). This argues for passing, but being non-vulnerable against vulnerable, and being in first seat argues for bidding. It's a close call but taking away bidding space is always a Good Thing, so bidding is recommended while passing cannot be criticised. In practice South passed.
Now left to themselves, the bidding started for West and East with 1♥ - 1♠ and West now had the first real choice to make - the choice is between rebidding the hearts or bidding clubs. On weak hands with this shape it is normal to rebid 2♥ and there is extra strength here but we'd prefer to have more to rebid 3♥. When you cannot choose between 2♥ and 3♥, it becomes very appealing to bid 2♣ instead, and that is the best choice here. Over that, it is natural for East to continue with a game forcing (fourth suit) bid of 2♦; West can now bid 3♥ and the ball is back with East.
Partner is expected to be a -6-4 shape at this point and to have extra values, but the best game to choose is not clear. East can however continue with a natural 3♠ bid. What should West do over this? Clearly partner has six spades here, so spades will be the right denomination, and we want to tell partner. West could simply raise spades and that is likely to end the auction, but there is another way of showing spade support - and that is by introducing a new suit at the 4-level, which logically and by convention shows a good hand with support for the last bid suit. Here it hints at a spade slam. The fact of spade support on a -6-4 shape also implies short diamonds. This should raise the possibility of slam in East's mind and be enough to ancourage the use of a 4N ask before bidding the slam.
But nobody did - maybe next time!
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| HotD-wed : Summer Pairs : 26aug19 : B16 |
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This hand from Monday had a number of interesting points to it. The bidding at some tables proceeded as shown, and South led ♣4 against the spade game. North won the ace and returned a club; declarer now had to figure out the club position. In the bidding South has shown at least 5-5 shape with hearts and a minor, and North has shown enough support for both minors to make it worth bidding to the 4-level. Unfortunately, South has not had the chance to show the second suit.
If the lead was ♣4 from a five card suit, then declarer must not finesse or it will lose to the queen and a club ruff will follow. If the lead was from a short suit then declarer must finesse to avoid a loser in clubs. In practice most Norths led back the ♣3 at which point declarer should look at the pips played so far. The return marks South's club as his/her lowest and so wouldn't usually be from five. Finessing the club is then best; the remainder of the hand is about whether to make three tricks in hearts to get a trick from the ♦K. The very informative bidding means that it is really no contest - if South has five hearts then three hearts are guaranteed, and so declarer is making the spade game. [Perhaps South would have been better off not bidding]
If North returns a less clear cut club, say the ♣7 - can declarer get it right? The answer is no - it is a guess and you could go either way. Suppose now that declarer goes wrong and plays the ♣K and it gets ruffed. South plays back a heart. Can declarer find 10 tricks any more? The answer is yes - they can get to ten tricks by cashing all their spades and watching what South plays. In the end position South has to discard from ♥QT9 ♦AJ in front of dummy's ♥KJ8 ♦T2. If South ditches a heart, declarer ditches a diamond and takes three heart tricks (to go with ♥A and six spades). If South ditches the ♦J declarer ditches a heart from dummy and then leads a small diamond away from ♦K7 to set up the king, to take that with two (more) heart tricks and make the contract. A squeeze without the count!
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| Your Chance to Shine |
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Your partner leads the ♠K but declarer ruffs and leads the ♥Q. You win the Ace - and play?
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It may look safe to return a spade, but this is not the case. You know the spades are 4-4 and you can see 3 entries to dummy. If you return a spade, South will be able to set up the suit for a discard and that might enable him to make his contract. Instead you should attack one of dummy's entries by leading a club. Now declarer cant get the spades going and on the layout shown he will have to lose a diamond in the end. |
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| Count Your Tricks |
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You get the ♠T lead to the Ace from East and a spade is returned. How do you play?
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This is simply a matter of counting your tricks. Without the spade attack which has removed your sure entry to dummy, you could have played on diamonds and gathered at least 4 tricks in the suit. Now however, if you take a diamond finesse and it holds the trick, you are not well placed. The correct play is to lead hearts and force out the Ace. You have a sure entry to dummy in the diamond suit so the defence cannot prevent you taking 2 spades, 3 hearts, 2 diamonds and 2 clubs. |
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| Timing |
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West leads the ♠2. How do you play?
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It looks natural to run the spade to hand at trick 1. If West has led from the ♠K you could easily finish with 10 or 11 tricks. However, your target is to make the contract. If you allow East to win the first trick with the ♠K, he can switch to a club. Now if the diamond finesse is wrong, you will lose a diamond, three clubs and a spade. The correct line is to rise with the ♠A at trick one and run the ♦9. If the diamond finesse loses you can later add another spade to go with your 7 red suit tricks. The defence cannot take more than one spade, two clubs and a diamond. |
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| Where's My Calculator |
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West leads the ♥5. East plays the Knave and you win the Queen. How good is this contract?
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This hand occurred in a recent match and gave declarer a lot to think about. You have 3 spades (4 if the suit breaks 3-3), 2 hearts on the lead, 1 diamond at least, and at least 3 clubs. You will make 4 club tricks unless clubs break 5-1 or worse offside and neither the King nor 9 are singleton and if you make 4 club tricks you have 9 on top and don't need to knock out the ♦A. This type of hand is much beloved by bridge writers. If West has long hearts (or the suit is 4-4) then the 'book' line is to play a diamond to the queen at trick 2. Suppose this loses and a heart comes back - you insert the ten and this loses and a heart comes back. Now you can take a club finesse into the safe hand - either he has no more hearts or the suit is breaking. The contract looks 100% on this line. The alternative is to run the ♣Q at trick 2. If this loses and the hearts are cleared as before, you make whenever you have 4 club tricks or whenever the spade suit comes in for 4 tricks or when the ♦A is with the short hearts and there may also be some squeeze options. The chances of a 5-1 or 6-0 club break are 16% - so offside is 8%. Of the 5-1 breaks, one third of the time there will be a singleton K or 9 so we are down to below 6% chance of failure. If this is the case then spades 3-3 reduces it to 4% and ♦A in the right place further reduces it to 2%. Hence it looks like running the ♣Q at trick 2 is a 98%+ line. Ah - but not as good as the 100% line outlined earlier I hear you say. True, but there was a supposition that West had led from long hearts. If in fact West has led a 3 card suit, then playing a diamond might give East the 2 entries he needs to set up and cash the suit. He will only have the 2 entries 25% of the time and the chances of West having chosen to lead from ♥Kxx are difficult to quantify. However, if we think this lead might be made just 10% of the time, then the club play at trick 2 has the edge and was the line duly taken at the table (after about a 4 minute trance). As a look at the full deal shows, you have 9 tricks whichever line you choose. |
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| HotD-fri : Summer Teams : 19aug19 : B33 |
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This hand from Monday was a comedy of errors, but as so often at brcidge, there are useful things to learn from these errors.
In the play at table two (which had the auction shown) South started, naturally, with the singleton heart won by the ace; declarer played ♦A and a diamond ruff, heart ruff, diamond ruff, heart ruff, and then led a club from dummy. North won the ♣A and now had to decide whether to play for a spade ruff (with some concern it might get over-ruffed) or play a top heart to gain a trump promotion if partner had started with ♣87. The latter choice was made but declarer ruffed happily, drew the last trump and led to the spade king to make the contract.
Should North have done better? Yes. If South held two clubs then (as the red suit layout had been disclosed) South would have a 4162 shape, and with three card support why would East have run from spades? So the desired club position cannot occur (and if it did a spade ruff first would not cost).
Could South have helped? Yes - in two ways. As North already knows that South has good spades, signalling (discards on the hearts) should focus on shape and if South could discard spades to promise an odd number, North 's worry about a spade being over-ruffed would go away.
Could South have avoided the problem altogether? Yes - doubling four spades was a bit greedy - passing would have resulted in a sure plus score. One must be very circumspect when doubling with five trumps.
Was West right to offer South this choice? No. While it is right (almost mandatory) to overcall at the 1-level in your major when you have five, as the bidding gets higher suit bids becomes more committal and you should prefer a takeout double when you only have five of the major. Here a double would have received 5♣ immediately from East.
North's opening bid was impeccable.
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams : 19aug19 : B2 |
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This hand from Monday proved intractable for everyone, and would have resulted in bigs swings in more matches had not some of the disasters applied equally to teams playing against each other.
The North hand is clearly enormous after partner opens 2N, but what is the best way to tackle it? On overall values you have no doubt that you want to be in slam, and the issues are whether to stop in a small slam or go for a grand slam. and whether to play in no-trumps of one of your suits. Given the overall values, your worries are about missing a cashable ace, or - on the hand where it is vital - missing the ♥Q.
Where the bidding has reached the point shown, it is tempting to investigate a club fit, but the big danger with that is commiting to clubs and finding that you are missing ♣JTxxx - something that would make a grand slam in clubs borderline. You'd want to play in clubs if partner had five, but with four it is uncertain. This argues that you settle for playing the hand in hearts (or NT if partner does show distate for hearts).
An approach you can take on such powerful hands is - because there are so few of them (only 5 hcp max missing) - to work on which cards are missing. In particular, if you found out that South was missing the diamond ace you would know you were missing at most one jack as well as that, and you could bid 7♥ comfortably. Today's style of cue bidding however doesn't usually distinguish between aces and kings - and in any case there isn't much space for that.
There are two paths - neither ideal - which might get you to the grand slam. One way to find out about the key cards (♠A,♥Q,♣A) and if the knowledge of those cards is enough to decide things for you (the flaw is it might not be), then what you can do is over 3♥ a jump to 5♦ as Exclusion Blackwood (asking for aces but ignoring the diamond ace). That would tell you that the opening hand has all of those key cards. Is that enough to bid the grand slam? It is necessary, but is it sufficient? [Probably yes, given so few HCP are missing]
The other approach is - if you are playing in this style - to transfer to hearts at the 4-level and to continue with 5♦; depending on the meaning of this (shortage, control ask) you might be able to find out whether or not the diamond ace is missing; if missing you can easily bid the grand slam, but if partner has it the grand slam could stil be cold (say you are missing only ♦KQJ).
There is a lot to be said for just bidding a small slam here, but if you have more ambitions than that - the route of transfer then Exclusion Blackwood is really the only option.
What is most important is that you avoid these disasters which occurred at the table
> one table bid 2N-4♣ asking for aces, and mis-interpreted the response and bid the grand slam in no-trumps. East doubled but that gave West a dilemma. There is a good case for leading diamonds (your best/longest suit is the suit declarer is most likely to be able to make 13 tricks without touching), but a club was chosen and the doubled grand slam rolled home.
> another table started 2N-3♦-3♥ 4♣-4♥ ; at this point South had promised a good doubleton heart and when North tried 4N to ask for aces, South took it as quantitative and passed.
> two other tables played in 4♥ and in 4N, but we have not embarassed the people concerned by asking what the exact sequence was.
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams : 19aug19 : B19 |
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This was quite an unusual hand from Monday. What would you like to open the bidding with in first seat?
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There are two obvious options to consider, namely 1♣ and 2♣.
At table 5 the latter option was chosen and the bidding proceeded 2♦ - P - 3♦ after which South chose to close his eyes and bid 6♣. Today partner put down three trumps and short spades and that was just perfect.
At table 10 the choice was to open with 1♣ and the auction proceeded 1♦ - 1♥ (cheekily) - P and South could now bid a game forcing 2♠. North gave preference to clubs and South was able to make a grand slam try before settling for 6♣.
Which auction felt more comfortable? Clearly the second, and that is because it started describing its suits at the 1-level while a 2♣ choice meant that the earliest possible description came at the 4-level. The only reason to open with a strong artificial 2♣ is that a 1-level bid might be passed out and prove embarrassing. With only one red card in the South hand, and space for everyone to bid at the 1-level, that is just not going to happen on this hand. |
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| A Simple Play |
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West leads 3 top hearts. How do you play?
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The contract appears to depend on the spade finesse but with only one entry to dummy, you need to take care if the spades break 4-1. Discard your losing diamond on the third heart, win the next trick and cross to dummy with the ♣K. Now lead the ♠Q and unblock with the nine. You will succeed if West has the singleton 8 as well as when the spades are 3-2 as on the next round you can run the 7 from dummy and underplay with your 6.
Patrick Phair notes : if declarer discards DJ on the third heart West is quite likely to continue with a fourth, since trumps must be the defence's best chance of a trick. In that case declarer must ruff in hand with the 9, and later unblock the 10 on the lead of the queen from dummy. Given that declarer can afford to ruff with the 9 at trick three and lose the diamond at the end. It is possible (though unlikely) that East is 4-3-5-1 and can defeat the contract if a fourth heart is led. |
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| Play This Slam |
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West leads the ♦Q and continues with a diamond when he holds the first trick. How should you play?
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There will be no problem if both majors divide, and if trumps are 4-0, you will need the spades to break 3-2. What can be done if spades are 4-1 and trumps 3-1, the hand with a singleton spade having 3 trumps? The recommended line is to play to set up the clubs. Ruff in dummy at trick 2 and play Ace and another club, ruffing.Now cross to dummy with the ♥9. If both opponents follow, you ruff another club high. When clubs are shown to be 4-3 you cross to dummy with ♠A and ruff another club with the ♥A. Trumps are then drawn with North's ♥KJ and the clubs cashed. Your spade winners bring the total to 12. Of course, if clubs had not been 4-3, you would need to rely on a 3-2 spade break. |
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| Defend Like a Champion |
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You lead the ♥5. Declarer ducks in dummy and partner wins the King and returns the 2 to declarer's Queen. Next comes the ♦Q which you allow to hold. You win the next diamond, East showing 3 cards in the suit. What now?
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Declarer has taken 2 tricks, and if he can reach dummy, 5 more tricks await him. On the bidding, declarer surely holds ♣AK, bringing his total to 9. However, there is away to beat declarer. Lead a low club. On the layout shown, this looks like you have gifted declarer an extra trick but see what happens. If South cashes a second club, he kills the dummy. If he discards a spade, you can win South's first spade play and play Ace and another, leaving declarer stuck in hand and forced to give you a club at the end. If he discards a diamond or plays a spade immediately, you just win and clear the hearts and the defence comes to 5 tricks. The club switch at trick 5 is essential to detroy declarer's communications. |
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| Your Only Chance |
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West leads the ♦J against your game. What is your only chance of making this contract?
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Your only chance is to find the heart suit is blocked and the trumps breaking 1-1, but you still have to prepare the ground properly. Win the lead, play the ♣A and lead the ♣Q, overtaking with the King. Now ruff dummy's last club and exit with a spade. If the cards lie kindly, the defence will only be able to take 2 heart tricks before conceding you a ruff and discard. |
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| HotD-fri : Summer Pairs : 12aug19 : B7 |
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This hand from Monday was a good example of why attitude signals are important. There were five pairs who defended 5♦ and had to decide, on the lead of a top heart, what to do next when partner followed with the ♥8. Do you try to cash another heart?
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The answer is that you just do not know who has the missing ♥Q, but in fact hearts is not the crucial suit here. The missing ♠A and ♣K are the cards that matter and the big danger is not that a heart trick goes away if not cashed, but that one of dummy's club or spade losers might vanish. You need therefore to cash the ♣A and watch carefully whether or not partner encourages. Sometimes it will be difficult to tell, but sometimes it will be easy - as on this hand where partner has a wide choice fo clubs to play. When partner encourages you know it is best to play another club and that will beat the contract. If you do not cash your clubs, a club loser will go on declarer's winning spades, and the contract will make.
Three of the five declarers were allowed to succeed in 5♦. :( |
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| HotD-thu : Summer Pairs : 5aug19 : B4 |
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There were not many pairs bidding the game on this board from Monday, and that was because few opened the bidding with the North hand. In a weak-NT system it is indeed dangerous to open 1N with an 11-count as even when they don't double you can loose too many points; but when you are playing a strong NT, that danger is less and you add the prospect of quickly finding a 4-4 major suit fit, and that makes the bid well worth while.
When we looked at the hand initially, it looked like a poor game to be in - but actually it is quite reasonable. What you need to note is that this feeble club collection (Qxx opposite Jx) will actually deliver you a trick at least 50% of the time. You will benefit when both the ace-king are in the one hand (50%) plus also sometimes when West leads from the king, and also sometimes when you can find East with an Ax or Kx holding. On top of all that, you have the chance of a heart lead giving you a trick, or of a very favourable lie of the hearts which saves you a loser there.
Looking at the computer analysis of the hand - which shows that only 9 tricks are available - might lead you to disagree with this assessment. In one way the computer analysis is right, with the actual layout of the defensive hands the game goes off - but that is only if the defence start with three rounds of clubs, ruffing the winner that would otherwise take care of a heart loser. Otherwise the game makes and it's the sort of game we want to bid.
Nobody found the defence to beat the game, but a number of declarers failed to make ten tricks by not spotting the opportunity that the club suit offered.
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| HotD-wed : Summer Pairs : 12aug19 : B26 |
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This hand from Monday has some interesting points for declarer and for the defence. It was suprising that only four of the seven pairs who held the East-West hands managed to identify that they had 33 hcp between them, and therefore bid the slam. The sequence shown should have been replicated, possibly with a Stayman enquiry before the 4N bid to make it easier to find a heart fit.
Against 6N there is one principle on the opening lead which dominates all others - and that is to avoid giving away a trick. That makes one suit (hearts) a stand-out choice on this hand - but only two of the four defending pairs found this, the other two leading a diamond.
Now switching to declarer's perspective, there are four top tricks in each major and AKA in the minors, so the lead of a diamond into the KJ gives declarer an easy 12th trick. Having received a twelfth trick, declarer should not stop there - this is a matchpoint game and the focus needs now to shift to a possible overtrick. Can it be done? Yes - there is a double squeeze there if you simply cash your spades, the ♦K and then the hearts. The ending has ♦A8♣J in dummy and the ♠3♣A7; when the ♦A is cashed, South must hold onto a top spade (and therefore only one club) and now declarer can discard ♠3. North has already discarded down to a singleton club in order to keep two diamonds, and that means that after cashing the ♣A that the ♣7 is the only club left. This line was followed by John Arblaster to get his ovretrick and a score of +1470.
Another table got a low heart lead and declarer didn't spend long considering the options; he just assumed that spades would deliver five tricks and it was just a question of how best to arrange a squeeze for the overtrick. Cashing hearrts before spades looked more attractive so he played hearts and everyone followed to the first two rounds, but South had to discard on the third and fourth. It was trivial to spare a spade on the first discard, but what comes next? It looks natural to spare another spoade but that proved fatal - giving declarer five spade tricks where there were only four before. A diamond discard would have beaten 6N.
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| A Common Contract |
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West leads the ♠8 against your game. How do you plan the play?
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Your best chance of making 9 tricks lies in establishing your diamonds rather than dummy's clubs. Therefore win the lead in dummy (the 8 lead suggest West does not hold the Q) and cash the ♦A. Now play a spade to the jack and exit with a low diamond. This way you will make 4 diamond tricks whenevr diamonds are 3-3 or 4-2 with a doubleton honour. You have 2 remaining entries to set up and cash the suit. |
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| A Good Slam |
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You play in 6♦ against the lead of ♦J. How do you maximise your chances?
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Win the lead in hand, Cash ♣AK and ruff a club with the ♦Q. Now discard your spade on ♥A. This line scores when either clubs are 3-3 and trumps 3-1, clubs 4-2 and trumps 2-2, or when trumps are 3-1and one hand holds Q9 or J9 doubleton in clubs (in which case you revert to drawing trumps) |
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| How's Your Card Play? |
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West leads the ♠J against 3NT. How do you play?
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You should realise that if the ♦A can be held up until the third round then you can only count 3 spades, 2 hearts, 2 diamonds and a club for 8 tricks. You might be able to develop an extra trick in clubs so win the lead and duck a club. Say that East wins and returns a spade. You win and lay down the ♣A. Then you lead the ♦K and a second diamond to dummy. There will be no problem if the ♦A is taken so assume that it is held up. Now you are in dummy and can lead a club towards hand, winning an extra trick whenever clubs are 3-3 or when West holds a doubleton honour. |
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| Plan the Play |
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How do you play this slam on the lead of ♣Q?
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You appear to have good chances. There are 10 top tricks and a club ruff in dummy gives you 11. If one of the red suit finesses works you will be home and there is an additional chance that if the hearts break you will have a diamond discard. However, there is a line that ensures the contract. Win the lead and draw trumps. Now cash the other top club, return to hand in trumps and ruff a club. Now play a heart and cover East's card. Either the ♥8 wins immediately (on the layout shown) or else West wins but must concede a 12th trick on his next lead. |
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| HotD-fri : Summer Teams : 05aug19 : B7 |
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Five tables defended this contract on Monday and only one of them managed to defeat it; it should go down, so what went wrong?
The first hurdle was for East to find the right lead, and here the one way - spotted by four of the five defenders (that's good!) - was to lead a spade. West can tell what is happening in spades as North has denied four cards in the suit, sothe nine must be a doubleton (and not a singleton). At table nine, West therefore ducked to keep communicaitons open, playing the ♠5 (low to encourage). Declarer won the ♠K and played ♣A, ♣6 and East won the trick with the ten(!). This only happened because West had played ♣J and then ♣4, to indicate a holding of three trumps. The problem was that East did not appreciate that the ♠5 was encouraging - there were two smaller ones missing and two larger ones. East played a diamond and declarer won and played a third trump to secure the contract.
Should East have known whether the card was encouraging or not? The answer is yes. East's concern was that North held ♠AKx and on another spade lead would be taking the last trumps out and then get to discard a diamonds loser (say from ♦Ax) on the fourth spade. Apart from the fact that this venture would only save an overtrick and never beat the contract, East should have reasoned as follows : in the worrying case, West will always have a spade capable of giving a stronger signal than the ♠5 (something higher or lower) and didn't. So the worrying case doesn't exist - and a second spade at this point is correct and would have beaten the contract.
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams : 05aug19 : B27 |
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When you get a very strong hand you are usually in the business of trying to find out what partner has, so that you can choose the final contract. Sometimes it goes the other way around, and with a very strong hand you can describe that hand well to partner and let partner make the decision.
After this start to auction on board 27 from Monday, what are your tactics going to be on this hand? And suppose partner had bid 1N rather than 2♠?
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Your hand can be described quite easily - great hand with both majors and only two key cards missing - the king of spades and the ace of diamonds.
Can you find out about those missing cards? The answer is you can if your are playing the "right" convention. What you need here is a 5♣ bid of "Exclusion Blackwood" asking partner about key cards but saying to discount the ace of clubs. When partner shows one key card you "know" you can make 6♠ but you do not expect to make the grand slam. Sometimes bidding is easy!
Not all Norths responded with 2♠, which makes life more diffciult as now you don't know which suit is trumps. What do you do after 1♠ - P - 1N - 2♦ ? Exclusion Blackwood is no longer an option.
First thing you must do it get partner to choose between the potential trump suits. You will have to bid to the 5-level to get your strength across and there are two options - either bid 3♥ now and then 5♥, or bid 5♥ immediately. Do we know the difference? I doubt it and any distinction might be arbitrary, so it is hard to apply logic with confidence. You might not be surprised that the first choice - keeping the bidding lower and give more space - might work out better, as when partner bids 4♠ over your 3♥ you are a bit more enthused and will now insist on a slam.
[LATER]
Reports from table 5 : here it started 1♠ - P - 2♠ and South then bid 4♣ as a slam try over East's 3♦. North's 4♠ bid denied the ace of diamonds, so South settled for 6♠.
Reports from table 9 : here is also started 1♠ - P - 2♠ - 3♦ but now South bid 3♥ and heard partner cue bid 4♣ (useless of course). East decided to sacrifice in 5♦ and over South's slam try with 5♥ North was happy to bid 6♠. East showed amazing confidence in the North-South bidding by sacrificing over that in 7♦ for only -800 and a 5 imp gain. |
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams : 05aug19 : B2 |
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This hand from Monday provided a good reminder to think before you bid - and to think about what you are trying to achieve with this bid. It is important to bid as much as you dare, and to take away bidding space from the opposition as often as possible, but you also need to be thinking about the context-specific (potential) benefits and losses. If you are thuinking of an obstructive bid, particularly when you are vulnerable against not, you need to be aware that a penalty against you will have its biggest cost, while the loss for the opposition if they miss a game will be minimal. You need therefore to be circumspect about pre-emptive bids, and the theme of pre-emptive bids at this vulnerability changes from being obstructive into being a constructive description of your hand. A long time ago, back in the days when people didn't pre-empt as much, we all learned the "rule of 500" in making preempts. That approach is over-cautious in many contexts today but the one time it applies in full in when vulnerable against not. The result of bidding 2♠ on the hand shown, was that the auction proceeded P-P-X-end, and even through two declarers escaped with an extra trick, that was still two scores of -800 and one of -1100 which had to be reported to team-mates. Should South pass on this hand? There are dangers in doing that - you can always overcall 1♠ if you want to, and this might also be penalised, but it is more difficult for the opponents to do that and you are a level lower. When people describe pre-emptive bids as "weak" thatr leads people into the thinking that the alternative (simple overcall) is therefore "not weak" but that is not the case. The alternative bid is simply not suitable for a pre-empt, and that can be for a number of reasons. |
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| A Sure Thing |
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You play in 6♣ against the lead of ♠K. You win the Ace and draw trumps which break. The contract is 100% if played correctly. Can you see the winning line?
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There will only be a problem if diamonds are 4-1 or 5-0. You can cater for a bad diamond break as follows; eliminate the hearts and cash the ♦K. Now exit with a spade. Whoever wins this trick will have to give you a ruff and discard else they must play a diamond. If they can play a diamond then they must be the only hand with diamonds if the suit is breaking badly. Hence it is now trivial to pick the suit without loss. |
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| Are you a Good Defender? |
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You lead a low diamond to partner's ten and declarer's King. A low heart follows, which you duck, and dummy's King wins to lead a spade to South's Jack. Next South cashes the ♠K and continues with a low heart. How do you defend?
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You can count South for 5 spade tricks and 2 diamonds. If you let him score 2 heart tricks he is home, and declarer's play to the heart king suggests (s)he also has the queen, so you need to rise with the ♥A and take 4 more tricks quickly. These will have to come from clubs. You might lead the ♣K and follow with the Jack. That will be good enough if partner has ♣ AT9x. However, it is better to lead ♣J first. Then if this is covered, partner can win and put you back in with the ♣K for a further lead through dummy. This way you pick up a doubleton 9 or 10 with South and only need partners suit to be as good as AT7x |
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| How do you Defend? |
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After South has opened a strong NT and been raised to game, partner leads the ♠T. You cover dummy's Queen and declarer wins the Ace and plays a club which you have to win. What are your chances and how do you defend?
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You know that declarer has a second spade trick with the ♠J, so that gives him 8 tricks. It doesn't matter how strong partner's hearts are there can't be more than 3 heart tricks for the defence. It follows that to beat the contract you need partner to hold good diamonds. If partner's diamonds are as good as AJ7x then you can beat the contract with a diamond switch, but you must play the ♦T to unblock the suit. Try it out and see. |
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| How do you Rate this Slam |
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West leads the ♥T against this contract. How do you rate your chances?
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Since you will be able to discard a heart or club loser on the ♦Q, it look tempting to try the ♥J at trick 1. If this gets covered you will later discard a heart from dummy and just rely on the club finesse. A better line is to withhold the ♥J at trick 1 and win the King in hand. Now you can draw trumps finishing in dummy and play a diamond. If East holds the ♦A he cannot play it without giving you 2 discards, so he must duck. But now you can win a diamond, ruff a diamond, play a club to you King and throw East in the the ♦A to lead up to your tenaces or concede a ruff and discard. Of course if West holds the ♦A, you will be back to relying on a finesse in hearts or clubs. I would suggest that clubs offers the better chance as else West has made a very dangerous lead. |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Pairs : 30jul19 : B21 |
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This hand from Tuesday provided a curious sort of trap into which some fell.
What would you call at this point in the auction?
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There are three options and by far the most natural seems to be to bid your longest suit. If you do bid 1♥ then it goes P-2♣-P to you again. What now? It seems it must be 2♥, but just look at what a disaster this is. Another option is 1♠ which works nicely today, but hurts you rather when partner's major are swapped. Mike Wignall found a third choice which worked rather well - he passed.
Now let us look at West's options over a pass. Clearly you must bid a major and it seems natural to bid the more robust hearts. So we have an auction of 1♦ - X - P - 1♥ - P and it is back to East. Hoping to learn more East chose 2♦ and heard a repeat of the heart suit from West, and then raised that to game. South knew what to do and the doubled netted 1400.
Could East have avoided that disaster? One alternative over partner's 1♥ bid would be to bid 1N or 2♣; the former comes with concerns about spades, and if anyone has long spades on this auction it is South, so that is a real concern. The second possibility is 2♣, which is descriptive (too good a hand to overall 2♣ on the first round) and with a working 18 hcp, that seems a perfect description. The third choice, the 2♦ bid, is a general force most commonly used on a hand with 3-card support for partner's major and extra values. This too is descriptive but does enter - for many - uncharted territory in terms of West's continuation. It is worthwhile filing away a convention scheme for this situation which goes by the tag of HADAC - Herbert (negative) after double and cue; the agreement is that the lowest bid after partner's cue here is a negative, showing just 0-3 hcp and nothing about the suit bid. This might have been enough to persuade East to settle in 2♥. |
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| HotD-thu : Summer Pairs : 29jul19 : B10 |
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Most North-South pairs missed out on the game available on this hand - five stopped in 1N and one in a 3♥ part-score. The auction shown was one of the successful auctions - what happened to the others?
It's hard to say but the issue might be that the point-counters looked at the North hand and counted to 17 HCP. What got missed was that the long diamonds make the hand worth a couple of extra tricks, and this needs to be reflected in North's rebid. The losing trick count takes account of this when evaluating hands in suit contracts, but too often the value of a long suit - as opposed to a 4333 shape - is not noticed.
But it might not have been that - for at this table West was amazingly silent. On the first round West might well have opened 1♣ and on the next round West might well have doubled 1♥ and both of these actions would have made it much less comfortable for North to bid 2N. At the table where West bid 2♣ (on the second round) East doubled the 3N game and North was too frightened to pass that - so he ran to 4♦. That was all set for a bottom except that East now doubled that and it made to give a top to North-South.
The play in 3N is quite interesting. Declarer won the opening spade with the king and played a diamond to the king, and learned of the bad break in that suit. The contract can still be made, with five diamonds, two spades, and two aces. The dilemma comes if two rounds of diamonds are won in the South hand. Declarer has the choice of a heart to the ace and bash out diamonds - to guarantee the contract, or to finesse in hearts rather than lead to the ace - which could result in defeat if it lost and the defence played the right black suits. The choice should depend on the judgment as to how many would be bidding game on this hand; declarer was saved from going wrong on the hand when East won the second diamond to play the ♥9. Declarer could cash his winners and set up a third heart trick for two overtricks.
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| HotD-wed : Summer Pairs : 29jul19 : B5 |
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This hand from Monday was a good illustration of the importance of keeping control of the trump suit.
It is hard not to bid game with a 4-4 fit and 25 hcp between the two hands, but it is clearly a hopeless game to be in with a minimum of two trumps and two aces to lose. In the event, three tables managed to stop out of game, and at least one of them counts as well judged - this was the table where East opened 1♣ and West responded with an artificial 2♦ showing 4+hearts, 5+spades and a hand short of invitational values opposite a weak NT opening. From that information, the KQJ-K which East holds in the minors looks like bad news.
But the key point is the play; the lead of the ♣A was common, and then East got the lead. Even though the herat game is doom,ed declarer needs to concentrate on not losing unnecessary tricks. The greatest disasters arose when East played ace and another trump. North said thank you and drew the remaining trumps before reverting to paertner's suit. In one case the defence got to cash three hearts, the diamond ace, and four clubs to put a 3♥ contract down four.
In the heart suit, clearly ducking one and then cashing the ace would have been better - but what is the optimal play in this heart suit? The answer is to lead the ten on the first round; this caters for every layout except North having the KQJ8(3) and in that case there is no answer.
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| How to Handle Trumps |
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West leads the ♠Q. How do you plan the play?
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Clearly you will lose a spade and hence must hold your trump losses to 2 tricks. You will be OK if one opponent holds both top honours but if they are split, it looks like you need to lead through the defender with the doubleton trump and then duck on the way back. On the bidding it looks like East will be the player with shorter trumps, so you might cross to dummy with a minor suit and lead a low trump from the deck(intending to duck the next round of trumps). This is not entirely safe however, as you may suffer a ruff in whichever minor suit you open up. If you intend to play East for ♥A/Kx then you can just lead the ♥J from hand at trick 2. Later you will either lead to the ♥Q or duck completely depending on which defender takes the ♥J. |
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| Just count your Tricks |
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West leads the ♣2 against your mundane part-score. This turns out well for you as when you play low from dummy, East produces the 9 and your Queen wins. What now?
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One line of play would be to start on setting up your diamond suit. If diamonds and trumps behave you might finish up with a couple of overtricks. However, your contract is 2♥ - not 4♥ and you should concentrate of taking 8 tricks. Having won the ♣Q, cross to dummy with a club and ruff a club in hand. Now cash the ♠A and cross to dummy with a trump to ruff a small spade. At this point you will have won 6 tricks and nothing can deny you ♥KQ.
Mark Rogers pointed out a safer order of play: Surely it is safer to cash SA cross to HA ruff a spade cash HKQ now cross to CA and ruff whichever black card looks less likely to be ruffed if there are any trumps still out. |
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| Play This Slam |
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West leads a heart against your grand slam. How do you plan the play?
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You appear to have an abundance of tricks so think what could go wrong. 4 trumps in the West hand will be fatal, but if East has all 4 clubs you can pick them up. However, you need to be careful with entries. The best line is to win the first trick and immediately unblock the ♦A. Then cross to the ♣K. If both opponents follow you can draw trumps finishing in dummy and simplay cash 3 diamonds discarding your losers. If West shows out on the first trump then you continue by leading diamonds from the table. These act as trump substitutes. If East declines to ruff at any point, you discard your losers and finesse in trumps. If East ruffs in you overruff and re-enter dummy with the third round of trumps to continue with diamonds. You will only be defeated if diamonds are 5-2 and the spade finesse is wrong. |
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| A Simple Defence |
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West leads the ♠2 against this part-score. Declarer rises with dummy's Ace and plays Ace and another diamond (West holding a singleton). How do you see the defence developing?
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You have 4 defensive tricks in your hand and another one could come from hearts if you can get partner in. On the bidding, partner has very little, but his lead indicates a spade honour and if declarer held the ♠Q, then surely he would have run the spade lead to his hand at trick 1. There is a strong chance therefore that West holds the ♠Q and you should cash your remaining diamond and lead a low spade. When partner wins the spade trick he should see the necessity of switching to a heart. |
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| HotD-fri : Ross GP Swiss Teams : 21jul19 : B47 |
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This hand from Sunday produced a lot of swings, including a vital one pushing the best local team back into fourth place. Making this 3N would have let them win. The sequence shown illustrates today's favoured form of checkback, in which the 2♣ bid forces South to bid 2♦ after which 2♠ shows a hand with invitational values and five spades, letting South choose the final contract. There were only 11 pairs bid to 3N on these hands, but that is definitely where you want to play.
Of the 11 declarers of 3N, ten got a diamond lead and could win that in the South hand, and be confident of a second diamond trick later. Clearly clubs is the primary source of tricks and the plan is to hope that East holds either of the jack or king, That would deliver four (five on a good day) clubs to go with three hearts and two diamonds. Meanwhile the defence only have a club, a diamond and two spades to cash. But of those eleven declarers, only four made the contract - so what went wrong?
The most common error was this - to win trick one and cross to dummy in hearts, and then lead the ♣T round to the ♣J. After either a diamond or heart cotninuation, declarer won a second heart trick in dummy and led the ♣7 and were forced to overtake it with the ♣8 and now it was impossible to pick up East's king.
Could declarer have done better - yes, and very easily. All it takes is for declarer to start with the ♣7 on the first round, or when leading the ♣T to drop the eight or nine underneath it. That means when the ♣7 is led, the six can now be played and the lead remains in dummy to lead another club for the final finesse. Easy game this? It's what the winning team had to do, and they did it.
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| HotD-thu : Ross GP Swiss Teams : 21jul19 : B3 |
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This hand from Sunday was an early test for the East-West pairs, reaching them just after 11 o'clock that morning.
There were plenty for opening 2♣ on this hand, but the danger of 1♣ being passed out is almost nil, and that makes starting with 1♣ a preferred option, letting you show two suits with the second bid. The auction shown took place at table 9, while at table 29 the auction was 2♣ - 2♠ - 3♣ - 3♠ - 4♣ - 4♠ - P, which shows that it is possible to stop in game after a 2♣ opener - but most of those who opened 2♣ found that too difficult to do.
There were 21 pairs bid a slam on these hands, but only 6 of the make their slam. For
(a) those in 6♣ any lead but a helpful spade was going to beat the slam, and the one pair in 6♣ went off.
(b) for those in 6♠ by East, it was vital for South to cash the ♥A at trick one, else with careful play declarer can draw trumps andd throw losing hearts away on clubs. [Three declarers who had been gifted a diamond lead were not careful enough, and went down two]. Of those in 6♠ five made the slam on a diamond lead, and four went off on a heart lead.
(c) for those in 6N, the key was for South not to take the ♥A as once that happens, North is going to be squeezed in three suits - and that squeeze will generate declarer's twelfth trick. Four of the declarers in 6N got a heart lead, and four got a diamond lead - but only one of the eight made the contract. In fact only an impossible-to-find club lead defeats 6N.
The remaining 13 pairs all played this hand in game, making easily.
Where would you rather stop? A sure game, or a 6N where the defence needs to find a next-to-impossible lead but then you have to play well, or perhaps in 6♠ where everthing depends on the killing opening lead (and only 1 in 3 found it). Seems pretty even money ....
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| HotD-wed : Ross GP Swiss Pairs : 20jul19 : B45 |
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This hand from the last match on Saturday, provided a top for the winners and could so easily have provided a top for the other pair.
What happened was the auction as shown. North-South got doubled in a game that could go off, but the normal opening lead lets it make, while East-West failed to bid the excellent game available in their direction.
What should have happened?
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It is hard to critice the opening bid here - it will be difficult to find a heart fit after starting with 2♠ but the hand is much more an obstructive than a constructive hand, and has the right suit quality for a vulnerable bid. After the opening, East's only option for intervention is double - although you might consider pass, as normally either partner has spades and you'd rather not bid, or the other side will outbid you in spades. This isn't quite what happens here. South can see that 4♠ is the best place to be, so we cannot criticise that bid either. The fact that South will bid 4♠ on a big variety of hands is what makes the choices difficult for East-West..
Which leaves us with the more interesting question of the final double - a double not found at many tables. There is an expectation by West of owning half the (HCP) pack at this point, and that hints that 4♠ might go down - so there is a case for saying something. This hand - just two kings and one might not be working - is just a bit weak for a double, particularly when the pass from East indicates that it was read as strongly suggesting defending. It feels like there was a disconnect between East and West on this auction.
But there is an alternative outcome - and that is for West to bid 5♣. It seems natural to bid a 6-card suit in response to partner's takeout double, but the issue here is that the likelihood of making 5♣ is not great and when you are making it there is a danger of partner raising to the slam. Should West have bid 5♣? It's very hard to say; two things come to mind. The first is that when it is not clear who can make what, then bidding on often pays (it loses only if both contracts fail). The second is that sometimes when you bid one more, the opposition do also. The most we can really say is that this is one more example where bidding on works, and it is probably right for us all to bid on a little more than we have been doing.
BTW : the one instance tracked down where North-South played in 5♠ (going off) was a case where North did not open and East-West found their diamond fit early and bit to 5♦.
BTW, the one instance tracked of East-West playing in 5♣-doubled, arose when after 2♠-X, South decided on a wait-and-see policy. This allowed West to bid 3♣ and hear support from East (4♣) so that when South now bid 4♠ , West could continue with 5♣. Wait-and-see is not to be recommended. |
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| The Wrong Contract |
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When dummy goes down, you see that you would have preferred to be in 6♣. Be that as it may, how do you play 3NT on the lead of the ♠Q?
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You have plenty of tricks if either minor breaks kindly but the odds favour a 4-2 diamond break and a 3-1 club break and you need to cater for this distribution. If spades break 4-4 you can simply give up a trick in the minors so assume that they are 5-3. You might assume from the lead that West has the spade length since he has led the suit but in reality, you don't need to assume anything. Duck the spade lead (and assuming the suit is continued) hold up your spade til the fourth round. Now you will know the spade distribution for certain and you should follow by testing the diamonds. When the long diamond turns out to be in the short spade hand, you merely set up your fifth diamond. If the long diamond is with the long spade, you can hope that the same hand has short clubs (or that they break) and you concede a club to the non-danger hand. |
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| Play This Slam |
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West starts with a trump against your slam. How should you be thinking?
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If trumps break 2-2 you have a sure thing. Draw the trumps in 2 rounds, eliminate hearts and then take a diamond finesse. Whatever West returns will present you with the extra trick you need. Unfortunately the trumps break 3-1 (and West has three) so the certainty of that line of play has evaporated, as you need to play 3 rounds of trumps to draw them and now West will potentially have a safe heart exit when he wins the diamond. You might still make the contract however. If West was dealt less than 4 hearts he will be end-played and if he can in fact exit with the long heart you ruff in dummy and then play Ace and another diamond ruffing. If the ♦J has not appeared, you then fall back on the club finesse. All in all, a pretty good slam. |
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| How's Your Card Play? |
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West leads the ♠7 and East plays the King. How do you set about making 9 tricks? |
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With 3 aces to knock out, there is a danger that East will be able to set up and cash 2 spade tricks eventually. There is not much you can do if East holds all 3 aces, but there is room for West to hold one of the Aces and if it is the Ace of the suit you attack first, there is a way to make the contract. Duck trick 1 and win the spade return. Now attack hearts and if West wins the Ace, he will not be able to continue spades and you will have time to set up 2 diamonds and a club. No-trump contracts are generally a race to set up tricks and ducking at trick 1 puts you a tempo ahead when the cards lie as shown. |
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| Where's the Queen? |
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West leads the ♥K. If you can locate the ♦Q the slam is yours. Where does the lady lie? |
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The answer is that you don't know where the ♦Q is and if you play the hand properly you don't care. Win the ♥A, draw trumps and play 3 rounds of spades discarding a heart from dummy. Now exit with a heart and sit back whilst the defence presents you with a ruff and discard else leads a diamond thus picking up the Queen. |
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| HotD-fri : Summer Teams : 15jul19 : B23 |
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Everybody played this hand from Monday in spades, but at three different levels (two tables in 2♠, four in 3♠ and four in 4♠). The number of tricks made also varied a lot with every instance of 8 to 11 tricks occurring. Why so varied?
The starting point was West's opening bid after South had passed. The 7=2=2=2 shape will always bid spades, but the question is how high, in second seat when both sides are vulnerable. The spade suit quality is very acceptable vulnerable, but the outside jack and queen are vey much defensive values are are unlikely to contribute in a spade contract. Our expectation for a weak two bid is six cards, and for a weak three bid is seven cards. Which bid is best here?
Of course there is no perfect answer guaranteed to always be right, but it is generally the case that a 7222 shape is much less useful than a 7321 hand and this argues for a downgrade. The fact of being in second seat moves the empahsis on an opening bid away from obstructive and to the constructive end of the spectrum. The fact of being vulnerable, means there is an expectation of not going too many down. This all argues that 2♠ is the right level at which to open this hand. Over that opening, East is only likely to bid if the opening is specifically a sound weak two, but in that case the hand is minimal and stopping in 3♠ should be the outcome. We can only postulate that the game bidders bid 3♠ - 4♠, which shows that East did have a expectation of something a little better from West.
The game is not unplayable; there are two sure losers and a possible further loser in each suit - and you need to keep that to one loser across the four suits. The key suit there is clubs, and the most common opening lead (six of ten) was the ♣6 which on this hand is difficult for declarer to read. When the first trick is lost to South it's not all over - at least until South returns a diamond and that sets up the fourth trick for the defence. The lead of the ♥A looks to be a neutral lead but both instances of a heart lead saw declarer make 10 tricks - because it is so natural for North to switch to a diamond at trick two. Can that be avoided? On that heart lead, since the heart suit is now dead to the defence, South's signal should be a suit preference in the expectation of a switch. Here that signal should have been the ♥2 and the key message that gives is to expect nothing useful in diamonds from South. After a club at trick two, the defence should manage their four tricks. No explanation is yet forthcoming for the instances of 8 or 11 tricks.
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams : 15jul19 : B25 |
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This hand from Monday produced a mix of games and small slams, plus one large penalty (which scored roughly average) and just one pair in the extremely desirable grand slam.
This was the start of the bidding at table six - what do you do as South? Caroline Hartley found the answer - she raised to 4N just as she would have done if there had been no intervention. Her partner was on the same wavelength, and with a maximum continued to 6N and claimed 13 tricks as soon as the opening lead was made and dummy appeared. It is very difficult to find a better bidding sequence after a 3♠ overcall, as were you to bid clubs you would get a raise from partner and still not know what to do.
It was a different story at table two however, where the overcall in second seat was 2♠. This allowed South to bid a forcing 3♣ for now, and when partner supported clubs and had cue bid, it was easy to roll out 4N as a key card ask and find out that the aces and club honours were present. There was also one other difference at table two - here the opening bid had been a 14-16 1N (rather than 12-14) which meant that South could count that East had at most 8 hcp. Since it was already possibly to count 12 tricks from the 11-hcp which partner's response to 4N had shown, there was bound to be multiple chances of a thirteenth, and that brought out a bid of 7♣ and that earned the top score on the hand.
Notice how much difference the jump overcall makes; with a virtual lock on 7 tricks, the East hand should pre-empt to the limit at its first opportunity - if partner has nothing the score is roughly a game away, but if partner turns up with just one or two tricks playing 3♠x will be more profitable that the opposing game.
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| hotd - weds |
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This hand from Monday was a make in 3N for most of the tables which played there, but not at all. It is commonly the case that the computer analysis suggests a declarer could make more tricks than happened in practice, but here it tells us that 3N should go down. What should have happened?
This auction was not replicated at all tables, but when it happened at table three East knew what to expect in dummy. Any suit could have been the right lead, but any suit could also be wrong - so East chose the only suit of length and led a spade. It looked normal to lead the second best from this holding, in order to give partner the right understanding of what was held, so out came the ♠6. This went to the queen-king-ace and declarer tried a heart to the king, which West beat with the ace. West returned the ♠2, covered by the ♠5 and (by necessity) the ♠T. At this point East regretted the choice of which spade to lead (will he lead ♠2 next time?), but recognised that another spade offered a serious chance of helping declarer, so he had to switch - but to which suit?
The answer came from declarer - as declarer had to discard from the dummy (South) on the second spade. When that discard was a club, playing clubs became the safe bet and after that switch the defence were always going to get one trick in every suit plus a second one in hearts. So 3N went down.
Table two saw South play the hand (there were four instances of each of NS declaring) on a less informative auction (1♦ -1♠ -1N - 3N). The club lead at trick one was ducked and a second club was played. Declarer is now getting very close to the contract, with three club tricks, three diamonds and two spades - even when both of those finesses fail. There is a difficulty with entries, which makes a heart to the king appealing after winning the ♣K; West can win with the ace, but needs to (a) attack spades (leading the king) to set up the fifth trick for the defence, or (b) lead a diamond and have partner duck. Both options are too difficult.
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| Control? |
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Partner's double promised 4 spades but he felt he needed to take action and that his spades were as good as some 4 card holdings. Anyway, West starts with 2 top hearts. How do you handle this 4-3 fit?
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You might consider discarding a club at trick 2 and another club at trick 3 when they continue with a third heart. This will be OK if trumps are 4-2 and diamonds not worse than 4-2 as you could then ruff any further heart lead in dummy and retain control of trumps. However, this is not the strongest line. If you look at the trumps pips, you have a completely high cross ruff once you ruff the second heart lead with your small trump. Best is to continue with 2 top diamonds and ruff a diamond in dummy. Now back to the ♣A for another diamond ruff. A further heart and diamond ruff gives you 8 tricks and you remain with 2 high trumps in your hand. This line succeeds whenever diamonds are no worse than 4-2 irrespective of how trumps break. |
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| Clear the Blockage |
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West leads the ♠5 against your game. The opening lead runs to the ten and your knave. How do you plan the play?
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Unfortunately the club suit is blocked even if it breaks 2-1. The danger is that if you duck a club to circumvent the blockage, the defence might be able to then take 4 spade tricks. It is likely that the spades are no worse than 5-3 and hence you can succeed by returning a spade at trick 2. If West cashes his spades, you will discard the ♣9 from hand. If West switches to some other suit without cashing the spades then you can win and exit with your last spade and this time if West doesn't take his tricks you will try to duck a club to East. |
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| Be Careful in Defence |
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You partner leads ♦ AK and a third diamond. You ruff and return a low club. Declarer rises with the Ace and plays out five rounds of trumps. If you are going to beat this contract, what will be the setting trick?
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If declarer has the ♥K then clearly you have no chance. You therefore need partner to hold ♥Kx of hearts and you in turn must keep a tight hold on your heart suit. When declarer cashes his last spade and leads the ♥J, partner will cover and declarer will only be able to take 3 heart tricks. It is a grave mistake when holding a poor hand to think that you have no useful part to play in the defence. |
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| HotD-fri : Summer Pairs : 08jul19 : B4 |
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The bidding on this hand from Monday took a very straightforward path for once. South led the ♦7 at trick one to North's ace, and back came a small heart won by the ace. The drop of the jack from South makes it look like trumps might be breaking 4-1. How should declarer proceed?
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First thing to do is count the obvious tricks, and you can see five hearts and two spades, so there is some serious work to do. Ruffs in the short hand are possible but there is no easy way back for a second ruff, so counting on only one ruff will limit you to six trump tricks. Two more tricks are needed and there are possibilities in all three side suits.
In spades it could be a successful finesse or even running the suit, but the defenders could so easily cut you off by covering the first spade, or by winning the queen and playing back a second.
In clubs, you could find the ♣AQ onside and that would give you enough tricks - but that's giving points to the hand with short hearts which did not bid. Definitely a possibility, but against the odds.
In diamonds, you need to draw the implications of the lead of the ♦7 and North's play of the ace. False-carding in North's position here is dangerous a partner will count declarer for a trick in diamonds if North wins the ace from ace-king and could misdefend as a result. So that false-carding rarely happens; the lead of the ♦7 is therefore going to be from ♦ KJ87(x)(x) or from ♦K87 or ♦KJ7. The odds must favour the first of these, and in that case and the third case you can set up a diamond trick by taking ruffing finesses through South.
The combination of one extra trick in diamonds and then guessing the clubs right looks a good bet, and declarer set about this plan. Trick three was the ♦9 casually led, and when South played low a club was thrown from dummy. This was one trick in the bag, and when a diamond was now ruffed in dummy the layout of the diamond suit was confirmed. Declarer drew trumps now, needing to come down to a singleton trump to draw all of North's hearts.
What's the best guess in clubs at this point?
Declarer didn't guess clubs - here's what happened on the hearts - South discarded two spades and a club. South surely hasn't discarded from four spades here or come down to a void, and so started with either five or three. Declarer went for the latter and played off the top spades and led a third one on which North played the queen. Now came the twist - instead of ruffing this and guessing the clubs, declarer discarded the remaining losing diamond. North had nothing but clubs left at this point, and had to give declarer a club trick now matter where the ace and queen were. Neat!
This was only one line adopted, as can be seen by the fact that the results on this board (everyone in hearts) were evenly divided between making 9 tricks and 10 tricks and 11 tricks. |
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| HotD-thu : Summer Pairs : 08jul19 : B2 |
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A number of tables on Monday faced this problem - what do you do opposite partner's 1N opener with a singleton but no suit to run to?
People's choices will often be based on past, most often, recent experience - but we all see so few of these how can we be sure? Some simulation studies have been done on these situations (admittedly against a strong 1N opener but the same principles apply) asking when is it right to take out partner's 1N bid.
What do you suppose comes out best on this hand?
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The great surprise on this hand is that the answer is to transfer into hearts!
On the 500 hands analysed, with a 1=4=4=4 shape opposite 1N and any hand short of invitational values, you are more likely to be better in 2♥ than you are in 1N.
When the hand turned up on Monday, you could not ask for a stronger validation - here 1N goes off even when the spades are favourably divided, but playing in hearts South can make 10 tricks. [In practice, some of the declarers in 1N, despite a spade lead, were allowed to make their contract, even with an overtrick, but 100% of the matchpoiints went to the one pair in 2♥]
You can read more about the outcomes of these simulations at Ted Muller's website here. |
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| HotD-wed : Gold Cup round-of-16 : 5jul19 : B22 |
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A local team played last week against the current holders of the Gold Cup, and came through by 17 imps to reach the last eight. On this hand, John Atthey sat South and Garry Watson sat North. At the other table the auction had started the same way but South simply raised to 3♣ and that finished the bidding. At this table there was rather more at stake.
Zia made the opening lead of the ♥J which was won by the ace. John continued with a top club from dummy and then the ♣A revealed the bad break in that suit. He now switched to spades and Zia rose on the first round with the king to lead another heart. John ducked this and when the third heart was now played, he now had three heart tricks, bringing his total up to seven. After cashing the fourth heart he was able to continue with spades; ducking did West no good, and when the spade queen won, he was put on lead with the third spade. After cashing the fourth spade Zia had to lead away from the ♦Q to give declarer a ninth trick. 3N made! Well done.
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| Count the Hand |
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West leads the ♦A on which East shows out. West continues with a small diamond and East ruffs. You overruff and cash the ♥A, East throwing a spade. How do you play? |
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By now you shaould have a complete count of the hand. West cannot have a spade for this play (he doesn't know his partner was dealt a trump), hence West must be 0-3-8-2 and East is 8-1-0-4. So all you need to do is draw trumps and play 2 rounds of clubs finishing in dummy. Now exit with the ♦Q throwing a spade from hand. West wins but must lead another diamond allowing you to win in dummy and throw your remaining spade. |
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| An Elementary Play |
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You play in a pushy 6NT from South and West leads the ♦8. How do you play?
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If hearts break and the club finesse is right you have 12 tricks, but if you can make 3 spade tricks then you won't need the club finesse. Win the lead and cash 2 top hearts. If the suit doesn't break then you will need a favourable position in both black suits. If both follow to 2 hearts then play a low spade (not the ten) towards dummy. If an honour appears on your left then you have the 3 spade tricks you need to fullfil your contract. If West plays low then finesse the 9. If this loses (as it probably will) then subsequently take 2 finesses in clubs. If West started with both spade honours then the 9 will hold and you can afford to lose a club trick. |
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| The Right Assumption |
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West starts with 2 top hearts. You ruff the second round and draw trumps in 2 rounds. Now what?
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The only danger on this hand is that you lose 2 clubs and a diamond, which might happen if East holds the ♣A. If you assume that this is the case then you can be sure that West will hold ♦K and the safe line is to play a low diamond towards the Queen. If West takes his king, you can later discard 2 clubs from dummy and only lose one club. If the diamond Queen loses to the King in East, then assuredly West will hold the Ace of clubs and so you won't lose 2 club tricks. |
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| HotD-fri : Summer Teams : 01jul19 : B14 |
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A question that often comes up is this one - when partner has opened 2N showing 20-22 hcp, should I raise with a 4-count?
What do we need to think about here?
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Two things factor into the answer - one is how many HCP is partner likely to have, and the second is how many points do we want (on average) to make 3N a decent cotnract?
Looking first at partner's opening, what we need to know is that the relative frequerncies of 20/21/22 hcp in partner's hand are roughly 52%, 31% and 17% respectively. So more than half the time, partner will be a minimum. (For a strong NT opening the relative frequencies are 15-count 43%, 16-count 33% and 17-count 24%; for a weak NT the relative frequencies are 11-count 30%, 12-count 27%, 13-count 23% and 14-count 19%).
Now to question two. The succes rate of 3N with say 24-hcp will vary depending on whether the HCP-split is (say) 12-12 which is best, through to 24-0 which is worst. Simulations suggest the best case gives a 41% chance of success but this drops to 29% when the HCP are split 20-4. With more HCP between the two hands we get a 47% chance of success with 21-4 hcp, and a 66% chance with 22-4. Putting all these numbers together gives a 42% chance of being able to make 3N on this hand. That makes respectable odds even non-vulnerable, and you need to factor in the fact that sometimes when 3N goes down, 2N goes down also.
The verdict is that it is worth raising to game on this hand.
Other studies have shown that a KJ 4-count is better value in 3N than a QJJ 4-count or a JJJJ 4-count. That fact together with the existence of the five card suit and the supporting club cards, making this an above average 4-count - another good reason for bidding game!
On the day, it looks like 8 out of 10 Wests raised to 3N, a contract which should make and did make in all cases but one. |
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams : 01jul19 : B28 |
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The best result for East-West on this deal came from a most unexpected contract of 2♥-doubled by West, which could have rolled in with two overtricks but declarer settled for making that contract. This was obtained after an auction of P - 1♣(clubs or weak NT) - 1N - P - 2♥ - X - end. North's double of 2♥ to attract a lead was not justified, and when East passed the double to deny three card spade support, West decided that hearts looked a good prospect.
More interesting is the play in the 4♠ contract reached by half the field (three others were spade part-scores, and two played in diamonds as NS).
The most common, and the most demanding lead was a top diamond. For some players it looked too easy - they ruffed and set about drawing trumps - cashing dummy's top two trumps and then ruffing a diamond to draw the last one. Next came a heart to the jack and a second heart, but when North won and played a second diamond, suddenly declarer was out of trumps. All that could now be made was the top two clubs and that meant only 9 tricks.
The secret here - and this comes up a lot - is to tackle the side suit before trumps. Clearly the side suit that matters here is hearts, and if you play on hearts you give the defence a dilemma - if they force you then would will embark on a total cross ruff, and if they don't you have time to set up your second suit.
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams : 1jul19 : B26 |
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Most pairs on Monday ended in the "wrong" contract on this hand from Monday, but a number got away with it. The bidding started as shown at most tables - but how should it then continue?
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There were two difference choices found at this point - some bid 3♥ and some bid 3N. The latter choice finished the bidding, but after 3♥ and South bidding 3N, North had another call to make. In practice all Norths passed (not reocmmended) and so it came about that 3N was as a result the contract at eight of the twelve tables. [The pair in 6♠ have declined to discuss the hand, and we dared not ask about the 3♥ contract]
The one table to reach 4♥ had the sequence 1♠ - 1N - 2N - 4♥. There is a lot to be said for the 2N response, as it better describes the value of the hand - the game forcing jump to 3♦ being a stretch when you cannot guarantee game. Well done that pair.
The play in 4♥ is straightforward, but in 3N the result is not a foregone conclusion; the success in practice depended almost entirely on the opening lead. Having heard spades and diamonds bid, one East led the ♥K and continued the suit after the king held (partner's signal was count - so he couldn't tell who had the jack). This was fatal. The majority of others (5 out of 7) led the ♣3 and for this declarer was very grateful; after winning the club queen, declarer could bash out the spades and with four spades, one heart, one diamond and three clubs (on the repeated finesse) make nine tricks.
Two tables defeated 3N, and those were the two table who led diamonds.
How should East have been thinking about the lead on this hand? What the bidding suggests is that North has hearts and clubs, while South has the other two suits. Given the honours East holds, the cards are not lying nicely for declarer, and when that is the case declarer will struggle for tricks and the primary concern for the openign leader should be to avoid giving away any unnecessary tricks. A passive lead is therefore your target and that means keeping away from clubs and hearts. The diamond has a slightly more constructive air than has a spade, as declarer surely has five spades and will be setting up that suit at some point. And that is the logic that led two defenders to the successful lead. Maybe next time it will be more than two!
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| Timing |
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West leads 3 top hearts. You ruff the third round. Play from here.
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You have plenty of tricks but you might be in trouble if the spades break badly. Suppose you start with the Ace of Spades first. Then if Spades are 4-1 with West holding ♠Kxxx, he will hold off his ♠K until the third round of the suit and then South will have to play on clubs and West will make a small trump. If South crosses to dummy with a diamond say and finesses the ♠Q, then West ducks. You might try the effect of continuing with the ♠T but West can win and exit with a club and you are left with no way to get to dummy to draw the last trump. The winning line after ruffing at trick 3 is to continue with the ♠Q. If this holds, follow with the ♠T. If West takes this trick you can ruff the next heart with the ♠A and enter dummy to draw the last trump. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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West leads the ♠3. How do you see the defence developing?
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You obviously need to look for the setting tricks in the black suits. It looks from the bidding and lead that West holds ♠Txx and that declarer has a secure guard in spades. Therefore you will need to make 3 club tricks to go with your 2 spades. The problem is how best to acheive this. It is unlikely that Wests clubs are good enough for you to win 3 tricks by force, so some deception is called for. Try the effect of winning the ♠K and continuing with King and another club. If the cards are as shown, South might well place you with ♣AK and rise with the ♣Q. If he does, then West will win and put you in with another spade to cash the setting trick with the ♣J. |
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| Get the Maximum |
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You lead the ♥Q, declarer winning with the Ace and following small from hand. At trick 2 South ruffs a heart and plays Ace and another club to dummy's King (on which East discards the ♠J). Declarer now plays a spade to his King (East playing the ten) which you win with the Ace. You play the ♠Q and South follows as East plays the ♠3. What now? |
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It looks like East started with ♠ JT983 and hence you can count South for 2 spades, 1 heart, 3 diamonds and 7 clubs. If you play a heart conceding a ruff and discard, South will pitch a diamond and you may lose a diamond trick if East started with the King. If you play off the ♦A you will be OK if partner has the King, but this play will cost you a trick when declarer started with ♦Kxx and you next lead another diamond. The winning play is to exit with a low diamond. If partner holds the King you will take your three diamond tricks, but more importantly, you will still come to 2 diamond tricks when declarer holds ♦Kxx. |
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| A Recurring Theme |
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West leads the ♦K. Do you see a sure way to 10 tricks?
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We have seen hands like this before. You must not allow East an early entry to play a heart through else you might be badly placed. The way to achieve this is to duck trick 1 and then discard a club on the ♦A. You will be able to draw trumps and eliminate the minors without losing a trick to East. Finally you play a heart from dummy and cover East's card to endplay West. |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Swiss Pairs : 24jun19 : B13 |
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This hand provided an instructive point as well as a trap, when it appeared on Tuesday. A lot of people settled far to readily to play in 3N, but after a sequence that starts like the above, the South hand should be thinking about a slam - and the question is how to express this and to proceed?
With the North hand as it occurred, slam is almost hopeless (needs ♦HT-doubleton or ♦KQ onside) but if you move either of North's side suit kings to be the ♦K then you actually have a play for a grand slam - which is surely an indicator that you want to be in a small slam. South cannot tell what North has, so they have to find a way to get North involved to make a sensible decision - can we find one?
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The answer here - as so often when you cannot decide - is to describe your hand further to partner and hope thay can decide. Here South simply rebids diamonds to tell partner of some slam interest and a 5-5 shape.
Over to North : on that bidding North's ♥AK ♣AK are clearly overkill against South's three cards in clubs and heart. Clearly there are wasted values and North signs off.
If you give North the ♦K in place of one of the kings above, then North can tell there are no losers in South's short suits, and holding ♠KJ♦K must be quite a respectable holding in support of South. At this point a cue ebid should be enough to let South take control, but North could almost drive to slam themselves, as partner inquired and ♠KJ2 ♥A62 ♦K83 ♣AK82 would be hard to improve on. |
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| HotD-thu : Summer Pairs : 23jun19 : B26 |
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This was another hand from Monday where making the contract looked easy - but you need to be on the lookout for overtricks if you want to win at matchpoints.
The opening lead was the ♥8 and when North wins and plays one back you feel confident that North didn't make this bid with A9542 and so finesse the jack. Even if it loses, the ♥K can take care of a club loser instead later, so it is no cost. After that gets ruffed South could return either minor, so let's say the ♣T comes back. Declarer wins and starts with a top trump but then finds the bad break. Doesn't look a great hurdle - cash ♦A and ruff one, finesse spades, and ruff the last diamond. In this end position there is still the ♠Q out, and dummy has the ♠KJ, but declarer has no trumps left and you are in the wrong hand to draw the missing trump. You have to play either clubs or hearts and you can no longer avoid a loser.
Wind back and see what happens if after winning tricks three you take one diamond ruff. Then you play a spade to the ace to get the back news, ruff the second diamond, and now take a spade finesse. At this point you have no trumps left in hand but you are in dummy and can cash the ♠ K to draw the last trump, bevore coming over you your winning club(s) and the ♥A. That makes 11 tricks - a feat nobody achieved.
That (good) practice of taking simple (and they must be safe) ruffs early is surprisingly often an important play to make, simplifying various aspects of the hand later. While the full analysis of the hand was more than we can ask for, following the technique of early ruffs will usually pay dividends and would have been enough here to earn a top.
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| HotD-wed : Summer Pairs : 24jun19 : B7 |
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This hand from Monday was bid to 4♠ at most tables. Four of the five tables in spades got the lead of ♥6, and in most cases that was covered by the queen, king and ace. After winning trick one, you can see you have ten top tricks. You could settle for the ten top tricks you have now, or you can try for more - what's your preference and where might extra tricks come from?
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The obvious chance for an extra trick is finding the dfiamond ace onside, so you must ensure you can get to lead a diamond towards hand at some point. The other opportunity - which got missed by most people - is the chance of an extra trick in clubs. Cashing the ace and king is the first part of that check, but you give yourself an extra chance if after doing that and drawing two trumps, you (safely) ruff the third club high in hand. This sets up the jack and now you can draw the last trump and finally cross to the ♥J to take the discard on ♣J.
There is a stronger defence available - East could avoid covering the heart queen; this is generally a better approach, although it does mean that East can no longer lead hearts. Ducking the heart does not however kill the overtrick; the only entry for the club jack is the second trump and you could try winning the heart queen, cashing two top clubs, ♠K, club ruff, ♠Q and then cash the ♣J while the hand with the long trump follows suit. Taking this line however risks not being able to lead up to the diamond king, and if the onside ace was a reaonable prospect that risk is probably not acceptable.
At Monday's event only 1 out of 5 declarers managed an overtrick. |
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| Tempt an Indiscretion |
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West leads the ♦J. What are your chances? |
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The duplication in clubs makes this a poor slam but you do have the chance that East holds ♠Ax, in which case the ♠K will provide a parking place for the losing diamond. The best line is to combine this legitimate chance with a pyschological play. Win the ♦A and 'finesse' the ♥Q to play a low spade to hand. When the Queen holds, cross to dummy with a club and try the effect of another low spade from dummy. You still win of course when East has ♠Ax but also when he panics and rises with the Ace from a longer suit holding, fearing that you started with ♠QJ. East is in effect playing his partner for a trump trick from say ♥KTx originally. |
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| Take All Your Chances |
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North leads the ♥7 which runs to your Knave. Plan the play. |
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Diamonds will provide you with the extra tricks you need but the obvious danger is that South will wijn a diamond and fire back a heart to North's winners. You can give yourself a slight extra chance by laying down the ♦A and occassionally dropping a singleton King in South. However, a better line is to cross to dummy with a club and finesse the ♠9. Say North exits with a diamond. You win the Ace and play off the ♠K before crossing back to dummy in clubs to take the ♠A. If both spade honours have fallen, you are home without risking the diamond King being guarded in the South hand. |
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| Listen to the Bidding |
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West leads the ♠T to East's Ace and a spade is returned. How do you plan the play? |
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If you play trumps, West will surely win and give his partner a spade ruff. Once East has shown up with the ♠A, you know he cannot hold the ♦K as he passed his partner's opening bid. Therefore you should win the second spade in hand and finesse the ♦Q. Now cash the ♦A and pitch your last spade before playing trumps. Thus you avoid the damaging spade ruff. |
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| A Testing Hand |
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West leads the ♦J. How do you play?
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If hearts are 3-3 you are home and if not you can hope to score 5 club tricks to bring your total to 12. The problem arises that if you cash the top hearts and they don't break, you will be defeated if the hand with the boss heart has a sure club entry. The best line is to play for clubs to be 3-2 (or 4-1 with a singleton queen) or hearts 3-3. Win the diamond and unblock the ♥A. Now duck a club completely. Win the diamond return an enter dummy with a club to test the hearts. If they are not 3-3 you can return to hand with a spade and hopefully run the clubs |
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| HotD-fri : Summer Pairs : 17jun19 : B16 |
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This 3N contract by North was reached by 8 out of the 10 tables on Monday and at all those tables a top club was led by West.
At table five, after the bidding shown (a strong 15-17 1N opener), declarer ducked the lead of the strong ♣K and when East played the 5 (in an unblock, overtake, or low from even position) declarer was known to have a protected club jack. East now pondered how the defence were going to beat the contract.
He came to the conclusion that if declarer had the ace of hearts, then with six tricks in clubs and hearts, and declarer holding at least 10 hcp in the other suits, there was no way of deferating 3N. The only chance had therefore to be that partner had the ace of hearts, and if that was the case then it becomes vital to cut off dummy's heart suit. East therefore continued with the ♣Q, giving away one trick to the jack but planning to save three tricks by cutting declarer off from the hearts. As you can see, partner didn't have the ace of hearts but nevertheless this cut declarer's heart tricks from five to one (an even bigger bonus) - and after that had happened declarer had no chance and even had to produce an end-play to escape for two down. Four of the eight tables in 3N suffered the same fate but four tables managed to make 3N.
The coup performned here - giving away one trick in removing an entry, to save many more - goes by the name of the Merrimac Coup, and is a favourite with textbooks but is not often seen in regular play. It even has its own wikipedia entry!
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams : 17jun19 : B25 |
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This hand from Monday was one of the most difficult to bid to the right contract - but here is how the the pair in the winning team bid the decent grand slam (there is a different slam - in a suit never bid - which I would rate as excellent).
East took two good views in the bidding - the first was to overcall in hearts when the hand is playable in three suits which might have been shown with a takeout double, and the second was the jump to 5♥ on a hand which was looking good but still represented a bulk-standard 2-level vulnerable overcall. East's first cue bid was a way of showing a good 4♥ bid (or better) and East's final jump was a clear choice - how could partner not have the ♥AK for a 5♥ jump? The play was straightforward.
Notice the use of a weak two bid in diamonds; this hand is eminently suitable for bidding a weak two with only five cards - first in hand, favourable vulnerability, strong ♦ intermediates, few cards in the majors, and little overall defence. A South with more experience - at a different table which also saw a 2♦ opener - found a 5♦ raise on the first round and this left the opposition no room to explore and they stopped in 5♥.
In practice, even a pass from North was not enough to allow the grand slam to be bid. At table five, the bidding was P - 1♥ H - P - 1♠ , P - 1N(weak) - P - 2♦(general GF), X - P(no ♦ stop) - 4♦ - 5♦, P - 6♦ - P - 6♥ - end.
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| HotD-wed : Garden Cities Final : 15jun19 : B44 |
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The Cheltenham Bridge Club team-of-8 champions made one of their occasional appearances on Satruday at the final of the EBU's national clubs championship. They were lying first by just 1 VP when this board appeared in the last match. The contract at all four tables in our match was 4♠-doubled by West; the auction shown happened at one table, but others were different. At two tables in our match, the heart lead was won by the ace and declarer promptly ruffed a heart and pushed out a diamond. Both Norths quickly decided that declarer would not have two singletons, and they ducked; this was fatal as declarer rose with the king and now only lost three tricks.
Ducking the diamond was poor logic. If you place declarer with six spades and one heart, then declarer has at least 6 cards in the minors, and it can never hurt to go up with the diamond ace, as declarer can never throw away enough clubs on the diamonds to worry you. Ducking in the hope of a mis-guess and declarer going an extra trick down is never worthwhile when a doubled game is at risk.
Across the four tables at which we played, there were two instances of 4♠-doubled making and two instances of 4♠-doubled one down - so in the end it was a flat board for our team.
The board however was vitally important to us because of what happened to our main rivals - the Tunbridge Wells team. In their match nobody played in 4♠ - every table played in hearts. There were three tables pushed up to 5♥ going down, and importantly the team from Avenue Bridge Club in Brighton was allowed to play in 4♥ making; the Tunbridge Wells team lost 24 imps on the board because of this and with that they lost their chance to get ahead of Cheltenham.
The Cheltenham team comprised : Allan Sanis & Paul Denning, Ben Ritacca & Tony Letts, Judy Sanis & Val Constable, Patrick Shields & Richard Chamberlain.
This is the first national trophy won by the Cheltenham Bridge club since 1999.
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| Counter Intuitive? |
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After a 2 over 1 auction in which 2♥ created a game force, you play in 6♥ on the lead of the ♣K. How do you tackle this contract?
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The odds in the trump suit played in isolation favour a finesse for the Queen, but you should consider the hand as a whole. If you take a losing finesse, you will be down immediately, but if you play off the top hearts you may have a chance to discard all of your club losers before an opponent can ruff in. Suppose you lay down the top hearts and both opponents follow but no Queen appears - now what? It looks tempting to first cash the diamonds and then follow with the spades and hope that the hand with the last trump has 3 or more spades, in which case your club losers all get thrown. However, this line of play is no good. You always need the hand with the last trump to hold 3+ spades, so you may as well play spades first. This scores on the layout shown when you are able to play 5 rounds of spades discarding all your club losers. Of course, if spades had broken 3-3, you would have had to try for a diamond discard before leading a fourth round of spades. |
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| An Informative Discard |
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You lead the ♣J to Queen, King and 3. South follows to the next lead of ♣A and ruffs the next club lead with the ♠J. What do you discard on this trick?
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On the bidding South probably holds 7 spades and 3 diamonds since East did not bid the suit. Unless East has a trump trick, the defense will have to win 2 diamond tricks, but there is a danger here. If declarer crosses to dummy with the ♥A and leads a diamond, East may win the Ace and go wrong by trying to give you a trump promotion. You can prevent this by under-ruffing at trick 3. Now when East wins his ♦A, he can return a trump and you will later come to a second diamond trick. |
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| A Sure Thing |
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This one is an old problem that some of you may have seen before. You play in 7NT on the lead of the ♣T. This contract is certain against any distribution. How should you play?
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If ever the ♦J drops, or if either defender shows out of spades or discards one, the game is over. So noting, we play off all of dummy's kings. If nothing good has happened yet, then cash the ♦Q and Ace. If nothing good has happened yet, then run the clubs, discarding dummy's hearts. If nothing good has happened yet, then play off the ♥A at trick ten and throw away dummy's diamond, whereupon something good must happen. If anyone discards on this lead, then a complete count is available and you can play the spades appropriately. If instead both opponents follow to the heart lead, then whoever still is clutching the ♦J cannot also hold the three remaining spades. |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Pairs League : 12jun19 : B18 |
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The latest run of the popular Pairs League completed this week; the winners of Division One were Patrick Shields & Garry Watson, with Val Constable & Judy Sanis winning Division Two and Kate & Philip Morgan winning Division Three. [The lower Divisions complete next week]. The Division One winners were 40 VPs clear but sufferered their worst result of the series on this hand from Wednesday.
The bidding shown was difficult to avoid after East opened the bidding; not everyone would open as East but the style of getting in there first, and opening on any decent lead in first position at favourable vulnerability, is all the range these days. Given partner was known to have something, it was difficult for West for avoid doubling the final contract. And so it came that Joe Angseesing had to declare in 4♥-doubled.
The opening lead was the ♦Q won by declarer, who was much cheered by the perfect fit which the North and South hands displayed. The play continued with the club ace and a ruff, a diamond to the king and another club ruff, and finally the ♠A and a fourth club ruff - importantly not over-ruffed. By this time declarer had 7 tricks and still held the ♥T9 opposite dummy's ♥AK6. Joe exited in diamonds and East's ♦9 was beaten by West's ♦T. West could exit with the ♥Q but when declarer exited with a losing spade, West could discard the ♣K but he had to ruff the next spade and then lead a heart into dummy's honours - letting the contract make.
Could the defence have done better? Yes - it was all about who won the third round of diamonds. If East had risen with the ♦Q he would have been on lead at the important moment and been able to cash a spade and avoid partner's end-play. Alternatively West could have got rid of the ♦T on the second round and ensured that partner got it right. Both felt guilty.
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| HotD-thu : Summer Pairs : 10jun19 : B26 |
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Another hand from Monday on which everyone played the same contract (3N) and all but one made the same lead (♥5) - and the outcome was 10 tricks except for one table which made 9 tricks; nobody made the 11 tricks I felt I should have made.
The opening lead whether a heart or a diamond is quite neutral to delcarer, and there should be no doubt that a spade to the ten is the better way to play that suit as you can thereby collect four tricks when South has the queen, while leading the king first loses out to South having four to the queen (gaining when South has five small) and leading to the ace and returning the jack only works if North has exactly Qxx and fails with Qx or Qxxx.
After the spade ten holds, declarer comes back in diamonds, hoping to duck a trick to South but when the ten appears you win and it seems natural to play back a low diamond (importantly the 9) to find out how they break. This leave North the option of safely playing back partner's suit or a diamond; if either of those happens declarer can cash all their major suit winners, using the ♦8 entry if necessary to end up in dummy and ready to lead a club towards the ♣KT - and when you do this you make a club tricks and find 11 tricks have landed in your lap.
It seems this happened at none of the seven tables; at my table North inconveniently switched to a club on winning the second round of diamonds, and rising with the club king would have risked the contract - so in went the ten and South made a club trick - and now declarer's total could not exceed ten tricks. :(
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| HotD-wed : Summer Pairs : 10jun19 : B7 |
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It is hard to imagine a different contract on this hand and on Monday all tables did play in 3N; it is hard to imagine a different lead from East and on Monday all but one West led a fourth best club. But across the field people made either 8 or 9 or 10 or 11 tricks. How did that happen?
The 11-tricks first - this was the consequence of the lead of ♥7, which gave declarer the tempo to play on both diamonds and spades to set up tricks, before the defence could get clubs going. Given West is looking at 10-hcp, the likelihood of setting up partner's suit and getting there to cash is remote - so a heart lead doesn't look right. It got its just deserts.
One a club lead declarer might duck the first round but will soon be in, and has a choice of whether to go after diamonds or spades to develop tricks. Two aspects of creating tricks must play in; one is guaranteeing enough tricks to make the contract (which means making two tricks in spades or making three tricks in diamonds) and the other is making - since this is matchpoints - as many tricks as possible.
The spade suit can guarantee two tricks but losing two tricks might be fatal if the defence get clubs going. The best line there to get two quick tricks is small to the king and queen, but the best overall line in the suit (maximising the chance of three tricks) is to run the ten.
The diamond suit can guarantee two tricks, but making three tricks is only a 37% shot. The diamonds are therefore more likely than spades to let the defence in twice - and so allow them to set up clubs.
This settles that the spade suit the best one to tackle, but we are then faced with the question of going for two tricks (up to KQ, a 60% chance of two tricks and a third of that will deliver three tricks) or for three tricks (run the T, a 50% chance of success). The calculation of what is optimal requires using Game Theory to model what other tables will do. The two options deliver very different results - running the spade ten will cost the contract as East can win and clear the clubs (in practice it looks like one declarer did this). Leading up to the top spades will (when the spades break 3-3) ten tricks, and a number must have found this to get their 10 tricks.
Leading diamonds does get you three tricks on this occasion, but when you give up a trick to the ♦ KQ you give the defence a chance to set up clubs, and now you get no spade tricks - and this gives a 9 trick outcome.
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| Count Your Tricks |
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West starts with 3 top spades, East following suit. How do you get to 10 tricks? |
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You have 10 winners in the form of 4 hearts, 4 diamonds and 2 clubs. There is a danger that one defender might hold ♥Jxxx and a doubleton diamond, in which case you will not be able to cash three trumps and enjoy the diamonds for that defender will ruff the third round and you will be cut off from the suit. The solution is to concede an immediate trick to the ♥J whilst there is still a trump in dummy to cater for a further spade lead. You can do this by leading the ♥T from hand but an improvement is to cross to dummy with a diamond and finesse the ♥T. Then if East has ♥Jxxx you avoid a heart loser. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♦T. Plan the play.
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On this hand, you ideally want to set up the clubs before being forced to take the heart finesse. To this end, cover the opening lead with the ♦J and discard a club from hand. You can later discard another club on the ♦A. There are enough entries to dummy to set up the clubs by ruffing and get back to cash them without having to resort to the heart finesse. |
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| Manage Your Entries |
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West leads the ♣T to his partners Ace and a club is returned. What is your plan to get to 12 tricks?
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Counting your tricks you see that you need 4 tricks from spades and hence not only must the finesse be right, but also you may need 3 entries to dummy to pick up a long spade holding with East. You can generate the entries you need in the heart suit. There will be no problem if hearts are 3-2 but you should take care to capitalise on some of the 4-1 breaks. Win the ♥K and then play the ♥J to dummy's Queen assuming West follows. Later you will have 2 further heart entries via a marked finesse. These 3 entries are obviously used to repeatedly finesse in the spade suit, giving you 4 tricks there and 12 in total. |
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| HotD-sat : Avon League : 06jun19 : B2 |
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There were a couple of interesting points in this hand from this week's league match. The first is the opening bid - the rationale for opening 1♣ being that this will never be passed out and so a chance to show a big hand will come on the next round. The other table opened a strong 1♣ and after the bidding continued 2♠ - P - P ; what do you bid now? The option found, was 3♠ a a Michaels bid, showing 5-5 in hearts and a minor. As a result both tables played in 4♥.
The lead was the ♦J for which declarer said "thanks" and proceeded to cover with the queen-king-ace. It was best now to cash a top club and ruff one, and lead a heart from dummy. Now came the question - with six spades on th eleft and one on the right, do I finesse in hearts or play them from the top?
The answer - a little counter-intuituively - is that it is better to play for the drop. Yes, the queen is more likely to be with East, but you need to note that the finesse gains only when East has Qxx (12% chance), but loses out when West holds singleton Q (4%) or Qx (14%).
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| What's the Best Line? |
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You play in 6♥ on the lead of ♠3. What's the best line?
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This hand hinges around the play of the trump suit. You have a standard safety play available to guarantee no more than one loser if the suit happens to break 4-1. You can achieve this by playing off the ♥K and later playing a heart towards the Jack. If either hand holds ♥QTxx they can be restricted to one trick in the suit. However, we don't know initially whether we can afford the safety play. We would look very silly losing an unnecessary heart trick if we also have a club loser. The best line is therefore to win the first spade in hand and finesse the club. If it holds we then make the safety play in hearts. If the finesse loses we need to play hearts for no loser and the best way to do that is to sart with a finesse of the Jack as this picks up any 3-2 break with West holding the Queen and also a singleton ♥Q with West. Playing the Ace first to drop a singleton Queen with East does not help as you will still have to lose a heart trick to West's ten. |
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams : 3jun19 : B31 |
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This was the only good slam on offer on Monday, and you had to be sitting East-West to get a chance at bidding it! The "normal" start to the bidding might be as shown. Notice first how the East hand bids hearts before diamonds; this is very much the common style these days, making the finding of a 4-4 major fit quicker (and if you were passing a 1N rebid it might be the only way to find it). Notice also that the West hand does not merit a game forcing 2♠ bid on the second round, as you cannot justify game on a misfit. And finally, notice how East prefers to mark time with Fourth Suit Forcing rather than jump to 3N, as opener could still be a 4045 shape at this point. Over partner's game forcing 2♦ however, West must show some signs of life, and the most descriptive way of doing this is 3♥. How should East continue at this point? The hearts are clearly not ideal for playing in that suit, and there are two diamond stops, so it looks like 3N is the best choice. East has already promised 12+ hcp, so there isn't much extra and the diamond honours opposite a shortage does dampen any slam ambitions. This puts the boat back in West's court; should West continue? The answer is yes but that wasn't clear to everyone at the table; the 3♥ bid was a positive move but you might have bid that on a hand that was a king or ace less, which means you really owe partner another bid, and if you are willing to trust partner's ability to make 4N (as you should have a minimum of 30 hcp) then a raise to 4N looks in sorder. Over this East's best move is to jump to 6♣ and that might well be the final contract. We might prefer to end in 6N on these cards, but 6♣ would be an excellent slam even if the diamond king was replaced by a small diamond - and the reason it is such a good slam is that the card missing are all jacks and queens. How should the play go? The key is not to lose two club tricks and the best play is to lead towards the K87 and insert the 7; because the jack appears today, you win the king and run the ♣8 on the way back to collect 13 tricks. BTW - you would normally be happy to need four tricks from this club suit - did you know the odds on making 4 tricks is over 94% if you take the suggested line? |
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams 2 : 3jun19 : B16 |
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The value of getting into the bidding first can be seen on this hand from Monday; with a free run you'd expect North-South to find their spade fit and have room to judge the level, but what is the answer here? [You might think that the problem would be solved were South to simply overcall in spades and get raised, but when you have to overcall at the two level, you don't want to do it on a suit like this - think what would happen were partner say a 1525 shape. The higher the opening the more shape you need to bid and the more willing you are to double] The options facing North were a minimum bid in spades (the hand must be too good for that), or to make an invitational bid in spades (3♠ it would be, but if partner lacks four spades it's not where you want to stop) , or to make a game forcing bid showing four spades (a clear overbid). The latter was chosen and so South ended in 4♠ (as did the majority of the other nine tables). Every table played this hand in spades and every table got a diamond lead. It was surprising so many made 10 tricks. The best defence is for East to win two diamonds and to play a third. One declarer erred at this point by ruffing with the spade ten (better than ruffing with the queen) - and although West played the ♠K on that, there was still a losing club in the end. It would have been better to discard a club on the third diamond, which West will ruff. On a neutral return, declarer now has to decide whether to play West (who started with only two diamonds) to have been dealt ♠K9 (small to ace now wins) or ♠K98 (lead the queen to pin the jack). It might look a close call but it's not really - you have to factor in also that West might have started with ♠J98 (where small to ace is wanted). Since - subject to West's expected high card values - the last two options are so close, small to the ace which also caters for the first option is the winner. It was good to see that eight of the ten declarers managed to make their ten tricks on this hand. |
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| Simple Stuff |
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West leads a low heart to East's Ace and a low heart is returned. Plan the play.
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You have 5 losers - 1 spade, 1 heart, 2 diamonds and a club, so how do you reduce these to 4. Once you have knocked out the 2 black aces, the fourth round of clubs will provide a parking place for one of your diamonds. However, it is just wishful thinking to assume that the defence will not switch to diamonds when you take out their first Ace, so that line will probably not work. The simple solution is to capitalise on the defensive mistake that E/W have already made! Discard a diamond on the heart from East at trick 2, and then another diamond on the established ♥J. |
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| The Bidding Points the Way |
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East opens a strong NT and West initiates rescue machinery when you double. West leads the ♦8. How do you play?
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The bidding marks East with the significant high cards and you can use this to your advantage. Cover the diamond lead. Suppose East wins and returns a heart. You win and play the ♠J to dummy's Queen. If East ducks and trumps are 2-1, you just cash the hearts and exit with a trump to endplay East so say East wins and plays another heart. Now you can play the ♠8 to the 9 on table and ruff a diamond. Now play your other top heart and enter dummy with a trump to lead the ♦Q. When East covers, you can discard a club and East is endplayed - forced to give you a ruff and discard or play a club round to the Queen on table. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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You start with 2 top hearts, partner following to show an odd number. How do you continue?
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On the play so far partner is marked with ♥Txx and it looks tempting to switch to a diamond at this point. However, this play is unnecessary and not without risk. If there is a diamond trick coming that it won't run away and you are in danger of being squeezed in hearts and clubs when declarer runs his trumps. You can avoid the squeeze by continuing with the ♥Q at trick 3. Declarer will ruff and play a trump but you can win the Ace and lead another heart for partner to ruff and declarer to overruff. Now when trumps are played, you just have to keep clubs and let partner keep diamonds. In due course you will make a trick in one of the minors. |
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| Find the Lady |
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West leads out ♣KQJ, east following. When you play hearts, West wins the second round, cashes a club on which East throws a heart, and exits with a heart, East following. You win in hand and finesse the ♠Q, which holds. When you play the ♠A, both opponents follow small. Who holds the ♦Q?
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West is known to hold a 3334 or 4324 shape - i.e. balanced. He has so far shown up with ♠K, ♥A, ♣KQJ so 13 points. The key to the hand is knowing West's range for opening 1NT. If West is playing a weak NT then the fact that he opened 1♣ with a balanced hand would indicate that he must be out of range for a weak NT and must hence hold ♦Q, bringing his points tally to 15. If instead he is playing a strong NT, then he can't hold the ♦Q as that would put him in his normal 1NT opening range and he would not have bid 1♣. You finesse accordingly. |
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| HotD-fri : Welsh Cup : 28may19 : B32 |
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The county has had a presence in the Welsh Cup for many years now, but the format changed recently and that fact that Paul Denning & Patrick Shields lost an early match was no longer a killer - the competition has become a double elimination, and this was the last board from the repercharge, from which they qualified for the finals in August. The bidding here was little surprise, but the play thew up something we had never seen before.
Expecting North to be strong in clubs, East chose to attack dummy's suit and the first trick was the ♠T which ran round to the jack. Declarer crossed to the ♣A and ran the ♦T which held, and followed with a diamond to the queen. This cut off the diamond suit, so North went back to spades, leading to the ♠Q and, disappointingly, the ♠K. West continued with a spade to the ace, and for want of anything better they were given the fourth round of spades. Again conscious of North's club strength, West kept away from that suit and attacked hearts, leading the ♥8 to the ♥J and ♥K. Declarer has eight tricks at this point - two spades, one heart, three diamonds and two clubs - so the contract is getting very close.
The ending we have reached has North holding ♦AJ♣KJ8 with the lead in dummy; both defenders are in danger of being endplayed as West holds ♥QT♣Q95 while East holds ♥A75♦K9. Declarer has to play a heart from dummy to the ten and discard a club. Things are looking good for an endplay, but consider what happens when West continues with the next heart. North needs to discard down to a singleton in one minor; the winning defence is now for East to duck if North comes down to a singleton club, but to overtake if North comes down to a singleton diamond. That way a defender can always put declarer on lead to gain their partner a trick. The hand actually finished with an entry-shifting squeeze by the defence on declarer - something none of us have ever seen before!
[The defence would have had an easier time if West had led a top heart the first time he led hearts - unblocking the suit, but then we'd still be waiting for an entry shifting squeeze by the defence]
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| HotD-thu : BH Pairs : 27may19 : B15 |
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It was curious on this hand from Monday to see the majority choose to play in an 8-card fit in hearts rather than a 10-card fit in spades, and to see the majority play in a part-score when a small slam looks to be excellent odds. How did it happen? It came down to a combinaiton of decisions from South first and then North. The first decision by South was whether or not to open a weak-two bid on a near-ideal heart suit but with Axx on the side as support for spades. At this vulnerability the opening is primarily constructive, so the strength seems not inappropriate, and the danger of playing in the wrong suit is real but acceptable. The next choice was then for North to make - to pass 2♥ or to offer spades. The danger of bidding is that you end up too high on a misfit, but at the same time you are expecting the opposition to have half the HCP in the pack and you have a singleton club - making it unlikely that 2♥ will finish the auction. There is therefore a good case for bidding 2♠ - and on average you will have mnore spades between the two hands than you have hearts. Over 2♠ South has an ideal hand for a 4♦ splinter and that is all North needs to hear to bid the slam. But nobody did! Notice how difficult it is to have that auction if South were to open a multi-2♦ on the hand, showing an unspecified major. It is much more difficult after that start to find a spade fit - but not impossible (you need to be playing that 2♠ then 3♠ is non-forcing with spades). This might well put you off a multi-2♦ opening when you are playable in both majors. |
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| HotD-wed : GCBA Squad : 23may19 : B8 |
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This hand from last week's game proved difficult for many. Notice first how advantageous it is for South to be declarer on this hand - any lead but a club gives declarer a definite advantage, and even a club lead does set up some winners. This bonus from transfers applies particularly when the hands are of unequal strength, so particularly over a 2N opener. If you choose to break the transfer with the South hand, you should be sure to play re-transfers (4♦ here) so that North can put the declarership back with South.
Here the lead was a not-terribly helpful club (♣5), and RHO won the ace and played back a diamond. What should you try now?
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You have lost one trick and there is the possibility of losers in diamonds and hearts, and you can afford two but not three.
The first thing to register is that the odds on the ♦KJ lying well for you are not good - as with nothing in diamonds West might equally well have led a diamond as a club at trick one. So you will want to dicard some diamonds on clubs. Some declarers tried the ♦Q but this lost to the king. A second club went to the king, and declarer led the ♥A and another but East had two heart tricks and that was one down.
Although there might be some implications from the card led, a priori the odds on the clubs being 4-3 is seriously greater than 50% - which means there is an excellent chance of being able to make two discards on the ♣JT. Declarer's better line is therefore to rise with the diamond ace, cash ♥A, unblock the club, and take a spade ruff to get to dummy. Provided the third club stands up and takes care of one diamond, the fourth club can take care of the second and we don't mind who ruffs. There will only be two trumps to lose on this line and the contract makes. |
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| Avoid Trouble |
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West leads the ♣K. How do you play?
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The obvious danger on this hand is that East will gain the lead in hearts and push a diamond through, spelling defeat when the ♦A is over you King. If hearts are 3-2, you can make this contract by ducking the club in dummy at trick one and discarding a heart. A second heart goes on the ♣A and you use the trump entries to set up and enjoy the heart suit. |
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| Play Carefully |
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West starts with ♣KQ and continues a third round which you ruff. What now?
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You are in danger only if trumps break badly. You might cross to dummy with a spade and finesse trumps, but West might duck holding four and on the second round, if you duck, West can win and switch to a singleton diamond, meaning you can't draw all the trumps without suffereing a ruff. Alternatively, if you rise with the ♥A on the second round, West can force dummy with a club when you play the next round of trumps. The correct play is simply to duck a heart at trick 4. If West wins the second heart, you still have the ♠A in dummy as an entry if he tries the diamond switch. |
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| Your Lead |
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What do lead on this hand?
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Leading partner's suit could not be criticised (except perhaps for lack of imagination). However, since you have a nasty surprise for declarer in the trump suit, and since on the bidding, the ♣A is most likely in dummy. a good case can be made for attcaking an option with lead of ♣7. If the declarer can afford a club loser on a normal trump break, he may well refuse the finesse and regret it later. If the full hand is as shown, declarer will refuse the finesse for fear of losing a couple of ruffs. He will probably put up the ♣A and play trumps. |
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| This Hand's a Snip |
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After making a pre-emptive raise to 3♥ , West's lead of ♥Q is overtaken by the King and the ♦3 is returned. How do you plan the play? |
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The diamond switch looks very much like a singleton and if East holds ♠Kxx, there is a danger that the defence will score 2 trump tricks and 2 hearts. You can possibly thwart this attack by cutting the communications between the defenders hands. Win the diamond switch on the table and take a club finesse. Now cash the ♣A and cross to table with the ♠A and lead the ♣Q, discarding your remaining heart when East covers. West is unable to gain the lead in hearts to give his partner a ruff and you can knock out the ♠K losing a spade, a heart and a club. |
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| HotD-fri : Summer Teams 1 : 20may19 : B3 |
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This little hand from Monday was played in 1N by the majority of tables, but the tables which obtained the best scores were those who played in 2♥ (as North-South) or 2♠ (as East-West), both of which contracts made exactly. These contracts are only reachable if North (playing a strong NT) opens with a minor suit.
But the real interest arises playing in 1N; after the lead of the ♠2 to the ace and the return of the ♠3, you should expect that the spades are breaking 4-4, and that means you have six top losers. You need to find the heart jack to deliver yourself three tricks there and a total of 7 tricks. There is no certainy in whatever line you choose, but what is your best play in the heart suit?
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The answer depends on who has most hearts. If you know who has most then your best play is to lead through the short hand first, winning with the king or queen, and then finessing on the way back (whether or not the ace has appeared). But who has the short hearts? There is no certainty, but if you are willing to make one simple assumption then there is an answer. The assumption is that the hand (East) which led a fourth best spade did not have a five card suit. If you are willing to go with that, then you know that West has at least two diamonds and at least three clubs (to go with the four spades). For East you only "know" there will be at least one heart, one diamond and one club.
When we now look at the hearts, West has 4 vacant spades while East has 6 vacant spaces. We therefore expect West to have the short hearts. So the right play is to cross to the top club in dummy and lead up to the heart king, later finessing East for the jack. Curiosuly enough this is also the winning line here today. But all four declarers who got a spade lead got that wrong and went off. [The diamond lead at the fifth table did not worry declarer]. |
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams 1 : 20may19 : B12 |
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The strong NT opening here makes for a simple auction, and LHO leads the ♥6 which goes to the queen and king, after which West shifts to the ♦6. It is good news that the hearts are blocked (LHO having A9763 is what it looks like). With three tricks in spades and none in hearts you need six in the minors. What's your best bet?
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There are two choices - you can go for five tricks in diamonds and one in clubs, or go for four/five tricks in clubs and two/three in diamonds. The big isssue you had was entries to dummy - to get the diamonds going you would (normally) have to cross to dummy once to run the jack, and then after unblocking the ace-king, go back to cash the long diamonds. But you lack the entries to do this - until they lead a diamond for you ....
You are therefore very tempted to let this lead run, and that is what a number of declarers did do. But East won the queen and cashed the remaining hearts for 3NT down two.
Should declarer have ducked? This is a play which would gain if West had started with exactly Qxx diamonds - it is neutral with Qx and not enough if Qxxx and loses when West has the queen. The alternative play is to win the diamond ace and play a club to the jack. This makes the contract every time West holds the king of clubs - either doubleton, tripleton, of four-carded. In itself this surely at least as good odds; cashing the top diamonds might be combined with the clubs - but when West wins the club and plays back a spade (assuming the defenders still held the ♦Q) there will be entry problems in cashing the clubs and spades (which disappear when the ♣98 drop). Still it makes on doubleton ♦Qx, or ♣K with West and clubs 3-3 (or the 98 drops). Which means the simple line in clubs comes out best.
From another perspective, West's choice after winning the first two hearts will be geared to find East's entry - and the fact that the choice was a diamond (with that length in dummy) rather than a club, must strongly suggest the diamond is offside - and even hint that the club is onside (ie with West). But of course, next time, West might try a double bluff on you here! |
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams 1 : 20may19 : B1 |
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This was thw wildest hand of the night on Monday, with a big swing result in every match. This was the auction from table one and there are a few points worth discussing.
The first is the opening bid, which was in second seat at both non-vul, and as such is where you would expect the bias in the bid to be constructive slightly more than obstructive - but the fact that three declarers ended in diamonds means is was not an uncommon choice. The suit quality and the playability in two other suits, and the fact that partner cannot bounce the bidding before their "strong" hand gets to bid - these all argue that a pass is more sensible.
The next quesiton is what West should do; the hand is very suitable for playing in diamonds and that makes the leap to ace asking attractive, so although it is not everyone's cup of tea (some prefer to show the heart suit first), it is reasonable here. After West finds there is a key card missing and settles for a small slam - it is over to North and here, as whenever the opportunity arises, one should not hesitate from producing a Lightner double (a double of a slam, asking for an unusual lead). The main catch is that this gives West a chance to reconsider. This West might have deduced that the double was a heart void wanting a ruff, and the possibility of removing to 6♥ (any heart honours are onside) should have been considered - but West let it go.
The result was not a foregone conclusion - it all depends on what lead South selects. Reading partner for a void would lead some to fish out a spade at trick one (which lets declarer wrap up 13 tricks) but Allan Sanis made a Good Move by starting with the ♣A. He could see dummy now and - importantly - he got a signal from partner with a low club, and that was enough to signal the heart ruff. That put the contract one down.
Two pairs bid the heart slam - well done to them, and three pairs stopped in a heart game. The auction at table seven was P - P - P - 1♥, 1♠ - 4♥ - 4♠ - 5♣, P - 5♦ - P - 5♥ - end. This auction had started well but faltered.
The auction at table nine was this : P - 2♦ - P - 4♥ , X-end. North had intended the double to show the other two suits and if South had been on the same wavelength then they might have been the only pair playing in spades, sacrificing over whatever the East-West pair bid. When the doubvle was passed out and a top spade was led, that was three overtricks and an unusual -890 score.
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| Who Has What? |
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West leads the ♥A, East contributing the Knave. At trick 2 West plays a low heart to East's 9 and now a diamond comes through. Which card do you play and why?
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A wrong guess spells defeat. What clues do you have? The play to the first 2 tricks shows up the heart position. If East held the ♥Q he would have played it in preference to the knave at trick 1 and also West would not have underled his King. If East held the ♥K he would have won trick 2 with the King as to play the 9 risks letting you have a cheap trick with the Queen. Hence West holds ♥ AKQx (x) and East ♥ JT9 (x). Since you will be defeated if the club finesse fails, you must place the ♣K with West. Hence you should play East for ♦A to justify his bid. |
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| Can you Handle this Freak? |
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You play in 6♠ on a heart lead. How do you play to get a 100% chance of success?
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The sure line is to discard a club from North and ruff high in hand. Now play a diamond. If the defence return a trump, the 8 in dummy is the required extra entry to set up the diamonds if they are 5-0. On any other return you make on a high cross-ruff.
[As Patrick Phair pointed out : the scenerio is a little unrealistic as the opposition can always make 7♥; more realistic is how to escape for the minimum damage in your 7♠x when they mistakenly lead a heart at trick one] |
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| What's the Best Line? |
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West leads the ♥Q against your slam. How do you play? When you play a trump, West produces the Knave. |
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If you start by playing a spade to the Ace, then when the ♠J appears, you don't know whether to finesse or play for the ♠Q to drop. You can clear up the spade suit by playing the ♠K first, then a spade to the Ace. Now if trumps are 4-1, you cash the heart for a diamond discard before playing a spade towards your ten. Later you will need the clubs to break 3-3 so not a great slam but we have all been in worse and you need to make these contracts by avoiding guesses whenever you can. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads 2 top diamonds against your heart game. How do you plan the play?
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| Show Answer |
You are in danger of losing a diamond a heart and 2 spades. Of course there may be a favourable position in either major that allows you to avoid all of these losers, but the best odds must be to take 2 spade finesses since on the bidding West surely has at least one spade honour. You need 2 entries to hand for those spade finesses and you can generate those entries in trumps. Ruff the second diamond lead with the ♥A and lead a low heart to your 7. If it wins take a spade finesse and later use your second trump entry for a further finesse. If the ♥Q is taken, you have 2 slow heart entries. |
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| HotD-fri : Summer Pairs 1 : 13may19 : B18 |
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It took only a slightly optimistic view by the North-South pair to over-stretch on this hand from Monday. Facing a heart lead, what is the best way forward?
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If we look at the individual suits - we have in spades a finesse and one possible loser, in hearts the same, in diamonds a finesse and two possible losers, and in clubs we have to find one of the king and jack, and that looks like a double finesse is best. It is possible that the fourth club might obviate the need for the spade finesse - which might help sometimes. If everything lay perfectly for you that might be 11 tricks, but with a weak NT on the right there will be only about 5 HCP on the left and at least one of the finesses will be wrong.
When West leads a heart, it is important that you recognise that the heart finesse is wrong for you, and so you rise with the ace and play a second heart. When East wins with the doubleton king, the return you get must help you. In practice East led back the ♣5 which you let run (he might have had ♠K♥K♦A♣K and no choice) but West wins the king and switches to spades.
Once again you should expect that to be a sign that the spade finesse is offside, and rise with the ace. When the ♣Q is cashed and the ♣T is led, you see East plays the ♣4 and ♣6. You haven't seen the jack at this point, so you have to ask yourself whether the lead of the five is more likely from ♣J654 or ♣654. Clearly the latter - so the defender in situations like this should be careful to play cards from the bottom. When your ace drops the jack, you can discard the ♠Q and lead up to the diamond king in the hope of making the contract. You know by now that it is going to be wrong, but escaping for one down earns you a score a tiny bit above average.
Notice the importance of end-playing East - if you hadn't done that then you would have been taking a double club finesse, and would have lost to both the king and jack of clubs. |
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| HotD-thu : Summer Pairs 1 : 13may19 : B19 |
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There were plenty of interesting hands on Monday but curiously there were also a surprising number of flat boards. On B8, everybody scored the same 480 playing in spades as West on the same ♥K lead and making the same 12 tricks. (It is a cold slam we should all have bid). On B13 every North played in spades and it is a mystery why two of them did not achieve the ordained 11 tricks. On B16 every West played in 3N making the same 11 tricks on the same ♠4 lead. On B22 every South played in 4♠ making the obvious 10 tricks (and all but one had the same lead).
Today's hand wasn't like those hand; three tables played EW in spades and should all have gone down although one made; four tables played in hearts and should all have made 9 tricks but two tables only made 8 tricks.
After the auction shown the defence naturally kicked off with two spades, the second one ruffed by declarer. Across went declarer to the ♣A and then came a losing heart finesse. West carefully continued hearts which declarer won. He did a good thing next - cashing his top clubs before trying a diamond to the jack and king. If West had played a third spade earlier then East would be down to just diamonds and the thirteenth club here and would have to play diamonds to declarer's advantage, but here he also had a spade to play and declarer ruffed this with his second small trump. At this point he had to lead diamonds from hand and lost two more tricks in the suit.
That was all a little careless; the key point was when the third spade came - declarer should have ruffed high and then could cross to the ♥8 in dummy to lead diamonds towards hand. The diamond suit looks a priori very fragile - btu we need ot remember that it is worth a sure trick if the other side lead the suit, and if you have to lead it yourself it still makes a trick 50% of the time (when both honours are in the same hand - as long as you get to lead up to both).
Sometimes it takes a lot to go off in a contract, but people are surprisingly good at finding ways!
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| Simple Technique |
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West leads the ♥5 and East contibutes the Ten when you play low from dummy. What is your plan for getting to 9 tricks?
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You have 2 hearts, 3 spades, and 2 diamond tricks and clubs will provide 2 more. Suppose you win the heart and lead a top club. East will win this trick and fire back a heart. Now when you knock out the remaining high club, West wins and cashes his hearts. Alternatively, you might get lucky in spades and diamonds with each of these suits providing an extra trick so you could have played for this instead. However, that is very poor odds. The best play is to simply duck the heart at trick 1 and win the heart return. Now when you knock out the club honours you will only fail if both top clubs are with the long hearts. If your hearts had been Kxx, ducking the first trick would have been an automatic play - somehow with QJx it looks more tempting to win the first trick but really this is the same position. |
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| What's Your Line? |
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West leads the ♥T. What's your line?
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You should win the lead and play the ♠J from hand. If this holds, you can then play ♠A and a spade ruff, and then discard a club on the ♦A. If a defender takes the ♠J and continues with a trump, you can later cross to dummy with the ♠Q for a discard on the ♦A. This line is better than playing a spade to the queen at trick 2 as if this loses and a trump comes back, you have very little hope. |
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| Plan the Play |
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West leads the ♦K. You win and play the King and Ace of Spades, but West shows out on the second round. How do you plan the play?
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A diamond ruff will bring your tally of tricks to 11 and you hope to make an extra trick with the ♥Q by forcing the opponents to open up the suit for you. Ruff a diamond and play clubs by cashing the King and overtaking the Queen. If West turns up with only 1 club, then his probable shape is 1561 since East bid 3♥ rather than 3♦. Hence you play another top trump and cash all the clubs reducing everyone to 4 cards. If East ruffs the last club, he is endplayed, whilst if he throws a heart, a trump lead puts him on play to lead a heart to dummy. If West follows to 2 clubs, he shape will be 1552 so you can safely ruff another diamond. The ♥A takes care of your last diamond and you just play winners - losing only one trump trick. |
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| A Subtle Defence |
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You lead the ♠2. Partner wins the King and returns the ♥9. How should you defend?
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I am sure you see the dilemma. If East has a singleton heart, you must win the Ace and return a heart for partner to ruff. If partner holds a doubleton heart, you need to win the Ace and hope to be able to take a second spade trick. How can you tell? A thoughtful partner has given you the answer. If East held 6 spades, he would know that there was no second spade trick to take and would have won the first trick with the Ace of spades rather than the King. This would have forced you to return a heart since you would think there could not be an extra trick in spades. When partner plays the King rather than the Ace, he is in effect announcing a 5 card suit only and that there may be a second cashing spade. This deal also raises another point of interest. Many expert pairs abandon the usual 2nd and 4th leading style when leading partner's suit, preferring 3rd and 5th instead. This style helps on this hand because East can tell there are 2 cashing spade tricks from your lead of ♠2. He can therefore simply take his spades before switching to a heart so that you cannot go wrong. |
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| HotD-fri : Spring Fours : PB FInal : 6may19 : B2 |
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The local team of John Atthey, Richard Chamberlain, Paul Denning, Richard Plackett, Patrick Shields and Garry Watson played in the Spring Fours at Stratford last weekend. Their first defeat was against the Mossop team who won the competition overall; their second defeat was to the Brock team, some of whom went on to win the Swiss Teams; their third defeat was to a Scottish team who had to run off at that point and that allowed this team to continue in the Punch Bowl (the secondary event), only to be defeated in the final of that by the winners. The final was a very close scoring match with six 1-imp swings, two instances of 3N making or not depending on the lead (10 imps went each way on those), and this hand.
The bidding shown was when the other team sat North-South; most North's preferred to double 1♠ and when this happend in the main event it proceeded 1♠ - X - 3♠ - P - 4♠ - end and that drifted one down. The other table in our Punch Bowl final also reached 3N, but after a takeout double by North. Both tables in 3N had a spade lead, won by declarer. This was the hand which swung the event - our man made too few tricks and they made more than they might. How should you proceed?
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The first step is going to be to cash some diamonds; starting with the ace keeps all option open but which honour will you play next? The concern is someone having Jxxx and it could be either. The only hint you have is that West is likely to have 5+ spades and East has only promised 3; so it seems best to cash the queen, and when you do, West shows out and you can cash four rounds of the suit. On these West keeps all his spades and discards two hearts and a club. You are now up to seven tricks, with the possibility of another in hearts or in clubs.
It is important at this point to recognise that you are going off in this contract (they have four spades to cash when they get the lead) and your job is now to minimise the damage. The best chance of an eighth trick is to play ♥A and lead towards the queen and this was the line of play chosen by the players in the main competition. Here however, declarer tried the ♣A first, and exited with a second club, hoping for an endplay. East won and played spades but West cashed from the top and then had to lead away from the heart king, so the game was just one down. If West had put East in on the fourth spade, it would have allowed East to cash the ♣Q before playing a heart through and the game would have been two off.
At the other table, our man got the diamonds wrong and basically cashed out his six top tricks to go down three. The 5 imps lost on this board was the final margin in the match. |
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| HotD-thu : Spring Fours semifinal : 7may19 : B11 |
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The football results of the past two nights made the point to us all that you never know how it is going to turn out - and the same feature of bridge is illustrated by this hand from the semi-final of the Spring Fours on Tuesday of this week. The two teams concerned were the two English teams who reached the semi-finals, led by David Mossop and by Sandra Penfold.
It was Brian Senior (for the Penfold team) who prepetrated the opening bid on the South hand here - purporting to show a weak two bid in hearts. What a time to choose to do it with a 2-count, finding the next hand with a massive 21-point hand. Over this opening what can you do? Most of us would settle for a double but Tom Paske had a tool in his toolbox, and bid 4♣ to show game going values with at least 5-5 in clubs and spades. His partner had values but they all seemed wasted, so he signed of as quickly as he could in a game that might make. But his 4♠ bid could be made on many different hands, so West continued with a cue bid of 5♦. East declined again and 5♠ was the final contract. This made easily but when giving up one club tricks gets you 6N that looks like a disaster. Or, from South's point of view, it looks like a success.
But that all depends on the other room .... and here's what happened there when North-South were totally silent. West opened 1♠ and East bid 2♥ (natual and game forcing). They proceeded 3♣ - 3♥ - 4♣ - 4♦ and at this point (like on yesterday's hand) the bidder chose 5N to ask partner to pick a slam. East duly picked 6♥ and that's where the auction ended. The contract had to go down, and now the 5♠ contract turned into a success, gaining 11 imps.
The other semi-final match found it no easier - one table played in 6♣ making, while the other was in 7♠ going down three.
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| HotD-wed : Spring Fours : 03may19 : B1.28 |
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The Spring Fours is the top English congress weekend, and this year had 60 teams taking part, including a number of foreign visitors. The top seeded team were English, but the next seed mixed Germany & USA, the losing finalists were German (with one Englishman), and so it went on. The winners of an exciting final in which the lead changed hands multiple times in the final set, were the Mossop team. There was one Gloucestershire team playing in the Spring Fours, and they played against Mossop in the first round. The Mossop team did bid the wrong slam on th efirst board (losing 17 imps) but then they got their heads down and won easily; this hand - bid by Jason & Justin Hackett - illustrates their bidding skills.
The 1N opening showed 14-16 HCP (that changes to 15-17 for third and fourth in hand) and the 3♦ bid was a new gadget - showing four spades and longer hearts (and game forcing values). West started by showing a spade fit, and there then followed a diamond bid showing shortage, a heart cue, a club cue, and the diamond ace. At this point came the important choice - with the diamond ace known to be in West, the West hand could nd longer contain ♠AK and ♥AQ so a grand slam was too dicey; settling for a small slam, East bid 5N to ask partner to pick which slam. Clearly the options were hearts and spades and with three (good) hearts it was easy for West to choose hearts. This slam could have been beaten if North had led a spade at trick one, but when that didn't happen, declarer was able to draw trumps, throw a losing spade on the diamond ace, ruff a club, and give up a trick to the spade king. Those who found and played in their 4-4 spade fit did not find it as easy - no matter what they tried there were two unavoidable spade losers.
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| Sort out the Blockage |
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If the defence had cashed their 3 minor suit winners, there would be no story, but West gives you a chance by starting with ♣AK. You ruff trick 2. How do you play?
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You have to assume no trump loser and the fifth spade in dummy will allow you a diamond discard. There is a problem however in that if the ♠A is played early, the fourth round of spades must be won in hand, and you will not be able to get to dummy's long spade. You could hope that the spades break 2-2, but is this any good? West has presumably shown 10 cards in the minors and if he holds 2 spades, then you probably have a trump loser. The best line is to play a trump to the Ace and a spade back to your King, hoping that West plays the ten or the Jack. If one of these cards appear, you can play a second heart to dummy and finesse the ♠9 next. Now the fourth round of spades can be won in dummy and a losing diamond discarded. |
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| Play this Slam |
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You play in 6♠ and West leads a club. You win and play a spade towards the ♠A9 in dummy, intending to insert the 9 if West plays the 8. This safety play will ensure the contract. West however, goes in with the ten and you win the Ace as East shows out. What now?
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| Show Answer |
In order to make this contract, you need to plan a trump reduction and find West with a 4333 pattern. Ruff the ♣Q, cash 3 diamonds and take the heart finesse. Ruff the ♣K, play a heart to the Ace and ruff a heart. In the 3 card ending you hold ♠K7 ♦7, West has ♠ QJ8 and North ♠ 92 ♥8. When you lead your diamond, West is left without an answer. |
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| A Tricky Game |
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West leads the ♠Q, East playing the 2 (showing an odd number). How do you plan to get to 9 tricks?
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You have 7 winners and perhaps the ♥Q will be an eighth but where will an extra trick come from? Even if a minor suit breaks, the defence will surely be able to take 3 spades, a minor suit winner, and the ♥K even if it is well placed. If the ♥K is wrong, where is your second heart trick. The solution is to play East for ♥Kx. Win the ♠A and run the ♥9 from the table. If this loses to West's ten or Jack, you later lay down the ♥A, dropping East's King, and finesse the ♥8 to win 3 heart tricks. If East plays an intermediate heart when you lead the 9, duck the trick and then continue as before. If East plays the ♥K on your 9, you are on a guess in the suit. You win and play another heart, If West plays an honour you duck and all is well but if West plays low, you have to decide whether East started with a singleton King, in which case you must finesse the 8 or to play East for KJ/T doubleton, in which case ducking completely is called for. I would be tempted by the former line as defenders generally find it difficult to insert the King from say KJ when they are sitting over the Queen. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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West leads the ♦3 and declarer plays dummy's King. How do you defend?
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You know from the lead that declarer must hold 3 diamonds (West can't have more than 5). Also partner must surely hold the ♦J else declarer would have not played the King at trick 1. Therefore it is clear to play 3 rounds of diamonds, forcing dummy to ruff the third round. Now you you will 2 trump tricks and beat the contract. |
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| HotD-fri : League 10 : 29apr19 : B28 |
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The two teams leading Division One met in the final league match on Monday, and their respective scores meant that one of the two teams would end up league winner at the end. After 27 boards the match score was tied at 52-52 and then came this board, which decided the match.
The bidding at table one (where East-West were playing five card majors) started as shown; what should North do now? You clearly expect to defeat 1♣ but if you pass you do not expect the opposition to stop there, and when they run partner will start doubling for penalties in the expectation of rather more help from your hand. For this reason Paul Denning chose 1♥; from East's perspective, the vulnerable opponents were playing in his best suit, so he passed (where 1N would have been a winning bid) and that became the final contract. After a club opening lead, East found the heart switch necessary to hold declarer to seven tricks; two top trumps, three outside tricks and one club ruff and one diamond ruff then delivered the contract, and a score of +80 to team one.
In the other room, East had started the bidding (here playing weak NT and four card majors) with 1♥ so that was never going to be North's contract. The bidding proceeded 2♦-P-P and with so many HCP, East would not let it go; his takeout double led his partner to bid 2♥ and there the bidding ended. The fate of the match now depended on the defence to this contract. When North-South failed to get the two ruffs found in the other room, the contract was one down to give 50 to team two. That lost one imp and the final margin was that single imp. If the contract had gone down two for +100, then the score would have been 1 imp in the other direction!
The board decided the match but not the league as the other team went into the match 9 VPs ahead, and they won the league!
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| HotD-thu : League 10 : 29apr19 : B3 |
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The results on this hand from Monday were surprisingly consistent, but a number of interesting options appear in both the bidding and one in the play.
The first question is how to treat the opening hand; it is 21 HCP but it has a decent five card suit, and it has no jacks. This latter point is very important when slamming with these hands, and the combination of those two features should make you want to treat the hand as a 22-count (or even a 23-count). Whether or not this leads to a change in your opening bid depends on the strength you assign to a 2N opener.
The second choice is by North on how to continue. Although there may be system constraints, for many there will be a choice of ask (with 3♣) or show (tranferring to 3♥ and then bidding spades). In general the latter option is to be preferred as it leads to a more informed conversation but if you are playing a convention called Smolen (where 3♣-3♦-3M shows four of that and five of the other major) then the ask route maximises the chance of the strong hand being declarer. If you start with 3♣ this time you are pleased to hear partner bid 3♠, but what now? You want to go slamming but your hand is unsuitable for taking charge; the answer is that while a 4♣ or a 4♦ bid would be natural, a bid of 4♥ does not make sense after opener has denied hearts, and so this bid is assigned to be a general slam try in spades. This ought to get the South hand excited enough to take charge with 4N asking for key cards (although when opener had already shown 22-24 hcp, it might well sign off). If South asks for key cards it will quickly come to light that the trump queen is missing and so the contract has to be just 6♠.
When rather than bid 3♣, North decides to start with a transfer there are options for South to consider over 3♦. Most of the County team here play that a break to 3♠ tells partner that opener lacks a heart fit (and so has at most two hearts) but has a five card spade suit. This is very descriptive and can be key to reaching a five-three spade fit when responder has a 35-- shape. The follow up question not always answered is how, after a 3♠ break, responder can show support and slam interest. Since clubs and diamonds bids need to be natural (responsder could have 55 shape or more) and hearts and spades are to play, this hand would need to bid 5♠ as a slam try; this is mildly descriptive in that it passes over the option to jump to 5♣ or 5♦ as a splinter agreeing spades (or could it be a splinter for hearts?) and so will be a 3532/3523/4522 shape.
Yet another issue arises if South make a simple transfer acceptance of 3♥ and then North continues with 3♠. Clearly South wants to show excitement now about the spade fit, so a cue bid of 4♣ looks natural, but in this position opener might want to suggest slam in hearts or suggest a slam in spades and needs to be able to distinguish the two. There is only one recongised option for that, and it is to use 4♣, irrespective of the actual club holding, to indicate slam interest in hearts and 4♦ to indicate slam interest in spades. After South shows slam inteest, North will not stop.
Across the field, there was one table played in game, and one in the grand slam, but all the rest were in 6♠. Why one table ended in 7♠ has not yet been revealed.
The play in 6♠ is of course trivial, but in the grand slam you have the dilemma of how to play the trump suit. The a priori odds are that the suit will break 2-2 and you cash spades from the top, but there is something else to consider when in a grand slam. And the fact to consider is that a trump lead is often recommended as a safe option against a grand slam. If the hand on lead has the trump queen you will not get a trump lead, but if it hasn't got the queen then you might. This is enough often to swing you in favour of playing the opening leader for the trump queen when it is missing. (Here the position is a bid more clouded as opening leader would probably shy away from leading a singleton trump also - the argument comes mostly from 8-card trump fits). Here the grand was played by North on the one occasion it happened; North duly cashed the spade king first and had an easy answer on the second round.
And we thought that responding to 2N with both majors was one of the easier bidding positions to be in!
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| HotD-wed : League 10 : 29apr19 : B1 |
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This hand from Monday offered a variety of lines to choose in the common 4♠ contract, and it was a surprise to see that everyone in spades emerged with exactly 10 tricks. The different lines depended on the opening lead and defence. The eaiest lead for declarer was the ♥Q, found at three tables. With so few values, East was thinking that high cards were not enough to beat the contract, and was looking to a ruff as a fourth defensive trick. In practice this gave declarer a trivial second heart trick and the contract was now unbeatable. The most common lead was a diamond, which allowed West to cash the ace and king. At this point the contract's future lay in West's hand. Unfortunately it looks very appealing to tackle hearts, but look what happens - this sets up the second heart trick for declarer. The stronger defence at this point is to play the ♣Q. After that declarer has the problem of how to play hearts. The best odds line is not clear, but a little research shows that the best odds is achieved by leading the ten. Once that is covered and the ace wins, you cross back over and lead the ♥8 and to finesse West for the nine. You will lose out when West has KQ and East the 9, but gain in the two cases of West with Q9/K9 with East holding the K/Q. Across 10 tables, it would be a surprise not to see some declarer lead low to the jack and then lose a second trick to the K9. There were two leads of a black suit, and these both put declarer in the same position. The winning line now is to draw trumps and eliminate the clubs with one ruff, and then to exit in diamonds,. The defence can cash two tricks but they do better to cash one and then play hearts, so that East can win and lead another diamond. But again the defence have opened up hearts and given declarer a second heart trick. |
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| Finesses Galore |
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West leads the ♣2 against your game. How do you plan the play?
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At first glance it looks like this contract depends on finding the ♥A or ♦K onside. However, you can improve your chances. From the lead it is likely that West holds the ♣Q so win the lead and cash the other top club. Now a trump to dummy allows you to lead the ♣J from the table and discard a diamond from hand. West will win and probably lead a fourth club for East to ruff. You overruff and draw the last trump before taking a ruffing finesse in diamonds. You only lose the lead to the safe hand and will be able to discard a heart on a diamond, losing at most 1 club, 1 diamond and 1 heart. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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South's 1NT opening showed 15-17. You lead 3 top diamonds and they stand up. Where do you look for a fourth trick?
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Assuming declarer has 15 HCP, partner has three. If partner's points are in clubs, it's not going to help as declarer can discard a club from dummy on the ♥A (if partner has something like QJx). If declarer has something like: AKxx Ax xxx A10xx, there is still no club trick coming because partner has the QJ doubleton and declarer has the 10. If the setting trick can't come from clubs or hearts (partner can't have the ace) it must come from spades. If partner has Kxxx, there is no problem because he always has a spade trick, declarer having Axx. But if declarer has Axxx, partner with K9x can only garner a spade trick if you play a fourth diamond, your correct play. What can declarer do? If he doesn't ruff in dummy, partner ruffs with the nine driving out the ace, and dummy ruffs with an honor, partner discards and now the K9x is a natural trump trick. |
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| Never Mind the Break |
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West leads the ♥Q. You win and play a trump but West shows out. Play from here. |
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Although the bad trump break is unwelcome, it should not worry you unduly. Cash the ♦A before continuing to draw trumps. Discard the ♦K from dummy on one of the trumps. Then exit with the ♦J. An opponent can win this but you can cater with any return. |
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| Give Yourself the Best Chance |
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West leads the ♥K and follows with a low heart to East's Ace. East now switches to a trump. What is your best chance? |
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On hands like this, taking 2 finesses seems superficially attractive, but there is a better chance. Draw trumps and play 3 rounds of clubs. You will only be defeated if West has the guarded ♣Q and East holds ♦QT and in this case no winning line exists. |
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| HotD-fri : GCBA Squad Practice : 25apr19 : B15 |
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This hand from last night was only a small part-score but it proved tricky and two declarers went off. The opening lead is the ♣T and when it scores the defence continue with a second and third club. You play ace and another trump and RHO wins the KJ-doubleton and plays a fourth club which you ruff. The trumps have broken and that gives you four tricks there, two sure hearts and one sure diamond. Where will your eighth trick come from?
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There are three options for your extra trick - making a third heart, finding the dimaond jack, or finding the diamond king. The question is whether and how you can combine all three.
Given East doubled 1N as takeout of spades, you expect most of the high card points to be there, but you've already seem 11 hcp in the black suits, so you cannot be sure about any of those missing high red cards. There are a number of paths to success in practice, but the important thing is to allow any of the three options to work for you.
If you want two chances in diamonds you need to aim for a double finesse, but you lack the entries to lead twice from dummy. The answer is to lead once from hand towards then QT9, and then later once from dummy. This will succeed when East has one or two of themissing cards. Those whwo failed were those who played ♦A and another towards the ♦QT hoping for a winning guess. You can combine the double fiensse with cashing the ♥AK to give you a chance in that suit as well.
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| HotD-thu : BH Summer Pairs : 22apr91 : B14 |
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Sometimes your bidding - despite all the good intentions - can leave you in what looks like a horrible spot. Today's hand is just such an example. It might have been better for West to open a weak 1N, in which case clubs would have been the contract - but here we are in 1N by East. The opening lead is a low diamond and you can see you are now wide open in both spades and diamonds. You must switch your attention from the bidding to the play. How is it best to proceed?
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You have two choices in the club suit; you can start with the ace or can come to hand with the top heart and lead towards the ♣AQ9. The latter will gain whenever there king is onside doubleton or tripleton, but you cannot cater for both. If you lead the jack and it is not covered, you need to overtake with the queen to to avoid blocking the suit - but if there is a ♣K76 holding with South you want to run the jack. The odds favour a doubleton king over a tripleton king, so the overtake looks right.
But the other thing to consider is would South ever duck with ♣Kx? Does playing small on the jack suggest that the king is with North? Now you might rise with the ace to drop the offside singleton king. The key is to play the ♣J before South knows your problem; what you need to do is to win the diamond ace at trick one, cross to the heart ace and lead the club jack; at this point it will be far from clear to South that you have this unexpected shape and the play on the ♣J will be to cover with the king and to play small without.
At the table declarer ducked trick one and North won the trick; he cashed the ♠J just to make that position clear, and returned to diamonds. When South now comes to play on the ♣J it was known that East had singletones in the two pointed suits, so playing small on the ♣J becomes easy from any holding. In practice declarer lost to the club king, lost four diamonds and - having discarded a spade on the run of the diamonds, lost five clubs. That meant only 3 tricks for declarer and a complete bottom. Playing the club suit optimally would have results in quite the opposite - with the favourable club position there are ten tricks available to declarer in 1N, and this would have outscored all the pairs who played in the more prosaic club contracts. |
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| HotD-wed : BH Pairs : 22apr19 : B3 |
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It was a surprise on Monday that all but one table missed the optimal contract on this hand - so let's have a look at how it might be bid.
Let's assume that the vulnerable opponents with very few values keep quiet. Clearly South has a 1♣ opener and North a 1♦ response. It is curious to South that nobody has bid spades, but what can South do but support diamonds? And it has to be 3♦ to show the extra values. Over this North cannot rule out a 3N contract, so it seems right to continue with 3♥.
The interesting question is now what South does, having noted that North has suggested weakness in spades, and that makes it look like the hand is a good fit. The easy way to express this is with a splinter, and 4♠ at this point not only descibes the shape of the South hand, but places the final decision with North. From North's perspective, since South has a singleton spade, doesn't South's bidding guarantee ♥A ♦K ♣AK ? This makes slam trivial, and so the closing bid is 6♦.
It gets a little bit more fuzzy if East-West overcall in spades, but when the diamond fit is identified, South should aim for the same jump in spades to show a splinter. Maybe next time everyone will bid it!
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| Plan the Play |
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West leads the ♣Q. Plan the play.
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If you can make 4 diamond tricks you will be home. There is a danger that if you have to lose a diamond to East, a low heart switch might net the defence 5 tricks. The best line therefore is to win the club lead in dummy and play a diamond, inserting the 9 if East plays low. If East inserts the Jack, you can win with the King and lead the 9, ducking West's ten if it is played (and playing diamonds from the top if West plays low). |
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| A Simple Defence |
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Your partner leads three top hearts, dummy ruffing the third round. What do you see as your defensive tricks?
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You should appreciate the power of your ♠7. If you overruff the third heart, declarer will have no troble in playing a spade to dummy's King and when West shows out, (s)he will finesse against your Queen and you will make only one spade trick. If you refuse the overruff then you will subsequently win two spade tricks to defeat the contract. |
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| Maximise Your Chances |
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West leads the ♥6. How do you plan to take 9 tricks?
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The first thing to realise is that you should not duck trick 1 else a spade switch will surely prove fatal. You need to maximise your chances in the minor suits. If you win the opening lead in dummy and play a club and East holds the Ace, then either the King of Clubs will win or else East will rise with the Ace in which case you probably have 5 club tricks and 5 more outside. If the ♣K does win the trick, then you play the odds and duck a diamond, making a 1 spade, 2 hearts, 5 diamonds and a club whenever diamonds are 3-2. Of course, 50% of the time West will hold the ♣A and if he wins the first club lead, you will need to find the suit breaking 3-3 or perhaps the hearts breaking 4-4 with West not finding a spade switch. |
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| Entries are Short |
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You play in 6♠ and West leads the ♥5, dummy's Queen holding the first trick. How do you continue?
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You have received a helpful lead but still have few entries to dummy. You need 3 entries to take 2 spade finesses and a club finesse but you only have 2 in the form of ♥Q and ♦A. The solution is to play a low spade to your knave at trick 2. Say this loses and a heart is returned. You then cross to the ♦A to lead the ♠T. If this is covered, your ♠9 is then a re-entry for the club finesse. If the ♠T holds, you can then lead the ♣Q from the table, unblocking the 9 from hand so that you can repeat the club finesse. |
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| HotD-fri : League 9 : 15apr19 : B14 |
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This wasn't the strongest slam candidate on Monday (that was B26 where the grand slam was bid by five of the six teams in Division One) but it generated more swings because it was bid at half the tables (and one of those went down).
The key decision point was this; what should West be bidding on this round? Partner's 2N rebid has shown 15+ balanced and has created a game force.
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There are two quesitons you have to settle - one is denomination and the other is level. It is important to settle the denomination first, and here the issue is recognising that there are only two possibilities - and that these are clubs and no-trumps. The lovely heart suit we are looking at is an illusion as we "know" that partner does not have four hearts; for with 4-4 in the majors the opening would be 1♥ and with longer spades then partner would have bid 2♥ on the second round.
The only way to check out the denominaiton therefore is to bid 3♣, and when partner supports you are off to the races. You can see that making 6♣ depends on either finding the ♣Q and thereby avoiding a club loser, or if that fails, then taking a ruffing spade finesse. Easy slam to find, but only five tables reached it! |
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| HotD-thu : League 9 : 15apr19 : B27 |
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At many tables this hand from Monday started with a weak 1N opener from West, and after a raise to game North led a heart and that provided declarer with an easy ninth trick, and time to set up a club for a tenth.
Three tables, including the one whose auction is shown (they were playing a strong 1N opener) got a spade lead. This immediately sets up four tricks in that suit for the defence, and so nine tricks must be made without losing the lead. The club finesse is an obvious possibility but on the auction shown it is extremely likely to fail.
In these circumstances, declarer's best option is nearly always to run the long suit, and this is what declarer did. For North it seemed safe to discard three hearts and two clubs. What could go wrong?
At table 4 : South had also to find some discards, and chose the ♥T early as a suit preference signal for spades. After cashing the diamonds declarer played a second spade; North won the king and played a spade to South who cashed two more winners. On the last of these declarer was down to ♥Q ♣AQ in dummy and to ♥A8 ♣5 in hand. North was squeezed and could not guard both suits - so the contract made. In fact even with the (poor choice of the) ♥T discard, the defence could have succeeded if South had won the third spade and played either side suit - as partner will gain the lead with that and lead a spade again.
At table 6 : North had showns hearts and another suit over 1N here, and East indicated a heart stop, hence the low spade lead from North; this was run to South's queen and the spade return went to the ace. North failed to unblock the ten and this allowed declarer to take the club finesse to make the contract - as the spades were blocked.
At table 3 : after a similar start North cofrrectly unblocked in spades but miscounted declarer's winners and threw too many winners and bared the club king. Because North had shown five hearts on the bidding, declarer was able to read the position correctly and dropped the king to make the contract.
It looked to be a simple flat board across the field, but it was harder work at some tables than at others.
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| HotD-wed : League 9 : 15apr19 : B25 |
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This hand from Monday offered South and West a couple of tricky judgement calls. The first came after East passed; South is expecting solid clubs with partner and no aces or kings outside. There are clearly nine tricks there unless the opposition cash five spades and the defence against 3N openers (start with your strongest suit rather than your longest, and lead an ace if you can) is well known, so if the contract can go down it is likely to go down. It's a close call, as making 5♣ needs 11 tricks (with 10 in sight) and could be subject to three losers. South chose to pass.
Now over to West - who had no plans made for this situation. It is clear that North has long cubs, and any of the other suits could be the right answer. The best option to get partner involved is double and that is what West did. The double by West was recognised as a takeout double, but East passed because it looked like if South was serious that nothing would make for East-West, and if South wasn't serious South would rescue. Spotlight back to South. The stakes were now higher but there were no losers outside spades, so South braved it out and this passed the next problem back to East. What to lead?
There is a bit of bluff and double bluff going on here. For South's final pass to make sense there had to be some combinaiton of high cards and suit lengths in what was about to be dummy; the likely shortage in diamonds makes that suit more likely to be high cards, so East felt the choice was between the majors. On the basis that hearts needed less from partner (say, AQxx and an outside ace) the choice was ♥J, but declarer knew better than to try for an overtrick and rose with the ace to cash out for 3Nx+1 and a score of 550 points.
It was curious to note that this was the only North to declare 3N, and when South was declarer West managed to find the winning defence. The preemptive nature of the 3N opening paid off at this table, but where two Souths played in clubs after a 3N opener, the lead was an easy one for West to find. The 3N opening has much going for it.
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| Count Your Tricks |
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How do you make 3NT on the lead of the ♦5?
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This one looks easy. It looks natural to win in hand and play a club to the ten. However, if this loses to the Jack and the second club finesse is also wrong, you may find yourself losing 2 clubs, 2 diamonds and at least one heart. A simple count of tricks shows that you have 4 spades, 1 heart, 3 diamonds and 1 club which is all you need for your contract. Simply win the diamond lead in hand as cheaply as possible and play hearts to establish your heart trick. You do best to cross to a spade and lead a heart to your ten as this gives you chances of overticks when both hearts are onside. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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Having made a weak jump overcall in spades, West starts with ♠ AKJ and dummy ruffs the third round with the ♥J. What is your best chance?
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If you count the points on this hand, it is clear that West can hold no additional significant honour card and therefore if you are to find the setting trick, it will have to come from trumps. If partner holds the ♥T, all you need to do is not overruff at trick 3 and you will have 2 trump tricks. If you do overruff, then your ♥9 is no longer promoted and you will only make one trump trick. |
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| Play the Odds |
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You play in 6♦ against the lead of the ♣A. What is the best chance?
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On this hand you have to decide whether to cope with a 4-1 spade break or a 3-1 diamond break. Since the 3-1 break is more likley, ruff the opening lead and cash 2 top spade discarding clubs from hand. Now ruff a spade with the ♦K and lead a trump to dummy. Now lead another spade discarding your last club. The defence is helpless, since you can win any return and cross to dummy drawing the last trump and discard your heart losers on the spades. |
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| Thanks for your Help |
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West leads the ♣Q. How do you play?
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You can count 11 tricks and know that West will be under pressure when you cash the major suits. Win the ♣A and play 5 rounds of trumps, followed by 3 hearts finishing on the table. Thanks to West's bid of 2NT showing 5/5 or better in the minors, you simply have to watch West's discards. If he started with 5-5 and has thrown 3 diamonds, you can simply play Ace and another diamond. If West reduces to 1 club and 3 diamonds, you cash dummy's remaining club and duck a diamond to West who must then give you a 12th trick on his enforced diamond return. |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Pairs League : 10apr19 : B12 |
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This hand from Wednesday produced a lot of swings, and a few interesting points to discuss.
The first question is the opening bid by North; this auction from table two overcame the first hurdle which others faced, when Paul Denning upgraded and showed a strong balanced hand on the first round. Not many did that, and three of the tables who opened 1♠ played there; making the contract with overtricks was little consolation for the fact that a clear game had been missed. Once the bidding had reached West that was going to the be final cotnract, but there were two bids before that; East has minimal values but a six card suit is often worth bidding and here the hand might bid, but even if it doesn't South should really try to scrape up a response. Bidding has a very definite obstructive value, as well as the constructive value illustrated here - and that combionations makes it nearly always the right thing to do. A minimal 1N bid by South should lead to game in hearts.
As you can see, game in hearts is straightforward with two hearts to lose and possibly a diamond. The acution shown was the result of a memory lapse; the sequence of transfer and raise was actually a slam try (hence North's 4♠) - South should have transferred with 4♦ in order to stop in game. But the fact of a 5♥ contract raised interesting issues in the play, which we would otherwise miss!
The first is the opening lead; from East's perspective the opposition have made a slam try and partner cannot be expected to hold any values; every suit is therefore a dangerous lead and the target must be wichever is the least like to cost. The answer found, correctly, was the heart queen, which was overtaken by the king and the ace. Declarer now faced a dilemma - if the trumps break 2-2 then the contract is cold if a second trump is played. Can you tell? It depends a bit what you read into the play of the king. If the queen is an honest lead, then the king is known to be with West, so all West had done is play the card "known" to be held. The only two realistic options are that the lead was from a stiff queen or from a QJ or QJT combination. Declarer decided the trumps might be 2-2 and played a second round. West won the ten, and now had to choose what to play.
Defeat of the contract clearly depends on making a trick in diamonds or spades, and the question West needs to ask is whether there is a danger of a loser in one of those suits being discarded. The ♣K is not visible (although the lead gives an inference partner might hold it, for otherwise partner would have had a safe cliub lead). If we assume no ace will get lost, the question is whether declarer has enough spades to throw away three diamonds or enough diamonds to throw away one spade? Enough diamonds would imply that partner had failed to lead a singleton diamond, where enough spades does not have any negative implications. That decided the issue for West and he led a diamond. Declarer finessed and was one down.
Importantly, West had not cashed the winning heart; doing so would have enabled declarer to rise with the ♦A and cash the spades throwing diamonds - an option that was not practical when West could trump in to allow the defence to cash the ♦K. It is important when the opposition have misbid to be careful to take full advantage - we cannot relax because they are in a silly contract!
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| HotD-thu : CBC Pairs League : 10apr19 : B22 |
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This hand was an appealing slam opportunity from last night's game, but whether or not to bid it was a close call. In practice there were only 2/12 tables bid the slam, and 3/12 stopped in 5♥. It was surprising that 7/12 managed to finish their investigations before stopping in 4♥. The play was easy at the four level, but was interesting at the five and six level.
Playing first in 6♥ the key question is the opening lead; both tables defending the slam started off with the singleton ♦7. The idea of leading a singleton against a slam has a good reputation, and here is was the only lead to beat the contract! Declarer won the first lead in hand and started on trumps. The most flexible approach is the ♥Q and ♥J first and at this point you learn of the heart break. The opening lead screams of the fact that the diamonds are breaking 1-5, so it looks right now to continue with the ♥K and a club finesse. It is now time to draw the last trump and - again with that diamond break in mind - you need to be looking for a twelfth trick. You can set up a trick in clubs because the break 3-3 but to take advantage of this you need to keep the ♦K as an entry for the fourth club. If you do this then a spade when the opponents win the third club will kill the entry for the long diamonds. One of the two tables in 6♥ was allowed to make.
Playing in 5♥ is a different proposition and all three tables in 5♥ received a club rather than a diamond lead. Two tables failed to make 11 tricks (and the third should have gone down too). The start to the play was similar - win trick one and then start drawing trumps. The mistake made by declarer at table one was - after that - switching to playing diamonds. The second diamond was ruffed and West played a third trump - there were only 10 tricks now. They key is to focus on the winners you need; knowing of two club tricks after that opening lead and five trumps, you need only four diamond tricks. The only layout which will stop that is West having five to the jack. The alternative which actually existed was however - given the heart break - rather more likely. The winning play is to draw all the trumps and then play a diamond to the king and a diamond to the ten. As soon as East has followed to the second diamond, this guaranteed the contract.
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| HotD-wed : Swiss Pairs : 8apr19 : B1 |
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The fourth session of the Spring Swiss Pairs took place on Monday; in that session three wins and a score of 46 out of 60 VPs allowed Ashok Kwatra & Mike Wignall to move up from sixth place to first place. On this hand they earned a complete top in match ten.
The auction started as shown, and at this point a number of Easts looked at their four trumps and passed happily. On the three occasions when South played in 2♦, West led a spade - giving away a trick - and declarer won that cheaply. A diamond to the king saw West play the jack, and on the next spade South two of the Souths made the (sensible and) careful play of just covering East's card - and that limited the defence to one diamond and that meant ten tricks. This was good technique as playing the ace on the second round of the suit could never gain.
That didn't happen at the winner's table. Here Mike protected with 2♥ and when South decided to be (over?) cautious that is where the bidding finished. The defence started with two top spades and the leader recognised that a third one would be ruffed, and so switched to the singleton club. The ace won and when the ♣2 was ruffed on the next trick, South knew to underlead in diamonds (to the king) and a third club came through. Declarer has now lost 5 tricks and must find the trump queen to make the contract. Mike duly ruffed with the heart ace, and found opener with the queen and wrapped up 8 tricks.
The key point to note is that this vulnerability (neither vulnerable) is the time where it is more necessary than ever to compete; this is because the undoubled penalties are low - even down two is better than the opposition scoring 110.
Another table competed differently - with West doubling the opening bid on the first round; it proceeded 1♦ - X - 1N - 2♥ - 2♠ - P - 3♦ - end. West now avoided the spade lead and the play started with three rounds of hearts, the third ruffed by declarer. There was always a danger of losing the fourth spade to West, so declarer started with two top spades and then crossed to the ♦K to lead a third spade from dummy. If East ruffed that was likely to be with a trump trick, and if East didn't the fourth round could be ruffed with the ♦5 - and any over-ruff was likely to be with a trump trick. In practice East ruffed, and the spade ten was played; declarer felt pleased but when the remaining diamonds broke 3-1 there was still a trump loser - but at least the contract made!
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| Read the Bidding |
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The defense begins with ♥K and another heart, East cashing 3 rounds while West discards a spade. East now switches to the ♠T. You run this to the King and draw trumps in 2 rounds (West discarding a club on the second round) How do you play from here?
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If you listen to the bidding and read the discards, it looks as if West started with a 5215 shape, whilst East is marked with the ♣A. If that is the case you can succeed by playing a spade to the Ace to extract East's exit card and then playing a club, covering whatever card West plays. This will endplay East, who must now concede a ruff and discard or establish a club trick in dummy. Well played if you found the line but do you see how the defence could have prevailed? West has to ruff the third round of hearts and switch to a club - a very tough defence to find. |
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| Unfamiliar Angle |
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You lead a top spade against 5♣. Declarer plays low from dummy and East plays the ♠2 and South the ♠7. What do you play next?
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It looks like declarer has ducked the opening lead to possibly safeguard a heart holding such as Kx. It therefore looks right to continue with a safe spade. This analysis does not stand up for a number of reasons. For one thing partner may well hold 5 spades. Also if declarer has a doubleton spade and a diamond loser, cashing the ♥A will defeat the contract. South has made a decptive play. He plans to discard a diamond on the ♠A and set up the diamonds without loss. You must lay down the ♥A at trick 2 and continue the suit when East encourages. Perhaps East could have made life easier by dropping a high spade at trick 1 - but if you failed to switch, don't try to shift the blame. |
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| A difficult Defence |
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You lead your diamond against 4♥, and partner's ♦9 is captured by declarer's Ace. South now leads a low spade to the King and Ace. East plays the ♦Q, covered by South's King. How do you plan the defence?
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It should be clear tha South has led a spade at trick 2 hoping for a quick discard of a diamond. If he held a low doubleton, he would have finessed the Jack, so he must have ♠ Qx. Partner has a diamond winner, but the problem is how to get him in to cash it. You can only do this by playing him for the ♥K. You must ruff the ♦K with the Ace of trumps and exit with a low trump. Full marks if you got this one right. |
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| Good Technique |
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There are no misprints in the bidding table. South's opening showed 2+ clubs and North's double showed 4+ spades. 3♦ was 18+ with 4 card spade support and 4♥ was a retransfer. Anyway, West leads the ♣Q on which East plays an encouraging low card. Plan the play.
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There are opportunities for good technique here. Duck the opening lead and win the club continuation. Now draw trumps (in 2 rounds as it happens). Now ruff a club in hand to eliminate that suit. Now you plan to ruff the third round of hearts and duck a diamond to West. However, on the third round of hearts, West produces the Queen so you discard a diamond from dummy and West is caught - he either concedes a ruff and discard or must open up the diamond suit. The defence could have done better. If East had overtaken the first club you could not afford to duck else a diamond comes through. You win the ace and later play a low club towards your 8 but East can rise with the ten to again play diamonds. Of course, on the layout of the cards, you can always succeed if you guess the diamonds correctly, but the game is all about playing in such a way as to avoid guessing - for certain you will guess wrong some of the time. |
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| HotD-fri : County Pairs FInal : 30mar19 : B15 |
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The County Pairs Final last week took a little while to score - there was one board mis-scored and two rulings which affected the results. The eventual winners were Tony Hill & Alan Wearmouth, a fraction of a match-point ahead of Patrick Shields & Mike Wignall. This hand provided a complete top for the winners (although the auction shown is that from the runners-up table).
All tables but two played this hand in a spade game - the other contracts being 3♠ and 5♥ where the results did not trouble the scorers. The lead against the spade game was a top heart at three tables and the ♣6 at the others - which presumably reflects the frequency of the choice of clubs and hearts as the opening bid by South. On a heart lead by North, the club switch should come at trick two.
The focus is now on West and the one choice to be made is how to play the spade suit. The opening lead marks North with 3 hcp in hearts and that means there is at most 13 hcp left for South and we can be sure South holds the ♥AK and the ♣K. The other "knowledge" we have is that South did not open 1N, and if South is unbalanced, then it is odds on that South has a singleton somewhere. Clearly this could be in either diamonds or spades - but which is more likely? It has to be spades as declarer has more of them. Pushing against this is the expectation that most of the HCP will lie with the opening bidder.
But in fact we know where 13 of the hcp are, so all we have to consider is the ♠Q and the ♣J. We know that one of them is needed by North to justify a vulnerable 2♥ bid, and the other is likely to be with South to make the opening bid. Do we place the missing hcp as 4-12 or 5-11? Given any hand is more likely to be 11 hcp than 12 hcp, and a raise is likely on 5 but might be skipped on 4 hcp, the odds must favour playing North for the spade queen.
If you do so, you get a complete top - as the winners showed us. Easy game this!
Alan Wearmouth reports : South managed to bid both hearts and clubs which made the spades much easier to get right.
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| HotD-thu : Spring teams 4 : 01apr19 : B9/B10 |
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The two best (ie most likely to make) slam hands on Monday were on these consecutive booards; there was also a slam on a finesse on board 1 (bid by five teams, who all lost points as a result), the slam on two finesses on board 6 (bid by none and with three teams in part-scores), a distinctly poor slam on B14 bid only by the winning team who received a helpful defence and so made the contract, a poor slam on board 18 (bid once and failing, while four tables stopped in part-scores), a potential slam on B21 which fails on two suits lying unfavourably (but bid by no-one), and an acceptable but odds against slam on B22 bid only once (and making on the only lead to let it make, while two tables stopped in part-scores). The hand shown was the strongest candidate for bidding a slam, but this was only achieved at half the tables. The sequence shown happens to propel you to a slam, but were North to bid 2♦ on the second round - and there is surely a strong case for that - then finding the heart fit is a lot more difficult. That is the reason we see two tables playing in spades, and four tables playing in no trumps. Were it to start 1♠-2♣-2♦-2♥ then it would be natural for North to rasise but many play this as trying to "right-side" a 3N contract. The alternativer shown (1♠ -2♣ -2♥) totally rules out a diamond contract, and for this reason the best choice by North on the second round is not clear. Having reached the position shown - how should North proceed? At table 9 the choice was 4N asking for key cards, but this wasn't helpful at all and this North just settled for 6♥, none the wiser as to whether or not the grand slam was good. When you cannot tell what to do, the right answer is to pass the buck to partner - which here means cue bidding and leaving it to partner to decide on which level of slam ot reach. The South hand is so slam unsuitable that after a 4♠ cue bid it will sign off in 5♥ and that will be enough to discourage North (although ♠Q8 ♥QJ96 ♦KQT ♣Q843 looks even worse and makes the grand slam quite decent). The companion board was ♠AT ♥A73 ♦KT732 ♣KJ9 opposite ♠65 ♥64 ♦A5 ♣AT86543 which makes for an excellent 6♣ contract (ruff out the diamonds for one extra trick there) but it was bid at no table. What's more, half the field stopped in a part-score. There was opposition bidding at some tables but could you bid it without interference? It might start 1♦-2♣-2N-3♣, but would opener appreciate how valuable aces are? It is hard to say. The lesson to take away from all these hands is that if we could just improve our slam bidding there is easy pickings in terms of good scores. And if you were a team who played some of these slam hands in a part-score, then you might want to work on your game bidding too! |
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| HotD-wed : Spring Teams 4 : 01apr19 : B2 |
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This hand from Monday provides a few interesting things to think about. It was curious to note that there were two tables - despite four-four fits in both majors - played in 3N, and most times that would be hopeless because of an attack on the club suit but here, amazingly the clubs are irrevocably blocked. Yet neither pair made their 3N; it is hard to see how they went down, as surely declarer must play on hearts to get anywhere and when you do that they clear the clubs and what else can you do but hope for a club blockage? The most tricky game was for the two teams playing in 4♠ as they have to either suffer two top hearts and a ruff, or declarer will fail to pick up the spades and there will be two hearts, a natural trump loser, and a diamond to lose. Various pairs playing in 4♥ however were able to make game; how was that? At table one, the defence started off with the top hearts and on winning the third round declarer played a fourth. There would be ten top tricks if the spades behaved but playing the ace and then the queen showed that to be a non-starter. The tenth trick had to come in diamonds, but how? Declarer noticed that on the play of the heart, South had discarded three clubs. So he cashed his top clubs and continued with spades. South could win the ♠J but then only had diamonds left and had to open up that suit, giving away the tenth trick. The winning defence is to keep a third club - do you think you would have found that? At rather more tables, North led the singleton ♠5 at trick one; if this runs round to the ♠T-♠A, then a declarer who is watching the pips will know that the jack is with South and should pick up the suit for no loser. This gives ten tricks. To avoid making this so obvious, South should really play the jack at trick one, leaving the possibility open that North had led from the T542. This should however be discounted as then South would be 1-1 in the majors and silent, which feels unlikely. |
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| A Tricky Slam |
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West leads the ♣A. You ruff and lay down the ♠A but disappointingly, East discards a club on this trick. How do you continue?
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East’s club discard means you will need a trump endplay to bring the contract home. The first requirement is that you need West to have three clubs, because you need to reduce your trump length as West follows suit. Also if West holds more than 3 clubs, he will be short in at least one red suit and will be able to ruff one of your winners and exit safely in clubs. In the endgame you need to have two trumps and a good heart and West three trumps. You don't know Wests shape in the red suits, but given 4 spades and 3 clubs, you could succeed if West is 2=4, 3=3 or 4=2 in the red suits, but obviously you don't know which of these to play for. Playing three rounds of diamonds works in the first two cases, so that is the preferred play. On the layout shown, East discards on the third round of diamonds, so you can cash the remaining diamond winner throwing a heart from hand. After ruffing a club, play a heart to the ace and ruff another club. After cashing the ♥K, you hold the ♠K9 and the ♥Q. West holds the ♠QJx. Dummy had the ♠T8 and the ♣Q. When you lead the ♥Q, West is stuck. if he ruffs high, you make the last two tricks with trumps. If West ruffs low, you score a trump in dummy and the king of trumps to make your contract. It needs a lucky layout to make, but when the cards lay as they do, you must capitalise on it. |
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| Stay Awake |
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Your partner leads the ♠Q against 3NT. How do you plan the defence?
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This is just a matter of staying awake. It is all too easy to play an encouraging spade at trick 1, but you should appreciate 2 things - one is that partner most probably has no other spade to lead and two is that you can surely beat this contract in your own hand. Simply play the ♠K at trick 1. If declarer ducks you are on lead and can play a second spade. Your 2 aces will allow you to establish and cash the suit/ |
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| Defend like a Champion |
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You lead the King and Ace of hearts, partner showing 3 cards in the suit. How do you see the defence developing?
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You know that partner cannot be contributing any useful high cards to the defence, but what about a decent spade holding such as 9x. At trick 3 you should continue with a third heart conceding a ruff and discard. Now if declarer subsequently takes atrump finesse you can play another heart allowing East to ruff with the 9 and promote your ♠8 to winning rank. When this hand was played, partner didn't hold the ♠9, but declarer ruffed the thrird heart with dummy's Jack before taking the trump finesse. It then transpired that a fourth round of trumps ruffed by East with the 5 was enough to promote a second trump trick for the defence. Well done if you played a third and fourth round of hearts. |
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| Find a Good Line |
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You play in 7♥ on the ♠ Q lead. Over to you.
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You have 12 top tricks and clubs offer the best chance of a thirteenth. If clubs are 4-1 with the King not falling then you need 4 entries to dummy to set up the clubs and get back to cash them. Win the ♠A and cash the ♣A and ruff a club high. If clubs break there will be no problem but if they are 4-1, continue with a diamond to dummy's Ace for another high club ruff. Now you ruff your ♦K and yet another club high before drawing trumps and returning to dummy with a spade to enjoy the long club, discarding your losing spade. |
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| HotD-fri : GCBA Squad practice : 28mar19 : B13 |
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This hand from last night had a couple of features of interest. The first question which arose was about the handling of the spade suit. The missing spades are JT32 and there are no worries unless the suit breaks 4-0; if South has such a holding you must lose a trick, but if North has it then you can bring in the suit for no losers, but only if you retain the KQ over the JT. Which means that the only logical play in the suit is to start with the ace; this was only found by 2 of the 5 declarers!
The other point of interest was the consistency of the opening lead, with all 5 defenders choosing to lead a top heart. This lead does indeed look "normal" but do check on the effect. It set up one trick but also gave away a trick by setting up the heart jack in dummy. The alternative lead is a club from the T97542; consider the effect of that - it takes away a vital entry from the West hand, and makes it (in practice) impossible for declarer to pick up the spade suit. This would defeat the contract! It was surprising not to find any deviations from the losing lead.
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| HotD-thu : Seminar on slams : 27mar19 : B2 |
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You bid this hand sensibly up to a small slam, and when you see dummy you think maybe you should have bid 7♠. After ruffing the openign diamond lead, South shows out when you play a trump to the king. How should you proceed?
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When it looks too easy you must focus on what can go wrong. There are in fact only ten top tricks and you need at least two more. With the club suit in reserve, your first port of call must be the heart suit. There will be no problem if the suit breaks 3-3 or 4-2; can you cope if they are 5-1? The answer is yes, all you need to do is ruff one round in the short trump hand. That trump trick plus the long heart are the two extras you need - and if you are ruffing a winner it still doesn't cost you.
Notice that running the first diamond to the king (and ruffing two diamonds in the long trump hand) is also a valid choice - although this gives up the overtrick more often than I would like to.
[Hand from Porthcawl congress, 2017] |
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| HotD-wed : Spring Swiss Pairs : 25mar19 : B20 |
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This hand from Monday produced a few interesting points. The first question is what the bidding tells South about the opening lead, and the answer is that West has shown hearts - probably four (but if 3♣ was asking about five-card majors then it might only be three). This makes a heart lead a lot less attractive. This was enough to persuade three out of eight decfenders not to lead a heart - two of them chose a diamond and one (knowing partner had to have 5 spades if the opponents lacked a fit there) led the ♠Q. That spade lead is not as weird as it looks; if they lack a spade fit then partner has 5+ spades and the queen is likely to fall under an honour anyway. [Here it takes a trick and a tempo from the defence, but doesn't give declarer any more tricks than were already available] In all cases declarer could win the lead, and then set about the club suit. With only one likely entry to dummy (the ♥A, except in the case of the spade lead) the best play in that suit needs to be investigated. Curiously the answer is to lead from East and that all options from the East hand (the king or the six) are equal in terms of delivering four tricks - but leading the king maximises your chance of 5 tricks. (If you want five tricks the clearly best option is to cross to dummy and lead towards the club king). Without the entry constraint it is different - the best line for both 4 tricks and for 5 tricks is to cross to dummy and lead towards the K76, covering whatever appears. On the diamond lead, declarer beats the jack with the king. If they next tackle clubs to best advantage (leading the king) or spades (small towards the jack) then West is on lead and has to decide whether or not to continue diamonds. It's easy to lead the queen, but when it holds can you tell whether or not to continue? It could be a guess were it not for a device known as SMITH PETERS. It covers the position where partner's play at trick one didn't clarify the layout in the suit, and says that a high card in declarer's suit says "I am better than expected in the suit partner led initially" and here either the ♠T (where East has many to choose from) or the ♣T (fortunately high) will give the message. At the table, this enabled West to continue the suit confidently and declarer had no chance. |
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| Find a Safe Line |
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West leads the ♦K and switches to ♥T. Can you find a safe line?
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You are safe even if both finesses are wrong. Duck the heart in both hands. Win the continuation, draw trumps and ruff a low diamond. Now eliminate the hearts and exit with the ♦Q to endplay West. |
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| A Defensive Problem |
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Partner leads the ♥4 to Ace, King and 3. Declarer plays a spade to his King and partner's Ace, partner continuing with the ♥2. How do you continue?
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You have 2 tricks and clearly partner will need to hold the ♦A as a third trick - where is the fourth defensive trick to come from? There are 2 possibilities - play a heart for a trump promotion if partner holds the ♠J or possibly the ♠T or hope West holds the ♦Q and that you can collect 2 diamond tricks. Are you on a guess? The answer is no. If partner wanted a trump promotion he would have have cashed the ♦A before putting you in with a heart. When partner plays the way he has, he should be desperate for a diamond lead. |
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| What's the best chance? |
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You play in 6♥ and West leads the ♦Q. When this holds the trick, he continues with a diamond to his partner's King and you ruff. How do you play from here?
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The problem is to set up the clubs for 2 spade discards. Finessing the queen gives the best odds. So draw trumps, club finesse, cash the Ace and ruff a club. Now back to dummy with a trump to ruff the fourth club. If clubs have broken, you are home; if East had 5 you could pick up his Jack via a known ruffing finesse on the fourth round. If West turns up with 5 clubs then run all your trumps and hope West has the ♠K, in which case he will get squuezed in the black suits. |
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| HotD-sat : CBC Pairs : 22mar19 : B15 |
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This hand from last night was curious in that there was an easy slam available, but the only people who stepped towards it got themselves a bottom. How did that happen?
The key decision comes at the point shown in the bidding. The vast majority bid 3N and played there, and they all made 13 tricks when West discarded diamonds rather than spades (playing partner for the wrong jack).
The potential of the hand was not identified by those who bid 3N. Although there are stoppers in all suits, the three card club support and the good controls make the hand too strong for this. Where this was recognised, North bid 3♦ as a first (forcing) step and heard next of 3-card spade support. After that came a key card ask and the discovery that one key card and the trump queen were missing. North quickly stopped, but the 5♠ contract had two losers, and that scored a lot worse than everyone else's 3N+4.
What should have happened? North might have reasoned that even though 6♠ was not going to be good odds, that either 6♣ or 6N would have decent chances. For sure, 3N was making at least as many tricks as were available in spades, and that meant 5♠ was likely to be a bad matchpoint score. We get into the habit of rejecting a slam automatically when key cards are missing - but this is not always right.
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| How do you Play? |
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You play in 3NT from South on the lead of ♠8. How do you play?
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To make this contract you will need to bring in the club suit for 4 tricks. The best play in the suit is to lead the Ace followed by a small card. [Fully ducking the first round and then playing the ace is equivalent] Later you will lead a club honour. This line succeeds against clubs 3-3 and 4-2 breaks that contain a doubleton honour. Of course on this hand entries to South are vital and hence you must rise with dummy's ♠K at trick 1 before playing clubs as described above. You will use the ♠AJ as entries on the reasonably assumption that East holds the ♠Q given West's choice of lead. |
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| HotD-wed : League 8 : 18mar19 : B6 |
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This hand from Monday generated a lot of discussion afterwards. The auction shown has South bidding 2N as a passed hand to show a good raise, and North's 3N accepts the game try and denies a shortage.
The opening lead at every table was a top club, enabling West to win the ace at trick one. At this point the contract clearly goes down if the defence cash three hearts, but this was too difficult for most Wests. One did switch to hearts, but that was to the ♥2 and when East won the contract could no longer be defeated. Another found the ♥T switch, which went to the king and ace, but East was now scared to play another heart, and that declarer also succeeded.
Two other Wests led back a club at trick two, noting that there was at that point only one discard available to declarer. These two declarers won that and continued with the ♠A and saw a high spade drop from West. Both declarers knew about the Theory of Restricted Choice and now finessed the ten, but West won and now could play a low heart and when the king went up (as it must) declarer was down two.
These declarers both missed an interesting point. Although the odds on a finesse are better than playing for the drop - you still have a second chance if you play for the drop and West shows out. This would mean East has a spade trick - but this won't be fatal if declarer can keep it to one heart loser. Cashing the top diamonds, and then putting East in with the third spade, creates an end-play which makes a trick out of the heart ace.
What should have happened? It's hard to say; the winning choice by West would have been a switch to the ♥Q at trick two. After that lead, the defence cannot go wrong.
LATER: Patrick Phair points out that "Given that if a spade trick is lost declarer would prefer to lose it to East, there is a case for cashing ♠K first rather than ♠A. This is what our opponent did at my table, and she now couldn't go wrong in spades. She also got the diamonds right (is this obvious?) and made the contract."
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| Trial for the Defence |
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Partner leads the ♥7. Declarer puts in the Knave from dummy. How do you plan the defence?
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On the bidding partner will have an entry somewhere, and if by some chance he doesn't then you won't be beating the contract. If you woodenly play the ♥Q on dummy's knave, partner will have no reason not to think he has found you with ♥KQ9xx, and will continue with a second heart when he gains the lead. You know that a spade switch will beat the contract and the best way to tell partner that is to play the ♥K at trick 1 so that he will see no future in leading the suit again |
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| Is This Too Easy? |
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West leads a low diamond against your game. East wins the Ace and returns the suit. How do you play?
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This hand looks very easy. If you play Ace and another spade and it turns out that you have 2 trump losers, then you can always fall back on the heart finesse. However, if West started with all 4 trumps. you will have 4 losers. It is no good playing a spade to the 8 in dummy because this will result in your losing 2 trump tricks on many layouts where this was unnecessary and you will then go down when the heart finesse loses. The key is to clarify the heart position first. Finesse the ♥Q at trick 3. If it wins then you can enter hand with a heart ruff and play a spade to the 8 (if West plays low), thus ensuring no more than 2 trump losers. Of course if the heart finesse loses, you will play Ace and another spade and hope to limit your losses in the suit to 2 tricks. Your losing club will go on the ♥A later. |
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| The Clue has been Seen |
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West leads the ♣Q. How do you avoid what looks like 4 losers?
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West's bidding has given you a clue. His 2NT bid shows at least 5-5 in the minors, so it may well be possible to endplay East. Win the club lead on the table, draw trumps and knock out the ♦A. Win the likely club return and play a heart to the ten. East will win but will have to return a heart. Now you can win dummy's Ace and exit in hearts to force East to give you a ruff and discard. You wont be able to win on all layouts e.g. when West has 2 heart honours or the hearts break 4-3, but you will succeed most of the time given West's bidding |
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| An Extra Chance |
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You play in 4♠ on the ♦J lead. Over to you.
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You could win and draw trumps and hope to do something with the hearts. You have the club finesse as a backstop. You can do better than this however by playing hearts early. If you win the opening lead and play a low heart towards dummy. Whenever West has a high honour he cannot afford to go in with it as else you will later establish a heart trick for a minor suit discard. So West plays low and East wins cheaply. You win the diamond return a nd lead your second heart. Now West might win, cash a diamond and play a club through - but you eschew the finesses and ruff a heart high. You then use the 2 trump entries to establish and enjoy the long heart for a club discard. |
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| HotD-fri : Spring Swiss Pairs : 11mar19 : B14 |
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Today's hand from Monday brought up some questions about how best to play this particular club suit. On the auction shown, West chose to lead the ♥T, a choice which makes it look very like East has one of the top two diamonds. You cover, aand East plays the king and you win with the ace. You draw two rounds of trumps, say the ace and then the king. If you can make three club tricks the heart loser can do away, and if you can make four that's even better. How should you play the suit?
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This is one of those combinations where the best line for 4 tricks and the best line for 3 tricks are different - and this set-up is common enough that we ought to know the answers in both cases.
For four tricks the best option is a double finesse, playing for ♣Q and ♣T onside. This is about a 25.2% chance.
For three tricks the answer is different : you start with the ace and then (if nothing happens) lead towards the jack. This has a 83.85% chance of success.
These figures don't give us the answer however : we also need to know that the double finesse will still generate 3 tricks 78.3% of the time (losing to QTx/QTxx offside), while the alternative line generates 4 tricks 4.4% of the time (stiff Q, or QT doubleton with West).
At matchpoints it's the better average number of tricks that matters, and here the best average comes from the double finesse. If you went for that, then hard luck, only ten tricks.
If you started wrongly, cashing the ace and seeing the ten drop - what did you do next? You had the choice of playing for singleton ♣T or doubleton ♣QT. There is an easy answer to the odds here - any specific holding which is more balanced is more likely, and with six clubs out a 2-card holding is a more balanced split. So you should drop the queen next.
Little point - you didn't know that spade were breaking two-two and you started with the ♠AQ before going to dummy's king, When they broke, you switched to clubs. Suppose you got the clubs right? You win the third round with the jack, but how do you get back to hand when your remaining spades are the 74 and dummy has the K98? The answer is you remembered - and you just have to do this automatically in case it might matter - to unblock the ♠9 (or ♠8) on the second round. [Actually you might be starting this suit with the king to pick up JT63 onside, and then the nine to the ace]
All this on a hand where almost everyone made the expected 10 tricks - but I bet not many played ♠K then ♠9 to hand and then a third round to dummy's ♠8 to run the ♣J. |
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| HotD-thu : Spring Swiss Pairs : 11mar19 : B10 |
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Today's hand is a lead problem - what's your choice?
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The answer was actually found by the majority on Monday - with four of the five defenders in this position choosing a diamond. Unfortunately that was only part of what was needed - only one table after that start managed to hold declarer to eight tricks.
The first key play was North's on trick one - it is vital for North to duck this trick, so that when South next gets the lead, two more rounds of diamonds can be played. If you do that then declarer cannot avoid losing two hearts plus a trick in each other suit. Notice how useless the club discard turns out to be - declarer can either throw the third spade (a likely winner) or the fith heart (ditto).
When it went awry at table one, North won trick one and continued the suit. This convinced South that North held only two diamonds and that declarer therefore had only three black cards. So after a club to the queen and ace he attacked spades. That made it even worse and declarer emerged with ten tricks.
Stories from other tables welcome. |
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| HotD-wed : Spring Swiss Pairs : 11mar19 : B6 |
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When this hand arose on Monday the bidding at table 1 was as shown. It seemed inevitable that the play started with the ♣A and then because the king was set to win the next trick, North had a clear opportunity for a suit preference signal with the club seven. It was easy to switch to the heart queen, and this set up four tricks for the defence. East-West had done well to stop in a part-score, but the traveller suggested that oithers playing in spades had done better.
And indeed they had - but what mattered on this hand was the opening lead. When East declared there were three different suits led - the club ace here, a top heart, and a spade. Are you can see the spade lost a tempo - the heart winners were not set up and declarer made four trumps, five diamonds, the heart ace. and the club king. Two tricks different! A number of times West was declarer - presumably after a strong NT opener and a transfer; here it was much more difficult for North to find the winning lead. Both Norths faced with this problem led the ♦T; declarer could set about drawing trumps, and when North won the ace and played to the club ace for a ruff that was three tricks for the defence but there was no time for a fourth. Could North have done differently? The answer is that they might; holding four trumps your first choice must always be to force declarer because of you can do that you will set up your long trump as a winner. Here that would hint at striking out with a rounded suit - and whichever you choose should work.
The bottom line is that, for all the effort we might put into thinking through the opening lead carefully, sometimes it is just too difficult. The four suits were led on this hand, resulting in 9 or 10 or 11 tricks depending on the choice. If there is anything to learn from this it is that helping partner with the opening lead will be a worthwhile exercise (here the 2♣ bid even though you are bound to be outbid in spades). On this hand if South had opened 1♣ would North find the winning choice? [They might find the 4♣ bid which nets a better score than -140]
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| How do you Defend? |
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You lead the ♥Q. Dummy's King holds and declarer plays a diamond to his 9 at trick 2. How do you defend? |
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Simply win the ♦A and play a trump to partner's Ace for a club through! How do you know this is the right thing to do? Consider declarer's line of play. If he held the ♠A he would certainly have played a spade at trick 2 and discarded a club on his ♥A. |
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| Slow Down |
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You play in 7NT against the lead of ♥K. How do you play?
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If spades break you will have no problem. Is there anything you can do if spades are 4-1? You will still make if one hand has sole control of both majors as that hand will be squuezed provided you play your cards in the right order. You must not play spades early as the ♠Q is a vital entry card. Instead, win the lead and cash all of dummy's minor suit winners before returning to hand with the ♠Q to cash South's minor suit cards. In the 3 card ending, dummy will have ♠AKx and you will have ♥T. West will not be able to keep a top heart and 3 spades. In practice, he will certainly discard his heart winner, hoping his partner has the ♥T. |
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| Hear the Bidding |
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After making a Michaels style cue bid of 2♣ ,West leads the ♥K against your slam. How will you get to 12 tricks?
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On the bidding, the spades are marked offside so you will need to engineer an end-play. Win the lead and ruff a heart. Now a trump to the Ace sees West show out. Since West has at least 10 major suit cards, it is safe to play off the top diamonds in dummy and then draw the remaining trumps in 2 rounds finishing in hand to play 2 more rounds of diamonds ruffing on the table. Now play a spade from the table and duck in hand unless East plays the King. If West overtakes his partners card, he is endplayed, whilst if East is allowed to win the trick, he must concede a ruff and discard. The bidding has given you all the help you needed. |
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| Plan the Defence |
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West leads the ♦3 against this game. You win with the King. How do you see the defence developing?
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For his lead partner will either have a short diamond (unlikely), or a 4 or 5 card suit headed by an honour (clearly the Queen in this instance). Hence partner has an entry. This points the way to the defence. If you return a heart at trick 2, you will later be able to put partner in with the ♦Q for a heart ruff. |
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| HotD-fri : BBO ICL League : 6mar19 : B5 |
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The BBO Inter-Cities league (ICL) has been running for about 15 years and is a Croatian-led, mostly-European competition which runs on-line matches on a Wednesday evening. This year there are six divisions with 48 teams, and after the group stage there will be knock-outs to determine the winner. The Aberystwyth team (and yes Aberystwyth striclty isn;t a city) had its first match this week, against Essen.
This hand came up early in the match - and provided this test : after the opposition open 2♦ (Multi - weak two in a major or strong balanced) how do you proceed ?
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We'll come to conventional approach second, but first is what to do if you have limited methods. The big danger of any suit bid you make it that it might end the auction, and the trouble with double is that you might be no better off on the next round. The hint lies in those last words - if you can hold your fire until they have declared their suit you are in better space - so you pass smoothly and the bidding proceeds P - 2♠ (preference for hearts) - P - P and now everyone knows that third seat had a weak two in hearts. At this point a Michaels Cue bid of 3♠ starts to describe your hand - a two suiter with hearts and a minor.
An alternative directly over 2♦ is to have a clear agreement about the jumps to 4♣ and 4♦; fairly common amongst the organised tournament players is the use of these for two suiters - and there are two styles, the first being that it shows hearts and the minor named, the other that it shows the corresponding major plus either minor. In all cases the shape shown is at least 5-5. The first style give more instant definition, but the latter covers twice as many two suiters.
Either approach on this hand is likely to get you a 4♥ response from partner - and now comes your second choice - what do to now?
It is very hard not to make another try, as partner needs as little as ♥Jxxx to make the slam quite decent, and ♥KQx would make a grand slam possible. The only hint you have on this hand is the 2♠ bid by North. The suggestion of heart support there should act as a caution. The other difficulty with a try is that partner might not know when to proceed. Still, it feel almost superhuman to pass 4♥ at this point. You could proceed with 4♠ and see what happens - leaving it up to partner; this seems the best approach.
Anyway - the fact is that neither East could give up in time, and the result on the board was 6♣-1 in both rooms. Sad. |
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| HotD-thu : Spring Teams : 4mar19 : B18 |
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It seemed normal to reach 5♦ after the auction shown, and it looks like an easy 11 tricks if the clubs behave. Can you see a way of coping if the clubs break 4-1?
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The answer lies in the spade suit. If the clubs break 4-1 then if the hand with long clubs has sole control of the spade suit, that hand can be subject to a squeeze.
The indicated line of play is to draw trumps, duck a spade, win the return and play ♠A and ruff the third round. After this only one defender can guard spades. From this point declarer should cash the remaining trumps - and end with ♣A964 in hand while dummy has ♠6 ♣KQ5. If the same hand has the clubs and the long spade - South here - they will give away a trick as they come down to four cards.
There isn't any counting needed here - beyond watching to see if one missing spade gets discards - and if it doesn't you cash the clubs. Can't we all do this?
[As AlanW pointed out : there is a good case for North bidding 5♥ with a seven card suit opposite a takeout doube, and this does indeed get a better result] |
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| HotD-wed : Spring Teams : 4mar19 : B13 |
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This was the most spectacular hand on Monday and as a bidding exercise it proved too difficulty for most pairs. It was easy enough to decide to open 1♣ with the East hand but what should you do over 1♥? You clearly want to emphasise the clubs, and three routes were found: the simplest was 3♣ which is a bit of an underbid but it might be the limit of the hand if partner's values are all in hearts, and when partner continues over this with 3N your prospect improve as partner has suggested values in diamonds and spades. The difficulty is how to continue, and if you can bid a confidently forcing 4♣ then you are on your way - a cue bid of the ♦A, a cue of the heart shortage, anbd a cue of the ♠K makes it easy for East to bid the slam.
The second alternative was a natural 5♣ bid. This might get you to game when 3♣ would fail (give partner ♠K ♦J and nothing much more) but gives up on any investigation of slam; West is forced to guess to pass or bid on.
The third route is for East to reverse into 2♦; this bid should have four diamonds but it does at least promise longer clubs and it is forcing. When it was tried, West continued with a FSF 2♠ and this allowed East to jump to 4♣ to emphasise that suit; after this we are in the same position as option one.
Of those who bid slam, the only stories we know are of pairs who started the auction with 2♣; the hand is not strictly within the limits for an opener described as "strong" but that caused no damage in this case. The strong opening however led West to insist on a slam, despite all the attempts by East - after the opening bid - to back-pedal.
Do tell of any sensible and successful auctions.
One reported sequence was 1♣ - 1♥ - 2♦ - 2♠ - 3♠(suggests short hearts) - 3N - 5♣ - 5♦ - 6♣ - P, but this does smack of an attempt to play in diamonds that got corrected to clubs.
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| Careful Play Required |
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East's 1NT opening was showed 14-16 pts. West starts with the ♦T lead. Plan the play.
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The bidding marks East with all the relevant high cards and you can use this to your advantage. Cover the opening lead. East will win and probably switch to a heart. You can now play a high spade from hand. East wins to play a second heart. Now you can enter dummy with an intermediate spadeand ruff a low diamond. Cash your remaining heart and enter dummy with a trump to lead the ♦Q. When East covers you discard a club and East must now lead a club from his King or concede a ruff and discard. If East had ducked the first spade, you simply play off your heart winners before throwing East in with a trump to again endplay him. |
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| Find an Entry |
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West leads the ♥K. You win and lay down the ♠A on which West throws a heart. Play from here.
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You need an entry to dummy to finesse the spade but where is that to come from? The answer is to force West to give you the entry you need and in order to do that, you must remove his exit cards. Simply cash 2 clubs in hand and then lead a diamond. West can rise with the Ace but then on this layout only has red cards to lead. A heart allows you to ruff in dummy and a diamond goes to dummy's King. Why cash specifically 2 clubs? - well if West holds 3 clubs and hence would have a safe club exit after winning the ♦A, then East would have held only 2 clubs and would ruff the third round, thus defeating you. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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You start with the ♦A, declarer dropping the King while partner plays the 2. How do you continue?
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When the King of diamonds holds, it looks like declarer is 6214 or perhaps 6115 distribution. You hope to make your 2 aces, but where is the setting trick to come from? The best hope is that partner has ♣Kx and if this is the case, you can beat the contract by leading the ♠Q at trick 2. If declarer tries to enter dummy with a heart, you rise with the Ace and give partner a spade ruff. |
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| Fallback Plan |
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You open a strong 1NT and partner transfers and then asks you to pick a slam by bidding 5NT. You choose spades because you might need to ruff a club in hand. West leads the ♣J. It looks like you will make 4 spades, a heart, 4 diamonds and 3 clubs for 12 tricks. At trick two you play a spade to the Ace but East shows out, discarding a club. What are your chances now?
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You will make this contract if West's shape is 5143. Continue by cashing your other top club and crossing to dummy with a diamond to discard a heart on dummy's ♣Q. Now overtake the diamond back to hand and continue the suit. You ruff the last diamond with a baby trump in dummy as West is forced to follow. Now a heart from the table sees West having to ruff his partners trick and then lead away from his ♠Q. |
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| HotD-fri : County Individual : 25feb19 : B18 |
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You might not have wanted to be in 3N, but when you show 15-17 balanced over partner's 1♠ response, you get raised to game. On the lead of a small diamond, how will you proceed?
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Clearly your best prospects for extra tricks lie in the heart suit. How do you play this combination? The answer is small to the nine first, and when it loses you play hearts from the top. You are aiming for three heart tricks and you might be surprised to find that the chances of three tricks is 45%. The play succeeds when JT are both onside (unless South has five), when any three card combination with a jack/ten is onside, and when there is JTx offside (as is the case here).
On this hand the ♥7 loses to the ♥T, and when a second diamond is played you duck this and win the third round. Now you knock out the ♥A, and a spade comes through - but you have no choice, you play the king. When the king wins, you have nine top tricks and the clubs breaking 3-3 delivers a tenth. Suddenly it doesn't seem such a poor contract after all!
In fact the line of play shows that the contract was only about a 20% shot, but if others are in the same boat, you don't worry about these things!
Could the defence have done better? The answer is yes; the defence needed to focus on where their five tricks were coming from. After the second round of diamond was ducked, North might have realised that a continuation was futile. A spade switch now will generate two spade tricks for the defence - and before the ♥A has been knocked out. The defence get two spades, one diamond and two hearts - and that is enough to beat the game.
The reality of this game is, as this example shows, that optimal defence is much harder than optimnal declarer play, and it is for this reason that we will keep on bidding games that are below the theoretically required odds. |
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| HotD-thu : County Individual : 25feb19 : B10 |
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This hand from Monday's game was a decent bidding exercise for North-South. Fortunately the specified system (a standard simple system to ease the mixing of partnerships) had specified that 3♠ over a 2N opener (20-22 balanced) showed both minors, and that was just what was needed here. What is less clear is how the bidding should continue after South has shown a positive interest in diamonds. Slam is clearly in the offing, as North would not have suggested a 5-level minor suit contract were there not a decent chance of 11 tricks, and when 11 tricks looks easy, there is always a chance of 12 tricks.
There are two choices of how to proceed after 4♦ sets the trump suit, and it is not clear which is better. One argument says that shortage is key to evaluating hands, and that showing the shortage is appropriate here. That makes a lot of sense but needs to go with the possibility of 4N as a sign-off (eg when holding AQJT opposite the singleton) and that removes the possibility of 4N to ask for keycards. This trade needs to have been discussed in advance. The alternative is to simply cue bid high cards, which here would be a 4♠ bid.
In either case, what should South do? Especially if North has by-passed hearts to show the ♠K, South knows that a grand slam will be too much to ask, but might well worry that you are missing the ♣AK and in that case you don't want to bid a small slam either. In fact that concern is an illusion, as North would not have suggested going to a high level in a minor if only queen high in those two suits. So you can be sure that North has a high club. The answer therefore has to be a 6♦ bid.
Two tables got to the small slam by this route, but one table chickened out and stopped in 5♦. Who would come out best is not yet clear.
After a neutral lead (a trump seems best) from West you can see no losers in spades or diamonds, and possibly not hearts - so it all seems to come down to guessing the clubs. There is a catch however - as if you draw trumps (they are 3-1) you find you have six diamond tricks, three spades and the heart ace. So you need two more tricks. That could come from the ace and queen of clubs both onside - which doesn't make the slam great odds. You can do better however if you go in for a dummy reversal - winning the ♦Q and ruffing a heart, back in trumps, ruffing a heart, back in spades, ruff a heart, back in spades to draw the last trump. That's better - now it is only a 50-50 guess which club honour to find onside.
Down to this guess - which way will you jump? Usually the key pointer is the fact that a club was not lead. Unfortunately it doesn't tell you much as dummy had shown the suit and leading it would be a very strange choice. What do we choose? One declarer started by leading the jack and West solved the problem by covering with the jack. The other two tables also guessed right, so all tables made 12 tricks and those who bid the slam came out on top.
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| HotD-wed : County Individual : 25feb19 : B9 |
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There was a neat turnout on Monday's game - exactly 12 individuals, which allowed each person to play with each other, over the 33 boards we had in circulation. It was a pleasant surprise to find that we played 33 boards and fnished before 2230 hrs, a new record for a GCBA event!
This hand was an interesting hand to play in 5♣ - which was reached at one table after the auction shown. In fact, making 5♣ was never going to be a top, as one table played in 3N when the West player treated the singleton king of hearts as a stopper in that suit, and North led a diamond against 3N, in which there were now ten top tricks. Playing in 5♣, the defence start with two rounds of hearts and you ruff the second; the trumps break 2-2; how do you proceed? [It would be too easy if the diamonds generated four tricks - they don't]
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The key here is not losing two spade tricks, despite missing the king and queen and jack. This can only happen if the defensive spades are blocked - and for this you need to find one hand with a doubleton of two honours, and embarassed when they win the second round of the suit. Before you get to that point, you will need to have removed all that defender's exit cards - so you need (after drawing trumps) to cash the diamonds and ruff the fourth round. Then comes ace and another spade and South is on lead with only hearts left. The ruff-and-discard from a heart return lets you discard a spade from West amd ruff in the East hand.
If the trumps had broken 3-1, your best line would have been very similar - drawing only two trumps, clearing the diamond, and exiting in spades hoping that the winner would be end-played. |
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| Play Well |
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West starts with 3 top hearts, East following to the third round with the ♥J. You ruff this and draw trumps in 2 rounds. Play from here.
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The bidding surely marks West with the ♣K so it looks like an easy make. However, you need to safeguard against losing 2 club tricks if the suit breaks 4-1. The best line is to draw trumps, eliminate diamonds and play a low club to dummy's Queen. When this holds the trick, you return to hand with a trump and lead a low club towards dummy's ten. If West rises with the Knave, either the clubs have broken or else West is endplayed if he started with 4 clubs. |
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| Plan the Play |
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West leads the ♥Q and when you play low in dummy, East wins the Ace and returns a club. Plan the play
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On the bidding, West is marked with the Ace of spades and if it is a singleton, you are in danger of getting your ♥K ruffed, losing in effect 3 hearts and a spade. There is nothing you can do to prevent the ruff but by careful play you can ensure that having taken his ruff, East has no good exit. Win the club return and eliminate the minor suits before leading a trump. Now when East ruffs your ♥K, he must concede a ruff and discard and your remaining heart loser disappears. |
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| You Will All Get This Right |
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To make 3N on the ♥ Q lead .... how do you proceed?
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You want to make four spade tricks and three club tricks and must be careful about unblocking and with entries.
You will play spades first, so the late entry needs to be to the club suit. You therefore win the ♥A at trick one, cash three spades, and play a club towards the JT. This gives you an entry to cash the fourth spade, and after doing that you can continue clubs - with the ♥K as an entry if they duck twice before winning the ace. |
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| A Bad and Good Break |
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West leads a trump on which East discards a diamond. Plan the play.
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The trump lead and break is annoying. If you duck a heart at some point, West will most likely win and play another trump, ruining your chances of a cross-ruff. The long club can't be set up and cashed with the trumps 4-0 through lack of entries. There is hope however. If East holds the ♦Q and wins a trick, he doesn't have another trump to lead, so you might still be able to ruff 3 times in dummy. Win the opening lead in dummy and lead the ♦J. If East covers, let him hold the trick and later discard a heart on a diamond and cross-ruff the hand. If East doesn't cover the ♦J, you need to have the courage to run it. |
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| HotD-fri : League 7 : 18feb19 : B20 |
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This hand from Monday proved troublesome for many. You would prefer to have found your heart fit, and if playing 4-card majors the auction would have started with 1♥ and the fit would have been found. On Monday there were 5 declarers in 4♥ and 5 declarers in 3N. When you find yourself in 3N and South leads a spade (some high, some low), how will you continue?
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Clearly you need the club suit to come in and your worry on this hand is the diamond suit. If South has the ♣K you are quite safe but if North has that card then you are in more danger. With no visible entry to dummy, most declarers laid down the ♣A and continued the suit, banking everything on the club king being with South. When North won and played a diamond through, the contract was down.
Could declarer have done better. The key word above is "visible" (alongside "entry") and the extra chance that *all* the declarers in 3N missed was that the heart queen would come down in two rounds and that the ♥J would become an entry to dummy. If you start with the top hearts you will find the queen drops and you can then cross to dummy, to take the club finesse into the same hand and clock up 11 tricks. Extra chances must be taken! |
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| HotD-thu : League 7 : B19 |
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This hand from Monday produced a bidding problem for North. After partner opens and the next hand cue bids to shows at least 5-5 spades and a minor, you know that the opposition have at least a 9-card spade fit. You have some heart support but (for some at least) partner might only have four hearts, and anyway the diamonds are the real feature of your hand. Bidding 3♦ is possible but it might lead to the loss of your heart support, and there is the question too of whether or not 3♦ is game forcing. Your choice?
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There is no easy natural answer to this, but there is a solution we use in many other contexts and that is to introduce transfers. Starting at 2N, we can transfer into the minor suits with 2N promising clubs and 3♣ promising diamonds. Over the transfer request, partner with nothing special to say will accept and on this hand it offers you the chance of showing diamonds and then bidding hearts next to show three card support. If your hand was just competitive in the minor you would pass the transfer acceptance, while if your hand was game forcing you could continue with a cue bid or a new suit. It's all very convenient and allows 3♦ as a transfer into hearts to show a good 3-card heart raise. [For all these plans of course, the opponents might interfere and block your plan]
On this hand, over your transfer partner will break (positively) to 3♥ or 4♥ and that will tell you that hearts are fine as a trump suit and you can bid the heart game.
The one table which played this hand in spades had the auction : 1♥ - 2♥ - P(stuck) - 2♠, 3♥ - 3♠ - 4♥ - 4♠ -end. On this auciton it was very difficult for North-South to realise that they owned the hand, as either of them could have been much weaker. |
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| HotD-wed : League 7 : 18feb19 : B23 |
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This hand from Monday was almost a text-book hand, and (not always true) one where the correct play was vital. Slightly more Norths failed on this than did succeed.
There is clearly one spade loser and one club loser in 4♠ and none in diamonds, so the hand comes down to avoiding two heart losers. Clearly the king is the card that matters and you are aiming to make a trick out of the queen. With the holding of AQx, and lacking any useful pips (AQ9 would be different) the key play is to cash the ace before leading up to the queen. In some cases this will gain because a singleton king falls offside, but the more common case is where - as in this hand - you can eliminate all the side suits before leading up to the queen, and when it loses now to a doubleton king, the defence have to give a ruff-and-discard and that solves the problem with the third round of the suit.
In fact a number of successful declarer did not get quite that far - when they cashed the ace, East could see the end-play coming, and unblocked the king (hoping partner had the queen-jack). Well done to both North and East in those cases.
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| Read the Lead |
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West leads the ♥J on which East plays the ♥6. Plan the play.
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If diamonds are 3-2, you can simply duck a diamond for 10 tricks so assume they are 4-1. You can still set up a long diamond, but this will require the hearts to be 4-4 or perhaps 6-2 if the hand with long diamonds has a doubleton heart. An alternative is to cash 2 top diamonds and if they don't break, then switch to spades, playing King, Ace and then small to your ten. This will succeed if spades are 3-3 or 4-2 with West holding a doubleton honour. If hearts were 6-2, East would probably have unblocked his ♥Q at trick 1. As a favourable spade position is a better chance than hearts breaking 4-4, then the best line is to play 2 top diamonds and revert to spades. |
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| Take Your Time |
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West leads the ♣6 against your slam. How do you play?
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You should consider the lead carefully. Why has West led dummy's first bid suit? It is quite likely a singleton and you might suffer a club ruff if East holds the ♥A so you first need to dispose of your club. Win the opening lead and play a spade to your King. Ace and another diamond ruffed in dummy allows you to throw your remaining club on the ♠A. Now is the time to lead a trump from dummy. If East rises with the Ace and leads a club, your best chance is to ruff high and play the opposing trumps to be 2-2 (you are down in any case if West started with a singleton club and ♥Jxx) |
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| Silence is Golden |
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West leads the ♦Q against your slam. Can you see a way to 12 tricks?
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Obviously the defence will always hold up on the first round of hearts in an attempt to kill dummy's heart suit, but if East has no more than 3 clubs and 2 diamonds (likely enough on the bidding) then you can succeed whenever he holds the ♥A. Win the opening lead and cash 5 rounds of trumps (West shows out on the first round). It is important to keep all 3 clubs in dummy. Now cash the top clubs and play a heart to dummy which will hold the trick. Now you can ruff a club back to hand (extracting East's exit card in clubs) before playing a second heart. East has only hearts left so has to concede. |
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| Hear the Bidding |
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West leads the ♥Q against your game. How do you get to 9 tricks?
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Surely East has a 7 card suit for his vulnerable pre-empt and if that is the case, you should plan to eliminate his side suit cards and throw him in with a club. Duck the opening lead and win the likely heart continuation. Now duck a spade (let's say West wins and clears the hearts -East showing out on the third round). Now you can take the Ace of spades and 3 or 4 rounds of diamonds before playing the ♣J and allowing East to win the trick. His enforced club continuation can be run to dummy's ten for your ninth trick. Yes there will be some distributions for East where he will still have a safe exit card (e.g. 3217 shape), but most of the time you will be successful on this line. |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Pairs League : 13feb19 : B23 |
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Today's hand was a curious exhibit from Wednesday's match. The question for you is : playing in 6♥ you have 11 top tricks, and no ruffs to take. What should be your twelfth trick on this layout? |
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The answer is the ♠T.
How do we reach that conclusion? From declarer's percpective there is the simple chance of a diamond finesse, but there is no reason to take the finesse if the opponents can take it for you. So after winning the opening lead and drawing trumps, the best plan for declarer is to eliminate the clubs, and play out three rounds of spades. It turns out here that North would have to win the this spade and lead into the ♦AKJ, giving declarer the twlefth trick with a diamond. But North should see this coming, and should make sure that on the third round of spades they can play either the eight or the nine, intending that partner can win with the ten and play diamonds from the South hand. When partner lacks the spade ten, that card becomes declaerer's twelfth trick. Even if declarer cashes the top spades early, the strangeness of that play ought to wake North up to what is about to happen.
Did any declarer make the ♠T as their twelfth trick? I don't know.
It might be wortth noting that this hand is a case where 3433 opposite 3433 actually has extra chances when played in a suit contract than it does in NT. |
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| HotD-thu : Spring Swiss Pairs : 11feb19 : B24 |
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There was a good general of principle came into play on this hand from Monday. After the auction shown - we start with your choice lead - which card comes first?
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The key question to ask yourself when the opponents sacrifice is "where are their tricks coming from?". The answer is usually from trumps, and when you have honours in all the side suits that message gets re-enforced. The winning lead here is a trump, because that is the only chance you have to get to play three rounds of trumps (either ace and another now and another when in with the ♥A, or one now and two later). Leading trumps will hold declarer to 8 tricks here, and anything else allows declarer the chance to get out for -300. Given you can make the game in hearts, this makes all the difference between a top and a bottom. |
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| HotD-wed : Spring Swiss Pairs : 11feb19 : B15 |
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There were some strange occurrences in the first session of this year's Swiss Pairs. Board 2 saw the majority of the field play in diamonds and every one of them made a different number of tricks, while a sizeable minority played in hearts and all of them also made a different number of tricks. This was followed two boards later by all tables playing in 4♠ and everyone making 10 tricks - a consistency that is unheard of!
We usually complain here about people not bidding enough slams, but on Monday Board 12 and Board 23 there were good spade slams to bid but the few people who did bid them found that the cards were lying very unfavourably and they had to go down!
On this board it's worth looking at the lead from West's perspective. With a 4333 shape and nothing to go on, you really have to lead your four card suit; there might be a suit that works out better but you have no idea which and the odds of picking a suit that helps declarer is just too great. The second question is what spade to lead from AK96 ? In practice three Wests led low and one led a top spade. There are for sure times when low works best, but the argument is put forward that unless the suit breaks 3-3 or partner has length, then the lead will not work out well for you. In both of those cases a top spade works just as well, and importantly after one top spade, if it looks bad for you, you are still on lead and can switch if necessary. The lead of a top spade also helps enormously when the declarer has a 2-2 holding in the suit.
An odd consequence arises from the choice of a small spade. Declarer of course wins and sets about cashing hearts. Can you see how this now generates 9 tricks for declarer?
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The answer is that the fourth heart squeezes West. If West ditches a diamond then declarer can cash two diamonds and exit in spades, end-playing West. If West ditches a club, then declarer can duck a club to set up the queen. You might not think that the latter is easily read, but when it happened at the table the club discard from West was combined with two club discards from East - and declarer could not go wrong in clubs. |
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| A Thin Contract |
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After some very aggressive bidding, you arrive in 6♥ and receive the lead of the ♣K. Plan the play.
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You can make this contract by setting up the spades provided they are no worse than 4-2. Win the lead and play Ace and another spade, ruffing low in dummy. A diamond to hand allows a further spade ruff with the ♥K. Now cash a diamond throwing your losing club. Then 3 rounds of trumps and play spades from the top. If the layout is similar to that shown, all the defence can take will be a tump trick. |
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| Read the Lead |
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West lead's the ♦2 against your slam. Plan the play.
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We have seen a similar theme in a previous problem. After pre-empting in clubs, a player who leads a side suit almost certainly has a singleton. If this is the case, is there a way to succeed? If you win the ♦A and draw trumps in 2 rounds, you can play off ♣A and ruff a club, then 2 rounds of spades finishing in dummy allows you to lead the ♣J, discarding a small diamond. Now West must concede a ruff and discard allowing you to dispose of your remaining diamond loser. |
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| Be Careful |
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West Cashes the ♥A and ♣A at tricks 1 and 2. East plays the ♣Q so West continues with a low club to his partner's Knave. At trick 4 East returns a heart. How do you play?
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You need the diamond finesse to be right. Suppose you ruff trick 4 and play 3 rounds of trumps finishing in dummy. Now the ♦Q is run and holds but when you repeat the finesse, West shows out and you cannot avoid a diamond loser. The solution is to ruff high at trick 4 and cross to dummy with ♠8. Now play a low diamond and finesse. Now you can draw trumps finishing in dummy and lead the ♦Q to pick up the whole suit. It is just a metter of being careful with your entries. |
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| Take the Right View |
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West leads the ♠5. You duck to East's King and the Knave is returned. How do you play from here?
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It looks like the spades are 5-3 so losing the lead spells defeat. If may appear that your chances in the minor suits are equal but this is not the case. You can combine your minor suit options by playing off the AK of one suit before finessing in the other. If you play the top diamonds and the Queen drops, you will still need the club finesse as you will only have 8 tricks (3 diamonds, 1 spade, 1 heart, 2 clubs). However, if you cash the top clubs and the Queen appears, you have 9 tricks - hence this is the better play. Of course, if the ♣Q doesn't fall in 2 rounds, you will need to find ♦Qxx onside. |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Mens : 5feb19 : B22 |
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Cheltenham Bridge Club helds its gender-specific pairs championships this week. Val Constable & Judy Sanis retained their title in the Ladies Pairs with a score almost 5% ahead of second, but in the Mens' Pairs the winners - a new partnership of John Arblaster & Ben RItacca - clocked up an even better score of full two tops ahead of second place. This board was one of their tops - earned by good judgement from each in turn.
One might question the opening bid, and many would surely have opened with a weak 2♥ as South, but this vulnerability is ideal for making obstructive bids and it was that fact which pushed South to open at the three level. The first good move was West's double, which is much less commital than a 3♠ bid would be, and caters for partner being short in spades and holding a decent minor suit. North raised to 4♥ but this didn't stop East bidding 4♠ and there the auction ended.
South led a heart won by declarer, who now took the right view and played South for a singleton trump, finessing North's queen successfully. After that it was time to knock out the two top diamonds; on the last of these North tried a third heart which gave declarer a ruff-and-discard so that one club loser went away, and when the club finesse now succeeded that was 11 tricks and an outright top.
Could the defence have done better? Definitely. A diamond opening lead from South would have led to a one trick defeat, as partner could have delivered a ruff on the third round. Should South find that? It is hard to say but a doubleton is appealing and if declarer was known to have a 9-card spade fit that would be a stand-out choice; South's heart lead was based on a hope that partner had four trumps and that a forcing defence was what was needed. And of course if South had only opened 2♥ it is possible that East-West might have stopped short of game.
Could North do any differently? Clearly the ruff-and-discard was an error but that only gave away one match-point as the contract was always making. What North might have done was over the double, to bid 4♦ on the way to 4♥. That way South would have no excuse for failing to find the winning lead. And North might have sacrificed in 5♥ but that would gain very little as most tables were 4♠ by West on the lead of a top diamonds, and so down one,
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| Take Your Time |
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You get the lead of the ♠Q. How do you play?
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There will be no problem if the club finesse works but if it loses, you will lose 3 spades (minimum), a club and the ♦A. It is better to play diamonds first. Win the spade and play a low diamond to your Queen. If this holds you can just concede a club trick. If East rises with the ♦A you have chances of bringing in the diamonds for four tricks and hence no need to risk the club finesse. If West wins the diamond Ace and clears spades, you can cash the diamond King (the Jack might drop) before reverting to finessing the club. |
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| HotD-wed : Spring Teams 2 : 4feb19 : B8 |
It was curious to see on Monday how three tables made 11 tricks in hearts, with a clear loser in each of clubs, diamonds and spades. How did it happen?
The bidding first - this was very straightforward, with a 2N opener from East and an enquiry about majors from West. This uncovered the heart fit and led to a 4♥ contract - or at least that was the story at six of the tables. With a 4333 shape, four Wests eschewed the major suit enquiry and simply raised to game, and this was indeed a good move as there were 9 top tricks and nothing could possibly go wrong with that contract. This judgement with a 4333 hand is quite acceptable (but we lack any analysis to confirm that this pays in the long run). There were two "accidents" - one with East ending in 3♥, and the other when East opened a multi 2♦ - P - 2♥ - ? and North poked his nose in with 2♠. East doubled to show a strong 2N opener and this was passed out, This contract escaped for down two, but could have gone down three.
Playing in 4♥ as East, three tables produced a top club lead, two produced a heart lead, and one the ♠J. The club lead would be normal in many circumstances, but a KQ9x holding generated a bad experience for some when leading into a very strong hand, so the choice of a heart instead has support. Declarer on any lead except a spade faces the prospect of four losers, and the key thing is to maximise chances in spades. Since North leading spades through is clearly bad news, the best play is to duck the ♣K, or if a trump lead to draw trumps and then lead to the ♣A4, hoping to duck the trick to South. When this happened and South returned a spade, declarer found that there were ten sure tricks, and set about the standard play of eliminating the clubs before deciding what to do in the pointed suits. The only prospect of anything "good" was an endplay and it turned out that cashing the top spades and top diamonds, and then exiting in EITHER suit, would end-play one defender or the other, and gain a ruff-and-discard to allow the other loser to be disposed of. That is the path to 11 tricks.
There is however no reason for South to switch to (or lead) the dangerous ♠J and on a more passive club or diamond continuation, East's choice should be to eliminate the clubs, cash the ♠A and exit with three rounds of diamonds. With the long diamonds in South, this play leaves the safe hand on lead and the ♠Q is guaranteed as a tenth trick. It is worth noting that while 11 tricks were available and identified as so by Deep Finesse, the best declarer play and defence results in just 10 tricks.
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| HotD-tue : Spring Teams 2 : 4feb19 : B7 |
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There were two slam hands last night that you would want to bid, and it pleasing to report that 9 out of 12 tables bid the slam on board 10. This hand proved more problematic. The bidding alwayed starts off with 1♣ from South and 1♠ from North. There seems little doubt that unless you have a specific agreement otherwise, 2♦ would be forcing (as a reverse) and so 3♦ is free as a splinter bid agreeing spades. North should be very enthused by this; despite the bad fit in clubs, North holds both a decent five-card spade suit, and a good side suit in hearts. The only danger is that there are two major aces, or a major ace and the ♠K missing. Is there a way to check up on these?
Not immediately, so it is appropriate that North continues with 3♥ and over that South will bid 4♣ showing a control there. There are two paths now; North could cue bid 4♥, or if concerned that the heart control had already been shown, then a "cue bid" of 4♦ should get the same job done - the job being to tell partner that they are positiuve about a slam. After that South will take charge, ask for key cards, and settle for the small slam. But most didn't find this so easy ...
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| Work it Out |
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West starts with the ♥J against your game. East overtakes with the ♥Q at trick 1 and you duck. East continues with ♥ Ace and another and you win the third round (West showing out). Play from here.
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The spade finesse is likely to be wrong but there are other chances. Try to get a count on East's hand. Play off 3 top diamonds. There are 9 tricks if they break so let's assume that East started with a doubleton. He will have to discard on the third diamond - suppose he throws a spade. Now take 3 rounds of clubs finishing in hand. If East shows out, then you know that he only has major suit cards left and you can throw him in with a heart to lead a spade into your tenace later. If both opponents follow to 3 rounds of clubs then you have a decision to make. Did East start with a 2524 shape or 3523. If we assume that East holds the ♠K for his overcall, then he is probably 3523 as else he would probably have thrown a club rather than a spade. Hence you exit in hearts as before. Of course, if you playing against a devious expert, then he might well have chosen to blank the ♠K early knowing you would find the endplay - so you can't be sure of doing the right thing - but such is the fascination of the game. |
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| Count your Tricks |
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West leads a low trump against your game. How do you play?
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You might be tempted to cross to the ♦K and try the heart finesse. You will make if the finesse scores or diamonds break 3-3 or on some hands when West cannot lead another trump when in with the ♥K - so not bad odds. However, winning the first spade and playing ♥AQ is pretty much 100%. You can win the trump return, cross to dummy and ruff your remaining heart. This way you will come to 5 spades in dummy, ♦AK, ♣A and a heart ruff in hand for 10 tricks |
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| A Good Lead |
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West leads a low trump and East shows out. This looks like a good lead for the defence. How do you plan the play?
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You lack the entries to set up and enjoy the long club so it looks like you need to take 4 ruffs on the table. However, this wont be possible if West gets in with a heart at some point and leads another trump. You could hope that East holds ♥KQ but that is only a 25% chance. Better is to play ♦A followed by ♦9 from hand, If West fails to cover this then throw a heart from dummy. If West does cover then ruff and enter hand with a club ruff to lead another diamond to repeat the procedure. This way you will make whenever West has only 1 diamond honour (or fails to cover the ♦9) as well as when East has ♥KQ - around 70% in total.
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| How do you Defend? |
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Your partner leads the ♠4 after a simple auction in which South opened a 15-17 1NT. Declarer plays the ♠5 from dummy. How do you see the defence developing?
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It looks like partner has led from a long spade suit and will have at least one entry. What do you think the spade position is? Partner's lead and the rule of eleven tells you that declarer has one card higher than the 4. You can deduce that this will not be the ♠8 else surely declarer would have tried for a legitimate trick in the suit by playing the Queen. If delarer started wih ♠ Jx it hardly matters what you play at trick 1. The critical position is when declarer holds ♠Ax. If you play the ♠T at trick 1 (as many would), then when partner comes in with say the ♦A and leads a second spade, declarer has a 50/50 guess in the suit but may get it right by inserting dummy's 9. If you had played the ♠6 at trick 1, then declarer will most probably rise with the ♠Q on the second spade lead as this is a better percentage shot. |
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| HotD-thu : CBC Swiss Pairs : 29jan19 : B23 |
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There were two slam hands on Tuesday and they both proved problematic. The first was board 5, and at some tables there was opposition bidding but if you had a free run how would you bid this hand, starting from East ...
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♠ AKQ8543
♥ --
♦ A52
♣ Q86
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♠ J6
♥ Q43
♦ 86
♣ AKJT43
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After a start of 1♣ - 1♠ - 2♣ it is very difficult to find out exactly how good partner's clubs are, and that is what matters most. It goes a bit easier if you can start off with 1♣ - 2♠ showing a strong hand, as then raising clubs is clearly forcing. Across the field only four got to 6♠, two got to 6♣, and the other three quarters of the field stopped in game. Nobody got to the cold grand slam in either suit. If you can see a good bidding sequence, do let us know.
The other slam hand (ignoring the two boards where a very lucky 12 tricks were available) was the board shown in the diagram. After this start, in standard Acol with a weak NT, you have to bid 2N (forcing, balanced) and when partner now shows spades with 3♠ you need to support clubs at the 4-level. Unfortunately, partner will not knwo to expect four card support. A cue bid in hearts might now allow you to bid 4N as a key card ask (hoping partner's spades are not QJT9), and you should then continue with 5N to show you have all the key cards. It is a close call now for East as to whether the ♠K is enough to justify bidding the grand slam, and you are forced to guess. Since showing a king would still allow a stop in 6N (which is plyable and might be best at matchpoints) it is right to show the spade king.
The slam bids a bit more easily when 2♣ is a game forcing bid, as now West can raise to 3♣ and we have suit agreement one level lower. We can proceed with 3♠ (stopper for NT) - 4♦ (cue for clubs) - 4♥ (cue, which has to be shortage) and we are in the same boat as the traditional Acol bidders. One extra to note here is that over 3♣ a minimal 2♣ bidder with a shortage in hearts should splinter with 4♥, which means that when the short heart emerges here the East hand is known to have extras (beyond a minimal game force).
Across the field performance was slightly better here - only one pair bid the grand slam, but five pairs bid 6N and four pairs bid 6♣, which leaves just 14 pairs missing out. We must learn to bid up!
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| HotD-wed : County Pairs QF : B21 |
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This hand produced an interesting "vacant spaces" problem on Monday. After the bidding shown East led a diamond and West continued with three rounds forcing a ruff in the dummy. The spade finesse will come at some point - there being little expectation of a doubleton queen offside when the diamonds are 6-2 in that direction. The question is finding the heart queen - who do you think has it?
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Normally with the ace and king in different hands and missing Qxxx trumps, the odds favour playing for the drop. We learn this as "nine ever".
When you start with one more vacant space on one side then leading through that hand, after it goes A-small-small-small and you lead again and see a small card - the number of vacanct spaces is now dead even, and finesse is equal odds with the drop.
If you started with two (or more) more vacant spaces and you lead through, there are still more vacant spaces on the left and the odds swing into taking the finesse on the second round.
Here there are 4 more vacant spaces which says finesse, but awkwardly you cannot cash an honour first to catch singleton queen with West. Does that change it? Indeed it does, and SUITPLAY tells us that the odds on finessing on the first round (as you must) or playing for the drop are dead even.
But there is a flaw in the above argument - as there are not 4 more vacant spaces, only 3, for East has discarded a club on the third diamond. With three vacant spaces, and no ability to catch the singleton queen, the best play is hearts from the top. {Says SUITPLAY]
The pair who lost out because declarer finessed deserve our consolation.
We cannot expect to be able to do all of this calcuation at the table, but if you can get your mind around the first three lines above, they will prove generally useful and easy to apply. |
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| HotD-tue : COunty Pairs QF : 28jan19 : B19 |
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It was a small field for the County Pairs Qualifying Round last night; the turnout has been low since we moved the qualifying round from November to January, so as to be two and not four months ahead of the final. If you have any ideas why this kill the turnout, do let us know.
Curiously there were two completely flat boards - on B23 everyone played 6N just making (have you ever seen a flat board in slam before?) and on B25 everyone played in 4♠ making +1 (and 3N would have scored better).
This hand was an interesting 3N to play as East. In the bidding shown, South's opener was a weak two in either major, and North expressed interrest in hearts but not spades. Unfortunately for East this generated a heart rather than a spade lead. There are eight top tricks and clearly you need one from a black suit to make the game. One alternative is to try guessing the spades but it is so likely that South has both the ace and queen, that option is not appealing. Declarer chose therefore to run the diamonds and decide later. This had the unfortunate effect of squeezing the East hand out of what hadn't been identified as, but actually was, a stopper in clubs. When the time came to try for a spade trick it was too late - the defence could jump up with the ♠A and cash four clubs.
Should declarer have seen this coming? Possibly yes. Was there a decent alternative? Not really - even with a successful spade guess early there was still a big danger of the defence cashing five tricks.
We have to attribute the swing here to the opening lead. There are times when an attacking lead is needed to set up tricks for the defence, but here it would simply have removed declarer's guess and made the contract very straightforward. In club bridge, the number of times a trick is given away on the opening lead, or by an unnecessary switch in the middle of the hand, is enormous. You will see, in top class bridge, a much stronger tendency towards passive leads - leaving declarer with all the work to do. [There are exceptions to this - in explicit situations such as leading against a suit slam, or against a preempt]
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| How's Your Defence? |
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N/S are playing 5 card major openings. West leads the ♦T. Declarer rises with dummy's Ace and leads a trump. How might this contract be defeated.
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Prospects are bleak. Surely South has all the missing points for his push on to game opposite a limit raise and your hearts are well placed for declarer. It looks like all you will make is a heart a diamond and a club. True, if partner has led a singleton diamond , you would have 2 diamonds tricks, but then declarer might well have ducked trick 1. This is the time for a deceptive play. Try rising with the ♥A on the first trump lead and playing off 2 top diamonds. If the layout is as shown, South might well ruff the third diamond with a high trump and then play another top trump, hoping the hearts are 2-2. Now you will make 2 trumps, a diamond and a club. |
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| Plan the Play |
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West kicks off with a low club lead. Plan the play.
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With luck you can restrict your diamond losses to 2 tricks, but with a spade loser that is still one off. You need West to hold the ♦A so mentally assign the ♠A to East. Ruff the club lead in hand and cross to dummy with a trump to lead a low spade. If East rises you will have 2 diamond discards in hand. If East ducks, you win the ♠K, return to dummy with a trump and discard your remaining spade on the ♣A. Later you just lose 2 diamonds when the diamond Ace is onside. |
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| Clues from the Bidding and Lead |
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West leads the ♣3 against your slam. Plan the play.
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Consider the opening lead. What could it be from? One of Andrew Robson's tips is that when a pre-emptor leads a side suit, it is usually a singleton. If so we can succeed by careful play. Rise with dummy's Ace of clubs and draw trumps in 3 rounds (they have to break 3-2 if we are to have any chance). Now it is not good enough to lead the ♣Q from hand as East would win and exit with a heart and you would lack the entries to set up and enjoy the clubs. Instead it is important to lead the second club from dummy. Hence after having drawn trumps, cross to dummy with a diamond and lead a club, finessing the 9 if East plays low. When this holds, just concede a club trick by leading the queen. That way you will have 12 tricks. |
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| HotD-fri : GCBA Squad : 24jan19 : B14 |
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On this hand from last night's squad practice, the results were 4♥+1 twice, 4♥-1 once and 3♥+1 once. You would want to get to game on these hands as there are two top losers and you have chances to avoid the extra potential loser which exists in every suit. But it isn;t clear for a 13-count with a wasted ♦K to bid game opposite a passed hand. The bidding shown is one plausible route, with West's pass over the double being more encouraging than a sign-off in 3♥.
The interesting question is how to combine your chances, after the defence starts with ♦A and a second diamond. The three tables with this lead made 9, 10 and 11 tricks. Your choice?
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There are no choices in the trump suit when low cards appear on the first round, so step number one is to draw trumps. There are three ways of tackling the spade suit - play for the drop, or finesse South for the queen, or finesse North for the queen. The location of the queen cannot be deduced from the bidding, not can the location of the spade length. But while ponderign which to chose, we note that there is an advantage in playing for the drop, as when this fails, you can (usually) put the opponents on lead with the thid spade and force them to open up the club suit. For this reason that is the clear choice.
When the queen drops you can now play someone (and surely this has to be North) for a short club holding including the ace. This is how to achieve 11 tricks.
If you finesse through North you get to the same place, but if you finesse through South you will lose to North's ♠Q. Since North is short in spades, this forces North to open up clubs and gets you 10 tricks.
How 9 tricks happened remains a mystery. [We are told declarer started hearts by leading to ♥T and losing to the ♥J. The spades were found but then declarer got the clubs wrong :( |
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| Constructing Possibilities |
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South's opening bid promised a 5 card major. The raise to 2♥ showed 3 trumps and decent values (8-11). You choose to lead a low diamond. Dummy's Queen is covered by the King and Ace. South plays the ♥A, partner dropping the ♥Q. South now leads the ♣7. How do you defend?
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You need 4 tricks to beat the contract. If South holds ♠Kx ♥ AKxxxx ♦ Axx ♣ xx, then it doesn't matter what you play on this trick provided you continue with a diamond when you win the ♣A. If South has ♠Kx ♥ AKxxxx ♦ A98x ♣ x then you must rise with ♣A immediately else your ace of clubs will be ruffed out and South has trump entries to discard his losing spades on North's clubs. If South holds ♠xx ♥ AKxxxx ♦ AJxx ♣ x then you can never beat the contract as you only have 2 spades and a club to take before South's losers go away. By constructing possible hands for declarer, we can see that the right defence to give you any chance of beating the contract is to rise with your Ace on the first club lead and play a diamond. You must hope that partner can win and play a spade through. |
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| HotD-wed : League 6 : 21jan19 : B22 |
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This hand from Monday produced a double figure swing in three matches and a lesser swing in the other two.
The bidding is all natural, although a cheeky South was known to overcall 2♣ on at least one occasion. North's normal lead was the singleton club and declarer won the ace to play trumps. North won and tried a heart which ran to the king and ace. Declarer was now looking at the prospect of four losers. It seemed natural at this point to discard one of them, so declarer tried three rounds of diamonds, only to find that the third one was ruffed and the contract was one down.
There was however a winning line - and it was found by some. If you read the lead as a singleton, and the play in hearts to be honest, then it all depends on who has the missing top spade. Here it is held by North and that means that you will succeed by playing a second spade, as you can then delay the discard of a club on a diamond until after trumps have been drawn.
Can you find this play? Quite possibly; on the bidding shown - if you have read the lead correctly - South has 8 HCP and North must surely have the top spades and the top heart to justify bidding.
Could the defence have done better? The answer is yes. After a club lead, North needs to lead diamonds each time they get the lead in spades; declarer will then be forced to cash the diamonds before trumps are drawn. [Not a likely choice]
There is an alternative, found at table five. Here North didn't lead the singleton at trick one, but led a heart to the king and ace. On winning the first spade he now switched to a (low) club. It was impossible at this point for declarer to judge this a singleton and place the high cards the way they were, so that declarer could only sensibly play diamonds and that failed and he was down.
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| HotD-tue : League 6 : 21jan19 : B7 |
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This hand from Monday provided swings for two reasons : one was that some played only in a part-score (three out of ten), and the other was that of those in game half (actually three out of seven) went off.
It is difficult to find alternative sequences to that shown, and with 25 HCP and a 4-4 heart fit, you would expect everyone to have reached the same contract. Somehow it is never that easy - indeed in the CBC Pairs event using the same boards, there were no tables (out of seven) reached 4♥.
Now to the play - which always started off with East winning a top spade at trick one. With the risk of discards on the diamonds, it is inevitable that East will cash three winners in the black suit. Whatever comes next, here is how declarer should be thinking. There looks to be three top tricks (two in diamonds and one spade) and in that case it needs seven trump tricks to make game. Looking at the trump holding and the missing pips, the best target must be to make tricks from the Q974 and the AKJ. This means ruffing three clubs in the dummy, and on a trump at trick four can be done with careful timing. Since the ♥2 is not part of the ruffing plan, it must be played at this trick so it is important to win the first heart with the queen (although the nine works too). After that, ♦A and a club ruff, ♦K and a diamond ruffed high, it all falls into place.
An alternative for declarer is to go after the diamonds. This takes a bit more card reading. After winning a heart at trick four, entries to the South hand mean that you can only engineer one diamond ruff - and now you must guess after cashing the first two diamonds whether the suit started off 3-3 or 4-2. The spade overcall and the heart break tell you that West had 7 cards in the minors to East's 6 cards. After the ♦J brings the nine, each hand had six vacant spaces, so the odds are even on whether to ruff the suit out or go for the ruffiung finesse. It becomes a 50% game, which is why the cross-ruff approach is more appealing.
Not that the cross-ruff was a certainty but the fact that a heart switch at trick four is to the ♥8 makes the heart pips less of a worry, and no heart switch lets you retain the Q9 and you are only in trouble if the long clubs are with East and the ♥T is with West.
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| An Extra Chance |
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West leads the ♥4 against your slam. You play low in dummy and East produces the Queen and switches to a diamond. How do you play?
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The bidding as shown contains an intesting treatment. A method popluar with some top players is to complete the transfer only when holding 3 card support and to break to 3NT otherwise. This has the advantage of setting the suit early on and allowing subsequent bids to be cue bids. Anyway, back to the play. On a non heart lead you could have pitched your losing heart and made the slam easily. It looks like you need the spade finesse but there is a small extrac chance - did you spot it? West may have led from ♥9xx. Best is to win the diamond return in dummy (throwing a spade from hand) and lead the ♥K, ruffing East's Ace. Now a couple of rounds of trumps finishing in dummy and play the ♥J. If the 9 falls you can discard 5 spades on dummy's red suit winners. If not you ruff a heart and rely on the spade finesse. |
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| Plan the Play |
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West leads ♣6 against your game. You win and play the ♦K which unsurprisingly holds. Now what?
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You need 2 entries to dummy to set up and then enjoy the diamond suit. You have those entries in hearts and you will be fine if the heart finesse works. If it loses, however, the defense will clear the clubs and then you will most likely have 3 clubs, a heart and a diamond as losing tricks. Instead of looking for your second entry in hearts, you can create one in clubs instead. Cross to the ♥A and play a top diamond pitching your other high club. Now if the defence plays clubs, you have 5 diamonds, 2 clubs and 2 aces. If the defence abandons clubs, you have time to set up your second heart entry after all. |
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| It's an Illusion |
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West leads the ♣J. What is the best line?
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If you finesse the club at trick 1 and it loses, you may go down on a diamond switch with the Ace wrong. Even so, it is a 75% chance. You can do better however. The contract is assured if you win the ♣A at trick 1, draw trumps and play Ace and another spade, discarding a club if East doesn't cover. If this trick loses you can use your trump entries to take a second ruffing spade finesse. This way you make at least 7 hearts, 2 spades and a club. |
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| HotD-fri : Midlands Counties League : 13jan19 : B6 |
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This hand from Sunday's match was a major gain for all three of the county teams, and we started off by congratulating ourselves on the obvious strength of our slam bidding.
The fact that we bid the slam when others didn't is great, but closer examination showed that it wasn't slam-bidding technique which mattered on this hand. Can you see what it was that mattered?
It was in fact South who was the most cruciual player in determining the outcome here. That was because bidding a slam or not depended on the extent to which South cramped the auction on the first round. Many of the Nottinghamshire pairs bid just 2♠ as South, which allowed West to support hearts and still leave East room to make a safe slam try. When the various Gloucestershire pairs overcalled either 3♠ or in one instance 4♠, then the options for East-West became more limited. Over 3♠ by Keith Stanley, West bid 4♥ and East declined to make even a try for slam. When Richard Plackett bid 4♠ all West could do was double and there the matter rested. "Normal" defence collected +500 which wasn't great when East-West had 1430 available in their own suit.
Two questions come to mind - should we all be bidding 4♠ and why did the defenbders of 4♠x not collect the +800 to which the computer tells us they are entitled?
Q1 : on these hands you generally have to ask yourslelf what you would do with similar high cards an a lesser shape. With ♠J987543 ♥J5 ♦64 ♣J7 would you not also want to preempt? At this vulnerability would you itch to bid 3♠? If so, you need to bid one more with a 7204 shape as your chance of a defensive trick with the club jack has gone down, and at the same time you count out as one less loser.
Q2 : this is tricky, and it comes from forcing declarer's trumps before the top clubs are knocked out. The only defence is to start with three rounds of hearts. It is difficult to give a ruff and discard so early on any hand, but it can only gain a trick when declarer ruffs in the short hand, so here with the spade king - and that is likely to return a trick in the trump suit (and would do so here). So the defence is not totally impossible to find.
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| Listen to the Bidding |
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West leads the ♣T to your Ace. Play from here.
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You have 9 top tricks but you could easily have 4 losers in the red suits as the bidding marks East with both missing Aces. Your holdings in the red suits are such that you may be unable to stop West from gaining the lead in whichever suit you play. The solution is clear when you consider the bidding. For his 1NT opening, East must hold at least 2 spades and hence you can throw him in with the second (or third spade if they are 3-0). Now East can take his 2 aces but no more as he will have to allow you access to dummy. |
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| HotD-wed : Winter Pairs 5 : 14jan19 : B11 |
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There were numerous excellent slams on Monday which few got close to. Board 11 has a robust five-three fit in both spades and hearts, and 12 top tricks - but the small slam was bid only once and the grand slam (needing the ♥Q onside, but it wasn't) once. Board 13 has 13 top tricks in spades (but the ♦A to lose) and everyone played in 4♠. Board 14 we discussed yesterday had slam available in both directions! Board 15 had 12 tricks trivially available in hearts (but not good odds - a very lucky layout) and we had nobody in slams and two in partscores! Board 16 had an easy diamond slam just needing to handle themissing Q843 of trumps (a 58% shot) but we saw every table in 3N and half of them sneaking through the 13th trick. Board 21 was a making 6♦ but it depends on diamonds 2-2 and clubs 3-3, so it is poor odds (say 13%) but everything was perfect this time. Board 22 was a laydown 6♦ where most played in 3N and at those six tables all but one the defenders cashed their six heart tricks (the other two tables went minus in a 4-3 spade fit). FInally on board 25 there is 7♣ available; that grand slam depends finding the ♠Q and being able to ruff two hearts - that's too much to ask, but the small slam in clubs needing just one of these is an excellent proposition. [Excercise for the reader - with hearts 5-2 the wrong way round, how does 7♣ make?]
Is this because we are rubbish at bidding slams, or at bidding in general? I do not believe it is so, it's just that bidding is a very difficult task. The one successful slam in this list is the hand illustrated, and the final contract was only achieved after a mis-understanding! Here's the explanation.
The pair concerned had few arrangements in place - only that 2♥ was game forcing - and they had, despite playing in all five sessions of this event - very little experience in slam bidding. After 2♥ West does face a dilemma - whether to set the suit early or introduce diamonds and potentially cloud the issue. It is a trade off between simplicity and the possibility of playing in hearts with a 5-5 diamond fit on the side. After 3♥, the bid of 3♠ was a cue bid and West now felt obliged to show the (undisclosed) diamonds. East thought at this poiint there were two club losers and signed off in 4♥. The 5♣ continuation now sounded like second round control to go with the first round diamond control, and for West to be so enthused there was surely a good spade suit present. With an eye on protecting ♣ Kx of clubs against a lead through, East chose 6♠ as the final contract, and there it rested.
Notice how much more difficult it is to have a sensible bidding conversation if the opposition put in a 3♣ or 4♣ overcall.
We cannot learn a lot from that story, but it would be a worthwhile exercise for any pair to examine boards 11, 13, 16, 22 and 25 - and decide what their preferred partnership sequence would be on thse hand. Agreeing on that will provide a solid foundation for a number of hands in the future.
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| HotD-tue : WInter Pairs 5 : 14jan19 : B14 |
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This was the most spectacular hand from last night's Winter Pairs, and the auction from table eight.
East's 1N opener nominally showed 14-16 HCP, but East judged the long clubs were worth an extar point. South might well have considered a jump bid with such shape, but even the 2♠ bid chosen made life difficult for West. The takeout double didn't show the fith heart but at least brought all suits into consideration. Over North's raise, it was easy for East now to show the clubs - and after that it became a battle between South and West.
South bid 4♠ in constructive vein, having heard of support from partner; when it came to 5♠ it is not clear what the intention was, and when it came to 6♠ South had become convinced that the club slam was making and that a sacrifice was necessary. In 6♠ there is no spade or club loser, a heart loser, and the need to play diamonds for no loser. The play in diamonds clearly starts with small towards the AJ632 and the jack is inserted and holds. An alert West at this point will drop a high diamond, creating in South's mind the possibility of a T9-doubleton. The reason for doing this is to encourage declarer to lead the queen next in order to pin the other high card and set up the eight. The ruse is quite well known and with West holding no spades, the odds clearly favour doubleton king (two possibilities) over doubleton T9 (one possibility) - although that does mean playing the 1N opener for two doubletons. So declarer should not go wrong.
In the event, three Souths got as high as 6♠ and all were doubled; one miscounted trumps and saw the third diamond ruffed with the spade queen, while one made 12 tricks, and the otehr went down for reasons as yet unknown.
Notice that a 6♣ slam can be made by East (as was bid at the table shown). Delcarer must play North for the heart queen, and then take care to ruff the fourth round and set up the fifth heart to discard a diamond.
LATER : the other auction to 6♠ also involved a 1N opener : this time it went 1N - 2♦ (a long major) - 3♥ (forcing) - 4♠ (pushy) - P - P - 5♣ - P - P - 5♠ - P - P - 6♣ - 6♠ - X - end.
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| Defensive Thinking |
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The opponents arrive in 3NT after a 15-17 NT opening from South. Your opening lead is the ♥3, which declarer wins with the knave to lead a spade. Your play.
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Did you duck the spade lead smoothly? Reconstruct declarer's hand. He has shown up with ♥ AKJ and must hold ♣AK for his bid. The important cards we don't know about are the ♠J and ♦T. South has 4 club tricks (maybe 5 if he holds a long club suit) and 3 hearts - i.e at least 7 tricks. If South has ♦Txx(x) he must make a spade and a diamond for 9 tricks minimum - The defence can at most win 2 spades (on a wrong guess by South) and 2 diamonds. If you duck the first spade South will have 9 tricks if he holds 5 clubs. If you duck the first spade and South does not run for home, he re-enters hand with a club and leads a second spade and you have the same dilemma. If you duck and South has no diamond guard, he will rise with a top spade as he cannot afford to lose the lead - hence when you duck you gift South the contract (and he may hold ♠ Janyway). So what it comes down to is that ducking the spade can never gain. Best is to rise with the ♠A immediately and play diamonds from the top. This way you will beat the contract whenever it is possible so to do. |
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| Don't Give Up |
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West starts with 3 top diamonds. You ruff and finesse the ♥9, which holds. When you cash the ♥A East shows out. Play from here.
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It looks like you must lose a trump and a club to go with the 2 diamonds already lost. Never give up should be your motto. Simply play off your black suit winners and exit with your small club. Wheneverr West is 3-2 in spades and clubs, he is caught in a smother play end position and does not make his 'sure' trump trick. |
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| Isn't bridge Easy? |
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West leads the ♣3 to East's Ace. The ♣5 is returned. West wins and switches to the ♥2. Take it from here.
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It looks from the carding that West has 4 hearts and 4 clubs. He therefore has at least 4 diamonds which means playing West for the ♦Q is with the odds (4:3 or 5:2 if West is void in trumps) Counting out opponents shapes can help with critical decisions on many hands and is a habit that should be cultivated. However, you should not lose sight of the fact that no counting is needed when looking at a sure thing. Simply rise with the ♥A at trick 3, draw the outstanding trump and exit with a heart. The defence must now lead diamonds or concede a ruff and discard. |
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| Find the Lady |
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West leads the ♦2, won by East's knave. He continues with ♣J. How do you play the trumps?
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This is a simple example of a second degree assumption. You cannot make the contract if the ♥A is with West, so assume that East has it. In that case he has shown up with ♦AJ ♥ A and ♣J yet passed when he had the opportunity to bid. Therefore you assume that he does not hold ♠Q. Finesse West for that card. |
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| HotD-thu : CBC Pairs League : 9jan19 : B12 |
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The final session of the autumn series of the CPL finished last night, with Richard Butland & Paul Denning winning Division One, Wendy Angseesing & Peter Waggett winning Division Two, while Sue Evans & Graham Selby from Worcestershire won Division Three. There were seven hands (out of 25) with slam making - but one of them was poor odds, and another one was roughly 50%. Of the good slams, this was the only one which was regularly bid - but it was stil considered a failure by many as they did get to 6♥ but only to find they'd rather have been in 7♦!
Those playing 2-over-1 as a game force had the best chance, after the bidding started as above. In practice the Easts all bid a fourth suit forcing 3♣ and then had to decide what to do over partner's 3♥. The common choice was a raise to 4♥ after which West checked for key cards and bid 6♥.
How might it have gone better? The problem is that East has done little to describe their hand, and has chosen a 5-2 heart fit in ignorance of which of West's majors is stronger, and with a danger of missing a 6-2 or 6-3 diamond fit, or even a 5-3 club fit. The best chance of exploring all of these is for East to bid no trumps at some point, in the hope that West is better placed to make the decision. On this hand, were East to bid 3N over 3♥, it would be natural for West to continue with 4♦ which is rather good news for East. It is hard to see what would happen next as space for checking on key cards is sparse. There is a chance that overall momentum might get the partnership to the grand slam, but it is hard to be sure how. In fact, East might have done better to bid 2N on the previous round, as it would allow West to show three cards in either monor and ensure that a good fit there is not missed - but here it would have resulted in a 3♥ rebid and the same problem as is shown.
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| HotD-wed : Spring Teams : 7jan18 : B20 |
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This hand proved a difficult bidding problem for people on Monday, with five out of twelve tables ending up with a minus score when a plus score was available. What should you be thinking at this point?
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The popular choice at this point was to bid 3N, and that was just fine when North passed, but a number of North's continued with 4♠ and four tables played there with only one successful. [Two went four down after making a slam try!]
Was 3N a good choice? It has the positive attribute that it shows something in clubs, and if 3N is the right contract then North might not be able to bid that contract. The catch is that, especially if partner is known to have ten red cards, you might find spade shortage or even a spade void going down in dummy, and your spade stop is very suspect.
The alternative to bidding 3N is simply to give preference to 3♥ on the sequence shown. In practice this works out nicely as partner then shows 3-card spade support with 3♠ and now your 3N describes your hand well. Bidding 3♥, partly because it is the lowest bid, provides the strong hand more space to describe what justified a game force, and so it has a lot going for it. Were North to bid 3N over 3♥ it even gives you a chance of getting to a 6♣ slam.
Notice that the hand is only the ♦T away from an excellent slam, and it takes a trump lead to defeat 6♥. |
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| HotD-tue : Spring Teams : 7jan18 : B17 |
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This was the most shapely hand that turned up last night in the first Spring Teams game. What do you fancy at this point? You haven't got much of a fit for partner, but you know the opponents have a lot of hearts; you can bid or you can pass. Your choice?
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There's no "book" answer to this sort of problem. Have a look at all four hands, and consider these options and how they worked out at the table
PASS : this let West bid 4♥ in great confidence and unless you come in again you can write down -420.
4N : this was chosen at table four (and we are not sure what was intended by the bid), but that didn't stop West, so you heard 4N - 5♥ - P - P to you? At this point South tried 6♣ and West placed too much trust in this and sacrificed in 6♥ duly doubled for down two on a diamond lead. , [One other table ended in 6♥ doubled down two]
5♣ : this was chosen at a number of tables and of course it provoked 5♥. Since that contract is going down it looks right to pass, but when the bidding went this way North had to choose a lead and we have three instances of the ♣A lead allowing 5♥ to make. Oops.
The opening bid of 4♣ was not everyone's choice.; one table opened just 3♣ allowing that West to bid 4♥ and play there. Another table opened 5♣ and it went P - P - 5♥ - P - P to South; the choice of 5N, which was passed out and went down eight(!) for a score of -400 and that gained 2 imps when their team-mates played in 5♥ making.
We have no understanding of how one pair ended in 6♠ undoubled going down five, or of how the one successful pair bid the making 6♦ slam. Can anyone tell us?
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| Lots of Losers |
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West leads the ♦Q. It looks from the bidding that the spades are breaking 6-0 and if so, you have 4 losing spades to dispose of. You start by ruffing the lead and taking a heart finesse. When it wins you discard a spade on the ♥A and play a spade from dummy, which East ruffs to play another trump. What now?
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East has defended well. You now have a choice as to how to get rid of one of your two losing spades; if East started life with a doubleton club the play is easy - win the club ace and lead a spade to the ace and ruff a spade. But if East started with three clubs he will discard when the second spade is led, then overruff dummy. If you judge East is 0-3-7-3 then the solution is to win the club switch in hand and lead a low spade. If West wins the trick he cannot stop you ruffing your remaining spade with ♣A, and if East ruffs in he will not have a trump left to lead any more so you can take your ruff in comfort. |
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| Plan the Defence |
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Your partner leads the ♦J. How do you plan the defence?
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From the bidding, South is marked with a diamond stopper and if you clear the diamonds then you will only have 3 tricks and presumably (hopefully) a winner in partners hand. That will not be enough. Despite South's overcall in hearts, that is the suit that offers the best prospects for the defence. If partner holds the ♥A or perhaps a club stop and the heart Queen, then you will be ok. You should switch to the ♥J at trick 2 to maximise the number of defensive tricks you might take in the suit. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West cashes the ♠Q and switches to ♦2. You win and lay down the ♥A and East drops the Queen. Play from here
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It looks as if you have four losers: three spades and a heart. Yet, if you count your tricks, you could easily have 10: three hearts, the A, two diamond ruffs and four clubs. You do have a count on this deal. West is known to have one spade and four hearts. He appears to have four diamonds given the bidding and the lead, so he has also four clubs. Play three rounds of hearts ending in dummy and ruff a diamond. Now back to dummy with a club and ruff dummy's last diamond with your last trump. Now take three more club tricks: tricks eight, nine and ten - piece of cake. You have taken 10 tricks. They took the first trick, still have the top spades in one hand and a winning heart in the other for three more tricks! Those three tricks, however, will crash on top of each other on the last two tricks. |
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| 100% |
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West leads the ♣Q against your game. Can you find a 100% line?
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Win the ♣ A and play ♦AQ. If the opponents take the ♦K then you have 4 diamonds, 3 hearts and 2 clubs. If they allow the ♦K to hold, then play a low heart towards your ten. Either the ten holds, in which case you revert to diamonds, or the ten is taken by the knave, in which case you have 5 hearts, 2 clubs and 2 diamonds. |
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| HiotD-thu : 3RD JANUARY BIDDING PROBLEM |
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Here's another problem, this time from a Crockford's match. You have a good hand, as does partner, but they are not fitting well. How do you proceed?
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A key question here is your attitude to the introduction of a new suit (diamonds) at the 4-level. For many, it is impractical to be looking for a fit at this level, so they will treat it as a slam try agreeing hearts. But those holding thisn hand might think it the most natural description of the hand. It is important to recognise the uncertainty, and polling suggests that the majority will treat a new suit at the 4-level as always agreeing the last suit mentioned (hearts here). That has been my rule for a long time (with one exception).
If we rule out 4♦ we have two choices - either 3♠ or 3N - or do we raise to 4♥? [The latter option should be discounted as if hearts is the right denomination then partner will bid it again on the next round - we don't need to.]
The argument for us bidding 3N is that partner will struggle to bid it with short diamonds, but the downside is that partner could instead have short clubs.
The argument for 3♠ is that it doesn't rule out 3N but the downside is that partner might raise with a doubleton. [It is important to know that this bid is forcing - we don't rescue partner from a jump rebid unless doubled for penalties]
In the event (a Crockfords’ match) the 3N choice got 4♥ from partner on ♠A4 ♥KQ98732 ♦T8 ♣KJ which was made without difficulty. The 4♦ choice at the other table led to disaster. |
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| HotD-wed : 2ND JANUARY BIDDING PROBLEM |
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You are sitting in second seat here but don't have a good enough hand with which to open the bidding. After LHO opens 1♣ in third seat (promises 3+, could be a weak NT hand) and partner overcalls - do you want to get involved, and if so how?
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This question is intended to explore the expectations overcaller should have from a 1♠ bid by advancer, but it also raises the question of whether or not advancer should bid at all.
We have learned over recent decades that it is better to show shape first and values later, so a Good Hand with hearts would always show the suit and then double on the next round, so the overcall can be quite strong. East's silence encourages this view, so we don't want to pass.
There is really only a choice of two bids, 1♠ or 1N. For sure 1N shows these sort of values, but it does lack a club stop. We are all accustomed to ignoring the club suit when overcalling a nebulous 1♣ with 1N, since LHO doesn’t know when to lead a club and when not to. This position is different as the hand which does know will be on lead..
The doubts about bidding 1♠ come from a feeling that in a competitive situation suits should be five cards. The difficulty with insisting on this is that here you might misss a 4-4 spade fit. This situation should not be treated much differently from partner opening a five card major and you respondd - and in that case we would never dream of by-passing a spade suit.
When this hand occurred in the 2017 Spring Fours (R2, B11) 9/20 tables played in 1♥ despite having 25 hcp between the two hands and only 5 tables reached 3N (of which all but one succeeded). Where West opened 1♥ or 1N there was a different auction. When offered to the Scottish bidding panel, seven out of seventeen opted for 1N and only three passed.
What do we learn? Particularly when we can bid at the 1-level we should not pass out partner’s overcall; we might not know where we are going but when good outcomes are possible, we should give partner a second chance. |
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| HotD-tue : NEW YEAR'S DAY BIDDING PROBLEM |
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With no Monday night game as a source of hands - here are some bidding problems from the recent past ...
Here there is a number of conflicting interests and the key question is what compromise is best. Your choice?
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The big difficulty with Pass is that partner will never expect as many HCP, and you will miss game too often (if we even get into the bidding). Moreover we know what sort of hands are opened third in hand favourable. One bonus from that fact of that is that the danger of a penalty double in 1N disappears. Double must be considered, but double of one major so asks partner to bid the other major that it feels like asking for trouble.
The alternative to bidding 2♦ is bidding 1N. Do you proceed with 2♦ and more HCP than partner could expect, or without the stopper which would be expected from 1N?
When the hand occurred, both tables in the match bid 1N (and stopped the opening side bidding their making 4♥ game), and when the hand was presented to a Scottish bidding panel, ten out of seventeen went for 1N. The rationale is two fold - firstly the closest description on offer for this hand is as strong balanced, and secondly a stopper is often as strong as it sounds (opener might well duck a heart lead to you when holding AKxxx).
A key point is that there is little Good that will happen after bidding 2♦, but a 1N bid does offer the chance of a vulnerable game.
The conclusion is that we have to make imperfect bids sometimes, but in the game of bridge there are a myriad of ways things can turn out right, so don’t worry too much when you have to compromise. |
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| Plan the Play |
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West leads a heart against your spade game. Plan the play.
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It looks like you might win 6 spades in hand, the three top red suit winners in dummy, and a club ruff brings your total to 10. You do need to be careful however. Suppose you win the heart lead and cash 2 diamonds to pitch a heart and then play a club from dummy. East will win and lead 2 further rounds of hearts and which West can throw a diamond as you ruff high. You concede another club and East persists with a further heart and agin you ruff high. Now you can ruff a club and cash 2 top trumps in dummy, but whenever West started with ♠8xx he will overruff you when you play a diamond from dummy and that will be your fourth loser. This is indeed an unlucky layout but it need not have bothered you. Simply ruff a diamond in hand at trick 4 before conceding a club. When the defence continues along the same lines as before, the timing is different and in the endgame you are left with only the Ace of trumps in hand and cannot suffer a trump promotion |
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| Plan the Defence |
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How do you plan the defence when partner leads the ♣J and declarer plays low from dummy?
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Let's assume that partner has led from a 5 card club suit and that declarer has ♣Qxx If you win the ♣K at trick 1 and return the suit, you can play another club when you gain the lead in one of the red suits, but ultimately you will have run out of clubs by the time you come in with your second red suit winner. If however you duck at trick 1, declarer's second club stop is knocked out and when you come in with say a diamond, you can return the ♣K. Now you have retained communications with partner and when you win the ♥A you will have a club to lead to partners winners. On this layout, declarer could have succeeded double dummy by playing the ♣A from dummy at trick 1 as now it doesn't matter whether or not East unblocks, declarer can always run East out of clubs and communications are broken. |
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| Not Obvious |
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West starts with ♥AK. How do you play?
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Did you ruff the second trick and lead a top spade? That will be OK if spades break, but you will lose control if West has ♠ AJxx. He will duck the first spade, win the next round and force you in hearts. The solution is simple but not that obvious. After ruffing the second heart, just play a low spade towards dummy. If either defender wins the ♠ J, they cannot play another heart as you can ruff in dummy. If the ♠T is allowed to hold, then a second spade to hand puts you a tempo ahead. If West plays another heart, you can ruff and draw another trump before playing your minor suit winners. You will only lose 2 spades and a heart. |
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| Take all your Chances |
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West leads the ♠K. What is your Plan?
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It looks like West holds seven spades, and he may well have the ♥A as well. You have 1 spade, 4 clubs and 2 diamonds on top so need to develop 2 more. Duck the lead and win the spade continuation. Now it costs nothing to cash 4 rounds of clubs finishing in hand. The critical point has now been reached. You intend to finesse the ♦J, but you should not start by laying down the Ace. If you do, you will not be able to take more than 3 diamond tricks when West holds a singleton ♦Q. The right way to play the diamonds is small towards the ♦KJ. If the Queen appears, you can now score 4 diamond tricks and your contract. |
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| 2018 Christmas Quiz Answers |
Q1 : which of the scores 1000, 1010, 1020, ... 1100 is not a valid duplicate bridge score? There is no way to get a score of 1060.
Q2 : which two Gloucestershire players were involved in a European Championship in Israel in 1980? Keith Stanley was non-playing captain of a Junior Team which included Garry Watson.
Q3 : which was the only winning lead from ♠986 ♥AQ4 ♦AQ54 ♣986 after (from RHO with your side silent) 1♣ - 1♥ - 2♣ - 3♣ - 3N - P when this occurred in the Teltscher Trophy in 2014? The heart ace, dropping declarer's singleton king - achieveable and achieved, on the basis that hearts will be declarer's weakest suit on this auction.
Q4 : which country lost a semi-final of a world championship only by mis-scoring a board that went six down doubled, agreeing it as -1100 rather than -1400? Canada lost out to Germany in the 1990 Rosenblum.
Q5 : when Zia played this hand in 6♦ after the bidding shown, and Bob Hamman led the ♠3 at trick one, what winning play did Zia make at trick two? He played a heart to the nine and queen. He recognised that the low spade lead indicated that Soiuth had all the clubs, and therefore his plan had to be a club discarded on hearts, rather than a heart discarded on clubs. One spade ruff is also needed, and a heart winner is needed as a way to return to hand to draw trumps. Hence the choice.
Q6 : ignoring the difference between clubs & diamonds, and between hearts & spades, but allowing for different vulnerabilities : which score between 200 and 300 can be obtained in 7 different manners? The answer is 200 : this can come from 1M+4, 2M+3, 3M+2, 4 down non-vulnerable, 1 down redoubled non-vulnerable, 2 down vulnerable, 1 down doubled vulnerable.
Q7 : in which year did the GCBA start using Duplimated boards? 1991
Q8 : when the French Bridge magazine presented this bidding problem to its experts, what bid got top marks? Vulnerable at teams, partner opens the bidding and you have ♠AQJ9 ♥QT ♦T653 ♣AJ3 and the bidding (from partner, with the opposition silent) goes 1♥ - 1♠ - 2♣ - 2♦(FSF,GF) - 3♠ to you. What next? The winning answer is 4♦, confirming to partner that you will play in spades and making a slam try.
Q9 : which Gloucestershire player represented England as a junior in the 1970s? Richard Butland played for England in 1977 and 1978.
Q10 : when Andy Robson played the hand shown, he went one off, but in a later write-up regretted his play at trick two. What did he think he should have done at trick two after West led the ♥9 at trick one? In practice he played a trump, but he argued he should have won the ♥A and played a spade towards his own hand. He "knew" the lead was a singleton and that West was about to win the ♦A and put his partner in with a spade for a ruff. The best chance of thwarting that plan is to play a spade before East reliases he must play high.
Q11 : which score in the range 700..800 can be achieved in the greatest number of ways? 760 can be achieved in 7 ways (720 can be done in 6 ways).
Q12 : which Gloucestershire pair played against Meckstroth & Rodwell in a 1982 world championship? Paul Denning & Patrick Shields in a qualifying session of the World Open Pairs.
Q13 : the auction started with 7N on your right and you double. What is your best lead from ♠KQ ♥KJ2 ♦J432 ♣QT98 ? The best lead is the ♥J. The only sensible hand for declarer is ♠A ♥A ♦AKQT98765 ♣AK and if you lead (a) a spade, you'll get in with ♦J and cash one spade for down two, (b) a diamond, you let it make, (c) a club you win ♦J and get it one down. A heart lead but not the king guarantees two down, more if parnter has the queen, and if you lead the jack you might unblock the suit when dummy has T8xx(x) to get even more.
Q14 : Cheltenham hosted an England-Wales match in 1999; can you name any of the people who played in that match? England were represented by Garry Hyett & Alan Mould, David Kendrick & Brian Senior, David Price & Tom Townsend, with Keith Stanley as NPC. [Two of these pairs played in the recent EBU Seniors Trials] . Wales was represented by Jill Casey & Filip Kurbalija, Peter Goodman & Adrian Thomas, Mike Hirst & Jim Luck, with Tony Haworth as NPC.
Q15 : Bobby Wolff reports this hand in his book "The Lone Wolff". How did George Burns sitting East defend after winning the club ace at trick one and seeing declarer drop the king? The answer is to switch to hearts - by playing a heart at trick two and another on winning the diamond ace, declarer can be cut off from the heart suit and has to lose a spade in the end game.
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| St Stephen's Day quiz questions |
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Q11 : which score in the range 700..800 can be achieved in the greatest number of ways?
Q12 : which Gloucestershire pair played against Meckstroth & Rodwell in a 1982 world championship?
Q13 : the auction started with 7N on your right and you double. What is your best lead from ♠KQ ♥KJ2 ♦J432 ♣QT98 ?
Q14 : Cheltenham hosted an England-Wales match in 1999; can you name any of the people who played in that match?
Q15 : Bobby Wolff reports this hand in his book "The Lone Wolff". How did George Burns sitting East defend after winning the club ace at trick one and seeing declarer drop the king?
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| Boxing Day quiz questions |
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Q6 : ignoring the difference between clubs & diamonds, and between hearts & spades, and allowing for different vulnerabilities : which score between 200 and 300 can be obtained in 7 different manners?
Q7 : in which year did the GCBA start using Duplimated boards?
Q8 : when the French Bridge magazine presented this bidding problem to its experts, what bid got top marks? Vulnerable at teams, partner opens the bidding and you have ♠AQJ9 ♥QT ♦T653 ♣AJ3 and the bidding (with the opposition silent) goes 1♥ - 1♠ - 2♣ - 2♦(FSF,GF) - 3♠ to you. What next?
Q9 : which Gloucestershire player represented England as a junior in the 1970s?
Q10 : when Andy Robson played the hand shown, he went one off, but in a later write-up regretted his play at trick two. What did he think he should have done at trick two after West led the ♥9 at trick one?
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| Christmas Day quiz questions |
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For the next three days, there will be a bridge related quiz here for you to puzzle over. The answers might take you a little research, and will be revealed towards the end of the week.
Q1 : which of the scores 1000, 1010, 1020, ... 1100 is not a valid duplicate bridge score?
Q2 : which two Gloucestershire players were involved in a European Championship in Israel in 1980?
Q3 : which was the only winning lead from ♠986 ♥AQ4 ♦AQ54 ♣986 after (from RHO with your side silent) 1♣ - 1♥ - 2♣ - 3♣ - 3N - P when this occurred in the Teltscher Trophy in 2014?
Q4 : which country lost a semi-final of a world championship only by mis-scoring a board that went six down doubled, agreeing it as -1100 rather than -1400?
Q5 : when Zia played this hand in 6♦ after the bidding shown, and Bob Hamman led the ♠3 at trick one, what winning play did Zia make at trick two?
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| Play with the Odds |
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West leads the ♠2 and East contributes the ten when you play low from dummy. Plan the play.
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It looks from the lead that the spades are breaking 4-4. You need to knock out the Ace of diamonds., so play a diamond at trick 2 and continue the suit if necessary. The defence will win and clear the spades. Now you have 2 spades and 3 diamonds so need 4 more tricks. The club suit might oblige but will more likely break 4-2. If you play clubs and they are indeed 4-2, you will have up 5 winners for the defence. Better is to play a heart from dummy. Sometimes East will rise with the Ace and solve your problem, but if he plays low, finesse the Jack. If it forces the Ace you are home. In effect, you make whenever the ♥Q is onside and in some other cases too. Hence this line is at least 50% as compared to 36% for a 3-3 club break. |
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| Play Carefully |
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North leads the ♦K. How do you plan the play?
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You hope that the trumps are not worse than 3-1 and you note that you can set up the clubs if they are no worse than 4-2. You need to be careful to not suffer a trump promotion when North holds ♠Txx and a short club. The best play is to win the diamond lead and unblock the ♥A. Cash the ♠Q and cross to dummy with a club. Discard a club on the top heart and ruff a club low. Now cross back with a trump and ruff a further club high. Another trump lead draws the remainder and puts you in dummy to cash your clubs. |
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| How's your defence |
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West leads the ♥3. Plan the defence.
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West's lead looks like it is from three to an honour. On the bidding, declarer is surely marked with the ♥K. If you win trick 1 with the ♥A and continue with the Queen (showing a possible spade entry), you will be disappointed. Declarer can duck the second heart and win the third round. He can now knock out partner's club winner and score a quick nine tricks. It is important to retain communications with partner so insert the ♥J at trick 1 and continue with a low heart when declarer ducks. When partner comes in with a club, he will have a further heart to play to enable you to cash the suit |
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| HotD-thu : Seniors Trials : 16dec18 : B2.2 |
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Last weekend two locals (Richard Chamberlain & Patrick Shields) teamed up with two from Surrey (Graham Sadie who used to play here, and Richard Granville) to play in the trials for the English Senior team. The team came in the middle of the field, losing to the winners by only 9 imps but being hammered by the team in second place. The match against the second team included this hand, where Sandra Penfold was faced with the problem described here. (THe other table bid on to 5♠ and these hands got to defend). It doesn't look good with the ♣A out and such a flimsy heart suit. What can you do?
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How about this line, found by Sandra. Win the spade lead and draw trumps with the ace and queen. Now a small club towards the Q3 gives East a problem. When East ducked, she won the queen, crossed to the ♦J to throw a club on the ♠K and now she ruffed a club. The issue now was not to lose three heart tricks. A heart to the ♥8 - ♥Q followed, and East could win but was now endplayed. Either a spade ruff & discard or a club gave away a trick, and it remained for declarer to lead towards the ♥K94 to get 11 tricks.
Could the defence have done better by rising with the ♣A? No - that would allow declarer a discard of a heart on the ♠K and the ♣K and now a heart to the king is the only line to make the contract and that works.
Could the defence have done better earlier? Only by leading the ♥A and taking a ruff before cashing the club ace.
Was it better for East-West to have sacrificed? In practice yes, as the two declarers in 5♦ made the contract. But if declarer doesn't find this line, you'd rather defend. |
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| HotD-wed : League 5 : 17dec18 : B17 |
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This was a problem faced at many tables on Monday after South had cue bid to show at least 5-5 in the majors. Do you go on?
The difficulty is that you don't know whether partner is giving preference with two small spades, or whether partner has real support. The answer - which can be applied in many situations when one hand cue bids clubs to show the majors - is to play a diamond bid as negative (Lebensohl style), so that a bid of a major in response to the cue bid promises real support. This can apply anytime that the club bid showing the majors promises at least 5-5; in cases where it only promises 5-4, then the diamond bid is more useful to ask for the longer major. Over the diamond bid, the cue bidder just bids hearts and partner chooses whether to play there or convert to spades.
Here bidding 4♠ over 4♣ would show positive support and enable South to continue with confidence. Lacking this tool, it is closer to a guess for South - so well done to the four tables who managed to bid on to the slam on Monday, each gaining 11 imps for their side.
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| HotD-tue : League 5 : 17dec18 : B13 |
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Last night completed the first round robin in League Division One, and saw the two leading teams (tied for first place at the time) playing against each other. This hand was a flat board, but across the field it was 3N making half the time, and going down half the time. It takes some good card reading to have a chance of success. Here's how it was made at table two ...
The opening lead of the ♠7 was recognised as second best from a bad suit, so declarer knew the finesse would lose and rose with the ace at trick one. If the king had fallen that would have settled the contract, but it didn't. Declarer continued now with three rounds of diamonds; this has the advanatage of forcing some discards from the defenders, and when West threw two small spades, it was clear there was no threat now from that suit, so North played a top spade. This put East on lead, uncomfortably - and highlighted the advantage of rising with the spade ace at trick one.
East could count declarer for two spade tricks and five diamonds, so a heart lead was out of the question(whoever held the ace) - and in practice he switched to the ♣7 which went to the ♣9 - ♣Q - ♣A. Declarer now cashed out his diamonds and the defenders came down to four hearts and four clubs between them. Declarer had in hand ♥J8 ♣K4 opposite dummy's ♥K8 ♣54. and needed one more trick. One choice was to lead up to the heart king, but neither declarer in this match chose that. Instead, they exited in clubs and left it to the defenders to play hearts. When East led a small heart, declarer was now ready to play low and this forced the ace and gave the ninth trick. Why did they guess right? There isn't much in the choice but West's lack of interest in spades suggests a hand not looking at a heart entry and that led to declarer's winning choice.
Could the defence have done better? The answer is yes - at the final discard, West needed to come down to ♥Q♣K84 and with this holding declarer cannot find a ninth trick.
Should declarer have realised this would happen and gone for a different line? It's hard to say - as the position reached would have been a winner if West had held a top club honour to go with the ten.
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| Consider the bidding |
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The 1♥ opener showed a five card suit. West starts with the ♥J - you try dummy's queen and luckily it holds the trick. Plan the play.
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It looks like West holds most of the outstanding points. You have chances for extra tricks in both diamonds and clubs. To maximise your chances, you must take your tricks in the right order. Cross to hand at trick 2 with a spade and lead a diamond. if West plays low then rise with the King and assuming this holds, you can now revert to clubs for your contract. If West rises with the Ace on the first diamond lead and clears the hearts, then you assume that the club finesse is wrong and you play on diamonds for your extra tricks. Win the heart Ace and lead a diamond, just covering West's card. If East wins the ♦J and switches to a club, you rise with the Ace and have 10 tricks. If it turns out that West held ♦AQJ then you will be defeated (perhaps even when the club finesse was working) - unlucky - your play would have succeeded whenever East held a singleton ♦J or ♦Q, or a 3 card diamond suit. |
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| Timing is Key |
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You play in 3NT on the lead of ♥8. You cover with dummy's 9 and this holds the trick. How do you play?
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If you try to establish the heart suit immediately, you risk failure if East attacks one of your black suits. You will finish up having to guess the position of ♦Q. The contract is safe if you play a diamond to your ten immediately however. If this loses, west cannot profiably attack either black suit and you have time to get the hearts going. |
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| Plan the Play |
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You play in 6♠ on the lead of ♦K. Plan the play.
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Win and cash a top spade. If either opponent shows out you will need a friendly club position. However, if trumps are not 4-0, you can succeed whenever the clubs break. Play a club to the Ace and ruff aclub high. Then exit with a low trump. The defence can win but the best they can do is force dummy with a diamond. Now ruff anothe club high and enter dummy with a trump to run the clubs. |
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| Hotd-fri : CBC Pairs League : 12dec18 : B1 |
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This hand from Wednesday offered some interersting points for declarer. Most East ended up as declarer in 3N and of these 6 got a spade lead which allowed then to win, and run first the ♥9 and then the ♥8 to set up a heart trick to make the contract. This is the best odds in the heart suit, succeeding when either the jack or queen is onside (better odds that just playing for the ace onside). Two declarers in 3N on a spade lead, however, failed. We don;t know how.
There are attractions in a spade lead even on this auction, but at some tables East opened 1♦ which further pushed South to the spade lead. The other 5 declarers in 3N had a diamond lead and that gave them more work to do. At one table the diamond lead went to the jack and the king (line A), after which declarer knocked out the club ace. South continued diamonds and when hearts were played North could win and push back diamonds - which gave the defence five tricks.
Could declarer have done better? An alternative line (line B) was to duck the first diamond, letting the jack win, and then winning ♦A to play clubs. South was then unable to continue diamonds, so declarer was back on lead with a spade and had a choice of whom to play for the ace of hearts. If South had it then a heart to the ace would make the game, but so would running the ♥9, so that line is preferred and delivers 9 tricks.
A third alternative (line C) is to win the first diamond with the ace and play on clubs. South can play another diamond to the jack and decision time comes again. If South has the heart ace then ducking and winning the third diamond is the answer, but if North has the ace then declarer must duck the second diamond.
What is best? Line A fails only when North has the ♥A. Line B fails when North has the ♣A and South has the ♥A. Line C fails when declarer guesses wrongly who has the ♥A. This makes line B the winner.
This might take too much working out at the table - so is there any pattern we can identify? It's hard to say but an earlier duck is important in a number of situations, and if the lead had been from a 5-card diamond suit that could have been vital. Small from dummy can also gain if South led small from the ♦QJ.
The conclusion has to be that we all want to make this contract next time.
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| Improve Your Chances |
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You play in 3♦ on the lead of ♥3. You will be OK if trumps divide, but do you have any other chances?
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If West holds a singleton ten or jack, you have an excellent chance provided you are careful.Win the heart lead and cash the ♦A. Suppose the ten drops from West. Now play your club. Say the defence wins and cashes 2 hearts and exits with a spade. Win in hand, play a diamond to the King (West showing out), ruff a club, then a spade to dummy for another club ruff. Now exit with your last spade and you sit with the ♦Q9 for your last 2 tricks. |
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| HotD-wed : Midlands League vs Derby : 9dec18 : B29 |
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This hand produced a few swings and a few regrets in Sunday's match. This auction was very common, although there is a case for (a) upgrading the North hand because of the controls and supporting tens, or (b) passing the South hand as the evidence is that this is not enough values to make game - and these sort of balance.
The first question is East's lead - passive or active? The evidence on leading against 2N openers is to go passive, but here declarer has bid your spades and a singleton is very unappealing (and may mislead partner somewhat). Leading a heart is not attractive given dummy has implied hearts, and a diamond round to the AQ looks silly.
Our defender managed to find the lead of a high spade, and when dummy went down that looked good. Declarer won the first spade and played ace and another heart. It was clear for East to cash another heart to avoid being end-played, and after partner discards ♠2, he still has a problem as to what to lead. A diamond remains unappealing, and if partner has only the one spade honour, then a spade lead costs nothing. On this basis East continued spades giving declarer three tricks there. To get to the winning heart in dummy, North now played out three rounds of clubs but West ducked each time. There was an easy answer for declarer - he played his winning spade and then his losing spade. East was on lead and now had to lead a diamond into the AQ and that gave declarer nine tricks. Every lead East had made helped declarer!
Another table saw East lead a diamond at trick one. On a low diamond lead, West can deduce that declarer must have a doubleton honour in diamonds, and could judge to play small. Now when East won a heart, they could continue diamonds in the same vein, and declarer had 8 tricks and no chance of a ninth.
I wonder what the various Easts will lead next time.
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| HotD-tue : Winter Pairs : 10dec18 : B17 |
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This hand from Monday offered a tidy endplay which most declarers missed. West played in 3♦ after North opened a strong NT and South showed spades. After two top spades - how do you play this hand?
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The bidding rather marks the location of the high cards - surely all with North. After ruffing the second spade there are three losers declarer needs to worry about - the third and fourth hearts and the club. With the club king (almost) marked in the North hand, the fourth heart should not be a problem, so declarer started by drawing two rounds of trumps. When they broke 2-2, another spade ruff could follow and at this point North was down to clubs and hearts. It was an easy oiption therefore for declarer to play three rounds of hearts and suddently North was on lead. It was impossible to guess wrong, and there are 11 easy tricks. Only one declarer playing in diamonds managed this!
Alan Wearmouth adds : When North was playing a weak NT at my table, the bidding went 1♣ -P-P-X, P-1♠ -P-2♦ , P-3♦-P 3N. West can count 8 likely tricks after partner raises his diamonds and it's not obvious that 3♦ is any better than 3NT so even though the points aren't there game looks a distinct possibility. If Northdoes lead the spade ace for an attitude signal the defence will get their five tricks as the spade queen is now the critical card for South (surely North wouldn't lead an unsupported ace with the suit bid on his left) and given the bidding it right for North to look. However, North led the "safe" ♥Q and nine tricks were quickly wrapped up. A club lead would give an overtrick! |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♦K and your slim chances look even worse when you win the ♦A and play a low trump on which East discards a heart. How do you play from here?
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Strangely, your chances of making this contract have improved when East shows out in trumps. Cash the 2 top trumps, the ♥A and ♣AK. Then exit with ♦J. West can win and cash a trumps but then must play a diamond. On this trick you discard a heart from dummy and a club from hand. On the next trick, you discard a further heart from the table whilst ruffing in hand. Now you can ruff 2 hearts on the table and bring home your contract. |
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| When Nothing Else Will Work |
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South plays in 4♠ after opening a strong NT. West leads the ♣Q and you win the ♣A at trick 1. Do you see a way to defeat this game?
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A count of points shows that South must hold the ♥K, yet the only possible source of tricks is the heart suit. Time for a daring coup. Try the effect of switching to the ♥Q at trick two. If this holds, continue with a second heart. When the layout is as shown, do you blame declarer for getting it wrong? |
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| Watch Your Step |
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Following his 3♦ fit jump bid, West leads a low diamond against your 4♣ contract. How do you play?
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It looks like you might make 11 tricks if the ♠K is onside, but that doesn't mean 10 tricks are assured. If you win the ♦A and play trumps, the defence will win and clear the diamonds. If the spade finesse loses, East can then put his partner in with a heart to cash a diamond trick. The solution is to win the ♦A and play a heart. This severs the link between the defenders and you will make the contract whenever East has only 2 diamonds (marked on the bidding) |
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| Time to Give Up? |
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Your 2♣ opening was a bit light but showed an opening bid with 6 clubs. Partners 2♠ bid was constructive but not forcing. Anyway, partner starts with the ♣A (King from AK so it looks like this lead has already blown a trick). You discourage the club and partner switches to a spade. This runs to declarer's 9, who now draws trumps in 3 rounds before cashing the ♠A, crossing back to hand with the ♣K and playing a low diamond to partner's 9 and dummy's ten. How do you defend from here?
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Things have gone very poorly to this point. The first 2 tricks gifted 2 tricks to declarer that he might not have made and it looks like partner has a doubleton diamond, so you could have beaten this contract by several tricks on an initial diamond lead. However, this is not the time to give up! Declarer has made 3 tricks in the black suits and has 5 trump tricks and a diamond. You can deny him any extra tricks by winning the ♦K and exiting with the ♦7. You now sit with a major tenace over dummy and have an easy diamond exit if declarer tries to throw you in. If you had mistakenly cashed 2 top diamonds, or played a club conceding a ruff and discard, you would not have defeated the contract.
Patrick Phair points out : after this defence, can't declarer throw West in with a spade and discard the diamond loser on the black-suit return?
Editor replies : yes, well spotted. Which means it's all too late after the spade switch, which was so likely when East discouraged clubs. Maybe that was the mistake - as the damage in clubs is already done, it is better to make your club signal an indicator of your spade position, which means you encourage at trick one on this hand. |
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| HotD-thu : BBO ICL league : 5dec18 : B24 |
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Last night the quarterfinal of 30th run of the Inter-Cities-League took place on BBO. A few Gloucestershire players have played in a Welsh team (by the name Aberystwth) in that league over many years. You can read about the league at http://intercity.cloudapp.net/, and I am sure a CHeltenham team would be welcomed.
This hand was the last board of the quarterfinal match, where Aberyswyth was playing against Edinburgh, and at that point were leading by 11 imps.
The auction shown was that of the Edinburgh team (the other table having bid 2♥-P-4♥-end), who because of the light opener reached the dicey slam.
The opening lead was the ♣Q which declarer won. He drew three rounds of trumps when East showed out on the first round, and then tried a diamond to the ten and was pleased to see West win with the ace. The contract still looked in trouble, but then the ♠J came back. How would you play from this point?
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The first thing to realise is that the spade king is with East. There is just no way West would lead a spade if holding the king. There are six heart tricks, two clubs and if you trust the diamond finesse, two there - and the ace of spades makes 11 tricks.
The best chance is that the diamonds break 3-3, but there is another chance, that the same hand has to guard diamonds and spades. The best line is therefore a squeeze and you can run this whoever has four diamonds - but you have to work out who that is. If East has the long diamonds, then hold back the ♠Q and run your winners. If West has the long diamonds, you want to cover the spade jack - transferring the spade control to West - and then do the same. The Scotsman chose the latter and it was the former which worked. This cost the match.
Was there an argument for getting it right? There is - as if West had the long diamonds, then there is a defence against the squeeze - West simply ducks the first diamond.
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| HotD-wed : Swiss Teams 4 : 3dec18 : B20 |
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This hand from Monday's teams produced big swings in three matches, when exactly three tables tried for a slam. The bidding shown was one of the successful sequences, given a relatively easy time by the failure of West to open the bidding on the first round. In one way bidding the slam after this start was a close thing - North was worried about partner having weak hearts but conscious that ♥KQxxx and three small spades would make an excellent slam. Meanwhile, South took a good view that with such weak hearts for North to make a try after the 4♥ signoff, the rest of the hand must be enormous.
Even if West had opened with a weak 2♠, the slam should be bid as over North's takeout double South will (playing Lebensohl) bid 3♥ in response showing values, and now who could stop North?
At two of the slam tables West led the ♦8. The lead of a singleton against a slam in gernally encouraged, as if partner is obliging enough to hold the ace of that suit or sometimes the ace of trumps, you will defeat the slam. It's not quite the same when you have an ace in your own hand - as if partner gets the lead to give you a ruff, then the ruff is not needed as you have an ace to cash.
After a diamond lead - can you see how South will make 12 tricks?
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Counting the tricks, and expecting the spade ace to be offside, declarer has six minor suit winners and therefore needs six trump tricks, ie two spade ruffs. This can be done by winning a top diamond, losing a spade trick, and using two heart entries and the ♣J entry to hand to ruff two spades and draw trumps.
There are two ways West could have defeated the slam. One is by leading a club rather than a diamond at trick one - as this uses up the clucb entry too early for declarer's purposes. And a heart lead does exactly the same.
Should West have found the lead? Possibly yes, for the reasons given that a singleton lead is unlikely to be vital.
Patrick Phair notes and I agree : given that South needds to ruff two spades in the North hand I can see that a heart lead would help the defence. But the fact that a club lead is better than a diamond lead looks like pure luck -- I can see nothing in the bidding or West's hand to suggest that South has a club entry rather than a diamond entry. |
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| HotD-tue : Swiss Teams 4 : 3dec18 : B3 |
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It is hard to believe many pairs actually bid this hand as shown, but seven tables ended in 2N while 3 stopped in 1N and one ventured 3N.
Curiously an auction to 2N sends a much clearer signal to the defence than an auction to either other contract. The message is that East-West are close to game but not quite there, so the HCP can be pinned down to about 23 between the two hands. The repercussion of this for North, on lead, is a change in priorities; instead of actively chasing tricks before declarer sets up theirs (say against 3N), the primary concern is that the opening lead does not give away to declarer a vital trick they could not otherwise obtain. Against 2N, it is possible that a black suit lead might be the best source of tricks for the defence, but it is rather more likely that a black suit lead will blow a trick en route to that. Many dangers exist also in the ♥J9 suit - so what is left? Diamonds. This is in fact the only suit lead which will hold declarer to six tricks. Is it findable? The answer must be yes, as two pairs did find that lead.
Are we surprised that 2N was such a struggle that nobody made it? No. The 12-count held by West is very short of tricks and opening a weak NT with this hand is extremely dangerous - it would be much safer to pass. Looking at either hand, one is reminded that a 4333 shape does not deliver as many trick taking opportunities as a 4432 or 5332 hand. Many people deduct 1-hcp from such a hand when considering raising partner, This would justify East passing 1N on this particular hand, and that contract does require very spefici defence to beat it - so one might manage a plus score.
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| Avoid Defeat |
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West leads the ♣T against your game. How do you Play?
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It looks like the lead is from ♣T8 doubleton or is a singleton. If the former, you will have no problems, but if it is a singleton, you need to be careful. If you win the ♣A, East will use his two club entries to set up and cash a spade trick for the defence. This will be enough to defeat you. The solution is to play low from both hands at trick one when East produces the 8. West has no safe exit except a trump. You can now draw trumps and clear the club suit, providing discards from your hand. |
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| Keep Safe |
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West leads the ♥J against your game. How do you play?
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In isolation, playing for the drop in clubs is the percentage way to make 5 tricks in the suit. However, you only need 4 club tricks to make the contract so that point is not relevant. If you lose a trick to West, he might defeat you if he finds a switch to the ♠9 from say ♠K9x, as you will then lose 4 spades and a club. You should play the clubs by taking a finesse into the East hand. If doesn't matter if this loses as the defence cannot take 4 spade tricks if they start the attack from East. |
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| Thought Processes |
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West leads the ♥J against this slam. Declarer plays low in dummy. What are your thought processes and how do you defend?
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There are some clues from the bidding. South supported diamonds so is known to hold at least 3. This leaves West with at most one diamond and yet he did not lead the suit. It looks like West could judge from the bidding that N/S could be missing an Ace (no attempt to look for a grand) and a singleton lead would work if East held the ♦A or ♠A. A second clue from the bidding is that South employed Blackwood with nothing in hearts. Surely he wouldn't have done this with 2 losing hearts. The pointers are such that the best defensive chance is to overtake the ♥J with the Queen, and switch to a diamond. Here's a thought. Whatt might it mean if West doubled 6♠?
If the leaders's partner doubles a slam, it asks partner to lead something unusual. Since West can't be doubling on power, and is on lead himself, perhaps a double should act as an alert to partner that something unusual is needed in defence. For the double to be successful, partner need to have a fast entry, but on this hand, there is a possibility that East holds ♥A or ♠A, so the double might be a big winner if it prompts a diamond switch from partner. Obviously it is not without risk, - opponents mayrun to a different making contract (not on this hand) or the slam may be solid (in which case you lose a few imps)
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| This One is Easy |
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West leads the ♠7 to East's King. Plan the play.
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If you win the first trick, you are sure of 2 spades, 3 clubs and 3 hearts, but when you play diamonds, the defence can arrange to set up and cash enough spades to beat you. If you duck the spade at trick 1 and the likely spade return at trick 2, you can only be defeated if the hand with 5 spades has both top diamonds. |
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| HotD-thu : MIxed Pairs : 26nov18 : B26 |
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This hand from Monday was played in 3N at every table, and it was a slight surprise that only one table failed to make the contract. There were three instances where North was declarer but it is hard to identify a sensible bidding sequence that leads to that outcome. Those three tables however did each receive a favourable lead and benefited from that to the tune of overtricks, while no South declarer managed more than 9 tricks.
There was also, gladly, little evidence of East having opened a weak two bid on this hand (only one heart lead from West), and that means that we had six Souths declaring in 3N on a club lead. Now let's look at it from declaer's perspective.
There are five top winners to start with and prospects of 2-3 tricks in spades once the ace is knocked out, and also prospects of 2 extra tricks in diamonds if the suit breaks evenly, and a winning heart finesse is a third option, as well as a second club trick. On the opening club lead it is "normal" for East to play the king first, with a decent expectation of being on lead to show the queen on the second trick (if that doesn't happen, you must expect partner to be confused). This abnormal sequence declares that the KQ is doubleton, and allows West to make a more meaningful signal on the second trick. When declarer sees the king, there is a threat that the QJ are sitting over the T9, and the way to neutralise the suit is to duck the first round, but cover a small club on the second - so that West cannot attack the suit any more. When East continues with the queen, South can reconsider; if South recognises the position now then ducking guarantees the contract as the clubs cannot be set up before the diamonds and spades are established - and two spades, two hearts and four diamonds go with the ♣A to get nine tricks.
Unfortuantely when the ♣Q is played, South is offered the chance of two sure club tricks and might well grab that. When declarer did that at table one, and continued with diamonds, West was able to win and clear the clubs while still holding the ace of spades, and South should now have gone down (but an accident returned the contract to her). Was declarer always doomed after winning the club ace? Not really - the play of diamonds was only setting up two tricks where three were needed, so playing on spades offered a better prospect. When the ♠T appears that give declarer nine tricks and the contract will always make.
Well done the Souths who avoided the traps on this hand.
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| HotD-wed : Mixed Pairs : 26nov18 : B12 |
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This hand from Monday produced a ridiculous variety of scores - with three different denominations chosen, and some game, some small slam, and one grand slam. The first key issue arose at the point shown. The opener has shown a decent chance of nine tricks (rather more certainty than this bid usually has) and a long diamond suit, with the 3N bid, and East must decide on whether or not to sit that out. In practice, most Easts decided that 4♠ would be better and took out (although at least one bid 4♣). That created the next problem for West - should West sit that? Various Wests chose differently, with bids of pass, 4N and 6♦ all being chosen at this point. Both the pass and the 4N (when that was passed) were successful.
How one pair ended in 7♦ is not known, but please do tell the story if you know!
There are 11 tricks available in spades but neither pair in spades made 11 tricks, which suggested that both Norths concerned avoided covering the ♠T when that was led. Well done there.
There are only 10 tricks available in diamonds, and the one exception came when South pulled out the ♠Q by mistake on the first round and gave declarer an extra trick there.
There are 10 tricks available in NT but one declarer pulled out the wrong card by mistake in the ending to only make 9; how the other pair managed 11 tricks (for a complete top) is not known.
The question now is - how can one hand generate so many accidents amongst a group of such experienced bridge players?
LATER : the 11 tricks in 3N came as a result of a revoke and a 2-trick penalty!
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| HotD-tue : Mixed Pairs : 26nov18 : B4 |
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The winners of last night's Mixed Pairs were John Councer playing with Suzy Lawson from Bristol. It was nice also to see Sue Evans from Worcestershire playing. Our County Competitions are open to all comers.
This was one of the winners' favourite hands. The bidding was that of the opponents, and it is not clear whether they should have been tempted to go for a 5-3 fit when they have 27+ hcp between the hands and the game is match-points. In the event, four tables played in 4♠ and six tables played in 3N, but the latter made every number of tricks from 8 through 11, so the play there might be worth discussion someday.
Against 4♠ John faced an opening lead problem : to find the right combination of attack and safety, and he found the only one which gave the defence a chance. Let's try the more obvious (more boring?) lead of a club. When West's honour forces the ace, declarer knows that a discard is needed for the losing club pronto, and that most come from the third diamond. So the only possible play is to win the club, unblock the diamonds, and play a heart towards the ♥QJ94 to set up an entry to the diamond king. They win the ♥A and continue clubs but declarer is in control - winning ♣K, crossing in hearts and ditching the losing club. Contract makes.
Now try this on a heart lead. First point is that West "knows" it is not a singleton lead as that would give declarer four hearts as well as five spades and with that they would normally have shown both majors in reponse to 3♣ rather than hide one. So West plays a low heart on the first round and North wins. The danger now, if any, is losing an unnecessary heart ruff, so declarer continues with ♠A and another. To East it is not impossible that declarer has the queen, but there is a decent chance declarer would have preferred a finesse in that case, so East judged well to duck this spade and West won the queen. West - seeing the ♠T from partner - could recognise the spade position and switched to the top club. Declarer won and now had a dilemma. The heart ace and the spade king has to be lost but which one first? The expectation was that whoever won the first would continue clubs, and the key was that whoever won second one could not cash a club. In practice the two declarers faced with this dilemma - very reasonably - played hearts, and on winning the ♥A, West was able to set up the ♣T to be the fourth defensive trick. This gave the winners a joint top, shared with the one pair in 3N who didn't manage 9 tricks.
Why might one find a heart lead here? The answer is that leading any of the other suits has the potential to give declarer a trick they could not otherwise get. The heart suit is much safer in that respect, and has the bonus that it creates the potential of a heart ruff.
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| Be Careful |
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West starts with ♥AK5. You try the ♥9 from dummy at trick 3 but this is covered by the ten and you ruff. What now?
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You have 3 tricks outside trumps and even making 6 trump tricks leaves you short. The obvious source of extra tricks is diamonds but do you finesse the diamond Jack or do you try for diamond ruffs? If you play carefully, the contract is assured if 2 rounds of diamonds stand up. Ruff the third diamond with the ♠A, return to hand with a club ruff, and ruff your last diamond with the ♠7. The ♠Q will be your only loser. |
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| Be Lucky |
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West leads a low heart against your game. How do you plan to make 10 tricks?
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There will be no problem if the club finesse works but on the bidding that is unlikely. You will therefore need to be a bit lucky with the layout of the cards. Suppose you draw a second round of trumps and exit with the ♦K. Let's say West wins and gets off play with another diamond. Now you can win in hand and play a spade towards dummy. West can't rise with the Ace else he gives you 2 spade tricks. Now you cash the other daimond and exit with a spade. West wins but when he also holds ♠JT he can only take one more spade trick (on which you discard a club) before being endplayed. |
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| Listen to the bidding |
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West leads the ♦A on which East plays the ten. At trick 2, West continues with the ♦Q. Plan the play.
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West’s opening bid at adverse vulnerability tells you that he started with seven diamonds. So East began with a singleton, and If you play dummy’s diamond king at trick two, East will ruff it. Now, if the heart finesse is working, as it might well be, this will make no difference. But with this layout, if East ruffs away the diamond king and shifts to a heart, you will lose four tricks: one heart, one diamond, one diamond ruff and one club. The best play is to duck in dummy at trick two. When West leads a third diamond, you overruff East, draw trumps, and run the club jack to guarantee your contract, losing two diamonds and one club.
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| HotD-thu : Leage 4 : 19nov18 : B17 |
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This hand from Monday produced a lot of swings when half the field made 10 tricks and half the field didn't. When North opened a weak 1N, then North would end up playing the hand (this happened 5 times) and when the system was a strong NT, then South ended as declarer (which happened 7 times - is that a sign of the changing pattern?).
With North as declarer on the bidding shown, no lead is attractive, but the heart lead has the possibility of stopping a useful ruff from happening and was found at three tables, while the others found a club and a spade. With South as declarer there is similarly a set of horrible options, and the choices made were three spades, two clubs and two diamonds. It is worth noting that nobody led a trump as this is too dangerous from the king - something to remember next time you get a trump lead through the ace, it might be the right time to drop the singleton king. Since all suit leads here are dangerous, I would have favoured the ♦J as it comes with a greater possibility of striking gold from a later diamond ruff.
From declarer's perspective there are eight sure tricks with extras possible from a long spade, a heart finesse, the onside ♦A, from a club finesse, or from a club ruff. The first ones to go for on any lead are the club and the diamond and these quickly show up a dead ends. [Actually if East ducks the diamond - which might or might not be possible depending on whether the count signal from West is clear - then you are don't know this yet. Which is a good example of why East should be ready and willing to duck whenever it is safe to do so]
At this point things get a bit worrying. If the defence has continued without giving away any tricks, and the prospects in spades don't look great - this means a club ruff is necessary. And the idea must now emerge of what about two club ruffs? The best approach is for declarer to ruff a club now, come back to a top spade and lead the fourth club; when West follows it must be right to ruff with the ♥A and then continue hearts. West will win and play a second spade and this does leave you a dilemma. If West started with two spades then coming to hand with a third spade will generate a trump promotion, while if West started with two diamonds coming to hand with a third diamonds does the same. If you get to this point you have to guess right - but there was an alternative. If you had cashed the ♠A before playing the heart then this problem would never have arisen. [The Dentist's Coup]
In reality, many of those who made 4♥ were given a much easier ride. One for instance got a club lead at trick one round to the AQ, while another, as North, got a heart lead to the ♥Q-♥K-♥ A and could now ruff one club for a tenth trick. Which just emphasises the point that defending is difficult.
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| HotD-wed : League 4 : 19nov18 : B19 |
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Many tables had an easier time on this hand, but this was the problem facing Allan Sanis on B19 on Monday. The opening lead - at table two after the bidding shown - was a small club from North. You need a plan for 11 tricks, over to you ...
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The first point to register, from the bidding, is that North has 10+ cards in the minors, and so at most 3 spaces for spades, while South has many more. The second point to register, from the play, is that North did not lead a singleton heart. This all points to the fact that South has four spades, and your pips are good enough to cope. The best line is therefore to win ♣A, cash the ♠Q, and now run the ♠T. This is the line found by Allan who consequently wrapped up 13 tricks on the board.
There are two points to make in the bidding. The first is the leap to 5♣, which South knew to be the inferior minor suit fit. It generated a club lead, which was much more testing for the defence that a diamond lead would be - but that was a piece of luck. The reasoning behind the 5♣ bid was to make it more difficult for East-West to evaluate the position. Were 5♣ to be doubled, South would always have a chance to go back to 5♦. The second point to make it that it was the bidding of North-South which pushed declarer into making the winning deductions about the spade suit. Had North-South not bid, then no player is likely to get the spades right (although the case remains for leading Q then T in case a careless South covers). Our commiserations therefore to those who bid 6♠ on this hand against silent opponents and went down. |
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| A Lucky Lead? |
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West leads the ♣T, covered by Queen and King. East returns the ♥Q. Play from here.
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The idea on this one is to appreciate the value of your lower club spot cards once the ♣T, jack and the king are out of play. At this point, the two highest remaining clubs in the opponents’ hands are the ace and 9 and your side remains with the ♣Q76. Notice you have four possible losers, two hearts, a club and a diamond. Win the ♥A, draw as many trump as necessary, ending in dummy, and lead the ♣Q, which will be covered by the ace (or else you will discard a heart and have 10 tricks). Say it is covered and you ruff. Now cross to a high diamond and lead the ♣7, intending to discard a heart if it is not covered. If East has the ♣9 and covers, you ruff, cross to dummy with a diamond and discard a red-suit loser on the ♣6. If West has the ♣9, he will win the trick, be able to cash one heart (all you have left) and your possible diamond loser vanishes on the ♣6, no diamond finesse needed. Loser on loser plays like this abound. |
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| HotD-mon : Tollemache QF-D : 17nov18 : B2.28 |
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The County Team went into this year's Tollemache Cup competition with high hopes, and found themselves in a section with Kent and Surrey as the two (other) strongest counties. The team ended in third place in the group behinf these two, with the highest score of any team that didn't qualify for the final. This hand from the match against Dorset was our biggest lost in that match and cost the team 24 imps - fortunately not quite enough to let us catch Surrey (who came second).
The bidding did vary from table to table but 14 tables played this hand in 4♠ by North (the exceptions being when a pair from Kent and a pair from Worcestershire both stole the contract in 2♥ by East). The opening lead varied between ♥K (7 times) and ♦2 (6 times) and there was one lead not known - but in our match all four tables led the top heart.
Table 1 took the first heart with the ace, and - knowing there were two spades to lose - led a small spade from hand at trick two. The defenders won this, cashed a heart and played a diamond. Now when West won the ♠A, he was able to give partner a diamond ruff and that was the fourth defensive trick - so we were down one. Perhaps we don't want to lead spades from hand?
Table 2 took the first heart with the ace, and crossed to dummy with the ♦A to lead a spade, but West hopped up with the ace and gave partner a diamond ruff, but the signal (top diamond) for a heart return was not picked up, and the ♥Q now allowed the Dorset declarer to make ten tricks. Clearly this line was also doomed if East had found the heart underlead and now gets a second ruff. Would it have been better to cross to dummy in clubs?
Table 3 took the first heart with the ace and crossed to dummy with the ♣A to lead a spade. West won the ♠A, played to the ♥Q and got a second club through. This set up a club trick for the defence while they still had enough trumps to get in, and the contract was down one. What about ducking the opening lead?
Table 4 ducked the opening lead and East continued with a heart to the ace. This declarer now tried a small spade from hand which went to the ♠T-♠6-♠J. West clearly could not lead a club, and didn't want to give a ruff & discard with a heart, so she led a diamond. Declarer won the ♦Q and tried another spade; West won the ace and faced the same choice of leads but now a diamond gave partner a ruff, which was the setting trick.
The hand records however show us that the contract is always makeable - and indeed 9 tables out or 14 (all but one of those with the ♦ 2 lead) made the contract. The answer is a combination which has not yet been tried - declarer needs to duck the first heart; if they play a second then win that and cross to dummy in either suit, and lead a spade. If they switch to the ♦2 at trick two then win that and play a spade (the defence can get one ruff but not two). On an initial diamond lead, declarer will win and play a spade but now if the defence take a ruff, there is no entry for a second ruff. So the top heart is a seriosuly more demanding defence than leading the singleton diamond.
Should the winning line be found? That is not clear - if East rather than West has the doubleton spade (likely when hearts are 3-6 or 2-7) then by crossing to dummy you could easily be setting up a ruff in the short hand for the defence - and that let's them beat the game. Playing a small spade from hand first loses when East has three spades and a side singleton - which is less likely.
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| What's the Best Chance? |
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West leads the ♠T. Plan the play.
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You have 10 top tricks and have to decide whether to try for your two extra tricks in clubs or hearts. If you run the ♥J, hoping East has the queen, you will make your slam 50% of the time. Perhaps more. Say West has the ♥Q and doesn’t have the ♥A. He might not return a heart and now you have a chance if the club finesse works. So running the ♥J actually gives you a bit more than a 50% chance.Now let’s consider clubs. If you take the club finesse and it works, you still need the clubs to break 3-3. This comes to 18%. But you aren’t exactly dead if they break 4-2. You can’t give up a club, but you can cross to dummy and run the ♥J. You can’t make the contract if East has the ♥A, (he will simply take it and the fourth club as well) you must play West for the ♥A. It’s about a 30% chance that all this will happen. The bottom line is that it is far better to attack hearts rather than clubs because you need only one piece of good news, the ♥Q with East, to make 6NT. Working with clubs and finding the ♣Q with East is still not enough to guarantee the contract. |
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| A Pleasing Defence |
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West leads the ♠5 against South's strong NT. South wins the ♠Q at trick 1 and leads a diamond to dummy's ten. Do you see a way to defeat this contract? |
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Partner can only hold around 8 points so defensive prospects are not bright. Now might be agood time for a piece of deception. Win the diamond finesse with the Ace and return the ♥T. Look at all 4 hands and put yourself in South's position. It looks like you have 4 diamonds, 3clubs, a heart and a spade trick if you play the ♥A. If West has led from a 6 card suit and holds the ♥K, then you will lose the next 6 tricks. Surely South will win the ♥A and repeat the diamond finesse. Now you have 7 defensive tricks. I trust South will be gentlemanly enough to congratulate you on your fine play. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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Partner leads the ♥K. How do you see the defence developing?
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It looks like you will have 2 hearts and a diamond trick, so a trump trick is needed. On the ♥K, you should signal encouragement. When partner continues with a second top heart, you show a doubleton. Now partner will continue with a third heart. Declarer is very likely to ruff with the ♠K and lead the ♠J from dummy - but you cover and will ultimately win a trick with the ♠4. If you show 3 hearts, declarer will ruff the third round low and have no difficulty picking up your trumps given West has shown at least 10 red cards. |
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| HotD-thu : CBC Pairs League : 14nov18 : B4 |
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There were plenty (8 in total) of hands last night where bidding a slam was an issue, and there was the usual pattern of too few people bidding slams but also a most unusual smattering of people bidding slams and going down (on three of these hands) and people stopping in a part-score (on four of these hands). This one was the most interresting from a bidding perspective ...
The opening bid from West was always 1♠ and it was almost a uniform 2♣ response from East (there is one known exception). West will bid diamonds next and then the spotlight goes back to East. How should East continue?
Whatever your system, there seems to be one answer - and that is a jump to 4♣. This must set the club suit as trumps and invite cue bids. After West cues in diamonds, East has no control in hearts and it is not recommended to cue bid a shortage in partner's suit, so it looks like 5♣ next.
That sequence did happen at some tables and when West passed it was all over. But there was an alternative; with a good set of controls covering all the suits, West needs to think about bidding on. The least partner should have in clubs is seven to the AKQ, which means that there are 10 top tricks - but are there 12 tricks? The reason for thinking there might be is this : with just that club suit and nothing else, it would be foolish for East to bypass 3N as that must be the most likely game. On top of that, East could have bid 5♣ over 2♦ if the hand did not have slam ambitions. WhereverEast has a stray high card - spade or hearts or diamonds - it is going to combine well with the holding in West's hand. Just a little bit of optimism is needed to come to the conclusion that 6N must be the right bid at this point.
The only instance of 6N last night was 6N played by East. The opening lead was set to make a difference of 1870 points - and this time it went in favour of declarer, when South led a top diamond.
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| HotD-wed : Winter Pairs 3 : 12nov18 : B19 |
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This hand from Monday was curious in that of the six tables who did play in the "obvious" denomination, there were some chose a part-score, some chose a game, and some chose a slam. But they all made the same number of tricks and none of them made enough!
The bidding shown was that of table 6, and it concluded at this point when South made an (slightly) undisciplined pass. There are a few aspects to notice; firstly South avoided opening 2♣, easily the better choice as there is no danger of a 1♣ opening being passed out, and starting lower will give more time to describe this complicated hand. After that start, the remainder of the auction looks inevitable - which makes the fact that four tables ended in different denominations seem strange. The re-evaluation in passing 4♣ is reasonable, if dangerous, as the South hand, despite its strength, might offer very few tricks to a partner with diamonds and a club shortage.
In terms of what contract you would like to be in - the fact is that 5♦ looks best, as any 3-2 trump break and a number of 4-1 breaks will deliver declarer 6 tricks in the suit and let game make. That means you make game 85% of the time.
What happened in 4♦? The answer is that declarer relaxed and after winning the heart lead, played the ♣A aiming to ruff the next one and play trumps. West ruffed and there were three trump losers still to come and declarer was one down. Should declarer have avoided that accident? The answer is yes - you just have to ask before trick two "what can go wrong" and it becomes clear that a ruff of the ♣A will be more likely than a problem by playing a second and thid heart (after nobody has bid the suit). The fact is that every declarer lost four trump tricks.
Curiously the top two scores (for North-South) on the board came from a penalty double of 2♥ at one table (it's hard to see North passing that comfortably with eight diamonds but they did) and the South who played in 1♠. We cannot belittle that last choice, as the pair concerned went on to produce the best score of the evening! We are reminded of the question "what do you call an 8-card suit" to which the answer is trumps.
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| HotD-tue : Midlands Counties League : 11nov18 : B14 |
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This hand from Sunday's match presented a nice opportunity for a pretty play, but in fact the best contract was reached at only two tables and they both failed!
This was a common start to the auction, where East has doubled for takeout. What should West be doing now? In practice more chose to bid 3N than chose to bid a five card suit in response to partner's request, which seems strange, and in 3N there was little play, as North set up the spades with the opening lead and got in with the club ace to cash them later.
With that hint about the club ace, how should the play go were West to bid 4♦ over the double and get raised to game? The lead is the ♠K.
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Playing in 5♦ you are comfortable there are no losers in the pointed suits, so it is all down to not losing two clubs and a heart. After winning the spade lead, it seems natural to start with drawing trumps, eliminating the spades and trying a club to the king. When that loses North is forced to play back either a club or a heart. You win and now know there are two club losers - so you have to avoid a heart loser. North has by this time shown up with a 7.2. shape with at least one club, which means you South cannot have the doubleton heart king.
There are two choice in the heart suit that allow you to escape for no loser. One is singleton ♥K with North, and the other is to find North with a 7222 or 7321 shape, which allows you to put South on play with the third club and forces a lead away from South's assumed heart king. Neatly, exiting at this point with the third club tells you which option to play for and in this case - when North shows out - South is indeed forced to lead from the heart king and you make your contract.
Easy game this? |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♦T against your slam. You win the ♦A and cash ♥AK. On the second heart, West discards a club. How do you play from here?
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Had trumps been 3-2, 12 tricks would have been easy. The contract is now more fraught. If you cross to dummy with a club to take a spade finesse, you will lose a club ruff if the suit is 5-1. If spades are 5-1, you cannot make the contract, so a reasonable line is to play a low spade from hand. If West wins and exits with a club, you can win in dummy and ruff a diamond. Then ♥J and a spade to dummy allows you to draw the last trump and claim 5 black suit winners in hand. If East wins the spade Queen, you can later just draw trumps and score 12 top tricks. It does not help West to duck the spade, for then the ten of spades will win. Declarer now now draw another round of trumps and ruff out West's ♠Q. On this line, East will make a trump trick, but that is all. |
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| Not a Great Contract...but |
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West leads the ♥K against your slam and you are disappointed to see dummy. The contract does not look great but can you find a way home?
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The good news is that West appears from the bidding to have 7 hearts, so your chances of success are not as bad as you might think. Win the opening lead and play 2 top trumps. If all follow continue with a low trump from hand and hope that it is East who has to win this trick. Now if East holds the ♦K he is stuck. A diamond switch gives you an entry to dummy and your loseres will disappear on the spades and a second diamond finesse. If instead East exits with a spade, you discard 2 hearts and the diamond Jack on the spades and then lead the ♦T from dummy. If East plays low you can underplay with the 9 and repeat the diamond finesse. |
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| Planning Required |
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West leads the ♠K. What is your best chance for 11 tricks.
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You need to set up dummy's hearts, but if East gets in then a club switch will likely prove fatal. Your best chance is to hope that West holds ♠ KQJ. Win the lead and cross to dummy with a heart to lead the ♠T. If this isn't covered by East, you can throw your remaining heart. Now you can use dummy's 3 trump entries to ruff out the heart suit and get back to enjoy them. |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Mixed Pairs : 06nov18 : B20 |
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This hand from Tuesday's Mixed Pairs was curious in declaring ten tricks were available while everyone trying for that failed. All 11 tables played in spades, with only two in a partscore and the rest in game. From the 11 tables we had eight Norths led the ♣Q and three led the ♥A. The heart leaders would likely have led the ♣Q at trick two - so over to you ... how do you play the 4♠ contrct?
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There are two options on the hand. The first - which is what people seemed to adopt - is to go for a cross ruff. On that line there is at best (unless a heart lead is giving you a trick there) three tricks outside the trump suit, and you therefore need seven trump tricks. You cannot imagine more than four long trumps in hand and that means a need for three ruffs in dummy. That can only happen if the opposition never lead a trump, and since one of your ruffs has to be a heart they always have a chance for a trump switch, killing one of those ruffs. So this feels doomed.
If you have a likely heart trick (eg because of a heart lead) you are better off, as you now need only six trumps tricks. The catch is that you will struggle enormously to draw trumps before cashing your winners. And indeed this is a problem with the cross ruff - as taking two ruffs with the AJT leaved you with Q7653 for drawing trumps - and that's not likely to work.
The alternative line is to set up the long diamond suit. So how about a spade finesse at trick two, and run the ♦K. This loses and North can see that the diamonds are breaking and you are heading for success. The best chance now for the defence is is to attack dummy's entries, by leading ♥A and another. As declarer you have a neat counter to that - you simply discard, creating two more heart winners in hand. This is enough to let you abandon the diamond suit after cashing the queen. [Is any North devious enough to lead a low heart after the ♦A?] Setting up the diamonds was not a high probability choice - needing the spade king right and the diamonds 3-3, but it was viable. Next time? |
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| Pay Attention |
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West leads the ♦K against your game - plan the play.
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You win the ♦A and cash the ♣ K. Now exit with a diamond. West wins the Queen and probably plays a third big diamond after East signals a doubleton. Simply discard a spade from dummy on this trick. Suppose East discards a club and West leads that suit. Your ♣A gets ruffed but you overruff and exit with the ♠K. Now provided West holds the ♠A which is likely enough on the bidding, you will be able to crossruff spades and clubs and make 1 club, 1 diamond, 2 spade ruffs and 6 trumps in hand. By discarding a spade on a diamond, you transfer your ability to take ruffs in dummy in a suit where you don't get overruffed. |
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| HotD-wed : Swiss Teams 3 : 5nov18 : B25 |
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There were 6 hands on Monday where slam came into view, but on only two of them did the majority of the field bid the slam.
Board 2 was a roughly 25% slam bid by two tables (our condolences to the defenders). Board 16 was a slam missing a cashable AK, bid and made by one pair but we cannot object to that since the defence had a clear chance to gain. Board 24 was a good slam in 6♣ but the only slam bid was 6N at table 2, which also made by dint of a very fortunate heart position; 6N looks like a 43% slam, and such slams are worth bidding as an unfortunate lead can often drastically improve the odds. And today's hand is a great slam but was bid to a slam by no pair at all. The auction shown is imagined - but might we not find it?
There are a number of bids in the sequence shown which might not be made, bvut there is a clear rationale for the choices shown. Now is it a good slam? Yes, it needs just the diamond ace or diamond jack onside - although you have to guess which. Which brings us to the play. The bidding and the first few tricks should make it clear to the defence that their only tricks are in diamonds. Once you cotton on to that, you can see that it is vital for South with the ace to smoothly duck the first round of diamonds, as to win it pushes declarer into the winning option of finessing the jack next. A smooth duck might fool declarer but a sufficiently alert declarer might spot that North has the ♥QJ and ♣ KQ and these days that does not leave enough room for the ♦A and a first-in-hand pass.
Board 12 we discussed yesterday - there was only one East-West pair left to play in a slam and that was the 6♦-1 result, while 5 pairs sacrificed in 6♠ (most, I bet, over 6♦).
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| HotD-tue : Swiss Teams 3 : 5nov18 : B12 |
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This spectacular example from Monday has to be Hand of the Day/Week/Month.
This was the bidding at one table, and it is impossible to fault the actions of any player. In fact, the par contract was reached, as the 6♥ slam is making even though 6♦ goes down when North gets to ruff the second spade with the ♦T while declarer cannot over-ruff. If South starts with the spade ace and king then there is a danger of North not realising the need to ruff, and that will let a diamond slam make.
Roy Collard reports that he bid 6♥ over 3NT in case partner was void in hearts and the ♣A was taken out at trick 1. However, that did run the risk of North being void in diamonds and ruffing a diamond lead. South naturally bid 6♠ anyway.
The two tables where West started with 1♦ and South got to bid quietly, first with 1♠ and later with 4♠ in an attempt to be allowed to play there, backfired on South when East bid on to 5♥ and North doubled this. It made an overtrick in each room.
There is no great science in bidding hands as shapely as these - but it is often the case that bidding "one more" is the right thing to do.
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| Defence is not Always Obvious |
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You lead your singleton heart. Partner wins the Ace and returns the Queen to declarer's King. How do you see the defence developing?
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On the bidding, South can hardly be missing the ♦A, so there can be no defensive tricks in the minors. If you ruff the second heart trick, then you will only make the ♠A thereafter. If South lacks the ♠ Q, he has no choice but to get the trump suit right by playing a spade to the King and another spade, as losing a trick to East will allow him to take his ♥J. You have 2 options available. One is to ruff with the ♠A so that partner will have an entry to his heart trick with his presumed ♠Q. The alternative is to discard at trick 2. This is a better play for even if partner has the ♠J and not the Queen, there is a chance that South will interpret your failure to ruff as holding 4 spades and he might well fineese the spade ten at some stage. Of course, if delarer's trumps are solid, there is no hope of beating the contract whatever you do. |
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| Clear the Way |
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West starts with the 3 top spades. How do you play?
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Firstly you should discard a diamond from hand on the third spade, as you want to retain control of the hand. Win the diamond switch with dummy's Ace and play off the 2 top hearts hoping both opponents follow. Now your best shot is to cash 2 top clubs before returning to hand in trumps. You can then discard dummy's last club on your ♥J and enjoy your club suit. This line makes whenever clubs break 3-2 and hearts are no worse than 4-2. |
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| The Only Chance |
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West starts with Ace and another spade against you slam. How might you bring home 12 tricks?
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The first move is to ruff the second spade high in case East holds a singleton spade. Then you cash the other top heart and say West shows out. You have 11 tricks and given that West has 9 spades, the 12th will most likely come from a minor suit squeeze on East. Draw the trumps taking the marked finesse against East and play 3 rounds of diamonds, ruffing the third. In the end position when you play off your remaining heart, dummy will be down to a diamond and ♣A8, whilst you will hold ♣Kxx. East's discard will give you the rest of the tricks. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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West leads the ♦J. Declarer plays low in dummy. How do you defend?
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Declarer has at most one diamond, so you should overtake with your ♦Q at trick 1. When South follows you could continue with a second diamond to try and promote a trump trick for partner or you could switch to a club, hoping that partner has enough to then beat the contract. Probably a club is best. Which club should you switch to? - Normally you would lead the highest of your doubleton, but that would not be good enough on this occassion. The play to beat the contract is to switch to the ♣2 at the second tick. Now partner can establish a second club trick with the ♠A as an entry. |
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| HotD-thu : CBC Tuesday Pairs : 30oct18 : B11 |
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This hand produced a big variety of results, from +800 to North-South at one table, to +1100 to East-West at another table - and from the same contract! How could it happen? Well - the contract was 5♥-doubled at both tables, but in one case North was declarer and in the other case West was declarer. You would expect both results to be disasters for the declaring side and that was the outcome. How did it happen?
It was the first bid by North, and sometimes the first bid by East, which determined the outcome. At table three, after two passes, Anne Swannell took a sensible view by bidding 4♠ immediately. Hands of a 7411 shape do call for an obstructive opening, which isn't alway needed when you have the boss suit, but with partner here a passed hand, the potential value in bidding slowly is much less. The key decision now was East's; at the table he chose a double, which might have been intended for penalty but these days - with so many more 4♠ openers around - most people play double for takeout and partner duly took it out to 5♥. This is how West ended up with -1100 on the card.
At table 7, North took a different view and started with 1♠. This left room for East to bid 2♣ and after South showed his diamonds (we are still wondering why) West was able to support clubs. North now woke up and bid 4♠ but that didn't stop East bidding the club game. This was a sensible game to be in, and it would make were it not for the spade ruff on best defence. When it was passed tound to North however, he would not give in and tried 5♥. This did indeed show an imbalance between the major suits, but partner's preference for hearts did not prove a success, and when forced, the hand fell apart for declarer; he made four trumps in hand, one spade ruff on dummy, and the ♠A for down five.
The par result on the board, 4♠ -doubled down two (by North) was achieved at only one of the 27 tables which played the board. North-South only have to bid 4♠ when East has found the making 3N contract, and there was only one instance of 3N across the 27 tables which played this board.
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| HotD-wed : League 3 : 29oct18 : B21 |
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This hand produced the greatest number of swings on Monday, with double figure swings in all matches bar one. North played the hands in clubs once (presumably South bid 4N over 4♠) and in hearts twice (we presume in response to South's takeout double, rather than as a weak two bid with this suit quality at this vulnerability).
Defending against 4♠ everything hinged on the opening lead. The four tables to defeat the game all led the ♦T, which is surely the natural choice from the strongest suit; all the alternatives run as many risks of giving away a trick, which makes this choice best. South, on winning the ace, cannot see many sources of tricks. The only chance of defeat is therefore a heart to the ace and the ♦K and a diamond ruff. If declarer has dropped the ♦J on the first round, there might be rather more concern about whether the ♦K will stand up, but there looks to be four tricks for declarer in dummy's side suits - so what else can South try?
Here it let's you collect a ruff from partner and beta the contract. Isn't this an easy game?
One has to hope that where South led the ♥A against 4♠, in response to North's opening bid, that North took responsibility for the fact that the game was allowed to make.
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| HotD-tue : League 3 : 29oct18 : B7 |
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Board 7 from this week's league match generated more regret than any other for most East-West pairs last night. If we look at the two hands, it is clear than simply an even (3-2) club break delivers 12 tricks, and there is a thirteenth trick available when North is squeezed in the red suits. Yet only one pair - Paul Lilley & Peter Swales - managed to bid to the 6N contract that we all wanted to be in.
This should not be a difficult slam to bid, but it all hinges on the first bid by East and the second bid by West. If East can and does start off with a strong 2♥ response, then West will soon learn of a balanced hand opposite and will drive to slam with these long, good clubs. If East bids just 1♥, it depends on West's rebid - and a 2♣ choice by many resulted in East just bidding game, but the 3♣ choice by Peter Swales allowed that pair to reach the slam with ease.
Playing in any contract, the play should be the same. Declarer wins the opening lead and tests the clubs. Once they are know to break, you will have the rest if the hearts are 3-3. To cater for the other times, declarer should now cash the ♦A, and come back to the top spades to run the clubs. This will squeeze anybody holding the hearts and the top diamond. You need to cash the ♦A first if it is South who is to be squeezed, but when North is being squeezed it doesn't matter.
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| Keep Control |
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The defence starts with 2 rounds of hertas. You ruff the second trick and play....?
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If spades and diamonds both break, you can easily make 12 tricks, but your target is only ten so you should take steps to guard against the suits breaking 4-1. At trick 3 play a diamond to the Ace and a low spade back to your Ace (both following). Now ruff a diamond (say East shows out) and play the Queen of spades from dummy. You should overtake this trick with your King and lead diamonds from the top. On this layout, East will win 2 trump trumps, but you retain control of the hand. You cannot afford to duck the ♠Q, else you will next have to force yourself down to less trumps than East, thus losing control of the hand. |
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| Careful Defence Needed |
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West leads the ♥3 to your Queen and declarer's Ace. At trick 2, South leads a club to West's ♣4 and dummy's Queen. How do you defend?
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You can tell from partner's lead of a low heart that declarer started with the singleton Ace. It looks safe to continue with a top heart having won the ♣A but this is not so. Declarer will ruff and play 3 rounds of trumps. You exit again in hearts but now South leads the ten of diamonds and you cannot escape the endplay. To avoid the end position, you must retain both your hearts as exit cards. The correct exit after winning the ♣A is a spade. Now when you win the third spade you can lead a heart and a furth heart when you come in with the ♦J. This way you will come to a further diamond trick and defeat the contract. |
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| Proceed with Caution |
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West leads a low trump against your slam. How do you play?
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Whilst it looks appealing to draw trumps and rely on a favourable diamond position, there is a better plan. After winning the trump lead in dummy, lead a low diamond towards hand at trick two. Even if East ruffs, there is still a fair chance of making 12 tricks. If the ♦A holds, continue with the three top clubs, throwing diamonds from dummy. Next, played a diamond to dummy's Queen and East's King, West showing out say. You are now in control. On the actual layout, East must lead a heart round to dummy, or concede a ruff and discard which allows you to discard a diamond from hand and ruff low in dummy. You can now take the ♥A and crossruff high. If East had had a second trump to return, you would have won in hand, ruffed a diamond, drawn the last trump and claimed 12 tricks via four trumps, one heart, three diamonds, one diamond ruff and three clubs.
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| A 50% Game |
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West leads the ♣K against your game and East discards a heart. You win and play a top diamond on which West throws a spade. How do you rate your chances?
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Your game is 50% - merely requiring East to hold the ♠A. After the diamond play, enter dummy with a heart and lead a low spade towards your King. If East rises with the Ace, you will later win your spade in hand and eliminate the hearts before putting East in with the long diamond. He will eventually have to concede a further spade trick to dummy. If East ducks the spade, a similar endplay will ensue. |
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| HotD-thu : County KO QF : 22oct18 : B18 |
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This hand produced a number of unhappy bidders, when they didn't finish in the contract they wanted to reach. The first real choice was West's response to the opening bid. Should West bid 1♦ here?
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The common choice here was 1♦, and over that North could happily double to show the majors. When East bid 1♠ South passed and West gave preference to clubs. This was all convenient for North who could bid 2♥ . East competed again with 3♣ and South now faced the crticial decision. In practice 3♥ was favoured, and that finished the auction. When 10 or 11 tricks were achieved, that felt embarassing, and North-South found themselves asking each other who should have bid more.
Contrast that with the table where West raised clubs on the first round. Bidding even just 2♣ has two positive advantages - one is it much more tightly limits the West hand and that means East can judge immediately what to do, and secondly it raises the bidding level so that a 1♥ or 1♠ overcall become impossible. Over 2♣ North doubled, as you have to with such a good hand and two suits, and East was able to bounce to 4♣. It was easy enough for South to pass at this point, but when North doubled 4♣ (who wouldn't), South suddenly had options. Clearly a major suit game would be best, but there was no way of telling which five card suit North had (if any); and the long diamond suit was appealing. At the table South tried 5♦ and even without a double from the defenders, that was -200 and a bottom on the board.
This hand is a good advert for "support with support" - don't wait until later! |
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| HotD-wed : County KO QF : 22oct18 : B5 |
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The success of the common 3N contract on this hand from Monday was rather a surprise. This auction was typical, and North was declarer in 3N at all but two tables; we cannot explain the 2♦ contract chosen by two experienced performers at table 5, but the 3N played by South at table 9 was no surprise. When West was on lead against 3N, the small club lead at trick one made the defence trivial and the game went one off.
When North was declarer it turned out to be more difficult. The opening leads chosen by East were a top club four times, and a spade twice. It is hard to argue against either, although the dominance of the club lead does support the idea that it might be best to see dummy before going too far. When the top club is led, it is important for East to receive some sort fo attitude signal from West, so if the king (chosen twice) asks for a count signal then that is the wrong lead. One would expect that with an encouraging signal, and the strength of dummy indicating that West can have at most 2 hcp, we would see a club continuation and five tricks for the defence. This only happened at one of the four tables which started clubs.
When a spade was led, declarer won that and started on diamonds. It makes sense for West to duck the first round, and it looked very appealing to duck the second too - as that let's partner provide a signal on the third diamond which might help the defence. The problem however is that, if declarer is awake and can count, they will recognise that a third diamond is not needed - and they will run for their nine tricks. Can East tell?
On a spade lead, whether declarer rises or not in dummy at trick one, it should be apparent that declarer has three spade stoppers. The question is whether the queen (at most) which partner has is in hearts or in clubs, and the answer comes back to playing a top club and receiving an attitude signal.
Is this really a difficult game we play?
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| How Good is this Slam? |
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West starts with the ♣ K. How do you play?
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Your best chance is that both spades and diamonds break 3-2.. If this is indeed the case, then you can give up on the diamond finesses and play for 4 diamonds, 4 spades, 2 Aces and 2 club ruffs. Win the ♣A at trick 1 and ruff a club. Now play a low diamond from dummy. Say that East rises with the Queen to play a heart through. You win and ruff another club. Now 2 top spades and then a diamond to hand allows you to draw the reamaining trump before cashing your diamond winners. |
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| HotD-mon : Everett Cup : 20oct18 : B3 |
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There were 9 hands in total on Satruday (out of 48) where slam bidding featured. Admittedly one of these was crazy (and the opposition quickly cashed their three top tricks) and one was a poor but playable slam (which went off) but all the others were good slams to bid and this was the one which provoked most interest. There are four plausible starts to the auction on this hand, although it is not clear they all occurred (please tell). The question therefore is what you would bid with the hand shown after these starts, with partner dealer
- 3♣ - Pass
- Pass - 1♣
- Pass - 3♣
- Pass - 3N(gambling)
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This hand generated a lot of interest because it was so enormously strong, but in fact the strongest combination was on board 34 where there were 13 easy tricks in hearts for East-West, and 13 possible tricks in no-trumps; on that board everyone did bid a slam, but only one pair managed to get to the grand slam. (A sight rarely seen - everyone made the same number of tricks on B34). Of the other 5 decent slams to bid, the average number of pairs to bid the board to slam was 1 out of 12; they were all decent slams but in practice two of them failed, and one would have failed if the defence had (surprisingly) found the winning lead. Well done to Mary Jones & John Stirrup for bidding the slam on B2, and to Helen & Paul Tempest for bidding the slam on B16.
Back to this hand, the choices we can report on are
(a) North bid 6♠ immediately
(b) North doubled the 1♣ opener and bid 4♠ on the next round (when thankfully, partner bid 1♦ rather than pass).
(c) North doubled the 1♣ opener and bid 6♠ on the next round.
All but two tables in spades managed 12 tricks, and for the instance where the contract was 6♠ this was crucial.
Against the slam, East wanted to lead partner's suit but could not - so most chose a trump while one chose a diamond and one a heart. It should have made no difference - as even on a trump lead declarer still has time to ruff a heart in dummy and lose a diamond towards the end.
We don't have much practice with 3-loser hands, but it would be enough for South to turn up with three small spades and a yarborough, and - with the heart finesse through the opening bidder - the slam would be excellent odds. The optimism of the slam bidders was justified.
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| Not too Hard |
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West leads the ♣J. Plan the play.
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The hand is a sure thing. Win and draw trumps. Next take the ♦A, and the other top club before playing ♥AQ. Whoever wins this trick must concede a ruff and discard or play a diamond. You are now in a position to pick up an original 4-1 diamond break |
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| What Now? |
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Partner leads the ♥J. You cash 2 heart tricks - What now?
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Presumably partner has some heart winners if you can get him in. An experienced West in this position would likely have indicated where his outside values lay by playing a high heart when holding the ♠K and a low heart when holding the ♣A. However, I didn't tell you which heart partner played at trick 2. On this hand, there is no need to despair at the lack of that information. You have the diamonds under control so you will get 2 bites at this cherry. Switch to the ♠Q at trick 3. If partner encourages, you can later put partner in with his ♠K. If partner discourages the spade, you can try the club when you get in. If partner fails to give you the right signal for a second time on this hand, then a chat with him about signalling methods might be in order! |
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| How do you Defend? |
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After South opened a strong NT, West leads the ♣3. You win the Ace over dummy's Knave. What do you return and why?
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The opening 1NT by South marks partner with 3-5 points , so he will likely have one key card but not 2. There can be no point returning a club as partner wont have the 2 entries needed to establish and cash the suit. Hearts offers the best chance of beting the contract but you must switch to the ♥Q at trick 2. This surround play is necessary to prevent declarer winning 2 heart tricks. On the layout shown, declarer can only win 1 heart trick and partner will return the suit when he gets in, allowing you to take the maximum number of defensive tricks in the suit. |
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| HotD-thu : League 2 : 15oct18 : B25 |
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It was a surprise to see this tight game made at all the tables (5) which bid it on Monday evening. It was no surprise to see some stop in 1N after a 14-16 opening, or in 2♠ after West raised East's opening. The 1♠ contract was more of a surprise, but it quite understandable after an auciton of 1♣ -1♦ -1♠.
Against 3N by East the lead was mostly a heart and this should set up two heart tricks to go with the top clubs, so that if declarer tries to set up the diamond suit there are five losers. In practice three suits were led at the four tables where East was playing in 3N - once a spade, once a club, and twice a heart. A heart was also led twice against 1N and once against 2N.
As far as we can tell, every North played the ♥Q at trick one and declarer gobbled that up, generating a second heart trick, and the defence could never now make five tricks. If North had ducked, then declarer cannot succeed - ducking a diamond gives five tricks, and playing on clubs allows South to duck the second heart safely to set the hearts up.
Was it possible to avoid the play of the ♥Q? The answer is that on the lead of ♥7 (the choice in all five cases) there is no way out, as South might well have led from ♥AK976 or ♥AK876. But there is an alterative lead here, which is the ♥9, now the normal choice amongst experts from an H98x(x) holding, as it avoids giving declarer an undeserved tricks were partner to be sitting with J32 over dummy's AT7. Would that lead help? The answer is yes if the lead of the nine can only have one higher honour (but no if it could have two), and the argument for preferring the nine to a small one only makes sense with a single honour above.
Even without the ♥9 lead, the bidding might strongly suggest that South cannot hold the ♥AK, and that might encourage North into the winning play. The more common variation of this problem is when dummy has JTx in the suit, and you need to know whether or not to cover the jack with the queen. The same considerations as above apply then.
Leading the 9 from an H98x(x) holding can cause considerable confusion if your practice is to lead the 9 from a T9x(x) holding - but such a practice has a number of downsides anyway, and is no longer recommended practice.
Patrick Phair writes : we reached 3N after partner opened a 15-17 1N, and I invited game. North played the ♥Q on the opening lead. It is surprising that this board led to a game swing in all five matches -- only just over a 1 in 8 chance if game is bid at five tables.
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| HotD-wed : League 2 : 15oct 18 : B23 |
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The spade game on this board proved too difficult for most declarers. It looks very much like there are only three losers - one spade, one diamond and one club. It didn't turn out that way. Here's how it went at table 4.
The opening lead of a heart was ruffed, and declarer then played to ♦A to take a second ruff. He continued with trumps but West won the ace and - knowing that declarer would not have eschewed the diamond finesse - could underlead to partner's ♦Q and get a chance to ruff the ♥A. When the club finesse lost, declarer was one down.
What would have worked? Declarer does need to ruff at trick one, and a diamond next is fine, but when the ♦T appears, declarer needs to play the jack. This might give up a second heart ruff, but if West wins the diamond king and plays trumps, then declarer has enough control to take a club finesse, and so set up the third club for a heart discard. Still having the ♥A when East wins the ♣K is important, which is why ruffing at trick one matters.
Should this have been found? You might well find the winning line if given the hand as a problem, but the bidding shown did not suggest that East had as many as eight hearts. Were East to have jumped to 4♥ that suspicion might have come out, but even then it is not certain. But there are always bad breaks to look out for, and one of those might be a singleton diamond with East (but then playing ♦A and a second diamond would be good enough). It is hard to say whether going off in 4♠ is criminal or just unlucky.
Patrick Phair writes : I was West on this hand and the contract went down one. I was surprised to see that it could be made, and I didn't find out how until I used the analysis tool on the web. I led ♥4 to partner's bid. Declarer ruffed in dummy and played a trump to an honour in hand. I ducked, and then declarer (according to the double-dummy analysis) went wrong by continuing trumps. I won ♠A and switched to a club. Declarer finessed and partner won. Partner then found the essential return of a club, and when declarer thought for ages about overtaking the ten it was clear what the position was. After declarer stayed in hand with the ten and drew trumps we won one trick in each suit.
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| HotD-tue : Leage 2 : 15oct18 : B6 |
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There was plenty of shape in last night's hands and this one proved too difficult for most. With a nine card spade fit, you'd expect most pairs to play in 4♠ but this was only achieved twice. There was a good sacrifice available, and the par contract is 5♥-doubled and it looks like this was bid at half the tables but in fact a number of the 5♠ calls were voluntary.
The auction at table 2 is the one shown, and here West initially showed a four card diamond suit and on the next round was torn between showing the extra length and strength in that suit, or showing spade support. He chose diamonds, and even were the diamonds to behave well, the contract has three aces to lose.
The auction at table 4 did not allow North-South to find their sacrifice, as it started with 2♠ from East and over this West jumped to 4N (key card ask). The response was most disappointing and here the defence was always going to get its three aces. Asking first about partner's strength (with 2N) would have received a negative response (thereby denying two aces) and West could easily have settled then for game.
At table 6 the auction started as shown, but here South jumped to 3♦ on the second round (a "mixed" raise) which allowed West to cue bid 3♥ before showing spade support. For unknown reasons South decided to double this cold contract, but West took fright and ran to the failing 5♦ game, only to be put back by his partner into 5♠, doubled again. And this was one off.
What can we say? Opening 2♠ on the East hand is a sound choice; the spade middle cards are useful protection against a penalty double, the hand has virtually no defence, and you are first in hand. The East hand, in response, must take its time to avoid the embarassment felt at table 4.
The successful auction at table 11 was the one recommended 2♠ -2N(ask) - 3♣(worst hand) - 4♠ - P. Well done by John Stirrup & Steve Sasanow.
The successful auction at table 7 started with P - P - 1♦ - 1♥ - 1♠ and South produced a paltry raise to 2♥ over which West bid 4♠. The single heart raise made a sacrifice impossible to find, so the bidding stopped there.
Patrick Phair writes : our opponents missed their spade fit after the auction P-P-1♦-2N-P-4♥-5♦.
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| It's a Snip |
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West leads a diamond, East winning with the Queen, and continuing with the Ace. Plan the play.
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It looks like you can ruff high and clear the trumps, but if West holds ♥A8xx, he can take the ♥A and put partner in with a club. A further diamond will then promote the ♥8 to winning rank. The solution is to discard a club at trick 2. This is a scissors coup - it cuts the link between the defenders. You ruff the third diamond high and play the ♥K. Although West can win, he cannot now get his partner in. You just win the return and draw trumps. |
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| Play Carefully |
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West leads the ♥3. Plan the play.
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Diamomds is the obvious source of tricks on this hand but the only entries to dummy are in trumps. If you ruff the heart lead you will need to find the trumps 2-2 as well as a friendly diamond break. Best is to discard from dummy at trick 1 and let the opponents have the trick, Then you can win any continuation, draw 2 rounds of trumps before cashing ♦AK and entering dummy with the ♠A to enjoy the long diamonds |
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| Think it through |
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West starts with 3 top spades, declarer turning up with a doubleton. How do you see the defense developing?
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It is unliklely that partner holds the ♣A. You need to ask yourself why partner has played a third round of spades, establishing dummy's suit. Surely it is because West holds a little something in hearts, and he hopes for a trump promotion. Perhaps he has a holding such as ♥J9x, whereby if you were able to ruff with the ♥Q, he would have 2 trump tricks. Your actual heart holding is good enough for a promotion if West hols as little as ♥Jxx. Ruff trick 3 with the ♥A and sit back and wait for partner to make a trump trick when the layout is as shown. |
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| Unbeatable? |
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West starts with 2 top hearts. You ruff the second round and play 2 top spades from hand. On the second round East discards a club. Plan the play from here.
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You can't afford to draw any more trumps at this stage else a losing diamond finesse will see you lose control of the hand. Suppose you take a diamond finesse at this point. It loses and a heart comes back - is there still hope?
The answer is yes - you just need the minor suits to behave. Ruff the heart return and cash 2 clubs and 2 diamonds finishing in dummy. If this has passed off without incident, you can ruff dummy's last heart with the ♠ J. That gives you 5 spade tricks in hand, 2 clubs and 2 diamonds. The ♠ K remains on the table as your tenth trick. You have made the contract via a dummy reversal. |
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| HotD-thu : CBC Pairs League : 10oct18 : B4 |
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There were a few curious features in the scores from last night's game. The first was that the traveller showed board 1 as played in the same contract at all 12 trables, by the same declarer, with (essentially) the same lead. They did not all make the same number of tricks, but this is the closest to a uniform traveller that we can remember. And then there was board 6, where both of pair 12 and pair 14 played in 5♣ doubled and went down five tricks, but one of them scored -1400 and the other -1100. How could that happen? [Hit ANSWER if you can't work that out]
This hand (B4) was one of a number where a small part of the field bid a slam, and in this case a number of declarers went down. The opening bid is sound, with the shape compensating for a spade suit which you would rather was stronger when vulnerable. The bidding of a slam was also reasonable - and in fact investigating a grand slam would not have been out of place. In practice, only 4 out of 12 tables bid the slam (although two also got to 5♠ in their investigations).
Against a suit slam, the advice is to lead agressively, and the reason is that it is often a race to get two tricks, while defending 6N the issue is more often declarer finding a twlefth trick, and then you want to be cautious. Here a club lead would see a not-unexpected dummy, and would regret not having set up a red suit winner immediately. From North's perspective either red suit might be better, but the only North who led a red suit chose hearts on the basis that on top of setting up partner's king, there was the chance of finding partner with ♥AJ over dummy's king.
From declarer's perspective now, whatever the lead there looks to be six trump tricks and five top tricks outside. Does the contract have any chance? There are two realistic options - one is that something good happens in hearts, the other that something good happens in clubs. The former depends on finding ♥KQ or ♥KQx in one hand (an option which would be denied you by a diamond lead) and the other is that the club suit breaks 4-4. You lack the entries to try both. If you get a red suit lead, then the heart prospects do not look good, and they were not great odds anyway. To try for the clubs behaving, you need to win in dummy, and ruff a club while drawing two trumps. Now cashing the clubs let's you discard three diamonds and the fifth club takes care of the losing heart whiwle the defence ruff with their trump trick. You clock up +1430. Easy game!
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The answer is that one pair sat North-South, and the others sat East-West - and one was vulnerable, one was not! |
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| HotD-wed : Winter Pairs 2 : 8oct18 : B22 |
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This hand from Monday was a simple exercise if you played in 4♥, as one should, but a few pairs found themselves playing in 3N and had to make the best of that. You could well imagine that it would only be when West forgot to bid, that South played in 3N but that would not be true. When played by North the spade lead from East awkwardly leaves the suit blocked, and after that declarer can afford to lose a minor suit finesse to West, and if that is the club finesse then there is a tenth trick.
The more intersting contract is 3N by South on a spade lead. Where this happened East won the first spade and the suit was cleared. At this point declarer can see eight easy tricks, and just needs a minor suit finesse for the ninth. The question is which, and this is crucial as the wrong choice will generate five losers.
The key thing is that West can also see that this is the position. Against Mike Wignall, West capitulated and refused to give up control of either minor, and so had to throw a spade on the last heart. Now South could exit with ace and another club and receive a diamond into the ace-queen as the last two tricks. The key in these situations is to plan the ending early, and come down to a singleton king without any sign of discomfort. And of course partner must cooperate and not be discarding too many of that same suit.
At another table, Alan Wearmouth came down to a singleton king, and when declarer chose to go for a minor suit finesse, there were five losers and the contract was one down.
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| HotD-tue : Winter Pairs 2 : 08oct18 : B7 |
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This hand from yesterday presented an informative lead problem. The bidding won't always have been this but this is a standard Acol auction. What would you lead?
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Whether you are playing pairs or teams, the feature of your hand which should be screaming at you is the weak heart suit. This strongly implies that dummy will have good hearts, and if anything hearts will be declarer's short suit. That combination means that declarer is likely to have the option to discard some losers on hearts, and it means you must get to your winners first. A minor suit lead is therefore strongly indicated.
Which minor will be best? It's very much an even call, with a king in each, which will be more effective. There is a slight push however to clubs on this basis - if you lead from a king and it turns out that declarer has the A/Q between the two hands, you will sometimes still make a trick with the king. If you started with Kxxxx, then the you will only make the king if declarer has 3 cards in each hand in the suit - not so likely. If you started with Kxxx, the same question comes up and here your chances have increased a little. And if you started with Kxx then the chances are better still. So here the ♣7 looks like the right lead - and this was found at only two of the nine tables.
When the club is led, East wins trick one with the ace. The ♣7 was the lowest out, so partner is known to have an honour but it is not clear whether declarer started with one or two in the suit. At the table East carefully continued with the ♣Q and was allowed to hold the trick. He switched to a small diamond and declarer ran this to the king before claiming the rest of the tricks.
The contract made and scores +620 but this was a bottom score, as a number of people made over-tricks. Could declarer have done better? Clearly yes - as on any other defence the best play is to try the hearts from the top in case they break 3-3 and you get even better news when the ♥QT fall, and all your losers go away. Should declarer have done better? Probably yes. The one thing you can be sure of when the defence win the second club in East and lead a diamond is that West has the king - because otherwise West would have won the second club to lead a diamond through the queen. So declarer should have risen with the ♦A and taken 11 tricks.
Look at the effect of a heart or spade lead on the hand. Declarer can draw trumps safely and then turn to hearts. When the top hearts all appear on the first two rounds, two clubs can be discarded and the diamond finesse becomes the option for 13 tricks ... a lot swings on opening leads ... |
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| Helpful Bidding |
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West 's overcall of 2♣ showed at least 9 cards in the majors. How do you play on the lead of ♠5?
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You have 4 spade tricks, 2 diamonds and a club. If you can make 2 heart tricks, that brings your total to 9. On the bidding, West is marked with 4 hearts (at least) and hence East has at most 2. The best chance is that East's doubleton include the J,T or 9. Win dummy's ♠ Q at trick 1 and lead a low heart, just covering East's card. Say that West wins the 9 and plays a diamond. Win and lead the ♥Q, ducking in dummy regardless of whether West covers. Later in the play you can finesse dummy's ♥8 whenever the ten or Jack of hearts fell from East on the second round of the suit. If East had risen with a high heart on the first round, you play the Queen and later generate a second heart trick by running the ♥7 to set up the same position with ♥A8 acting as a major tenace over West. |
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| Beware the Danger |
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Against your 4♠ contract, West leads the ♣K. East plays the ♣T at trick 1, suggesting a value in hearts. What is the best line of play?
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There is a danger that East will gain the lead in hearts at some point and play a diamond through your King. You might then lose a heart and 3 diamonds. The best line is to duck trick one. Suppose West switches to a heart. You win the Ace and discard your second heart on the ♣A. Now 2 rounds of trumps with Ace and King will clear the trumps even if they are 2-0. You can lead and pass the ♥J, discarding a diamond if East does not cover. This may lose but you have 2 more trump entries to dummy to try a second ruffing finesse in hearts. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♠T. How do you plan the play?
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You have 5 tricks in the black suits so 4 hearts will see you home. The problem is that the defence can duck the first heart , take the second round of the suit and then lock you in dummy with a club. Then you will lose 2 diamonds, 2 clubs and a heart. You need to find a way around the communication problem. The solution is to play a diamond at trick 2. Suppose East wins and exits with the ♣Q. Now you can win and play a low heart to hand. If the defence wins the heart you have your nine tricks so they must duck. Now you can cash 1 top spade in hand and force out the remaining top diamond. Now you have 2 spades, 2 clubbs 1 heart and 4 diamond tricks. |
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| Careful Management Required |
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West start with the ♦Q against your game. How do you plan the play?
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With a delicate trump suit and some ruffing to do you need to be careful with the timing. Win the first trick with dummy's Ace and duck a round of trumps. Win the likely diamond continuation and cash the Ace of trumps. If all follow you can then arrange to ruff 2 spades in dummy. These ruffs, together with 2 top spades, 2 diamonds, a club and 2 trump tricks in hand brings your total to 10. It is essential to duck an early round of trumps else you will suffer a spade overruff. If you play Ace and another heart, the defence can draw too many trumps and leave you short of tricks. |
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| HotD-thu : Swiss Teams 2 : 01oct18 : B22 |
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This was an intriguing hand from Monday; it was played in the same 3♣ contract at ten tables and the contract made at seven. The Deep Finesse analysis of the hand says you can always make the contract with an overtrick, unless one specific card is led. You would never guess that this card was the ♠J! No table in 3♣ made the maximum ten tricks, and at the one table where the ♠J was led, they only made 8 tricks.
The first interesting point is the opening lead, which of course depends on the auction, but it is hard to imagine many auctions different from that shown. South must be concerned about diamond ruffs in dummy, and doesn't know that partner can stop these. It seems natural therefore to lead a trump, but only 2/12 tables did this. The others (bar the one already mentioned) led a small spade and cannot have been pleased to see partner's queen beaten by the ace at trick one.
After a trump lead (would declarer say thanks, or prefer not to have had one?) the line by which declarer makes 10 tricks is to draw trumps and give up three diamonds. This works because South runs of our hearts and is forced to play a spade after forcing declarer twice. It is not an obvious (or likely) choice and I would not expect anyone to follow it.
On a club lead one option for declarer is to win with the ace, so as to ruff a diamond in dummy with the seven, but this fails when North over-ruffs and on that start 3♣ goes down one. A more plausible line (chosen at table one) was to run the club round and win the ♣T and then take a guaranteed diamond ruff. With three outside winners, declarer needs to make 6 trumps tricks, and therefore win tricks with all of the KJT54. This looks reasonable, especially if North has withheld the club queen. So declarer took the diamond ruff, ruffed a heart, and then played ♠A and another towards dummy and won the ♠K. After that the contract could no longer be made; curiously playing the ♠T rather than the king on the second round would have left the contract a chance (the trick comes back but in this ending South can be end-played). But winning the ♠K and ruffing a second heart looks normal, and gets declarer up to 7 tricks.
Will it now make? That depends on the defence - what happened in practice next was that the ♦J was played to the ♦Q, and South gave North a diamond ruff. North chose to lead the wrong major now and East got to ruff the spade with the ♣J to make nine tricks. The ♥Q instead will allow South to over-ruff (now or on a spade at the next trick) and deny the ♣J a trick.
Defeating the part-score is hard work! It's a tricky game.
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| HotD-wed : Swiss Teams : 01oct18 : B17 |
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There were numerous slam hands on Monday and it was pleasing to see that in the event (and the CBC event playing the same hands) that with not-far off balanced 30-hcp between the two hands, the majority bid the slam. The key was the strong heart suit of AKJT2. The sequence shown is the how the only pair to do so reached the grand slam. The grand slam is respectable odds, making on a 3-2 trump break or a singleton jack.
The sequence shown concluded after the ace asking response with a cue bid of the ♦K and a cue bid of the ♥Q, and this last information was just what West wanted to know. Well done to Joe Angseesing & Paul Denning.
Those who stopped in game need to review their bidding style!
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| HotD-tue : Swiss Teams 2 : 01oct18 : B8 |
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This was the most interesting play hand amongst the seven (out of 28) on which a slam can be made. Two pairs didn't bid the slam (despite 34 hcp), and only one pair bid to the best contract, namely 6♦. There are many times you would make 6N with this number of hcp, but there are also many times when playing in a 4-4 suit fit can give you an extra trick or at least extra options.
Playing in 6♦, North faced the lead of the ♣T. There are 11 top tricks in this contract (as there are in 6N) and the heart finesse looks like the best option for a twelfth. There is one better option of course in hearts, and that is for East to lead the suit. Can that be arranged?
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The answer is yes - and this is how. Declarer wins the opening lead, draws trumps in three rounds, and cashed the spades and finally the last top club. At this point North and South are both down to one diamond and three hearts. The lead of the ♥9 creates a problem for the defence; if West plays small then this runs to East's ten and East has to return a heart or give a ruff-and-discard. But if West convers the nine, North covers the jack, and East can win the king, but then has to lead away from the ♥T, and that is fatal.
Malcolm Green, having opened 1♦ and later raised to the slam, played the hand exactly this way - well done! Their bidding sequence to 6♦ is shown,
There is a similar end-play (this time a squeeze end-play) possible in 6N but it depends on perfectly reading the defnsive layout. Three pairs playing in 6N making 12 tricks, but we haven't heard how the play went there. Any stories? |
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You lead ♠K. Partner overtakes with his Ace and returns a spade (declarer following). How do you defend from here?
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The first thing to appreciate is that declarer will drop your ♥K. He will have noted that East passed your opening bid and has already turned up with an Ace. Your only chance to beat the contract is to find partner with the ♥8. At trick 3, cash the ♣A and then continue with a low spade. If East can ruff with the ♥8, your ♥K will be promoted to the setting trick. |
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| Key Play |
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West starts with the ♠ J against your game. East takes 2 rounds of spades and switches to the ♦J. You win and draw trumps in 2 rounds. Now what?.
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It looks like East started with 7 spades and 2 hearts. If West wins the third round of diamonds, he is end-played, and if East holds 4 diamonds and wins the third round, he is similarly end-played. The critical case is where East hold 3 diamonds and a singleton club. If East were to win the third round of diamonds, he could exit with a club and leave you with a club loser. The key play is to cash the ♣K before playing diamonds. Now the defence will always have to lead a club to your tenace or concede a ruff and discard. |
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| Play Like a Champion |
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West leads the ♣Q against your slam. How do you play?
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East passed originally and then found a double of the weak 3♥ raise. Surely he hods both black Kings and a void heart together with the missing diamond honours. The winning line is to take the ♣A and play a low heart to dummy's 7!. Now lead the ♣T and throw a diamond when East plays low. This loses and a trump comes back say. Win in dummy with the ten and run another high club, throwing a spade if East ducks. Then ruff a club high and play Ace and another heart. The winning club on the table allows you to throw a losing diamond and a spade finesse sees you home. For the eagle eyed ones amongst you, East would in fact have been squeezed by the play of the heart suit , so as the cards lie, you might choose to discard your ♠ Q and win the remining tricks with your diamond suit. Note that it is not good enough to lead the ♥A and nother heart early in the play. If you do that, West can insert the ♥J and the blockage in the heart suit prevents you from doing everything you need. |
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| HotD-thu : Ladies/Mens Pairs : 24oct18 : B2 |
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It was curious to see such uniformity in the results when East played this hand in 4♠ on Monday. All five tables had the ♣8 lead and went down one. There were variations in the auction, with some tables overcalling 2♦ and some overcalling 3♦. At a number of tables declarer won the club lead with the ace, and led out the ♥J losing to South''s king. With a diamond discarded on the first club, South knew it could not cost to lead the top diamond, and so the play proceeded ♦K-♦A-ruff and back came the club queen, ruffed and overruffed, and another diamond got a third ruff for the defence. Declarer now had the rest.
How should it have gone?
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What declarer set out to do, in hearts, was pointless. If the king was onside, the two losing hearts were never going to be ruffed (you cannot use the ♠K for that) so there was always a heart loser.
Now think about the bidding; whether it was a 2♦ or a 3♦ overcall, at this vulnerability, surely South holds the heart king. Doesn't this make a heart towards the jack seem a much better play?
How soon do you want to do this? If South has two or three hearts, then this play will results in just one loser and the play can come later. If South has four hearts, then South still has to duck when you lead towards the jack and you can then manage ace and a ruff to hold your heart losers to one. This looks much better than running the jack.
What about the rest of the hand? The diamond position must look ominous - North has sure at most one diamond on this bidding (at most zero on the 3♦ bid). This argues for drawing trumps before anything goes wrong. The bidding here might guide - it is less clear with a 3♦ overcall, but surely if South overcalled 2♦ the odds favour cashing the top spades dropping the queen.
Doesn't this look like a plausible 11 tricks, with the possibility of just 10 tricks if you finesse the spade? But nobody found it. :( |
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| HotD-wed : Ladies/Mens Pairs : 24sep18 : B11 |
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There were a lot of opening lead decisions on Monday, of which this was one. Your choice?
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B11 : the auction at table 8 here was 1D-1H-1S-3N and that cannot have bene uncommon. East had the issue of what to tackle and the confident 3N suggested that clubs were sewn up. The key question here – whether teams or pairs – is what will avoid giving away tricks and ther spades are enormously vulnerable to doing just that. The DQ lead was found at only one table and earned a complete top by holding declarer to 10 tricks.
B9 : on lead as East against 1S-2C-2N-3N, you have very little defence and your suit is weak. The consequence is, as here, a heart lead gives away a trick. This is expected, and a diamond lead - with the possibility of catching partner with five – is a clear choice. In practice the four declarers as North got two diamonds and two heart leads, and a diamond lead got 12 tricks while the other three got 10 tricks. When South played the hand, the top heart lead worked well (the only defeat of 3N) but the S7 lead is a give away – allowing declarer to spot the offside queen and drop it.B14 and B16 : there two cases saw South on lead after 1N-all pass and with a 3433 shape. The answer with any 4333 hand is to avoid guiessing the wrong three-card suit – and you do that by leading your four card suit. Most people found the heart lead, but those who didn’t suffered as a result. Hint, hint!
B14 and B16 : there two cases saw South on lead after 1N-all pass and with a 3433 shape. The answer with any 4333 hand is to avoid guiessing the wrong three-card suit – and you do that by leading your four card suit. Most people found the heart lead, but those who didn’t suffered as a result. Hint, hint!
B18 : a common lead problem is after a weak two bid get raised to game. In these circumstances the big danger is that the dummy is going to provide discards for declarer’s losers, and there it is vital to make an attacking lead. Here the five opening leads against the spade game were trumps – and they all got a joint bottom for that. |
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| HotD-tue : Ladies/Mens Pairs : 24sep18 : B26 |
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The Ladies Pairs last night was won by Wendy Angseesing & Anne Swannell, who led comfortably going into the last round. In the Mens' Pairs however it was much closer and when the last round was played the leaders with one round to go (Ashok & Patrick) were sitting East-West here against the Roger Jackson & Peter Waggett sitting North-South.
This was the bidding on the last board, and it was the choice at this point which determined which of these two pairs would win the trophy. It was all quickly settled when Roger continued with 4♥; this provoked a cue bid of 4♠ and a return cue of 5♣. Fortunately South signed off, and was able to clock up +600 and a complete top for 5♦ making. Peter & Roger collected the trophy.
Why did others not bid the game? A key point was on the first round, when North here chose a takeout double over 1♠ rather than just a club bid; the latter would have left the diamond fit unfindable.
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| An Extra Chance |
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West leads ♠Q against your game. Clearly you will make if the ♦A is onside. Do you have any other chances?
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25% of the time, East will hold both missing club honours. Duck the opening spade lead and win the likely spade continuation. Cross to dummy with a trump and lead a low club. If Est plays a club honour, win and cross back to dummy with another trump. The top spade allows you to throw the ♣J and you follow with a ruffing club finesse. Of course, if you do end up losing a club trick along the way, you still have the original chance of the Ace of diamonds being on-side. You have merely transferred a losing diamond to a losing spade, but in doing so, have given yourself a sizeable extra chance. |
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| Plan Carefully |
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West leads the ♠K. How do you play?
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Clearly the heart suit should provide the tricks you need. The danger is that if you lose a heart trick to East, a club switch through your King may well defeat you. There is a good chance that West holds all the top spades. Cross to dummy with a heart and lead the ♠T. If East plays low, discard your remaining heart. Say that West wins and switches to a trump. You now have 3 trump entries to ruff the hearts good and get back to cash them. Provided the hearts are 3-2 you will come to 4 hearts, 6 diamonds and a spade for your contract. |
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| Think Ahead |
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West leads the ♠5 to East's Ace, who switches to the ♣J. Do you see a way of coming to nine tricks?
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You will need to bring in dummy's diamond suit to have any chance. Therefore at trick 1, you should have unshipped a high spade from hand. Win the ♣A at trick 2, unblock the diamonds and play a low spade towards dummy. This way you will have 2 spades, 5 diamonds and 2 Aces for your contract. |
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| What are the Chances? |
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West leads the ♦A against you slam. How do you assess your chances?
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If the trumps break 2-2 (around 40%), then your contract is secure. Ruff the opening lead and draw trumps in 2 rounds. Then cash 4 rounds of clubs and exit with a low spade from both hands. If West wins, he must lead away from his ♠K or concede a ruff and discard. If East wins, he gives you a ruff and discard as he will have nothing other than diamonds left. Either way you spade loser goes away. |
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| HotD-thu : League 1 : 17sep18 : B10 |
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The board with most swings on Monday was this board, which had swings in every match - and the average swing was over 10 imps. This is the bidding from table 6, from one of only four tables which managed to find the nine card fit and play in game with 24 high card points and a bit of shape.
The 1N response at this table was an artefact of the pair playing that a lower 2-level response to a 1-level opening is game forcing; this is very much the preferred option these days amongst serious bridge players, as it maximises the space for bidding of strong hands. A slight downside occurs here (a lot of hands get bundled into 1N), but by the time of the 3♦ bid everyone knew a reasonable amount about partner's hand. South was too strong to pass, and 4♣ was just an indication of where strength lay, but it was clear to sign off over the 4♥ cue bid as the North hand was known to be of limited strength - never enough to justify a slam.
In the play West led a top heart (a singleton into declarer's suit looked dangerous and was only found at one of the four tables in 5♦) which was normal and was won by the ace. Declarer's first step was to play a trump to the king, but he then abandoned the suit, crossing to the ♠ A to take the club finesse. When that held he set about his side suit, and was not pleased by the bad break but was pleased that the spade king was not ruffed. It was straightforward now to cross-ruff to eleven tricks and a twelfth came along. When another table won the ♦K and played to ♠ A for another diamond, East was able to rise and play a third diamond and the contract could no longer be made.
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| HotD-wed : League 1 : 17sep18 : B26 |
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This was one of the excellent slams from Monday which was bid by few pairs (3 out of 12 in this instance). Let's look at how the bidding should have gone ..
The 1♥ opener is a preference on all systems as experience shows that if playing a strong 1N opening (15-17), that hands with a maximum and a decent five card major will get passed out too often with a major game there for the taking. After the opening North will surely commit to at least game in hearts, and the fact that this is a (confident) value raise is best shown by an artificial raise - of which 4♣ showing shortage is the simplest.
What does South do now? Clearly the singleton club is good news, as none of South's high cards are wasted and the two losing clubs can be ruffed. The only concern South might have is losing two spades. There are two options on that. The first is to cue bid 4♦ and then continue with a 5-level bid over partner's expected 4♥ signoff. By-passing a spade cue indicates that spade control is key and North can (should) now decide to bid the slam. It can be helpful in situations like this to have one sequence which encourages partner to bid the slam with the missing control, and another which commands them to bid it with the control; in my partnerships the cue bidding sequence encouages, while a raise of the major to the 5-level (bidding 5♥ here) is the command.
The alternative approach is to reason that without a top spade (ace or king) then North has made a splinter raise with no aces and at most one working king. Would you ever do that? This reasoning shoudl lead to a 4N (key card ask) continuation over 4♣ and a stop in the small slam.
A path reported by a couple of tables did have cue bidding but nobody progressed over 4♥ and the easy slam was missed.
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| HotD-tue : League 1 : 17sep18 : B28 |
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There were plenty of slams available last night - eight boards where slam could be made out of twenty eight. Across these eight boards, each played at 12 tables, there were only 14 instances of slams bid and 6 of them went down. Two slams (board 2 and board 10) were distinctly poor, and the one which was bid most often (board 12) went down on a bad trump break. Boards 14, 15 and 26 were all laydown slams but hardly bid. This slam hand was the most interesting play problem.
In a 6♥ contract, you will inevitably get a spade lead, and that will be ruffed. There are nine top tricks and there will be extras from the trump suit - and that can be two extras if you get to ruff three spades (having said thanks for the lead). Now the slam begins to look good. The twelfth trick can come from the fourth club, or the fourth diamond, or the ♦J becoming a winner. What is unfortunate is that you cannot try all the options, as once the first fails you cannot afford to lose a trick with the second one. You can combine a good break with a diamond finesse, but you need to decide which break you are going for. If a club break, you must duck a club first and if the suit is not 3-3 then take a diamond finesse; if going for a diamond break, you take the diamond finesse first and then test the suit.
Which would you go for? There is nothing in it; sad to say the only declarer in the slam chose the wrong one. :(
MW adds : I thought the slam was very decent - home if N is 6322, d finesse (well less than 50% on the bidding) plus guess whichever minor is 33 - very likely to be one on the bidding. As you say you can't do it all - but if you play for 33c but you can if you play for 33d with a d to J early. I did - sadly.
Later Analysis (vmt, MW) : there is actually a positive advantage in going for the diamond finesse first, as when that fails and you get to draw trumps there is an automatic squeeze on any hand holding four clubs and four diamonds.
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| Guard against Bad Breaks |
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West leads ♥ 8 to East's ten. At trick 2, East continues with a top heart. Over to you.
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On this hand you probably don't expect the suits to break well. A 5-0 break in spades or diamonds will probably prove fatal but you can cope even if both suits are 4-1. Ruff the second heart and cross to the ♦A. Now a spade to the King is followed by a diamond ruff with dummy's Knave. Now lead the ♠Q and overtake to run the diamonds. All the defence can take is 2 trump tricks to go with their heart. |
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| Don't be fooled |
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Against your slam, West leads ♥T. What are your thoughts?
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This hand hinges on how you play the club suit and that in turn depends upon how many club tricks you need. There is a standard safety play in clubs to ensure 3 tricks - Cash the King and then low to the 9. To find out how many club tricks you need, first play on spades. Win the heart lead in dummy and take the spade finesse. If it wins it looks like you have 3 spade tricks and can make the club safety play whereas if the spade finesse loses, you will need to play the clubs for 4 tricks. However, a clever defender might duck the first spade finesse. There is of course, no need to be fooled. When the spade Queen holds, cross to dummy to repeat the finesse. If that wins you safety play the clubs with impunity as you now have your 3 spade tricks wherever the King lay. |
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| Get Lucky |
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West starts with the ♠Q against your game. Plan the play.
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You have 6 top winners and can set up 2 more in diamonds if they break 3-2. Unfortunately, this means you still need a trick from hearts and as soon as you lose the lead, the defence will establish their spade suit. The bidding gives you a clue that the ♥A is likely to be with West. If you win the ♠A and play a low heart towards dummy, what is West to do? If he rises with the Ace, you have 3 heart tricks which is all you need. If he ducks, the Queen wins and you switch back to diamonds. Now you just need the diamond break for 9 tricks. |
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| Draw the Right Inference |
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West leads the ♦K and switches to a low heart. How do you plan to make 10 tricks?
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You hope to make 2 Aces and 8 trump tricks on a cross ruff. A trump switch at trick 2 would allow the defence to play 2 rounds of trumps and limit you to at most 7 trump tricks. Why hasn't West found the spade switch? - Answer - he doesn't have one! Your play therefore is to keep East off lead so as to prevent him playing 2 rounds of spades. Win the ♥A at trick 2 and play the ♦9. If it is not covered, throw a heart. If East covers you ruff, enter dummy with a club ruff and lead the ♦8 to throw a heart. You will succeed unless East has 2 diamond honours. You hope the hand is something like that shown. |
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| HotD-thu : Winter Pairs 1 : 10sep18 : B25 |
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This bidding problem was faced by a number of declarers on Monday, and not always solved. The problem is that you want to show clubs at this point but with seven sure tricks and two kings, you have excellent chance of making 3N, with only a little help from partner. A couple of Norths tried 3♣ even though this is non-forcing; over both of those South continued with 3♠. One table saw North now get excited and he bid 4N and then tried 6♣ but this was a disaster when South converted to 6♠. At another table North tried 3N over 3♠ but partner converted that back to 4♠.
Was there a way to avoid these disasters?
The last reported table got close but the problem was that South did not expect the North hand to be like as this.
The answer is for North to bid 3N on the second round; since 1N here would show 15-17 and 2N would show 18-20, the 3N bid is free and is best used to show a hand which fancies 3N, holding a long (usually running) suit. Ideal here, and with that sort of description, South is much happier to pass. The contract is by no means guaranteed, and here could go down two, but in practice the only table to play there made two overtricks!
An example of this approach occurred in a bidding competition recently, when a hand with ♠KQJ987 and a good smattering of points opened 1♠ and raised partner's 1N response to 3N. The 1N opener, worried about a side suit weakness, could now bid 4♠ with ♠A5, in the knowledge of a spade fit - and that was the right contract.
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| HotD-wed : Winter Pairs 1 : 10sep18 : B13 |
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This hand from Monday showed everyone making exactly the same number of tricks, and all but one in the same contract - but this was actually a surprise, as there were alternatives on offer.
The first bidding problem arose on the third bid. Few pairs had any choice but to bid 3♥ at this point, to ensure that partner did not pass. This unfortunately cramps the auction enormously and leaves East with little choice. There is still one choice, but it depends on whether over 3♥ a bid of 4♦ is a cue bid in support of hearts or a new suit (I favour the latter, but am in the minority on this). In practice, nobody used this to bid the slam.
The more organised pairs have a better mechanism over 1♠ - 1N. The simplest improvement is to play transfers, so that here East bids 2♦ to show hearts and on the next round (because partner will not pass) can bid 3♣ to show a fragment there (and therefore a singleton diamond). This scheme is simple to adopt and works quite well. On this hand, a 2♦ transfer would get a super accept of 3♥ and now West will be looking slamwards.
The more complicated improvement is to play 2♣ as forcing, with either clubs or a big hand (Gazilli). On this hand it produces a slam possibility if East chooses 2♥ next, but not if East chooses 2♠.
The fact of everyone making 12 tricks was also a surprise. Look at the heart suit and the best play there. A priori the best result comes from finessing twice, but here you can see that if that is done, there will be two heart losers. The losing option was never taken. One table which avoided it was table 1 when East was declarer; what made the difference was South's "safe" trump lead - this would have been very dangerous from honour to three, so it was easy for declarer to realise North had KQ-tight, and get the hearts right. How did others avoid that trap?
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| HotD-tue : Winter Pairs 1 : 10sep18 : B6 |
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Even where there are twelve top tricks, it can be hard for the bidders to realise this - but just occasionally there is the chance to count the tricks.
On the auction shown, East has opened a 14-16 balanced hand, and over partner's transfer has broken to 2N to show a fit and a maximum. Clearly West is thinking of a slam at this point, but how to continue?
This is where some system preparation helps. The key to evaluation at points like this is showing shortage. West can do this very effectively over the 2N bid, with two routes to show shortage giving a chance to distinguish a singleton from a void. The simplest scheme is to make jumps over 2N as void-showing, and for re-transfer and then a suit bid to show a splinter. If you want to make a slam try without a shortage, then re-transfer and bid 3N.
On this hand the bidding continues 3♦ - 3♥ - 4♣. This enthuses East enormously, as now all that matters is the top trumps and the diamond ace. There is no way after this splinter that East can stop out of a slam, and a 4N continuation confirms that a small slam is enough. Were West to show up with ♥AKQ ♦A then there are 12 top tricks visible and if West has anything more (a sixth heart, an extra trick in any suit) then the grand slam is easy, and even with nothing else the grand slam is playable (depending just on trumps 2-2).
In the end only 3 out of 7 pairs bid the slam, and they were rewarded with an 83% score. It seems a lot but even in a much bigger field (say 70 pairs not 7), were that propotion to bid the slam the reward would still be 79%.
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| Be a Tricky Defender |
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You decide to lead the ♦3. This turns out well as partner wins the Ace and returns the 9. Declarer ducks the second trick and wins the ♦K at trick 3 as partner continues the suit. Declarer now leads a small heart from dummy to the 9 in his hand. How do you defend?
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Presumably declarer is playing on the heart suit because that is where he hopes to develop the tricks he needs. If you win trick 4 with the Jack of hearts, declarer will ultimately have no choice but to finesse you for the King and that will be enough to give him his contract. If you win trick 4 with the ♥K, declarer may well be fooled. It would be a reasonable line to cross to dummy and run the ♥T. If declarer does that you will score 2 hearts and three diamond tricks. These deceptive plays are easier to find when set as a problem. At the table, a clever defender needs to think ahead to find the heart play in tempo |
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| Watch the Cards |
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West leads ♥Q and East plays the 2. How do you continue?
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If the hearts are 5-3, which looks likley on East's play of the 2, then you cannot afford the time to play spades and must make your tricks in the minors. If the diamonds break you only need 3 club tricks and this is best achieved by cashing ♣AK and later playing a club to your Jack. However, if the diamonds don't behave, you will need clubs 3-3 and the Queen onside. How do you know which option to choose? The answer is to force the opponents to tell you! Play a low diamond to dummy's Queen at trick 2. The defenders are duty bound to signal their length honestly at this point, as for all they know, their partner might hold the Ace. Say that both opponents follow with low diamonds. You then assume the suit is breaking and will play the clubs as described above. If you get cards showing an even number of diamonds in opponents hands, then you will fall back on hoping the clubs are breaking and that the club finesse is right. |
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| Retain Control |
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You play in 4♠ and West Leads ♥K. How do you play?
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It would be bad play to lead out 2 top trumps. If spades are 4-1 and the player with 4 trumps holds the ♣A, you are in danger of making very few tricks as the defence will draw your trumps and run the heart suit. Nor is it any good to ruff a heart at trick 2. This would weaken your control in that suit. On this hand, you can afford to lose 2 trumps and a club. Cash one top spade and play clubs. If the defenders win immediately and force dummy, play your second club before playing a second top trump. Now a 4-1 break is easy to overcome as you can ruff another heart and lead a top Club from dummy on which to discard your fourth heart. The diamond will then go away on the last club |
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| Watch the Entries |
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You play in 4♠ with no opposition bidding. West leads ♥8 which you duck to East's Queen. East switches to a club. Plan the play.
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It looks like you have a ruffing finesse against East's ♥K and that should eventually allow you to discard a losing club. You need to be careful with dummy's entries. Suppose you win the club and draw 2 rounds of trumps ending in dummy. Now ♥A and ♥J gets covered, ruffed and overruffed by West who leads another Club. If you have not retained the ♠5 in your hand then you will be unable to reach dummy quickly to throw away your losing club on the established heart. The correct play in trumps when drawing the first two rounds is to play the Ace and seven to dummy's King. When you later ruff a heart, ensure that you do not ruff with the 5 as you need this card to communicate with dummy. Of course. if West refuse to overruff, you have time to enter dummy with a diamond. |
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| HotD-thu : Swiss Teams 1 : 3sep18 : B17 |
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If you look at these East-West hands from Monday, you would want to play the hand in hearts - but in practice only 4 out ouf 14 managed to find that denomination. The three who played in 1♠ (presumably an opening bid passed) can be forgiven, although we would recommend bidding 1N over that opening. The problems for the others arose after the 1N response - what should East rebid?
The hand feels too good for a 2♣ respponse, although if that does get passed partner will be short in spades and lack a long red suit - so why would you want to be higher? The hands is not good enough for a 3♣ response, as this is game forcing and you are a long way from seeing nine tricks in no-trumps or ten in spades.
The East hand is in fact only the tiniest bid away from balanced, which brings to mind the best bid - a raise to 2N. This gives West the next decision to make. The answer has to be hearts - but how many pairs have worked out whether 3♥ at this point is forcing or not? The few who are well organised don't have that problem - because in this position they play four suited transfers. So 3♦ here would show hearts, allowing for a 3♥ response to be passed, raised, or followed with 3N to offer a choice of games.
One table which reached the 2N point had a punt at 4♥ at this point, It's not a brilliant contract as there are three top losers and then more work to do, but it is very respectable. Two pairs reached this contract. At table one, after an initial diamond lead to the ace, South (hoping to be able to cash four red suit winners) shifted to a small heart to the king and won trick three with the heart ace. Out came the ♦2 and West was faced with a choice. There are nine top tricks and the prospects of a diamond finesse, or a spade finesse, or someone throwing away a lot of clubs - to get a tenth trick.
It looked wrong to commit so early, so he rose with the ♦K and cashed some trumps. Then came three clubs but the last one was a loser, so that got ruffed. The last trump forced South into a final discard, and then declarer was down to ♠6♦J opposite ♠AQ. It was all looking good for the spade finesse and 10 tricks but South's last discard had been the ♠J. Now there was another chance - was South being squeezed? What would you do?
In the event, ithe squeeze was too appealing and West chose to cash the ♠A. Declarer has bid the hand very successfully and played it just right until the last minute. With North having four spades ot South's two - it was just a case of playing the odds in the end.
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| HotD-wed : Swiss Teams 1 : 3sep18 : B23 |
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This hand from Monday proved a trap for a few of the East-West pairs. South at most tables opened a weak 2♠ bid, enthused by the quality of the spades, despite the lack of overall high card points. The first problem arose when this was passed around to East. The East hand - with only four losers on kind breaks - is too strong for a simple 3♥ overcall, and anyway there are two suits to show. Many pairs have a mechanisms for handling such hands, with either a cue bid of the opened suit (Michaels) or a jump to 4♣/4♦ showing at least 5-5 with that minor and the other major (hearts here). Even lacking such a mechanism, East could (and did) get by through a takeout double and a conversion of partner's diamond bid to hearts. This has to show extras as well as five hearts, making a raise to game by West a clear preference. Across the field 12 tables played in the heart game - the exceptions being the 4♣ table mentioned and one table which stopped in 2♥ (but how?).
With no support from partner, leading a spade from South looks dangerous and in practice only two of the twelve Souths led one. After a club lead or a diamond lead and club switch, declarer won the ♣A and cashed a top heart. With propsects of a loser in each suit, the best line now is to take a heart finesse, and East crossed to the ♠A and led the ♥J-♥Q-♥K only to be disappointed when South discarded. The next step was to cash a second club and then ruff a small club in the West hand. This was intended to set up the club suit in and restrict the hand to three losers. But North over-ruffed and led the ♠Q, overtaken by the king, to give a second club ruff - and the contract was now one down.
There was a way of avoiding this trap - declarer needed to duck one round of spades before using the ♠A entry. That choice is not without danger as South might have opened with a seven card suit, but ducking in situations like this is fairly routine and the risk would be acceptable here. Surprisingly 8 out of 12 declarers succeeded in making 10 trick on this hand - I suspect there must have been some other routes to success. Do let us know.
GW reports : at my table declarer won the spade and led ♥J-♥Q-♥K but then played the club ruff before taking a second round of trumps. Now there is no second club ruff for the defence as North cannot beat dummy's ♥6. Well played Tony Hill.
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| HotD-tue : Swiss Teams 1 : 3sep18 : B2 |
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This was an interesting play problem from last night's game, solved by a surprising proportion of the field.
After partner's 2N game forcing raise, North bids clubs (a bid that is often just lead directing rather than serious) but South surprises you by leading the ♠2 against your game.
Ten tricks would be trivial if the spades did';t break 4-0 as you could make five long spades and at least one ruff to go with four outside tricks. Here you cannot draw trumps and then ruff a club, and if the clubs are as they appear, breaking 7-0, playing clubs early loses out too.
Where are you going to find your tenth trick?
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There is a slight chance of an extra trick in diamonds (if the ten falls from a short hand) but that is outside your control; there is a slight chance of an extra heart trick if the ace is played early (but why would they do that), and there is a tiny chance of a second club trick on some misplays. But the best chance for an extra trick comes from trumps, and since you cannot ruff clubs in dummy - the answer has to be a dummy reversal - ruffing a diamond and a heart in hand, and later drawing trumps in dummy.
If you win the first trump and play out the ♦K they will win and play another trump. You unblock the diamond and now play on hearts. When North wins a club does no good as South could only ruff a loser, and you find you have enough entries to take two ruffs and draw trumps. Key to that is that when you play a club, if South were to ruff, North will lack an entry for a second ruff because you have knocked out the two red aces - so the ♣A is a useful dummy entry.
Well done all those who found the winning line. |
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| What is the correct switch? |
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You start with a top diamond on which East plays a discouraging card. How do you continue?
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In view of partner's failure to echo, you conclude that you only have one diamond trick in defence. You have to hope that partner has one of the missing high cards else there is no hope. If partner has the ♥A, then a switch to that suit will be right, but it is dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket. The best switch is to your singleton club. If partner has the ♣A or ♠K, you will be defeating the contract with a club ruff and a later heart trick. If declarer has the ♣ A he should probably refuse the trump finesse (playing Ace and another to try and reduce the ruff chances), but partner can win the second trump and give you your ruff. Do remember to echo in trumps to show a third spade with which to ruff - you don't want partner deciding to play you for 2 heart tricks! |
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| Count your tricks |
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You play in 6♥ on the ♠Q lead. Plan the play.
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5 hearts, 4 diamonds and 2 Aces gives you 11 tricks and the diamond finesse may work for the additional trick you need. It is easy to think that this is your only chance, but a finesse is only 50%. You can improve on that as a 3-2 trump break is 68%. Ruff a spade at trick and continue with the ♥T and a heart to dummy. If either opponent shows out then you revert to the diamond finesse. If trumps prove to be 3-2 you can ruff another spade high, cross to the club Queen for another spade ruff high. The diamond Ace is an entry to draw the last trump. This dummy reversal play increases the number of trump tricks you win from 5 to 6. |
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| How do you Defend? |
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South's 2NT opening showed 19-21. Partner leads a low spade to your Jack and South's Ace. At trick 2, South leads a heart to dummy's King. How do you defend?
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If declarer can draw trumps, he figures to have plenty of tricks. If you win the ♥A and switch say to a diamond, declarer will likely win and draw trumps. It looks from the lead that partner has a spade honour and therefore not much else, so declarer figures to make the contract with ease. However, if declarer has a doubleton trump, ducking the first heart might give him some problems. Suppose you duck the heart and win the second round before exiting with a diamond. Now declarer has no quick entry to dummy. If he leads a top club, you duck that also. Declarer may try to ruff a spade on the table but then you overruff and play another diamond. Later you can win ♣A and cash a diamond when the layout is as shown. If you had won trick 2, South would have had an easy route to 11 tricks. |
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| Listen to the bidding |
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West starts with ♠K. Can you see a line to make your slam?
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On the bidding, West surely holds the outstanding high cards and his double suggests he has all the missing trumps. You can punish him if his shape is 3334 (not unlikely on the bidding). Win the spade lead and cash the ♣K and all of your diamonds. Throw a spade on a top club and cross ruff the next 4 tricks in the black suits. Everyone is reduced to 3 cards. Playing the ♥Q now puts it to West. |
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| HotD-thu : Welsh Mixed Teams final : 27aug18 : B14 |
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Not everything went swimingly for our locals in this event - there were three adverse slam swings in the first 28 boards. This was one, where the bidding shown led to a nearly hopeless contract.
The opening bid showed 20-22 high card points, which fitted expectations. The North hand could see 12 hcp, meaning a minimum between the two hands of 32 - which is usually enough for slam.
What went wrong?
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There are two issues to recognise here. The first is that not all 20-counts are created equal - if you shuffle some cards and changed this hand into ♠AQJ73 ♥AK5 ♦QT6 ♣A9 then it is a much better hand. What we need to remember is that although opening 2N is one option, it is not the only option and opening with a suit at the one level must also be considered.
The second issue is the fact of a hand shape being 4333. When you have this shape, the options for making tricks are always more limited that they would be on say a 4432 or 5332 shape. On average a 4333 hand will play about 1-hcp worse than the same high cards in a "better" shape. Both hands suffer here. If you were to change one of the hands to be 4432 - say making the opener into ♠ AQJ7 ♥AK52 ♦QT6 ♣A9 then the slam is playable but it is only a 50% slam, so you are quitr happy not to bid it.
A number of people regularly apply an adjustment to their evaluation for a 4333 hand, so that, for example, a 1N opener is 12-14 but could be 15 if a 4333 shape. |
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| HotD-wed : Welsh Mixed Teams final : 27aug18 : B57 |
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For many years now, Paul Denning & Patrick Shields have played in the Welsh Mixed (pivot) Teams with Filip & Diane Kurbalija from Cardiff. This year the competition became a double elimination event, so that after a disaster in the first round over the range of a 2N bid resulted in a loss, the team were able tocome through the repecharge, beating the team who once beat them, to face the one undefeated team in the final. This final was initially 42 boards, but extended to 60 boards when the undefeated team was behind after 42.
This hand arose towards the end of the final. The contract was inevitable and Paul Denning got the expected ♦Q lead. There are eight top tricks and the ♥K is the obvious candidate for a ninth. Paul ducked the first round, won the second and cashed the other top diamond - in case the suit was breaking evenly - but no luck. Then came three rounds of clubs - A then Q then J. There was no hurry yet to play hearts, so Paul tried a fourth diamond throwing a small heart from his hand. North won this and clearly didn't want to play a heart, so out came a small spade to South's jack and Paul's king. South had been forced to make three discards by this point, and had discarded two spades and one heart. So at this point there were only 3 spades held by the defence and all the signs were that North had two and South only one. Paul therefore cashed his ♠A and played a third one to put North on lead and now there was a forced lead of a heart round to his king. So he made nine tricks even with the ♥A offside. Nicely done!
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| Play the Percentages |
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West leads the ♥AK against your game. You ruff and lay down a top trump, both opponents following suit. How do you continue?
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The best percentage line is to take the double finesses in clubs, but if for example, you cash another high spade and cross to dummy to take a club finesse, West can win, take his spade winner and exit in hearts. You will have to ruff and now there is no entry to dummy to repeat the club finesse.
You do better to give up on relying on the spades to break 2-2. Continue with a low trump at trick 4. Now you will always have enough entries to dummy to finesse clubs twice. |
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| HotD-mon : Welsh Cup SF : 24aug18 |
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Two from Gloucestershire and two from Cardiff have been playing in the Welsh Cup, this year as always, and had a semi-final match arranged for last Friday in Ludlow. Only on arrival in Ludlow, did we find out that the hotel venue had closed down and we needed somewhere else to play. Fortunately one of the travellers coming from the north spotted the Ludlow Golf Club - positioned just to the north of the town right in the midst of Ludlow Race Course - and they were most hospitable, letting us play at short notice and take advantage of their refreshment facilities. Our many thanks go to them.
This hand arose in the third set and provided quite a pretty problem for declarer (East). The bidding, as you can see is all very natural (with 3♣ forcing as West had not promised clubs on the opening bid) and after winning the heart lead with the ace, declarer played a trump to the ace to discover the 3-0 break in that suit. There are no immediate losers but it looks like there will be two spade losers later. The catch is that North's failure to support diamonds suggested that North has only three of them, and in that case declarer's fourth diamond is going to be over-ruffed - creating a third loser.
One option is to set up the fifth heart as an extra winner, so the play proceeded - diamond ruff, heart ruff, diamond ruff, heart ruff. When South showed out the heart option was seen to be a dud. Can you find a way to get to 11 tricks despite this?
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The answer is to accept that the fourth diamond will be a loser, and you will lose that trick to South. Can that ever be of an advantage? Yes - when South as a consequence has to lead spades. The winning line is therefore to ruff the third diamond but to come off dummy with a trump, finessing North's queen. After drawing the last trump, give South the ♦A, and another diamond if they have one, but they then have to lead from the king of spades and you make your queen - the extra trick you needed. Finding this gained 12 imps for our heros. |
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| Careful Play Needed |
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You play in 6♥ as South and West leads the ♠J. You win the Ace and cash the ♥K on which East throws a small spade. Plan the play.
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Your hearts are good enough to overtake the ten and draw the enemy trumps. However, you will be in trouble if the diamonds break 4-1 and the Queen is withheld when you play three rounds of the suit as you would then lack the entries to set up the diamonds. The solution is to cash one top diamond before drawing the remaining trumps, and to discard the other 2 of dummy's diamonds in the process. Thereafter you can simply concede to the ♦Q. This line only fails on a 5-0 diamond split, but in that case the contract was unmakeable. |
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| An Easy Slam |
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West leads a trump against your 6♥ slam. How do you play?
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Provided spades and diamonds stand up for 2 rounds, you are safe. Take the opening lead, cash your spade and lead the ♦Q. If this holds, then play Ace and another diamond, ruffing in dummy. Then discard your last diamond on the ♠K. If the defence win your ♦Q, the ♦J is now an entry to cash the ♠K |
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| When can you claim? |
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West leads the ♠J against your slam. When can you claim this contract?
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On the reasonable assumption that East holds the ♠A, you can claim at trick 1. Duck the lead in dummy. If East takes his Ace you have 12 tricks, so East must duck. Now play off ♣AQ. If clubs break there is no problem. If West has 4 or more clubs than you have a marked finesse for 4 club tricks and your contract. If East turns up with club length then cashing your red suit winners will reduce him to ♠A and ♣ Jx. A spade exit will endplay him. |
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| HotD-thu : Newent BC Pairs : 22aug18 : B13 |
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Declarer on this hand through she was lucky at trick one, but it turned out to be a Greek Gift.
Let's look at the bidding first. You might prefer 4♠ as your game North-South, but the jump to 3♣ (not in the modern style where all jumps are weak) did make it very difficult to get the spade suit into play. North took a good view in supporting diamonds with such a minimal hand and minimal trumps, and that was all South needed to hear.
From West's perspective there was little chance of any tricks in clubs (knowing of at least 11 of them between the East and West hands), so finding partner with the ♥A and getting a spade ruff seemed the best chance. Hence the opening lead was the ♠Q.
From South's perspective, here was a spade suit with an expected loser, but if the lead was from ♠QJ then the finesse of the ten might be an extra vital trick. So she won the ♠K and set about drawing trumps. It was impossible not to lose to the ♦Q and when West won that card he thought a bit more about the original plan. A heart at this point would be won by partner, but what is likely to happen then? The likely next step is an attempt to cash the ♣A to defeat the contract - and that would be fatal. So West played out a club at this point which declarer ruffed. The last trump was drawn and declarer played a spade to the ♠AT and had to lose a trick to the jack and then then ♥A. Down one.
Notice how without a spade lead, the natural play in the spade suit is for declarer to lead towards the ace, see the queen appear, and then run the ten on the way back - for no spade loser. The intended outcome of the singleton lead was nothing to do with what actually happened!
Declarer should have been a little more suspicious of the opening lead - when an unexpected suit is led, it is surprisingly often a singleton,
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams 6 : 20aug18 : B7 |
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This hand from Monday produced a few surprises ... this was the position at tables 6 and 7 (and possibly others) on the first round of the bidding. What should South do?
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In these days of negative doubles, there isn't much doubt about the answer - South must double in case partner wants to penalise 2♦. The minimal opening bid might worry some, but when there has been a simple overcall and two passes, you really should make a re-opening double with this shape.
Now look at the four hands, and see what you have done! The 2♦ overcall is the heaviest simple overcall we have seen for ages, but anything else looks way too dangerous (eg a takeout double might get a 4♠ response).
The auctions took different paths at the two featured tables from this point. At one West redoubled and then bid 4♦ while the other bid an immediate 4♦. Of course neither pair had prepared the ground on either sequence - so very much uncharted territory in both cases. The dangers emerged when the immediate 4♦ bid got passed out, and the redoduble followed by 4♦ got a raise to game.
As you can see, game makes very easily - in fact slam is only in danger if the hearts break 6-1 and there is a ruff at trick two. Can the slam be bid? It's just about possible; the one sequence which might get you there is 1♥ - 2♦ - P - 3♦, P - 3♥ - P - 3N, P - 6♦. In this sequence the raise to 3♦ looks correct, to ensure that on further bidding partner is happy to lead that suit, the 3♥ bid asks for more information, and the 6♦ jump relies on East's heart stop not being jack high (and the diamonds coming in). A safer end to the sequence might have been some cue bids and a check on key cards. |
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| HotD-tue : Summer Teams 6 : 20aug18 : B5 |
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Last night was the final session of the Summer Teams. Allan Sanis had gone into that round leading the table, but scored zero last night; however, his nearest rivals only did a little better so he is this year's Summer Teams Champion.
This hand presented a number of interesting questions. Looking first at the bidding, the 11-count with South is normally the values for an invitation but a six card suit - when it comes in - is often worth extra tricks and being able to make exactly 8 tricks on a hand like this is rare. The odds therefore favour bidding game (which is quite frustrating for West on this occasion). Most people bid game but the session winners last night were somehow the only pair not to - and they stopped in 3♦.
Now to the opening lead. From East's perspective it is going to be West who defeats this game (if anyone does) and the key to successful defence will be finding West's long suit. With South showing no interest in the majors, one of those suits must be the best candidate. Many would choose spades on the basis that partner is more likely to have five of those than five hearts, but in practice five Easts led the ♥2 while only two led a top spade (and one of those was in repsonse to West bidding spades on a different auction from that shown - where North was not playing a weak NT opening).
At some tables the opening lead of the ♥2 completely settled matters with the defence cashing the first five tricks. For some pairs that a difficult thing to do, and they found themselves cashing four hearts after which East was on lead. Should this be avoided? Assuredly - after winning trick one, West should be accutely consicous of the possibility of blockage and return a low heart. West must be careful however - returning the "normal" ♥4 creates a trap for partner; if North had started with ♥ JT65 then the right play for East on the second heart (thinking partner started with ♥A43) is to let the ♥T hold, to preserve an entry for the fourth round. West can remove the trap by returning the ♥3, suggesting to partner that West has only four hearts. This works because it forces East into the winning play of taking the queen and continuing the suit. West must duck the ♥9 and then overtake the next round. [A further trap exists if East were to lead from ♥Q92 when ducking the nine might lose the contract]
A new dilemma was presented to North after the heart suit was blocked and East switched to a spade. There are 8 top tricks but a chance for all the tricks by taking a club finesse. The downside is that a losing club finesse would spell disaster, as it must be taken early and West has all the spades to cash. The two declarers who had the choice went in different directions - the ambitious one finessed the club and ended down four for -400, while the other accepted that a "normal" result was down one and they cashed their tricks. What would you have done?
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| Be Careful |
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West leads a low diamond to East's Queen. He continues with ♦AK. Plan the play.
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You have to ruff the third diamond and are in danger of losing control if the spades are 4-2. The right play is to lead the ♠Q at trick 4. If the King is taken, the ♠8 can take care of any further diamond lead. If the ♠Q holds, cross to dummy with a club to finesse the spade. Then cash the ♠A and play winners. You just lose the spade King at some point. |
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| Finesse or Drop? |
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West leads a low heart against your game. You win and play Ace and another spade, East following with the 6 and 9. Do you finesses or play for the drop in spades?
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Given the spade suit in isolation, the odds play is to finesse. Of course, you need to consider the whole hand. If you play clubs yourself you will most likely lose 3 tricks, whereas if the defenders lead the suit, you can restrict your losses to 2 tricks. This points the way to your play in the spade suit. Rise with the ♠K. Suppose West follows small. Then you just eliminate the hearts and then the diamonds and exit with a trump, endplaying whichever opponent wins the trick. If the ♠Q drops under the King, you lose no trump trick but ultimately lose 3 clubs. So refusing the spade finesses secures the contract whenever spades are 3-2. |
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| What's the best line? |
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You play in 6♠ after a 4♥ opening from East. West leads a low heart. What's the best line of play?
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At first glance it looks as if you will only be defeated if the club finesse is wrong and you fail to find the ♦Q. You might think that West is the player with long diamonds given the bidding. In fact, you are virftually asssured of your contract. Ruff the opening heart lead and draw trumps finishing in dummy to ruff another heart. Now a diamond to the Ace and a diamond back towards your hand. If East follows, you finesse and either it wins or West is end-played. If East shows out on the second diamond you of course win and exit with a diamond to again catch West. This line succeeds against all but 4 diamonds with West and the ♣K also offside - low odds to begin with but even lower when you consider that East might well have doubled the final contract with a void diamond. |
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| Partner finds a good lead |
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Partner leads the ♠J, covered by dummy's Queen. How do you see the defence developing?
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Did you play the ♠K in the hope of easily establishing your spade suit using your Aces as entries? If so you will be disappointed. Declarer wins the first spade and knocks out your ♦A, The ten of spades is an entry to dummy and you cannot win more than 4 defensive tricks. If you duck trick 1 you can deny declarer an entry to the diamonds, limiting him to one trick in the suit. Be wary of playing cards as a reflex action. |
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| HotD-thu : Glos-Avon match : 12aug18 : B25 |
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It is usually the case that obstruction works to the advantage of those making the obstructive bids, but not always.
The common start to the auction was as shown; West has a good hand and is willing to take a chance in game. He felt that the 4♥ bid offered partner the choice of contracts. East thought that diamonds had been rejected and passed. This happened at three tables in the top section, and the heart contract was doomed.
At the fourth table, North looked at the vulnerability and the fact that his opening was in first seat, and went all out with an opening of 3♠ which South raised to 4♠ . Surely this would make life more difficult for East-West? Over the inevitable takeout double from West, East bid 5♦ and there the auction ended. South found the only opening lead to hold the contract to 11 tricks, with ♥ A and a ruff being the only defensive tricks - but that was little consolation when he saw the results at the other tables.
So will you open 2♠ or 3♠ next time you see this North hand?
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| HotD-wed : Summer Pairs : 13aug18 : B15 |
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It can be nice to report a slam which every table managed to bid - and we had one here on Monday - but with 36 HCP between you, and with 14 top tricks and another two when the hearts split 3-3, the question is why only two pairs bid the grand slam?
The auction started commonly as shown. The West hand feels strong for 2N as the long clubs are extra tricks and the same 18 HCP on a 3334 hand would also bid 2N and have much less potential. Bidding 3N however seems OTT and likely to go minus at times, unnecessarily. [Would anyone consider a 2N opener on this hand?]
The 2N rebid will of course have surprised East, who can now see that slam is guaranateed and when that happens thoughts should switch to investigasting the grand slam. Key to the grand slam will be having all the top club honours, and the way to find that out is to agree clubs as trumps and then use a key card ask to check. The ideal auction would continue 4♣ (setting trumps) - 4♦ (cue) - 4N (ask) - 5♠ (two and trump Q) - 5N. The last bid is nominally asking for kings, but it also imparts to partner the information that you have all the key cards. What could be easier for West now that to spot two extra tricks in clubs and bid 7N?
[It is worth noting that in the CBC event using the same cards, four of the less experienced pairs only bid to game - slam bidding remains difficult for us all]
LATER : it has been confirmed that the two auctions to the grand slam were 1♣-1♥-2N-7N and 2N-7N, with Roger Jackson & David Hauser making the final bid in those two cases. Only Ben Handley-Pritchard opened 2N.
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| HotD-tue : Glos-Avon match : 12aug18 : b22 |
Sunday last saw the first ever friendly match between neighbouring (bridge) counties - Gloucestershire and Avon. Each county provided a team of 8 in three contexts - regular tournament players, regular club players, and newcomers. Members of each team played against the members of the corresponding team from the other county.
This hand was a considerable surprise, in that all the players in 4♠ were allowed to make the contract, despite the availability of four tricks for the defence.
It's worth looking at the bidding first. Over East's inevitable 1♠ opening, South has two options. One is to treat the hand as a two suiter, and bid 2♠ to show hearts and a minor. The other is to treat the hand as a pre-emptvie hand and to make a jump bid in diamonds, This is less descriptive but a 3♦ bid makes it impossible for the next hand to bid 3♣ - and that might be a good thing! In practice some tables chose each option. Whichever is chosen, it seems natural for West to show some spade support and it iproveddifficult for North-South to choose the 5-level over the opponents' 4♠ contract. In practice, some North's were so sure of that, that they doubled the spade game.
South had options again with the opening lead. A weak hand often does best by leading a singleton, but here the lead of the singleton jack can help the opponents, and if you saw dummy's ♣QT983 you would feel pleased not to have led it. But in fact it was led three times against 4♠ and once against 5♠ - and in only the latter case did the defence manage to collect their four tricks. North clearly won trick one, and which North could ever resist playing a top heart next. But what should happen then? It's up to South to signal helpfully. What South knows is that if North has a third heart, then East is going to ruff it - so South should discourage on the hearts, and North will assume no future there and revert to clubs. [Those who played ♥K for count might need to ponder what they actually wanted to know at this point - and the answer is not count!]
The Souths who (like me) led the ♦Q because the club looked so dangerous, had missed an opportunity to beat the game, but felt a lot less embarassed when everyone else got to make game on the ♣J lead!
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| How do you defend? |
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West's lead of the ♣J is won by the Ace. Declarer leads the ♠Q on which partner plays the five. How do you defend?
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On this hand there can be no immediate tricks in hearts or clubs. A passive defence will not beat the contract. South is marked with a singleton diamond and a forcing defence is called for. You must attack diamonds and the card to lead after winning a top spade is the ♦K. Now you can force declarer twice in diamonds and promote your fourth trump. |
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| Listen to the Bidding |
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East has shown at least 10 cards in spades and a minor and West leads ♠7 against your slam
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On the bidding West may well have a trump trick and you are lucky to have escaped a club lead. If it turns out that you do indeed have to lose a trump then you need to get rid of both your clubs before losing the lead. This will only be possible if West has 4 hearts. The way to play this hand is to cash a top heart at trick 2 in case East has a singleton Knave or ten. When East follows small, you can ruff a spade and take 3 top trumps to clarify the position. If West turns up with ♦ Jxxx then you can take a deep finesse in hearts and get rid of your clubs. |
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| Protect against the likely break |
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You play in 4♠ (yes 6♣ would be better), and West starts with ♦KQ. How do you play?
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Ruff the second diamond and play off your ♥AK, discarding dummy's last diamond. Now exit with ♠T. The defence may win but dummy's ♠9 remains to deal with a further diamond lead. Later you can return to hand with a club and draw trumps. Your heart losers will ultimately be discard on the long club suit. |
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| Beware of Greeks |
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West leads Ace and another heart, throwing a diamond on the third heart as East cashes the ♥KQ. At trick 4 East continues with a fourth round of hearts. What do you make of that?
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You could discard your losing diamond from hand and ruff in dummy but should you do that? East is not out to do you any favours and he certainly wouldn't be giving you a ruff and discard if he were looking at the ♦K. It looks like the reason for East's action is that he cannot see any tricks outside of one poosibly in trumps. Hence you should expect the trumps to break 4-1. If you discard a diamond and ruff on the table and West started with 4 trumps and 3 diamonds then he will also discard a diamond. Then after taking the ♠KJ you cant get off the table without suffering an overruff in diamonds. The winning play is to ruff trick 4 in your own hand. Then you will be in a position to draw trumps in four rounds and take a diamond finesse for your contract. |
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams : 6aug18 : B17 |
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It is quite common to see bidding difficulties created by the opposition bidding, but this example from Monday shows that problems are there even without that obstruction. This hand was a case where the only contracts were game and a grand slam - with nobody in the small slam. Here's how some of those came about.
A key differentiator between the auction was if and when the North-South hands bid. In the bidding shown, North was there at the start - pushing the boat out a little, but first in hand is the time to do it. The 2♥ bid meant that East had a natural takeout double, to which West applied a conventional trick. The natural 2N bid in response to the double is given up my most tournament players in favour of 2N acting as a puppet to 3♣, allowing a weak suit response to the double. A useful extension is to make a 4-level bid over 2N into a slam try. So here 4♣ set the trump suit and after cue bids and ace askingWest could bid 5N to tell partner that all the key cards were present and that a grand slam might be possible. East's singleton heart and four trumps enthused him enough to bid the grand slam. Even without the ♠Q appearing the contract was there with three heart ruffs.
The other tables to report saw North pass, allowing East to open 1♦. One of the Souths was undeterred and bid 3♠ at this point, which removed a lot of bidding space from West. West could have doubled to show both suits, but with this level of quality difference and the possibility of further competition, it was best to show the strong suit. After 4♣, East missed the boat and just raised to game, which finished the auction. The whole auction was P-1♦-3♥-4♣-P-5♣-end and the score of +440 was rather a disappointment. East should have cue bid 4♠ over partner's 5♣ and now a slam might be bid.
The third table saw the auction start with P-1♦-P which gave West an easy 2♣ bid (game forcing on their methods), which East raised to 3♣. At this point West contionued with 3♥ and East naturally, with such good spades, bid 3N - and there matters rested. Again it was East who missed the boat; opposite possibly a single heart stop 3N was never going to be certain, but more importantly there had been a chance to jump to 3♥ over 2♣ to show the club support and a short heart. After that splinter it is hard to imagine the slam being missed.
If there is any conclusion, it is that sometimes opposition bidding can make it easier to bid a slam!
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams 5 : 6aug18 : B13 |
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Choosing the right opening lead against a slam is a key moment - what would you lead here from one of Monday's slams?
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| HotD-tue : Summer Teams 5 : 6aug18 : B12 |
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The better teams often prefer the less exciting boards, and the reason is that on such boards, they can more reliably pick up imps. This hand from last night is a good example, which started with every North-South pair happily getting to 2♠.
The question is what happened then, and the fact is that the majority of East-Wests let this go, and the defence to beat 2♠ (you have to set up ♣Q as an entry to allow West to play hearts through twice) is too difficult to find - so these defenders all wrote down -110 (or worse).
For the three top teams last night, defending 2♠ was not the preferred option. East, having passed originally, is able to make a limited takeout double, and did so, and what this did in each case was push North into bidding 3♠. The defence to 3♠ was rather easier, and that went one off.
Collecting +5 imps on repeated partscore hands is the way to win matches!
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| How do you defend? |
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You lead a spade won by dummy's Ace, At trick 2 declarer plays plays a trump to your Ace, East following with the 2. South ruffs the next spade and draws your trumps, East discarding a spade and a club. Now comes the ♦Q from South. How do you defend?
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Looking at all the diamond winners in dummy, you may feel the need to win and play Ace and another club. This play is unnecessary. Declarer has 1 spade and 5 hearts so has 7 cards in the minors. Hence declarer will have 2 clubs left in his hand after cashing the diamonds no matter how many diamonds he holds. The winning defence therefore is to win the Ace of diamonds and exit in diamonds. You hope to make 2 club tricks at the end. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♠T. Plan the play.
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If you make 4 trump tricks and 4 black suit winners you will need 2 ruffs in dummy. The danger of trying to ruff 2 clubs is that East may be able to overruff dummy on the fourth round and leave you a trick short. The solution is to win the ♠ A and then ruff one club in dummy.Come back to hand with the ♠K and discard a spade on the fourth club instead of ruffing. Then you can win the likely trump switch and ruff a spade in dummy, just losing a club, a diamond and a trump. |
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| Plan the Play |
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West leads the ♦K. Plan the play.
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There are several ways that you could play this hand, but the one that ensures defeat is to win and ruff a diamond at trick 2. You might then cash 2 top trumps but when you play clubs, West wil ruff and cash 2 diamonds and a spade to beat you. The early ruff damages your prospects in 2 ways, by losing control of the diamond situation and by removing a dummy entry that is needed later. You can retain control by ducking the first trick. Then you can ruff the second diamond and continue with 3 rounds of trumps. An alternative is to win the first trick and duck a trump at trick 2. You will later be able to ruff a diamond, draw trumps and claim 10 tricks. The simplest way to play the hand is to win trick 1, take 2 top tricks and play clubs. If West declines to ruff, you can discard a spade on the fourth club, ruff a spade in hand and a diamond on the table and then make one of your remaining trumps as your tenth trick. |
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| Your Lead |
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What do you lead against 3NT?
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Conditions for deception are ideal on this hand. West knows that his partner has very little in the way of high cards, and the Queen of hearts is likely to be well placed for declarer. In situations like this , you should look no further than the ♦3 as your opening lead. Declarer will have to decide whether to risk the heart finesses or knock out the ♣A in order to come to 9 tricks. If he blieves you have led from a four card suit, then knocking out the club becomes very attractive. Had the ♦5 been led, declarer might well have decided that the heart finesse represented his best chance. |
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| HotD-thu : Summer Pairs : 30jul18 : B18 |
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This 3N hand from Monday produced a number of different results, and a major cause was the opening lead. Most tables had an East-West silent auction which allowed North to play the hand in 3N.
Across the field the leads were a top spade twice, a heart twice, the ♦K once, and a club twice.
Dismissing the outlier first, we can only assume that West opened the bidding in third seat with a lead directing 1♦ bid, and the result was this fatal lead, after which declarer was able to make 11 tricks (for a joint top) - losing just a heart and a spade en route. Notice how declarer always has three heart tricks as long as West has short hearts with one honour - by running the ♥9.
What about the other leads - with each suit chosen twice?
The auction shown was from table 6 and cannot have been untypical. The case for a spade lead is that it has a "safe" sequence from which to lead, and it might hit partner's strength. The case for a heart is that dummy showed no interest in the majors and might be weak in hearts. The case for a club is that it is your strongest suit.
The case against a heart is that a J432 lead can easily give away a trick. The case against a club is that dummy, with no interest in the majors, might have clubs, and that whichever club you lead has the potential to give declarer an undeserved trick.
When a club or heart gets led, it looks natural for declarer to win and play on spades. When West gets in they will continue partner's suit; in clubs this sets up two tricks for the defence, while in hearts this sets up a trick for declarer. The results should be 9 tricks on a club lead, and 10 tricks on a heart lead. Three tables confirmed to this analysis.
On a spade lead it is less clear what declarer will do. The lead strongly suggests that West holds the king, so it seems right to win ♠J, cash ♠A and play a third spade. On that play West can switch to either hearts or diamonds and the result should always be 10 tricks. The winners on Monday did one trick better; one way this could happen is if declarer plays diamonds at trick two and East wins to continue spades. I shall investigate!
What does all this tell us? The club is the winning lead, although the case for a heart might be better. The spade lead is quite acceptable, but the key is to know when to continue the suit and when to give up on it.
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| HotD-wed : Summer Pairs : 30jul18 : B27 |
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The auction shown was that of table 6, where the 1N opener showed 15-17 HCP, and the 3♥ bid - a slight overbid in an attempt to get the shape across - promised short hearts and either three or four spades. The immediate sacrifice in 4♥ showed an unwarranted faith in the North-South bidding, as in fact there is no game which they can make. But this hand is about the play ...
Tony Letts started with a top club - the king to get count from partner and the ♣T (high from odd) marked declarer with a singleton. North looks very much now like a 4153 shape, and the ♦A came next, followed by a diamond to the ♦J and then a third diamond. Declarer ruffed with the ♥9 which lost to the ♥T, and with the ♠A and ♥K to lose that was down three. The other declarers in hearts (3♥x) made six and seven tricks, so they did no better.
We thought at the time declarer could have read the position better; it was very likely that South held the ♥KTx in which case the ♥9 was a losing play. If instead declarer ruffs with the ♥J South can over ruff with the king, and put partner in (with ♠A) to try again but when the fourth diamond comes through declarer ruffs with the ace and can lead the ♥9 through the ♥T5 to make 8 tricks. (Actually there is a guess here as to whether North's singleton is the ten or the eight, so there is also a losing option).
But in fact, the defence can do better - always ensuring six defensive tricks (down 3) no matter what declarer does - can you see how?
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It won't be so clear what is going to happen, but there is a general principle which we recognise from other situations which applies here - and makes the difference.
The general principle is not to over-ruff with a trump trick you will make anyway, and it comes in most clearly on trump promotions when declarer ruffs from AQJ and you are looking at KT9 behind.
When East ruffs with the ♥J, South should discard rather than over-ruff. |
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| HotD-tue : Summer Pairs : 30jul18 : B14 |
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This hand from last night offered a number of interesting questions. First on the bidding, you have (on the bidding shown) taken a preference of giving the opposition no space, to one of hearing what the opposition have to say. This can sometimes affect your play of the hand, and in this case, if you had taken it easy, the auction might have been 1♦-1♥-1♠-2♥-3♦-3♥-4♠ -end. The gain from a slow auction is the expectation (or perfhaps confirmation,as it was the most likely scenario) that the hearts are divided 3-6 and North has some values but not a lot.
Everyone played in 4♠ on this hand in the GCBA game last night, and the number of tricks made varied enormously - one table made 9, three tables made 9, two tables made 10 trick and two tables made 12 trick. Here are the questions which come to mind
- How did some people make 12 tricks?
- What is the best line to make 10 tricks?
- What is the best line to adopt at match-point pairs?
As a starting point, we note that there are 11 top tricks. Given lack of a top club lead, we know South will have some club honour(s) so the chances of settign up the ♣Q are few. Given the fact of South bidding, we should expect more high cards with South than with North, so the diamond finesse must count as odds against.
It's now that we wonder whether 3♠ would have been a better choice of final bid - even if the field thought differently.
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Some of these quesitons are easier to answer than others - and it is simplest first.
1. Making 12 tricks clearly needs to involve the diamond suit, and you need 4 diamond tricks. That will necessitate trumping a diamond and that means the only way to get to the long diamonds will be in trumps. You therefore need the trumps to break 2-2, and the winning line is ♥A, ♦A, ♦ruff, spade to ♠7, ♦ruff, spade to ♠A and cash the diamonds. The spades behaving is a 40.7% chance, and the diamonds behaving well enough (3-3 break or doubleton king) is 51.7% ; these odds might be affected by the bidding, but overall your chance of succeeding in making 12 tricks is about 23%.
2. The best line to make 10 tricks is less clear. The line above will make either 12 tricks or 9 tricks, so it represents one option. The simple diamond finesse is another; if we assume that of the three missings kings and the missing ace, that South holds three to North's one, then we would have to rate the finesse as being about a 25% shot. The alternative to a straight finesse is to win the ♥A and run the spade suit. This could create problems for South, particularly if they hold both the top clubs. The diamond finesse can always be taken but there is also a chance of an endplay on South. If we win trick one and cash the spades, we have a 5-card ending but South should see what is happening and they will keep a card to exit to North. The position works better if you duck the first heart - threatening a heart ruff. If South wins and plays a trump we reach a 4-card ending and this might work better. We must have some extra chances from this, so the success rate should be above 30%. A danger arises if the diamond finesse fails, as then we might not get to the ♦A; this will only happen if the opponents divest themselves of enough diamonds, and that might give you a good hint that the finesse is wrong - in which case you can avoid it.
3. At match-points we need to think about both success and failure. We can take the ambituous line to get 12 tricks 23% of the time, or the less ambitious line to get 10 tricks 30% of the time. Your choice will depend on your outlook on life, and your judgement of what others will do. It might also be affected by your estimate of your current score; it is worth noting that the way to get a good score here isn't necessarily to go for the 12 tricks - what you need to do it go for the option not chosen by the others, and to get lucky. It might also be affected by the fact that the day of the event, Monday, was the first day of WISHFUL THINKING WEEK; so it should be no surprise that the ambitious line was the winner! |
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| How's your Defence? |
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West leads the ♠J and you win with the Ace. What now?
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The bidding tells you that partner can have very little. It looks like you need to find partner with something in diamonds and a diamond switch is therefore called for. You must be careful in your choice of diamond lead. You hold the ten and 8 which immediately surround dummy's nine and therefore you can play as if the nine was in your own hand. Switch to the ♦T and you will be able to take 2 diamond tricks when the layout is as shown. Note that no other diamond is good enough for if you lead a low card, declarer can run it to dummy's nine. |
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| Use the bidding |
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You play in 4♥ after East has opened with a 12-14 1NT bid. West leads the ♣6 and East wins the King. East switches to a trump, and your knave loses to West's King, and another trump is returned, East playing the ♥T. How do you play from here?
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Think about East's opening bid. There are 18 points missing and you know West has 4-6 points since East opened 1NT. You have already seen 3 points in the West hand so clearly both minor suit Aces are with East. Whoever has the ♠K cannot hold the ♦J else the point count totals for each defender won't add up. If the ♠K is off-side we will be defeated but if it is right we may need to take 2 spade finesses to pick up East's King, and you only have one entry to dummy. The way to succeed is to enlist the help of the opponents. Play a diamond to dummy's 9. When East wins with the Ace, he will have to either give you a spade finesse or play the ♣A. If the latter you can ruff, enter dummy with a trump and take 4 spade discards on the minor suit winners, needing only one spade finesse after all. |
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| This should be Easy |
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West leads the ♥K on which East encourages with the ten. What is your plan?
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Hopefully the diamond suit will break and that will give you enough tricks. However, if you are unlucky, East might be able to win a diamond trick and play a club through. If West holds the Ace of clubs you may then lose 4 tricks. The solution is simple - discard a diamond on the first heart, leaving West on lead. Now if diamonds are breaking you will be able to set up the suit with a ruff and re-enter dummy with a trump. you have merely exchange a diamond loser for a heart loser but achieved your aim of keeping the danger hand off lead. Clearly East would have done better to play the ♥A at trick one and thwarted your plan. |
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| Play Safely |
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West leads the ♠4 against your game. Plan the play.
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If West has led a fourth highest spade, then this contract is 100%. You need to be careful with entries. Win the first trick with dummy's King and play off Ace and Queen of clubs. Now if the ♣K has not appeared you cross to the Ace of spades and clear the clubs. The defence cannot take more than 3 spades and one club. |
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| HotD-thu : Ross Swiss Teams : 22jul18 : B48 |
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This was the penultimate hand on Sunday and generated a big swing for the winning team as well as a smaller swing at table 21 where this was the auction.
The bidding looks routine with each hand expressing its strength honestly, but it left East with an awkward lead. In fact it was more than an awkward lead - East was just about end-played at trick one. With everything potentially dangerous, it was natural to choose the ♠A (and indeed 12 of the 14 defending 4♦/5♦ did that). Partner's play of the ♠Q tells you the bad news about he lead, but it does mean that a spade continuation won't give away another trick. So you play a second spade and declarer wins, and leads a small diamond.
When you win the king, you have a repeat of the same problem. Playing a spade gives a ruff and discard, a heart lead round to the queen costs a trick - so does that leave a club as the only choice? At the table the defender chose ♣9; partner won the ace and returned one but declarer got that right, rising with the king and now making the contract.
Was there any way for the defence to succeed after the opening lead? The answer is yes, but you'd never find it - it is to play the ♦K next; the result of doing this is that East never gets endplayed.
You might think declarer's play of the diamonds was curiuous but it was well reasoned. After the opening lead you can be confident that East doesn't have a singleton club, or that would have been a more attractive lead. With the 2♦ bid promising 5-5 majors, that means at most one diamond. If that diamond is the jack or ten, then leading small to the JT/queen and king, allows declarer to pick up the diamonds for one loser by finessing on the way back.
The contract at the winner's table wasn't 4♦ - the winners bid on over that and played in 4♠. The opening lead was the ♦A and, thinking that there was no other source of tricks, North switched at trick two to a club. Decalrer hopped up with the queen and with the heart and spade finesses working, wrapped up 10 tricks. The defence should have done better; when dumy has a singleton it is best for the third hand to make a suit preferenced signal, and here the ♦6 might not be a totally clear signal, but with the ♦32 missing, it is so unlikely to be crying out for a club lead that North will now avoid that switch.
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| HotD-wed : Ross Swiss Teams : 22jul18 : B24 |
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This hand came up in the next match, and presented a bidding problem for some - what to do at this point, where 3N is very much in your mind, but to bid it without a diamond stop looks foolish, and bidding 3♣ would be a considerable underbid. Your choice?
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One bid we could consider with a hand too good for 3♣ is to bid 3N, as this also (since 1N/2N covers all the balanced hands) shows long clubs and a good hand. It usually has some semblance of a stopper in the unbid suits, which is true only for one of the suits in this case. But 3N was tried twice, and it succeeded as often as it failed - just depending on the opening lead. Too risky must be the verdict.
Some other tables got to 3N by East after West made an underbid of 3♣ and East compensated with an overbid of 3N. The catch again was the diamond stopper, and here the outcome was worse as South did not have a decent heart alternative. But in fact the majority of 3♣ bids resulted in partner passing and game being missed.
With direct support for spades rather a distortion, the answer which is left is for the West hand to "invent" a reverse bid, trying 2♥. With three card support for spades the danger of partner raising hearts is mitigated by the fact that you can convert any heart call to spades at the same level. Here the 2♥ bid might just get preference to clubs, but over that you can bid 3♠ (forcing) and be confident that if 3N is best partner will bid it, and if not it will be easy for partner to choose the best black suit to be trumps.
In fact 4♠ and 5♣ weren't the only choices made above 3N - there were four pairs bid a slam, two in spades and two in clubs. Both pairs in clubs made the slam (one got a spade lead) but in spades both declarers lost to the trump queen and went one down. |
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| HotD-tue : Ross Swiss Teams : 22jul18 : B20 |
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The Ross-on-Wye event managed jointly by Gloucestershire & Herefordshire continues to thrive, and there were 44 teams on the Sunday. This hand came up in match three, and was the most powerful hand held over the day. The majority opened a strong two bid on this, but there was good reason also for opening 1♦, to make sure it was easy to bid the two suits. This was the auction at the table where the eventual winners were sitting North-South. What can North bid now?
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Curiously, the opposition's intervention has actually made it easier rather than more difficult to bid this hand. And that is because - in a cramped auction like this - you need to reserve the 4N bid to show a two suited hand with two unbid suits. So here 4N would promise at least 5-5 in diamonds and hearts. Isn't that handy? If the opponents had not bid 4♠ you would have had room to bid 4♦ but unless partner bids hearts now, the suit is going to be lost. After 4N showing the reds, the decision is for South and whether to settle for game or bid slam is not clear. If you have already shown something with 4♣ you might be inclined to settle for 5♦ but partner's choice to open a strong two rather than open a suit at the 1-level indicates a pretty enormous hand - and your ace plus singleton spade will often be enough for slam.
At the table, of course, it didn't happen like this. South declined to bid clubs at the first chance, and over 4♠, North bid 5♦ and was fortunate that partner wasn't sitting there with short diamonds and long hearts. South's undisclosed features included three trumps, a singleton and an ace - so he was happy to raise to 6♦. In this match that turned out to be a flat board as at the other table West passed over 4♣ and South cue bid spades over North's 4♦, so the slam was bid easily there.
Across the field the slam was bid only 10 times out of 44, and all the successful auctions we know started with a strong two opening. The one known auction which didn't start that way went P-1♦-3♠-P-P-4♥-P-5♦ -end; again generously quiet opponents, but no prizes. |
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| Help Partner |
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You strike gold with your lead of ♦9 as partner wins the first trick with the Knave and continues with ♦AK. What do you discard on the third diamond?
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You may or may not have a heart trick. You know that you definitely have a trump trick if partner continues wuith a fourth round of diamonds. How do you persuade him to concede a ruff and discard? Simple when you think about - wake him up by discarding the ♥A. |
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| An Easy Defence |
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Partner leads the ♥Q. Declarer holds up the first round and wins the next lead of the ♥J with his King. He now leads a spade to dummy's 7. Plan the defence.
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On the bidding, South is pretty well marked with the top hearts and diamonds, and ♣AQ. If he has 5 diamonds, he has 8 tricks and a chance of a ninth in either spades or clubs. If you win the first spade with the Knave, South will try the club finesse, which you know will be successful. If you take the first spade with the King and continue hearts, declarer may well think that he has hit on the right finesse. If he repeats the spade finesse, the defence will have 5 tricks. |
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| Plan the Play |
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West leads the ♥4 against your game. You try the King from dummy but this loses to East's Ace. To your relief, he continues with the ♥8 at trick 2. West wins the ♥J and switches to the ♦9. You win the diamond Ace and when you continue with the ♦Q, East discards a club. Play from here.
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If the spades break you are OK but if West has length in both red suits, he may be short in spades. It should be possible to create an extra trick by endplaying West in hearts, but first you must remove his exit card. Cash the ♠A before running the rest of the diamonds. Then exit with a heart. If West can exit with a spade then the suit will be running, else you you make your ninth trick on West's exit.
Patrick Phair has pointed out that on the hand as given, declarer can establish a heart trick by force. The 6 and 7 of hearts are transposed in the problem. |
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| Be a Tricky Declarer |
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West leads the ♥8. How do you rate your chances?
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Prospects are not good. You have only one heart stop and although the diamond finesse is sure to be right, it looks as if the moment you knock out the ♠A, a further heart lead will give the defence 4 tricks in the suit. You might try to slip the ♠J past West but he is not likely to let that happen. A better ploy is to rise with the ♥Q at trick 1, just as you would have done if you held ♥Kxx. East does not know how many hearts his partner holds so is very likley to win the ♥A and switch to a club.rather than give you a cheap extra heart trick. Now you can win with the Ace, finesse diamonds and later knock out the spade. |
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| HotD-thu : Summer Teams : 16jul18 : B12 |
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As happens so often, this hand was a good slam which nobody bid. The key bid in the auction at table 2 was at this point (3♣ natural and forcing, as weaker hands bid 2N instead). There are two bids to consider here, one is 3N to show the double spade stop, and the other is 4♣ which by default will suggest a sixth club. Each option tends to lose the other.
Is the slam good? The answer has to be yes, as it is
- cold on any 2-2 club break (40% shot, ruffing the fourth diamond in dummy),
- it is also good odds if there is a singleton ♣Q (18% of the time, now drawing trumps and playing ♦ AK9 losing only to QTxx(x) with East - so 85% success).
- finally with a trump loser there is still a chance (42% of the time, it needs diamonds for no loser - for which best odds is a double finesse a 25% shot).
The bottom line is that the slam will make two thirds of the time, without any help from the opposition (and some if often forthcoming).
But for Monday's North-Souths there is, unusually, a happy ending - for if you played 6♣ to best advantage, you would have gone down one!
The auction given above will not have happened often; the key difference is that West - at this vulnerability - should have been in there with an opening bid of at least 2♠ and possibly 3♠. After that start the auction might well just be a 3N bid by North and a pass by everyone else.
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| HotD-web : Spring Teams : 16jul18 : B16 |
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This hand from Monday created bidding problems for some, while others got past that hurdle but then stumbled!
The first question is the opening bid from West, which should be 1♠. That looks straightforward but it created a problem for some Easts - as bidding at the two level would not match partner's expectations if playing 2/1 game forcing. When East decided to bid 1N over 1♠, the next bid heard was 3♣ and now the heart suit got introduced. West could have temporised with 3♠ but feared it might be passed and so jumped to 4♠. That was the final bid and the contract went down two.
We mustn't say anything about the pair who played in 5♦ on this hand, but will focus instead on the play in hearts - a denomination with 6 declarers across the 4-level (three), 5-level (two) and 6-level (one). Two declarers were presented with a club lead and had to lose a club trick, but the other four had a diamond lead. The 4♥ contract is always safe but at a higher level it isn't.
The key is how to play the heart suit. Would you have recognised the importance of a safety play here? There is always one loser on a 2-1 break and two losers if there is KQ3 behind the ace. The key case is KQ3 in front of the ace. To avoid losing an extra trick in that case, you must cross to the long hearts and lead towards the AT.
Unfortunately the one player in 6♥ didn't spot this and went one down in a makeable slam (after a diamond lead).
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| HotD-tue : Summer Teams : 16jul18 : B10 |
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The results on this hand surprised a little, with 11 tricks in spades and success in 3N suggesting that everyone played the spade suit for no loser.
The way to play the suit for no loser is to start with small to the queen and then cash the ace. Playing in 4♠ this lets you draw trumps, throw a losing diamond on the fourth club, and clock up 11 tricks with two heart losers. Playing in 3N this gives you five spades to go with four clubs and a diamond for 10 tricks there, even on a diamond lead.
Question - is that the best odds play in the spade suit?
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The answer - as you might expect from the fact of the discussion - is no.
It is better odds to leads the jack from West on the first round, and if it is covered to cash the queen next hoping to drop the ten. Does it make much difference? Not a lot - small to the queen works with dodubleton KT or K8/K6/K5 onside, while leading the jack works with KT onside and T8/T6/T5 offside - and there are just as many cases of either. The difference is that leading the jack first also works in the case of singleton ten offside, as you can later cash the 9 and fiensse through North's 86.
One cannot quarrel with success - but next time when everyone leads the jack, the layout will be like this and we will wish we had never learned the "right" answer! |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads the ♦K. Plan the play.
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You have 8 top tricks and a heart to be established gives you 9. The tenth trick might be ♣Q. Look carefully at the diamonds. Your suit is trong enough to win 2 tricks by force and you can establish your tenth trick without worrying about the position of ♣K. It is important to play your cards in the right order. Win the ♦A and test the spades by cashing the Ace. If spades are 4-0 you will need the ♣K onside but if both follow to the first trump, then continue with a low diamond pitching a club. Lets say West wins and plays a club, the Queen being covered with the King. You enter dummy with a trump for the next diamond lead, discarding you last club. Later you will discard a heart on the winning diamond. If West had instead switched to a heart, you would win the Queen and this time discard a heart on the next diamond - in other words you take a discard in the suit that West attacks. Note that your first discard must be a club and not a heart, else you are in danger of losing a club trick as well as 2 diamonds and a heart. |
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| How do you defend? |
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West leads the ♦9 covered by the Queen and your King. Declarer draws 2 more rounds of trumps (West having a singleton) and leads the ♣J on which West contributes the 2. How do you defend?
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You know from the bidding and play to date that South is 5-5 (at least) in the red suits. He probably has a spade else West might have bid again holding a decent 6 card spade suit. Partners ♣2 shows you 3 clubs on normal count methods hence South is 1552. If you take the ♣Q and play spades, South will ruff the second round and set up the clubs with a heart ruff to get dummy. The winning defence is to abandon one of your club tricks by allowing declarer's ♣J to hold. Dummy now has insufficient entries to set up and enjoy the clubs. Now you will always beat the contract provided West can contribute something in the heart suit; and if declarer's heart suit is too strong, he was always set to make his contract no matter what you did. |
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| Give Yourself the Best Chance |
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East opens with an intermediate 2 bid (10-13 points with a 6 card spade suit). Against your game, West leads ♣K. How do you play?
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Your best chance of success lies in persuading the opponents to open up the diamond suit. To this end you should win the ♣A and draw trumps. Now exit with Ace and another spade to remove West's exit cards. The defence can take a club trick but West will then have to lead a diamond or concede a ruff and discard. If West plays a third spade you just ruff and play a club with the same result. Note that exiting with a club after drawing trumps is no good as West can then exit in spades and you will have to play the diamond suit yourself. |
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| Camouflage |
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West leads the ♥7 to East's ten. How do you plan the play?
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If you make 5 diamond tricks you are home and if the diamond finesse fails you have the spade finesse to fall back on, giving you around a 75% chance of success. Can you improve on this?
Try the effect of winning the first heart with the King. Now cross to dummy with a club and run the ♦T. If it loses, West will probably play either a low heart to partner's presumed Knave, or will play hearts from the top, expecting his partner to unblock. In either case your ♥J will win your ninth trick. |
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| HotD-thu : Midlands Bowl : 8jul18 : B29 |
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The Midlands Bowl was won on Sunday by one of the two teams from Warwickshire. Their narrow win could have been extended if they had found the winning line on this hand - see how you get on.
Some thoughts on the bidding first. The open was 19-20 balanced and the 3♣ bid was asking about five-card majors. The initial pass over 3♣ denied a club stop, so that the other hand can tell whether 3N is a sensible contract or not. Any other bid would show a stopper. The redouble now asks North to make the normal response, and this was 3N to show a hand with a five card heart suit. This style of responses is the latest fad, as it enables the 2N opener to be declarer in all major suit contracts. Details can be found on the internet if you search for "muppet stayman".
In response to the lead-directing double, East leads a club and West wins to switch to ♠3 and your jack loses to the ace; back comes the ♠T overtaken by the queen and ducked by you. You now beat the ♠9 with the king as East plays the ♠6. What next?
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You have made one spade trick and expect to make 5 diamonds and two top hearts. There are two choices for the ninth trick - it must come from either clubs or hearts. It is easy to set up a clcub trick by leading the jack, while the ♦K is an entry to dummy, and that was the option chosen, but if you look at all four hands you will see that this simply put West on lead to cash the setting trick in spades.
The alternative, which is of course not guaranteed, is to cash the diamonds first and then play a heart off dummy. When the ♥9 is with West, you can lose safely to East and get a heart trick back on the return. This would lose out if East had the fourth spade.
Can you tell? The only hints are in the play of the spade suit. The return of the ♠T then the play of the ♠6 by East looks so much like AT6 and would be such a strange play from AT86, that we have to vote that you can tell whether the long spade is. So your best bet is to cash diamonds and play hearts, covering whatever West plays. |
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| HotD-wed : Midlands Bowl : 8jul18 : B25 |
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The two GCBA teams playing in Sunday's Midlands Bowl ended in the middle of the field. They did have a few chances, and if the odds-against slam bid and made by the winning team had failed, one of our teams would have shuffled up two places in the ranking. This hand was one highlight for that GCBA team in the first half.
There are 12 tricks easy available once declarer has lost a diamond trick to South, so it was a susprise to find that only Garry Watson & Patrick Shields managed to bid this slam. You can make the same tricks in NT but that needs to be played by West or a spade lead could set up two tricks for the defence and beat the slam. (The one team in 6N by East got a heart lead)
The auction would usually start 1♦ -1♠, although there is an argument for 1♦ -2♣ as a start where that immediately sets up a game force (and makes bidding over a diamond rebid more comfortable). East now wants to show extra high cards and good diamonds, but a 3♦ bid did not seem to do justice to the hand. The high card strength would be a 1N opener or rebid, but the good diamonds make the hand rather stronger than most 17 counts, and that made 2N (nominally showing 18-19) the most appealing option.
The 3♠ bid here might look like a mis-print, but it wasn't - it shows clubs! The reason it shows clubs is that on this sequence the pair play all continuations as transfers. This is a recommended option as it allows responder to make both forcing and non-forcing takeouts of 2N. The key bid, however, was the next one - when West raised to 4N.
The jump to 6♦ now seems osbvious and there was nothing in the play. It continues to surprise how difficult slam bidding seems to be.
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| HotD-tue : Midlands Bowl : 8jul18 : B8 |
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This opening bid resulted in three choices on Sunday and only Tricia Gilham in one of the Gloucestershire teams made the winning choice. What should it be opened?
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Six card suits are traditionally opened at the two level, seven cards suits at the three level, and eight card suit suits the four level.
One pair playing strong weak twos (8-11 usually) chose a 2♠ opener, hoping that was sufficiently constructive. One other pair opened 2♠. Both partners passed.
The clear majority was to open 3♠ on this hand, and five did and their partners all passed.
The one exception was opening 4♠. The rationale is that a 7411 shape is so much better than a 7222 shape, both in costructive potential and the business case for obstructing - it is crying out ot be opened at the 4-level. The same hand with a small club moved to be a small diamond would clearly open 3♠, and doesn't this hand look to be a trick stronger?
Have a look at the four hands and say where you think the part-score auctions went wrong. |
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| Cater for a Bad Break |
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West leads the ♦Q. How do you plan the play?
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If trumps are 3-2 a diamond ruff will see you home. Can you cater for a 4-1 trump break?
You will be alright if you can score the low trumps in your hand. To start this process, your first move should be to play 2 rounds of hearts. Suppose East wins the heart and switches to the ♣T. You win, play the ♠Q and a spade to the King. If trumps have broken you can revert to your plan of ruffing a diamond in dummy. If West shows out on the second trump, cash the ♦K and ruff a heart. Now a diamond ruff puts you in dummy to play another heart. If East ruffs, you discard a club and later make 2 trump tricks. If East discards, you ruff with ♠8 and still have the ♠A for your tenth trick. |
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| Plan the Play |
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West leads the ♦6 and East plays the ten. Plan the play.
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Counting tricks as usual you have 2 spades, 2 hearts, 2 diamonds on top and you can set up a club. Hearts offers the best chance of the 2 extra tricks you need. What is the best way to play the heart suit? It wont matter if hearts are 3-3 but if they are 4-2 then you must not waste the ♥9. You don't want the defense to switch to clubs at this point so win the first trick with the ♦K and play a heart to the nine. Say this loses to the Queen. Win the diamond return and play off the ♥K. If the Knave falls or hearts are 3-3 you have the extra tricks you need. |
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| Retain Control |
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West leads 3 top hearts and you ruff the third round. How do you plan the play?
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You can easily afford a trump loser but you must be careful to time the hand correctly for if the spades are 4-1, there is a danger that you will lose control of the hand. If you play off the Ace of spades and continue spades, West could hold up the King until the third round and then force dummy with another heart. Hence you would have to abandon trumps and play clubs and West would beat you by ruffing with his low trump. The winning play at trick 4 is to play the ♠Q and if it holds, continue with the ♠T. If West ducks again, you cash the ♠A and play clubs. If West takes his ♠K early then you have a trump in hand to take care of a heart return. |
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| Completely Safe |
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West leads ♥AK and you ruff the second round. Trumps are drawn in 2 rounds finishing in hand. What now?
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The contract is in danger only if you lose a diamond and 2 club tricks. It looks routine to play a club towards dummy at this point, but that is not the correct play. The bidding indicates that East will have one of the key missing high cards but not both. The safe line is to play a diamond towards the Queen. If this loses to East's King, then the Ace of clubs is surely onside. If West has the King of diamonds and plays it, you have 2 club discards available. If he ducks, then you have avoided a diamond loser and are happy to lose 2 club tricks. |
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| HotD-thu : Oxford BC Teams : 4jul18 : B19 |
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This hand from last night's teams event divided the field with half of them making the game and half not. The defenders started off with the ♥8 to the ace. Declarer played the ♣T and ducked South's queen. Inevitably, out came the ♠2. The key - and you have started the right way - is to focus first on your side suit (clubs here). So you win the spade switch with the ace and take a club ruff. Sadly, the ♠4 is over-trumped with the ♠J. Back comes the ♥Q run to your king. What do you discard?
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You have lost two tricks with the ♦A to come, and you still need to set up the clubs. It doesn't look like the ♠6 is going to be big enough, but the fact is what else can you do - you will have to try ruffing the next club and hope for the best.
What does that tell us about the discard? It looks like it doesn't matter but it does. The catch is this - if you discard the fifth club and now ruff a heart to take the club ruff, you will find that the club ruff succeeds. But now if you lead a fourth heart you will allow North a trump promotion, and if you play a diamond, South will win the ace and do the trump promotion for you. Either way is four losers.
There are two ways out of this. One is to play diamonds immediately after winning the second heart. Success now relies on the diamond ace holder not having the third trump. The alternative is to discard a diamond on the second heart, take the ruffs and when you play the fourth heart you let the ♥J win, discarding the diamond queen. This seems the easier option. |
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| HotD-wed : Summer Teams : 2jul18 : B29 |
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This slam from Monday was bid by even fewer pairs than bid the slam on board 1, but this slam is nearly rock-solid. Most tables either started with a strong NT or opened a minor and rebid 1N to show 15-17 hcp. The South hand raised to game and there matters rested.
The exception was a table where North opened 1♦ to start with and bid 2N over partner's 1♠ response. This slight overbid (or is it?) galvanised South into action and South drove to the slam.
Do we want to bid the slam - absolutely, as in 6♦ taking one heart ruff gives five trump tricks to go with four major winners and at least three tricks from AQJ6-T3 in clubs. From another perspective, we might want to have 33 hcp to make a slam in NT, but we expect to generate an extra trick from a 4-4 fit, so 6♦ will often make with say 30 hcp between the hands. And we have that (plus one).
Should we be able to bid the slam? That's not so clear as if the clubs were AQJ6-93 then we need the club finesse in order to make the slam - and that won't always work. It is always difficult to tell that a ten is working for you quite so strongly (and more so when partner has the jack). But even without the ♣T the slam is on a finesse, so I'd like to bid it.
Any good ideas on how to bid it - please say!
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| HotD-tue : Summer Teams 3 : 2jul18 : B1 |
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The first board of the night offered a "take it or leave it" slam which was bid at two tables. The strong 1N opening from North is very much a minimum hand for that bid, but three good trumps and an AKQ holding are surely valuable cards, and if - as this bidding suggests - partner is short in hearts you wouldn't want to be too discouraging. In practice North tried to sign off and it was optimistic Souths who drove to the slam, and if they hadn't we would have missed this play problem - what's the best apporach after the opposition lead two rounds of hearts?
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There are 11 top tricks and primary chances in clubs, and a faint chance in diamonds for the twelfth. With a free choice the best play in the club suit is to cash the top two, and make whenever the jack falls from a short hand or the suit breaks 3-3, a total of about 54.87%. After you cash two trumps however, you find you haven't got that luxury - for if the jack drops doubleton you will need to cash the ten and then cross to dummy to before cashing the queen, and you have to do that while there is still one trump out.
On that line, to make the contract you need the hand with the ♣J or ♣Jx to have the singleton trump. That takes over 10% off your 55% chance of success.
The alternative to clubs from the top is the straight club finesse - a priori this works 50% of the time (which helps) but when you find that there is a singleton trump with West, the odds increase to 54.55% - rather better than playing from the top. If it had been East with the singleton trump, the odds on the club finesse would actually have dropped to 45.45%.
So what happened? In practice both declarers made 12 tricks, so neither took the club finesse. If you recognise the finesse as the likely best line, it is still worth cashing some spade winners first. In fact, all of the spade winners first. It is only if neither hand discards a club that the finesse remains a favourite. If you see a discard, it's easy to play clubs from the top. In practice - how many Wests are going to resist throwing from 832 when they can see AKQ5 or T97 in dummy?
Very few - BUT - it is surely the right thing to do. Declarer is marked with six spades and needs two top diamonds to justify the bidding, so the clubs are surely a crucial suit. The difficulty is realising that with this holding in dummy, that declarer has options on how to play the suit.
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| Communications |
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West leads the ♦K which you win with the Ace to play Ace and another spade. West drops the ♠K on the first round and shows out on the second as East wins and switches to the ♥8. Go from here.
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If West started with 6 hearts, He will win and give his partner a ruff and you will then be reliant on the club finesse (which on the bidding is probably right). If East has a doubleton heart however, you can make this contract regardless of the position of the ♣K. You must play the ♥K on this trick to avoid West inserting the ten and forcing dummy to win with the Queen. In this latter case, if East gets back in with the ♣K a second heart gives the defence 4 tricks, By playing the heart King, you destroy the communications between the defenders. |
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| Backing the Favourite |
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West starts with 2 top diamonds. Afetr ruffing the second trick how should you continue?
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Considering the spade suit in isolation, the normal percentage line is a spade to the King and finesse the ten on the way back. However, you must consider the hand as a whole. Surely East has one high card for his raise - either the ♥K or ♠A. The dangerous situation is when he holds the ♠A, as if the ♥K is onside you will have no problem provided spades are 3-2. If trumps are 4-1 you probably won't make the contract whatever you do. Hence the best play is to cross to dummy with a club and lead a low spade to your Queen and duck on the way back unless the Knave appears. If the Ace is with East, you will win in 70% of the 3-2 breaks (AJ,Ax,Axx). The inferior play of a low spade to the King and later a finesse of the ten wins in only 40% of the 3-2 breaks (AJ or AJx) |
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| Place the Lead |
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West leads a low spade and East drops the ten under dummy's Ace. When you continue with the spade King, East discards a diamond. What now?
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Your potential losers area diamond, a club and 2 hearts and you don't want to allow East the opportunity to win a club and play a heart through. On the reasonable assumption that West holds the ♦A, then your contract is safe. Run the Knave of clubs at trick 3. If West wins and returns a club, you win in dummy, cross to the ♠Q and lead a low diamond. West cannot gain by rising with the Ace, so the King wins in dummy. Then cash 2 more rounds of clubs discarding a diamond and exit with a diamond to endplay West. This line of play is safe even if West is void in clubs, as when he ruffs, he will have to open up a red suit. Note that you cannot afford to lead the ♣A from dummy before running the Knave. If West were able to ruff the Ace, he could exit with Ace and another diamond, and you have no way of returning to dummy to enjoy your discard. |
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| HotD-fri : Eurooean Championship : R33, B16 |
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The recent European Championship was won by Norway ahead of Israel, but you might not have expected that after 10 days and 33 matches, the outcome would depend on a part-score hand on board 16 of the last match, but that is what happened.
The key decision was at the point shown when Norway played Italy; the Norwegian East passed and Italy then bid up to 3N with their combined 24 hcp. After Boye Brogeland found the lead of the ♠J, declarer won and immediately played hearts, but the one card held on his right was the top heart and a spade through put him down three. At the other tables the Italian East responded with 1N to the opening bid, and North-South did bid up to 3♦ but West persisted with 3♠ and went down two. That was 8 imps to Norway.
In the other key match the auction started the same way with Israel-Hungary. Here the Hungarihe East passed and Israel bid up to 3N, also down three on a spade lead. In the otehr room the Israeli East bid 1N like the Italian, and South played the hand in 3♦ making+2, for a loss of 7 imps to Israel.
These differences made the difference between Gold and Silver medals.
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| Retain your Options |
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West leads the ♠Q. Plan the play.
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You could take 2 diamond finesses. Alternatively, you could knock out the ♣A and hope the hearts are 3-3. The double diamond finesse offers far better odds but of course you can have your cake and eat it on this hand. Win the opponing lead in hand and play 3 rounds of hearts finishing in dummy. If hearts have broken, you can drive out the Ace of clubs. If the heart suit has not been kind you are in the right hand to tackle the diamond suit. |
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| HotD-wed : European Championships : R4, B28 |
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Not every instance of bridge on show at the Europeans was impressive. This hand was played in the match between England and Ireland, and the auction shown happened at both tables. The result was 5♣+2 twice for a flat board. Could we do better?
When we used this hand in a squad practice, both pairs reached slam and when we look across the field at the European, there were 13/32 played successfully in 6♣; five declarers played 7♣ (and four of them succeeded); three declarers played in 6♦ (and two of them made) while the others all played in game (including one in 3N-1).
Iceland & Switzerland both missed the slam after West passed on the first round, and South could now bid hearts over East's opener. But the majority went for opening with the West hand - it is minimal values but it is always the case that getting in first is best, so with no rebid problems we recommend opening 1♦.
How should the hand be bid after that? The start shown is what we would expect playing traditional Acol, but in the match shown with 2♣ game forcing at both tables, the choice of 3♣ was chosen by those who reserve the splinter into 3♥ for hands with extra values as well as the right shape. In other matches there were a few cases where South bid hearts, and this (as in our squad game) induced West to be much more forthcoming about the heart shortage, for fear no chance would exist to do that later. In effect, South pushed West into the slam!
When Croatia,with a silent South, bid 3♣ over 2♣, the East hand continued with 3♦ which both saved space and highlighted the useful diamond honour. This is the answer, and it allows West - having limited the hand - to jump to 4♥ to show shortage. Now the fitting high cards should induce East to bid the slam. Easy game!
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| HotD-tue : European Open Teams : R5 : B8 |
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This was one of the swing hands from an early match (against Estonia). The East-West hands were held by Robson-Forrester and their auction started with a 15-17 NT, with Robson upgrading a 14-count which is just too strong to think of as a weak NT hand. The RF auction became too difficult to decipher shortly after that, but a natural auction based on the same evaluation is shown here. Across the 32 tables in play at that point, the hand was played in a small slam 29 times (once a grand, twice a game). The common leads were diamonds and spades, with occastionally a heart.
Almost half of the declarers went down - can we see what gives them a prpboem?
When England defended, the declarer won the lead and tried a heart to the queen which lost to the ace. Back came a second heart and declarer rose, to allow him to try for breaks in the black suits. That failed and the contract was off. When we played this hand in a squad game, the early play was the same and both our Souths, on winning the heart ace, returned a diamond and declarer could test the black suits before resorting to a (successful) heart finesse. The defence failed to test declarer.
What should have happened? Robson's choice was to start with three top clubs. Once he knew the clubs were not breaking, he had to finesse the heart and duly did to make 6N. Cashing the clubs does set up a second winner for the defence but the odds are against the hand with long clubs also holding the heart ace. Here it made all the difference.
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| Card Reading |
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The ♠T is led to East's Ace and the ♠3 returned, which West ruffs with the ♥5. West now switches to the ♣J. Play from here.
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If the club gets ruffed, you are down, so forget that possibility. But if East is not void in clubs, why did he return his lowest spade? He surely holds the ♦A on the bidding so you should be suspicious of his return of a low spade. The answer must be that he holds the remaining trumps and does not want to expose his trump holding by returning a spade which his partner is unable to ruff. You should therefore win the club Ace and take a deep heart finesse. If East splits his honours you can force an entry in diamonds to repeat the finesse. |
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| Find an Entry |
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You play the ♥A on the lead of the ♥J from West. East drops the ♥K. You continue with the ♠T from dummy to your King but West shows out. You next play a club to dummy's Queen, which holds. How do you continue?
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To have a chance of making you need to find West with the missing high cards in the minors - likely on the bidding. However, you will need to find 2 further entries to hand and you do not have them. If you lead a low spade intending to insert the 8, East can thwart you by playing the Knave, and you will eventually find yourself stranded in dummy. On this hand you can enlist the help of the defenders. If you exit with a heart at this point and East wins, he cannot play a trump without giving you the extra entry you need, whilst a minor suit return or indeed a ruff and discard gives you an easy ride. If East returns a diamond then you must of course duck when West plays an honour. |
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| Careful Now |
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West leads the ♦Q. Plan the play.
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As always, when the contract appears simple, think what might go wrong. If East is void in diamonds and the club finesse fails you might lose 2 diamonds, a ruff and a club. The solution is simple. Duck the opening lead and if East shows out, duck the diamond continuation. That way you can never lose more than 2 diamonds and 1 club. You need to guard against the hand shown. |
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| HotD-thu : European Teams R7, B15 |
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We used this hand from the Europeans in a county top team practice session this week, and a few interesting points emerged. At the European, across 32 tables, there were 15 Easts played in 3N, 10 Wests played in 4♠, 6 Easts played in diamonds (two in 3♦, 2 in 5♦, 2 in 6♦) and one pair played in a part-score (3♠, making).
It doesn't look great to be in 5♦ but, even with only one entry to the West hand, the diamond suit will come in for only two losers 53% of the time,. How that compares with 4♠ isn't clear as only three declarers made the spade game - with the hearts not cashable in time to discard a loser, it could not make without defensive help.
But 3N was the contract of interest - and how does declarer play on the lead of the ♥8? When England led this against the Poles, declarer tried the jack but had to win the king. He tried a diamond towards the nine and when South went up with the jack to crash his partner's king, there was suddenly no defence (declarer got 11 tricks). Germany did the same against France, but when Helgemo for Monaco and Pownall for Wales had this trick two decision, they played small and they managed to get the contract two down.
Paul Lamford sitting East for Wales found the interersting play of the ♦Q at trick two and this induced South to play the ace, with disastrous results. It seemed a curious choice at the time but if you consider how you would play the diamond suit in 5♦ - there are two equally good lines, given the fact that there is only one entry to thre West hand. Two-two breaks dont matter; leading small caters for singleton king or singleton ace with South (you later lead up to the QT), while leading the queen caters for singleton jack in either hand - an even choice.
But as we see from the above - and we saw in our practice - it is possible for the defence to go wrong in either case. The statistics we have, however, are that of the four times declarer led small 50% of defenders played the jack and 50% played small, but of the twice declarer led the queen 100% of defenders erred. That makes the queen the better play!
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| HotD-wed : Summer Pairs : 18jun18 : B11 |
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There was only one successful slam bid on Monday and that only made because the opposition failed to cash their two top tricks. This on the other hand was a good slam (almost 70%) which nobody bid.
The key question is how to handle the North hand after partner opens 2N. North cannot decide on the final contract alone, but needs to engage partner. North needs to tell South about shape (being 5-5 majors) and about values (mild slam interest). With that information South can (and should) get enthusiastic about the slam possibilities.
There are two sequences commonly used to show 5-5 shape on the majors over 2N; the more obvious is to transfer to 3♠ and then bid 4♥ (not done with 5-4 shape because you wan to be in 3N when a fit is lacking). The less obvious one is to bid 3♣ first (asking about majors) and if partner denies one - then bidding 4♥ on the next round.
It could be done either way, but most common practice is to use the 3♣-then-4♥ route to show no interst beyond game, and 3♥-3♠-4♥ to show the slam interest. Here after 4♥ SOuth would know there were no minor suit losers and with 10-hcp in the majors it doesn't need too much from partner to make slam decent.
A similar apporach can be applied over a 1N opener, with 2♣ then 4♥ as no interest beyond game, and a transfer sequence (2♥-2♠-3♥-any-4♥) as the slam interest.
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| HotD-tue : CBC Pairs League : 13jun18 : B19 |
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This was one of the slam hands from last week on which few had a successful auction. The auction shows is one of those which failed. What went wrong?
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The first bid to question is 4N. Blackwood, we must remember, is not a tool for bidding good slams - it is a tool for avoiding bad slams (those missing two key cards). With no ability to count the tricks, the answer does not tell North what the contract should be, so North should not be invoking this (much abused) convention.
Was that the end of the story - could it have been recovered after 4N-5♥ ?
The answer is yes, it could be recovered. South could not bid the grand slam on this sequence, lest a key card was missing. But North could have told South that this was not the case - how? By bidding 5N. This bid has two functions of which the first is much more important than the second. The first is that it confirms there are no missing key cards (the second is asking for kings). Why that is important is that now South - who can count the tricks (five spades, five diamonds, two aces and partner must have a club control to bid like this) and now bid 7♠.
Does that make it the right sequence - no, because the grand slam is still trivial to make if North lacks the heart ace.
A sensible sequence might be 1♠ - 2N (game forcing spade raise) - 3♥ (shortage) - 3♠ (no shortage) - 4♣ (cue) - 4♦ (cue) - 4♥ (void) - 4♠ (working 12 count, has bid the hand) - 4N (key card ask) - 5♠ (two and trump queen, ignoring heart ace opposite the void) - 5N (king ask++) - 6♣ (club king) - 7♠. It's quite a long sequence but all logical and it is the way to count 13 tricks before bidding the grand. |
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| Count the Hand |
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West leads the ♦J, covered by Queen and Ace. At trick 2 East tries to cash the ♣A, but you ruff, and play on hearts. Annoyingly, East ruffs your second heart and plays a diamond to the 8,T,K. Play from here.
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To make the contract you need to get a heart ruff in dummy and it looks reasonable to draw the remaining trumps with ♠KA before doing so. However, consider the bidding. West raised diamonds so East opened a four card diamond suit and has turned up with a singleton heart. East's shape is therefore marked as 4144, else he would have opened with 1♣ rather than 1♦. Now the play becomes simpler. Lead a low spade to your 9 (assuming East does't split his honours). Now ruff a heart with the ♠ K, draw trumps and ultimately concede a heart trick. |
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| Card Placing |
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Before you think about this hand, you should know that yesterday the three England teams playing in the European Championships didn't win any medals but they all were in qualifying places for the World Champiosnhips and will play in those next year as a result of this past ten days' performance.
West leads a low heart to East's King, who switches to a low club. Plan the play.
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You can't avoid a second heart loser, so must limit your other losses to one trick. The bidding tells you that East cannot hold the ♠A and ♦K as well as the top hearts, but he could hold one of those cards. A singleton ♦K with West won't help as you need to find the diamonds 3-2. The best line therefore is to win the club in dummy and play a low spade to your 8. You hope that East has something like the hand shown. Later you can draw trumps and take and repeat the diamond finesse to bring home this thin game |
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| A Simple Defence |
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West starts with ♥AKJ. You discard a club on the third heart as South follows. West now switches to the ♦5, declarer playing dummy's ten. How do you see the defence developing?
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If you consider the bidding then surely South is 6-4 in the minors and has followed to 3 rounds of hearts. Hence the defence does not have a spade trick. If the contract is to be defeated, then the setting tricks must come from the minors. If you duck the diamond at trick 4 then declarer will play to ruff clubs in dummy. You will be in a position to overruff the third club and exit with a trump, leaving declarer with a later club loser. Playing the ♦Q will be fatal as delarer can then ruff a club high and his last club low and all you will make is 3 hearts and a diamond trick. |
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| The Contract is Important |
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Assume first of all that you open 1♠ fourth in hand and finish in 3♠. West leads ♥K and a second heart to East's Ace. Now a club comes through. How do you play? Do you play differently if the contract were 4♠?
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In 3♠, you can afford to lose 2 club tricks if you lose no diamond trick, so start by assuming that the diamond finesse is wrong. If West held ♣A as well as ♥KQ and ♦K, he would probably have opened the bidding - hence you should play him not to have the ♣A and consequently rise with the ♣K at trick 3. If the contract is 4♠, then clearly you can only make if the diamond finesse is working, so assume it is. Now East holds ♥A and ♦K and would probably have opened third in hand if he held the ♣A as well. Hence this time the ♣J is the card to play, hoping to force the Ace. The level of the contract makes all the difference. |
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| HotD-thu : CBC Pairs League : 13jun18 : B30 |
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The latest run of the CBC Pairs League finished last night with a set of spectacular hands.
B4 : the majority of the field (8 out of 12) bid a 53% slam needing one loser from J76432-A85 but the suit lay badly.
B5 : partner opened and you have ♥4♦AKQ943♣AKJT64, which bids easily, first diamonds and then six clubs, and partner chooses diamonds. Nine tables played 6♦.
B17 : was 16 top tricks in anything but diamonds, but only 6 out of 12 bid the grand slam.
B19 : was 14 top tricks in two suits or in NT but only 3 pairs managed ot bid that one.
B23 : was a slam needing a couple of finesses, but the opening bid from North placed those missing queens, so it rolled home but was bid only once.
B26 : was an excellent 6♠ or 6♥ for North-South but this was bid only once and went off; but 6♦ made easily the other way and was bid at 5 of the remaining 11 tables, and doubled each time.
And so we get to the last board of the competition ... and a lot of the result came down to the opening bid from East. A number of tables opened 3♣ which allowed everone to bid a suit - and where it went 3♦ - 3♥ - 3♠ it was easy to get to the spade game. Not everyone bid as South, and when South passed it went P - 3♥ - P - 4♣ and South now doubled to collect +300.
A few tables opened 5♣ as East after which two tables ended with a double, but one saw it go P - P - 5♠ and South raised to the slam.
Sparks also came when East chose a 4♣ opener; South was not strong enough to overcall and West knew not to bid - so it came down to whether or not North would pass this out. With the 6520 shape it was too difficult to pass, so North tried 4♠ and South, without any sensible way to investigate the grand slam, happily raised to 6♠. West took affront at this and doubled. There were 11 easy tricks on a cross-ruff, but when the smoke cleared North's attempt to make the contract (needing a diamond honour with East or the spades 2-2) resulted in -500, and the league leaders lost 14 imps at each table.
The overall winners were (Div One) Richard Chamberlain & Patrick Shields, (Div Two) John Councer & Mark Rogers, and (DIv Three) Kate & Philip Morgan.
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| HotD-wed : NICKO round of 16 : 11jun18 : B18 |
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The last remaining Gloucestershire team played in the round-of-16 of the National Inter-Club Knock Out (NICKO) on Monday, going down to Bristol to play in the West of England club against their top team. Our team started off well but had a few accidents in the second half, and they were 10 imps ahead when this final board was placed on the table.
On this second play of the board, the bidding which took place was P-1♥-2♣-X-P-2♦-P-3N-end. The 2♣ overcall was totally not recommended, and was avoided by our man sitting West. North could have chosen to go for a penalty, and passed it around to partner for a takeout double to convert to penalties. But, with an eye on the vulnerability, our man preferred to be declarer. Playing in 3N the lead was a club, and declarer tried ♥J but West won and switched to diamonds and now there were six clear losers and the contract went down two. Best defence to 2♣-X would have collected +500.
The bidding shown in the diagram happened in the other room, who had played the board earlier in that hour. Robert Colville for W-of-E was declarer and East started with a diamond. Declarer ducked that but won the diamond continuaiton. With only two top tricks and seven trumps, he had to develop a side suit and hearts looked best, so he started with a heart from dummy to the ten-jack-ace. Uncertain as to where the missing ♦6 was, East continued the suit and declarer ruffed. The position in hearts had been noticed by declarer and he continued with a small heart, ducked in dummy to the now singleton king. This set up three heart tricks for declarer but he still needed to make 5 trumps tricks to reach a total of ten.
He succeeded as follows : he won the ♣A and played over to dummy's top spade, ruffed a diamond with a top trump, and continued with two rounds of trumps ending in the South hand. He found that this drew all the trumps and he could now cash the hearts for ten tricks. That was +620 and 13 imps to West-of-England who had now won the match by 3 imps.
The contract can always be beaten, but the defence to do that is not obvious. One way is to for East-West to engineer to ruff one of declarer's winning hearts.
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| HotD-tue : Pachabo Cup : 10jun18 : B14 |
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The winners of the County Knock-Out played last weekend in the Pachabo Cup, with the winners of the corresponding competition in other counties. The team - Keith Stanley with Richard Chamberlain, Diana Nettleton, Patrick Shields & Garry Watson - did reasonably well, coming 5th of the 25 teams competing.
This was the strongest hand held by any player over the weekend. How would you bid it? Presumably you open 2♣ because there would be a danger of 1♠-P-P-P. Partner gives you a positive in hearts, and you now show your first suit with 2♠. Partner raises - what now?
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There is clearly only one card which matters - the ♠K - and there is a resaonable chance partner has it. How do you find out?
Some sort of asking bid is needed here; a few contestants tried 4N to ask and heard from partner that they held one of the five key cards. That might have been the ♠K or the ♣A and they were forced to guess. They mostly guess to bid the grand slam.
Other pulled out a little used convention from long ago - often called Josephine - whereby a jump to 5N asks about top trumps. Ideal here and when partner shows one top trump, you know to bid 7♠.
The other parties tried a newer approach, using a 5-level jump, here in clubs, as Exclusion Blackwood - asking about key cards just like 4N but ignoring the ace of the suit being bid. Here a 1-key-card response promised the ♠K and made bidding the grand slam easy.
In the event, only four out of 24 teams stopped in the small slam, but things weren't rosy for all of the other twenty. The form of scoring in the event favours playing in NT, as there are 2 VPs available for the point-a-board result on each hand and playing 7N making when the opponents play in 7♠ making is worth an extra victory point to you. The consequence of this is that four Norths, having heard partner bid 4N and then 7♠, felt sure partner had all the aces (else they could not be confident about the spade king) and converted to 7N. This was a disaster as the hand on lead could double and lead the club ace.
Regular tournament players carry a lot of tools on their convention cards, and some get used very rarely, but having either Josephine or Exclusion Blackwood available when this hand turns up justifies the memory burden. |
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| How's your Defence? |
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You start with 2 top clubs against Souths game. When these hold (partner showing an odd number of clubs) how do you continue?
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Surely on the bidding partner can contibute nothing in high cards. Declarer will discard any losers on dummy's spades so you must play to kill the spade suit. At trick 3 play a spade. Declarer will likely win on the table and take a trump finesse. You win and continue spades. Now if declarer started with a doubleton spade, he is cut off from dummy and you will win a trick with the ♦K or perhaps a trump if South tries to cash another spade on the table. |
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| A Very Good Hand |
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You hold a very good hand. West leads the ♣T, covered by J and Q. Can you justify your bidding?
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You have various lines of approach but the one that offers the best odds is to play for the trumps to break 3-2, in which case a reverese dummy will see you home. Ruff the lead high and cross to dummy twice in trumps ruffing a club high each time. Finally cross back to dummy with a diamond to draw the last trump and claim. |
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| What's the best line? |
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West leads a low diamond. You try the ten from dummy which is covered by the Ace and you ruff. A club at trick 2 sees East win with the Ace to push though a low spade. Which spade do you play and why?
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Considering the spade suit in isolation, this looks like a guess. Suppose you play low, losing to the ♠A, then you will still need to guess the position of the ♥Q. Hence you need to make the right decision in 2 suits. However, if you play the ♠K and it holds the trick, then your contract is assured. Cross to dummy with a trump and discard a spade on the ♦K. Now ruff a diamond and exit in spades. The opponents must open up hearts or give you a ruff and discard. |
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| Better than a Finesse |
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West leads the ♣Q. East cashes 2 club tricks and switches to the ♦J. You win and play 3 rounds of spades, West winning the third as the suit breaks 3-2. West now switches to the ♥T. Plan the play.
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It is likely that West holds the ♥Q, so that a later heart finesse will see you home. However, you do better to win the ♥A and play off the King of diamonds. Let's say East follows. Now you can be certain that West holds the diamond suit and so if he also holds the ♥Q, he will be squeezed on the run of the spades. When he discards down to one heart in order to keep a diamond guard, you can be sure that the ♥Q will drop on the King whoever held it originally. |
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| HotD-thu : European Open : England-Romania R2,B18 |
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It wasn't until this board in the second match that England scored above ten imps on any board in the first day of the European Open teams which has just started in Ostende. It's an interesting pair of North-South hands to examine; first glance suggests that you want to bid a slam on this and indeed calculations reveal that there is a 63% chance of the diamond suit providing three tricks, and if that fails then there is the heart finesse to fall back on. When you make an allowance for the spades breaking badly, the success rate of the slam comes to 71% - and in practice the defence often helps a slam along with the opening lead etc - so you do want to bid this slam.
In practice 14/32 tables bid to the slam but there were two cases where East-West played the hand, and that's what we need to investigate. The key question is what does West do after the bidding starts with P-P, at favourable vulnerability with this mottley 4-count? All the books will tell you to pass, but the fact is that giving the opposition a free run is not a winning strategy. When they passed against England, Malinowski & Bahkshi competently bid up to 6♠ and collected +1430.
The answer for at least two pairs was to preempt in clubs. On the record we have a 3♣ opener for Russia, which North naturally doubled, and then it was all up to South. With some values but no cler game to shoot for, he decided that a pass was with the odds. If South was not entirely confident, West was even less confident and he redodubled for rescue. The result of that was he then played in 4♣-doubled, and that cost him 1400 (and he gained 1 imp). It didn't work out so well for the Belgian who also started with 3♣ and then had his partner take him seriously and ended in 5♣-doubled losing 2000 points (his team-mates only bid game).
For England, after P-P, Andy Robson did the right thing - he opened 1♣ and that was enough to make it impossible for the other side to bid the slam. Very little danger in that opening bid, but there is not doubt it takes the edge of any precision in the North-South bidding, and it was rewarded when the Romanians stopped in game. And that was 12 imps to England.
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| HotD-wed : Summer Pairs 1 : 4jun18 : B7 |
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The seat in which you are placed can make a difference to your choice of opening - as whether or not partner and opponents have passed can change your perspective on who "owns" the hand. What is your choice of opener here - suppose first it had gone P-P to you ... and then take the actual position where it went P-1♥ and now you had to bid - what are your choices?
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In the first case where they have not opened, you do expect your LHO to have the best hand at the table, but it remains possible that everyone has been dealt 10 hcp. You don't want to give them an easy ride, but nor do you want to bid high and go minus for no reason. We are so used to opening a 7-card suit at the 3-level that this seems to be the hand that opens two levels higher. Does that make it a 5♣ opener?
And now to the real case - in which case the arguments are slightly different, as RHO has declared they have a better hand that your partner. However, even if you allocated 14 hcp to RHO, that leaves 16 hcp to divide between partner and LHO and - since partner can't have 12+ of those - partner's average wil be around the 6 hcp mark.
Does this help us work out how high to bid? Not fully but it says to expect a little from partner. Let's look next at the high cards we have - we have two honours in short suits and the ace of our suit. These are all respectable defensive values, so we must note that it doesn't take much from partner to defeat a game were they to bid one.
The other major factor in these decisions is how we see the bidding develop. Whatever number of clubs we bid we are expecting LHO to make a takeout-ish double. If we bid at the 3-level or 4-level then we expect RHO to bid over that double, but if we bid at the 5-level we expect RHO will more often leave that double in. Which do we want?
It is hard to see Good Things coming from bidding 5♣-X-P-P-P. Could Good Things come from 4♣-X-P-4♥, or 4♣-X-P-4♠? The answer here is more positive, but not quite certain.
In practice nearly everyone bid 5♣, and afterwards they all talked about how they should perhaps only have bid 4♣. It was unusual to see a traveller with -800 as easily the most common score. What do you think?
BTW - the European Open Teams Champiosnhips start today in Ostende and there is extensive coverage on BBO - so lots of bridge to watch! |
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| HotD-tue : Summer Pairs 1 : 4jun18 : B3 |
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When you to look at the East-West hands here, your first choice of contract would be either 5♣ or 6♣ - not too difficult to find you might think with 25 hcp and a 9-card fit? Would it surprise you to know that nobody found either of those contracts, and those in clubs only got there reluctantly? With a 3-0 fit in a side suit and a single stopper, would you expect the majority to play the hand in 3N?
This was the auction at table 4 last night. The opening bid weas rather on the heavy side, and most would prefer to start with 1♣, but this choice had one significant advantage - it stopped North from making a 1-level heart overcall. South however, as a passed hand, felt he could not let 3N pass by silently. The only rationale, he argued, for coming in with a double here was as takeout of clubs - and at this vulnerability it might pave the way for a good sacrifice. So he doubled and North passed this around to East. The key deduction from this action - and one that East now needs to pick up - is that the clubs are not breaking well.
It is this bad club break which stops 3N making - it would have been 10 top tricks on an even break but the break kills the game, and the best declarer can do on a heart lead is to play spades and to guess the winning play of pinning the ten, rather than (probably the better odds play) finessing South for the ten. None of those in 3N found this play and they all went two down or more. At the table East did the right thing, escaping to 4♣ and in practice the auction ended there.
West might have reconsidered at this point - given the extra strength of the hand, but there was the prospect of both king and jack of clubs lying badly, so he passed. If he had bid on, he would have been uniquely placed to find the winning play in clubs - cocmcing to hand with a herat ruff and running the club ten on the first round.
Afterwards South was left to regret his action. He had doubled a 3N contract he thought was making, only it was in practice going two down. His partner left it in rather than taking out, and a minute later the opposition were playing in a making part-score instead. :(
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| Is this a Guess? |
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West starts with the ♥A. on which East drops the Jack. A second heart goes to East's 9 and a diamond comes through. Get this decision wrong and you are down - over to you.
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The heart position is clear. West must hold AKQx(x) and East JT9(x). You don't know who holds the ♦A but you should reason as follows: In order to make the contract the club finesse has to be right. Remembering the bidding then East would need to hold ♦A to justify his raise and West would probably have competed further over 2♠ if he held ♦A and ♣K as well as his decent heart suit. Hence you should rise with the ♦K. |
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| Nearly Certain |
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West Leads the ♣K and switches to the ♥K. You win the Ace and cash the ♠A, on which East shows out. Plan the play.
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You should still succeed despite the bad trump break by ruffing a diamond in dummy. It won't matter if West ruffs in front of you as it is with a natural trump trick. However, if West can get 2 ruffs you will be defeated. For this reason you should play a club after the ♠A. Ruff the likely heart return then ♦KA and a small diamond for a ruff in dummy will see you home. This is an example of a scissors coup - so named because it cuts the defenders communications and in this case prevents the second ruff. |
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| A Grand Play |
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West leads the ♦K. Plan the play.
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If hearts break you have 13 tricks so assume they don't. If anyone has 4 or more hearts it will surely be East. If that is the case then you surely have a double squeeze provided you time the play carefully. You must ruff a diamond at trick 2 so that only West is guarding the diamond suit. Then play off all the trumps and 2 top hearts.. If East has kept all his hearts then he must already have relinquished his club guard.At this stage, dummy will have ♦5 and ♣A74. On the ♥Q, West will have to discard a club to keep a diamond, so your clubs will now be good. |
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| Expert Defence |
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Partner leads the ♠7 in response to your overcall. Declarer contributing the ♠8 from hand as you win the trick with the ♠T. How do you see the defence?
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It looks like you might make a couple of spade tricks if partner has an expected doubleton. Partner can't have 2 trump tricks so you need partner to hold the ♣A to have any chance. Even then you will need a trump promotion. Continuing spades at tricks 2 and 3 is no good as declarer might ruff high, cross to dummy with a trump and discard a losing club on ♠ Q. You need to switch to a club at trick 2 so that West can win the Ace and play another spade. Now a third spade from you will generate a trump trick for partner if he holds a decent trump doubleton or better. Take a look at all four hands and congratulate yourself if you found a club switch. Unfortunately, at the table, the contract made even after the club switch - West thought that East held a singleton club and tried to give East a ruff - curtains. Who was to blame?
The answer is West. If East had wanted a club ruff at trick 3 he would have won the first spade lead with the Ace. That would have given a clear message that he did not want spades continued. When the first trick is won with ♠T, an expert East is denying a singleton club. |
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| HotD-thu : EBU Online KO : 29may18 : B6 |
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There were only two local teams entered this years on-line EBU Knock Out; one got knocked out in the first round, but the others survived that and have now won four matches to reach the semi-finals. The quarter-final match was on Tuesday against a Guernsey team and they won by just 6 imps (rather a contrast to the 62 imp margin in the previous match). The winners collected only one double figure swing, and it was on this hand.
The different choice of contract came down to the opening bid, and when the other table passed as East it proved impossible for that pair to reach game. The 3N game reached at this table was by no means certain, but after the opening it was difficult to work out that 5♦ was a safer contract. West might have doubled on the second round, but when partner bids 3♦ what else could happen but 3N?
The defence was not testing; North cashed a top spade and then, scared to give away the ninth trick, switched to a heart. Declarer could now take a diamond finesse, losing to the king, and when a second heart came back to repeat that, and when that worked, to claim 11 tricks. Bashing out the spades was not a good enough defence, as then declarer could start diamonds from the top and lose a diamond to South who has no more spades. But if the defence had chosen to give up a spade trick, then it would have been a different story - it gives declarer 8 tricks but there is no route to a ninth.
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| HotD-wed : EBU Stratford Swiss Teams : 28may18 : B48 |
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This defensive problem arose at a number of tables on the last round of Monday's Swiss Teams. In respsonse to partner's bid, you lead the ♦J and it holds. What next?
Forgot to say - it went ♦2-♦6-♦5.
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The first thing to work out is the distribution of the diamonds. Partner must surely have a six card suit for bidding then at the 3-level, and declarer must have a stopper. The ducking at trick one tells you declarer started with ♦A5 and partner started wtih ♦KQT763.
The next thing to work out is what else partner has, and the answer - if the 2♣ bid is to be believed - is not very much - in fact, at most one high card outside.
So do we know what to do next? We should! Partner had a choice of three cards to play at trick one, and partner chose the middle one - surely that means a high card in hearts. Look at the hands now, and you will see how fatal was the frequently found club switch. Even switching to the ♣J won't do - declarer will win and play small now towards the ♣8 to set up the ninth trick.
Would you have found the play of the ♥3 (just in case partner had a singleton) at trick two? |
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| HotD-tue : EBU Stratford Swiss Teams : 28may18 : B26 |
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It's not often you get as strong a hand as this - but your plans for a nice orderly auction get disrupted when the third hands openes in front of you. What do you bid now?
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There is of course no perfect answer here, and the two common choices were to bid 5♦ and to bid 6♠. The latter was deeemed by those taking it as "practical" but it was surely going to be the final contract for South could only consider raising with a useful ace - so an easy grand slam could be easily missed.
The 5♦ bid is usually taken to shown both majors (at least 5-5 at this level) and it inevitably got a response of 5♥ from partner. The two optimistic Norths then settled for 7♥ but that proved quite impossible. The others tried 6♠ and this ended the auction this time. Was there any chance of bidding the grand when it was right? Only the faintest chance but if South can trust the 5♦ bid to indicate the majors, then correcting to 7♥ when holding five of them is just about possible.
And what about doubling 4♦ - might that have helped partner appreciate ♣Qxxxx? The option was rejected for feat that partner passed the double - a valid choice on a weak balanced hand, perhaps with an honour in diamonds.
Finally, have a look at the third in hand opener. Are there other choices? The answer is yes - at least one joker found a opening of 2N on thsi hand, purporting to be 20-22 balanced! This somehow incited his opponents to bid 7♠ and that worked well for the defence as it could not be made. An opening of 3N showing a solid major also appeals.
Across the 28 tables who played the hand, there were two in 7♥ (down two), four in 7♠ (down one), two who defended diamond contracts (5♦ and 7♦) and the other twenty played in 6♠. |
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| Play Carefully |
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West leads the ♥Q. Plan the play.
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On the bidding, West is very short in the black suits, so discarding a diamond on the ♥A and trying to limit the spade losers to one probably wont work. You have chances, of course. If West holds a singleton or doubleton ♠K then you you can play trumps until West shows out, discard a spade on a top heart, ruff the small heart and lead a spade towards dummy, ducking if West plays the King. No return could then harm you.
A better line of play is simply to duck the first trick. You can later throw 2 spades on the top hearts and set up the spades using the trumps as entries. This line succeeds when spades are 3-2 and also 4-1 if West doesn't switch to a trump - and he may have no trump to lead. Eventually you will discard a diamond on the long spade and make your contract for the loss of 1 heart and 1 diamond trick. |
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| The Best Odds |
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West leads the ♠Q. You win and play a heart to your Ace (both following). What is your best percentage play?
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This is a very good slam. Either minor suit finesse sees you home and if clubs are 3-3, you can pitch a diamond from dummy. Crossing to the ♥K and finessing a club is around an 84% line. However, you can improve on this by elimination play. At trick 3 lead a spade to dummy's King and ruff a spade high. Now cash the ♣A before crossing to dummy with a high trump for a club lead towards your hand. If the Knave holds then it is back to dummy with the ♥7 for another club lead. This line works whenever the club King is singleton or doubleton with West (as well as all of your other chances in the minor suits) and gives a total chance of success of 89%.
Patrick Phair thinks the odds are even better:
'I believe the true probability is over 90%. The contract fails if (a) West has Kxxx in clubs including T or 9 (14.56%) and the diamond finesse fails (44.4%, making 6.47% overall) (b) West has Kxxxx in clubs (5.88%) and the diamond finesse fails (38.9%, giving 2.29%) (c) West has a club void (0.69%) and the last heart (66.7%, giving 0.52%) (d) West has all six clubs (0.69%) and either East has the last heart or West has DK (76.5%, giving 0.46%)'
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| Play for your only Chance |
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West leads a top heart and East annoyingly ruffs your Ace at trick 1. A diamond switch sees West cashing 2 diamond tricks before exiting with the ♥Q. Take over from here.
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Prospects are very poor having already lost 3 tricks. However, you know West has 9 hearts and 2 diamonds. In order to make this contract, you need to find him with 2 specific singletons in the black suits. Ruff the heart and play a low club to dummy's Ace, followed by the ♠Q from dummy. If West holds the ♠J and ♣K you will bring home this contract. |
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| Enlist their Help |
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West leads the ♥6 to East's King. How do you play?
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The heart lead is annoying as on any other attack you might have been able to dispose of your heart loser. You have plenty of chances in the minor suits but you might lose a heart and a club so need to avoid losing 2 spades. It would be nice if opponents openend up the trump suit, and they might do this if they thought you wanted to ruff a heart in dummy. Winning the Ace and returning a heart might work but West may be reluctant to switch to trumps from a holding that includes the Knave. East however, might see less harm in a trump switch. The best line therefore is to duck at trick 1 and try to lure East into a trump return. This is a small extra chance but will work surprisingly often. Of course, you may still bring home your contract on a heart return from East at trick 2 but you will have to get a bit lucky with your guesses.
Ducking trick one also means that even if you lose two subsequent trump tricks to East, clubs cannot be attacked - and a favourable diamond break could allow two club discards. |
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| HotD-thu : Squad Practice : 23may18 : B6 |
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This hand from the practice game was first played in the Teltscher (Seniors Camrose) last weekend, and the contract was the same at all tables. There was more later in the play, but the first quesiton is what do you lead?
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In practice the answer was nearly always a diamond, and with a sequence like that, it does look safe. Looking at if from declarer's perspective however - sitting with AQJ6 in hand, isn't this the most welcome lead? We had one lead of the ♥2 and one of a spade.
On the diamond lead all Norths we know of bar one played the ♦K (and that did affect what happened later). After winning the opening diamond, declarer tried some hearts and most then played the ♠K. North was helpful in winning this and playing a second spade which forced declarer into successfully finessing the ♠T. At this point declarer had 8 top tricks andd needed only the ♣K for the ninth. There were two choices at this point - they could cross to dummy with the ♥K to lead a club, or they could cash winners outside clubs and put South on lead with the last diamond (or heart) and have South lead away from the ♣A. Of course, they went for the latter line but when South led at the penultimate trick it was over to North's club ace and last spade. So 3N went down.
The defence had succeeded despite there being two points (even after the opening lead) where they had made life easier for declarer. One was in playing the ♦K, and the North who held back the king pushed their declarer into using dummy's heart entry to lead a second diamond - so that the winning option (leading a club then) was not available. The other aid was in winning the spade ace and returning one - this also saved declarer from using a dummy entry to make a trick out of the ♠T.
The Deep Finesse analysis shows that there is only one suit to lead to beat the contract by force, and there is a strong rationale for finding that suit. Looking at the strength of the South hand, one has to conclude that if the contract is going down it is North who will be taking 5 tricks. In order to do that South must attack with North's five card suit - and which is that likely to be? Surely spades, so the ♠6 is the obvoous lead!
We didn't discuss the play in this contract last night, but in our practice game it was 2/3 making 3N while in the Teltscher the internationals managed 1/5 making the game. Were there any good stories in there? |
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| HotD-wed : Spring Teams 5 : 21may18 : B33 |
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There were two excellent slams on Monday, one in each direction. The North-South slam on board 18 was bid at all tables bar one, and it looks like they were on their way to a slam when a wheel came off and they stopped in 5N (making). The slam on board 33 proved more difficult and only one pair got to the right contract - and their bidding was as shown.
It was all very natural and could have been replicated by any other pair who were playing a strong 1N opener. The only artificial step was the 2♦ bid which was a game-forcing checkback, which allowed East to show three hearts. The 3♣ bid followed by 4♥ told East that West had interests beyond a simple 4♥ (or it would have been bid on the previous round). An alternative to 3♣ was just to bid 3♥ (in a game forcing situation). Looking at an average point count and a poor shape it might not seem exciting but having two aces when partner is thinking of a slam, and having the QJT of their second suit - these make this hand great and well worth continuing.
After a weak 1N opener people might play 3♥ as hearts and slam interest, or 2♦-2♥-3♥ as hearts and slam interest and both of these lead to the same position as in the bidding shown - East needs simply to appreciate the value of two aces. Note that East doesn't bid the slam, simply indicated to partner the suitability. If neither of these two sequences is available to you, then you need to bid 2♦-2♥-4♣ to show slam interest with a club control. Again slam should be reached.
I am very sorry to have to report that at the other seven tables who played this hand, six stopped in game and the seventh bid 6N (and they escaped a spade lead which would have defeated them).
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| HotD-tue : Spring Teams 5 : 21may18 : B8 |
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It's not often you hold a hand as strong as this South hand , and even less often that you hear the opposition open a strong 1N (15-17) in front of you. What can you do but double? What comes as no surprise is that someone takes out the double. With so few HCP, clearly West or North would remove if they had any shape, but it turns out that it is the opener who has more shape and now you are faced with this problem. At the table South chose double and his partner couldn't see any alternative to pass, and the defence duly made 7 tricks for a 300 penalty.
The play was diamond, diamond, club, club, diamond and declarer ruffed. When the ♥ A was knocked out South continued with diamonds but East could discard spades on the last two rounds of that suit and all was well even if the hearts broek 4-2. More testing as a defence is three diamonds first, so that the ♣Q is not a winner yet. If declarer ruffs this the contract will go an extra one down (even with trumps 3-3) - declarer must discard a losing spade or eventually lose trump control.
What is worth considering also is the difficulty some had defending 3N on this hand. After a 1♥ opening by East, there is little South can do but double and then bid 3N in the hope of a stray high card in partner's hand. When West knew to lead a heart (all four defenders did) declarer had no option but to start playing diamonds from the top. Good news emerges when the queen drops and there are now 8 top tricks. The problem is that the defence have 5 tricks.
So how did two tables go wrong? The issue is on the discarding by East. What happened was that East could easily spare two spades but what goes on the thirteenth diamond? Clearly if a heart goes, declarer can knock out the ♠A to make the contract, but with ♣T932 sitting in dummy, a club discard looks equally fatal.
The solution comes from West telling partner about their shape. Here particularly, but so many times, the greatest unknown for the defence is the exact shape of partner's hand, and a system of discards which shows shape will be more informative than one based just on showing or denying high cards. If West can tell partner (with two discards) that their black suits are 4-4, then East can deduce South's shape and find the winning discard of a club. Easy game!
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| How could I Tell? |
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You lead a low club - partner wins the Ace (declarer dropping the Knave) and plays the ♦K followed by the ♦7 to your Ace. Declarer contributes the ♦68 on these 2 tricks. How do you continue?
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You have 3 tricks and the fourth could come from your ♣K or partner's ♦Q. How can you decide which trick to cash?
The bidding doesn't give you any clues so you have to rely on partner having done the right thing. If East held 5 diamonds, he would know from your failure to overtake his King that you hold 3 diamonds and hence there could be a maximum of 2 diamond tricks for the defence. In this case, he should have cashed the ♦Q and reverted to clubs. The fact that he didn't play the diamond Queen means that he holds only four diamonds - thus declarer has a remaining diamond loser and this is the suit you should be leading at trick 4. |
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| Out for the Count |
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The bidding is not a thing of beauty but never mind. West leads the ♠J. You win and draw trumps in 2 rounds and cash ♦A and ♠K. You ruff a spade (East showing out), and play off the top diamonds, throwing clubs from hand. Whwn you lead the last diamond from dummy, East discards a small club. How do you continue?
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You have been wondering how to play the clubs. However, if you have been counting the hand as you should, you have no problems. West has shown up with 6 spades, 2 haerts and 5 diamonds - so is void in clubs. Simply discard a third club on the last diamond and West will win and have to give you a ruff and discard, allowing you to dispose of your last club from hand. |
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| Think before you Act |
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West starts with Ace and another diamond. How do you plan to make 10 tricks?
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You have 9 fairly certain tricks and a tenth might come from clubs if they break 3-2, or spades, or possibly a spade ruff in dummy. If you start on trumps immediately, West may win the second round and lead a spade, knocking out your entry to the clubs. If you play Ace and another spade, the defence could play 2 rounds of trumps and again leave you a trick short. The correct play is to win the ♦K at trick 2 and play the ♠J from the table. The defence can kill your spade ruff by playing trumps, but then there are sufficient entries to use the club suit. If the defence returns a spade, you will get your spade ruff. Provided clubs are no worse than 3-2, you will succeed. Note that it is not safe to ruff the diamond at trick 2 and play a spade towards dummy. East can win and return a trump, ducked. You would have to cash dummy's high cards and reenter hand by ruffing a club, but West could overruff with the Ace and play another heart and you would go down when hearts break 4-1. |
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| Plan the Play |
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You get the lead of a low heart against 3NT. Plan the play.
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You have 6 top tricks and need to develop 3 more in the minors. You can only afford to lose the lead once before the opponents will be able to take their heart tricks. This is quite a deceptive hand in that it is not too easy to see that 9 tricks are always available provided the diamonds do not break 5-0. You should win the first trick with the ♥A aand cash the ♦A/ If an opponent shows out you will have to switch to clubs and hope that suit breaks., but if both opponents follow to the first diamond just play a second round towards the Queen. If either opponent wins this trick with the King, you must make 4 diamond tricks and your contract. If the ♦Q holds and East shows out, you simply switch to clubs as now 2 club tricks will see you home. |
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| HotD-thu : County KO FInal : B |
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The final of the County Teams Championship took place last night. The last two teams were led by Keith Stanley (Richard Chamberlain, Diana Nettleton, Patrick Shields, Garry Watson, Alan Wearmouth) and by Mark Rogers (Tricia Gilham, Richard Harris, Roger Jackson, Peter Waggett). The Stanley team crept into a small lead and then extended it, losing points only in the last of the six sets of boards. The biggest swing came from the first board placed on one of the tables. The auction was as shown ...
The 2♦ bid shows clubs and spades, and the 3♥ bid was the first step in showing a good raise to game. West didn't get the chance to do this as North could see the inevitability of bidding 5♥ over the East-West 5♣ bid, and chose to bid 5♣ himself, showing the heart support and short clubs. When the bidding continued with 5♦-5♥ it sounded to South like all partner needed was spade control - so picturing North with ♠T974♥AKJT♦AJ982 it seemed clear for South to bid the slam.
Unofrtunately West fell into the same trap, and thought the slam was making, and sacrificed in 7♣ which quickly went down three. It was not a terrible result as the par contract was 6♣x-3 (it takes an initial spade lead by North to set up a ruff for South to get four tricks), but it was a missed opportunity. For both sides it hinged around having their high card points in the short suits rather than the long suits.
In the other room the cue bid over 1♦ showed the majors, so East had to bid a suit (if at all) and the bidding started 1♦ -1♠ -X(showing hearts) and so over 5♥ West sacrificed in 5♠, duly doubled by North. South however misjudged this and bid on to 6♥ which was doubled and down one. The end result was 12 imps to the Stanley team, who went on to win by 49 imps.
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| HotD-wed : Spring Pairs 4 : 14may18 : B5 |
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The winners of the four session Spring Swiss Pairs were Ian Constable & Lesley Harrison. They gained considerably on this board from Monday despite the fact that everyone made the same number of tricks on the board. The key was that they played in NT and not in hearts, and scored just 10 points more than the others, and this was enough to win the board.
The problem of whether to go for no trumps or a known 5-3 major fit is a recurrent puzzle. There are "quacky" hands which will always lose four tricks to aces and kings, and these are clear candidates for 3N rather than the major game, whether playing IMPs or matchpoints, as a plus score is vital for success. The other reason for avoiding four of the major is when the suit quality is limited and you cannot cope with a bad trump break; in these cases you'd rather be in no-trumps, although for no-trumps to succeed without this suit you usually need extra values outside. Having extra values will for this reason often make 3N more attractive.
Otherwise, the key (most importantly in matchpoints), is how many tricks the defence can generate. On this particular hand declarer's tricks are nearly all top tricks, with only one need to give up a trick (the ♠A) en route. If the spade queen had been in the other hand, it might have been different. Declarer would have lost the lead twice in spades to set up the tenth trick, and if the defence can set up either two clubs or two diamonds before that happens, then the NT game will be held to 9 tricks while the heart game makes ten.
As this illustrates, it is very difficult to tell which contract will work out best. Statistical studies over large numbers of hands have similarly landed on the fence, with no conclusive evidence as to which is best, whether playing teams or pairs. At matchpoints playing NT on these hands is a very respectable gamble, and here it payed off well.
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| HotD-tue : Spring Pairs 4 : 14may18 : B16 |
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Every bridge hand has the potential to create a new problem, both for declarer and for the defence.
Here the 3N opener shows a long running minor suit and little else. Partner's lead is the standard offering against such an opening bid - always an ace if held so that dummy can be inspected before playing to trick two. (Just think how youd feel if partner led a diamond!) What are you thinking at this point?
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There should be two thoughts in your mind at this time. The first thought to emerge is that "we can beat this contract" - all partner has to do is switch to a spade. The second thought which should also emerge is - can I persaude partner to switch to a spade at trick two?
Here, there is some dependency on your and parrtner's confidence that declarer has very little outside the club suit. If the bidding is honest, partner should know that you have both the heart king and the spade ace. (The presence of the two queens isn't so clear) If you believe that, then there is logic that says that partner should switch to spades at this point - as it cannot harm the defence and it might help. What will happen then? You will win the spade queen and you will be able to cash ♠A and ♥KQ and the contract is one down. Is that good enough?
It is hard to tell. If the bidding is the same at other tables, then some defenders might have led a small heart at trick one (inferior, but it happens) and in that case you will be cashing four or five hearts before playing a spade and that gets more tricks. But if - as happened at the table - North continued at this point with a second heart, you will win three hearts and be forced to cash the ♠A before giving declarer the rest of the tricks. And now 3N makes!
When there is a danger of a minus score, it is often best to settle for a small plus - but there is a chance here of a large plus. Suppose you dropped the ♥Q on the first round of the suit. Partner must surely switch when that happens, as the queen normally denies the king. When you win the first round of spades you can go back to hearts. Will that work? It will work every time partner has the ♥J or if partner has any five hearts (so declarer has doubleton jack). Is that worthwhile? One benefit of doing this is you will gain enormous bragging rights - the vulnerable opposition will have bid 3N and you will have taken the first (on this layout) ten tricks, so you have made 3N+1 in your direction, and scored +600 - just what they hoped to score!
What about the opposition bidding? The 3N opener at this vulnerability does risk a large minus score, but the preemptive effect of doing it in first seat makes it worthwhile. Here the biggest downside is the extent of support for the majors, as it precludes finding a 5-3 major fit which might well exist. But what about East's pass? This was on the dangerous side - as the contract was surely going down. In such circumstances it is always worthwile making it easier for the opposition to bid on - as their contract might go down. You might consider therefore bidding 4♣ on the first round, but the danger there is that it might go down two where 3N was only down one, and when your side has more than half the HCP between the two hands, the opposition might not come in. |
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| Don't be fooled |
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Your lead of ♦J is covered by QKA. At trick 2, declarer lays down the ♠A (partner playing the 3) and continues with a low heart toward dummy. How do you see the defence?
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Declarer is painting a picture for you here of someone with a singleton ace of spade, keen to get to dummy for the ♠KQ, presumably to discard some losers. But partner's ♠3 needs to be examined. This cannot be high-low from a six card holding - as partner can easily afford a higher spade to make the signal clearer. You don't know where this is going, but you do know that declarer is encouraging you to rise with the heart ace, and that declarer is lying to you! So you must do the opposite - and duck, for to rise with the ace can - as here with partner having the jack - cost a trick.
If you duck, then in the end declarer must lose two hearts and two clubs.
We should contratulate declarer on this play - and the covering of the ♦J with the queen. It could easily have fooled a weaker defender! |
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| Your Lead |
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What do you lead, and why?
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You can be certain from the bidding that declarer has at most one diamond. Your obvious lead is a top diamond because if you fail to cash your diamond trick, it may be disappearing on dummy's spade suit. However, you should use the opportunity to exercise some deception with your lead. Try the effect of starting with the ♦Q. When this holds you continue with a low card in the suit. South is now likely to place East with the top diamonds and may well guess the hearts wrong eventually. Of course you cannot tell how the hand may work out, but when you can fool declarer at no cost to partner, you should do so. In the long run, this must reap benefits. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West starts with 2 top hearts. How do you play?
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You obviously start by ruffing the second heart and drawing trumps. Now the danger is that you might lose 2 clubs and a diamond. It looks tempting to play a club towards dummy at this point but that would be a mistake. If East holds the ♣A, then West surely has the ♦K and you will go down. Instead you must play a diamond towards dummy. If East holds the ♦K then West will have the ♣A and you are safe. If the cards lie as shown, what is West to do? If he rises with the King then dummy will later pitch 2 clubs on the diamonds. If he ducks there is no diamond loser. |
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| Never Give Up |
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West leads a trump against your slam. You play off the Ace and King, but unfortunately East truns up with ♥QT9 so you have a trump loser. Any ideas on making this contract?
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Never give up. Of course you need a defensive error but just simply exit with a trump. East wins but if he tries to cash a club, you ruff and cash your spades, dicsarding all of dummy's diamonds. Your twelfth trick is a diamond ruff on the table. When you look at all four hands, do you blame East for leading the ♣A rather than the ♦A? |
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| HotD - Thurs: CBC Pairs League B7 |
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Many of the hands in this feature are in the slam zone. Here is a lowly part-score on which to show your card reading skills. You play in 2♦ after the given bidding and South leads the ♣Q. - plan the play. You have 2 spades and 2 club tricks so 4 trump tricks will bring home the contract and you already have enough information to make success highly probable. North passed his partner's opening bid so will have no more than 4-5 points. Consider what the opening lead tells us. The obvious conclusion is that South has a club sequence headed by the QJ, but you should also consider the negative inferences that arise from this lead. If South had ♥AK he might well have tried a top heart to get a look at dummy. Similarly, South has opened 1♠ and you are missing all the spade intermediates. If South held a decent spade sequence he might well have led a safe spade. The inference you can draw from this is that North is likely to hold an honour in hearts and spades. and can therefore not hold the ♦K. Also it is likely from the lead that South has length in both black suits and hence a diamond shortage. The play is now clear. Lay down the ♦A and continue with a small diamond from hand. This will succeed when South has ♦Kx and also in the actual case when the ♦K falls on the first round as you can later finesse aginst North remaining diamond honour. You just lose one diamond trick and bring home your contract. Several players in last night's event failed in this contract by failing to take the inferences offered by the opening lead and taking an early diamond finesse.
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| Hotd - Weds: Cheltenham Congress Teams B26 |
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Board 26 of the Swiss teams at the Cheltenham Congress created double figure imp swings in no less than 16 out of 24 matches and moreover the board was not flat in any match . Contracts ranged from 6♣X by West (losing 1400) to 3♥X by South (losing 1400 the other way). In practice, game is not makable for either side due to bad breaks, although the shape of West's hand would suggest that 4♥ would be a reasonable contract on the combined 23 count. I suspect that much of the problem was caused by East opening the bidding. If East does indeed open 1♠ then South may make an indisciplined heart overcall. E/W can now take a sizeable penalty (having first checked the back of the cards!). If South passes with his poor suit then West is bound to drive to game on what turns out to be a mis-fitting minimum. If East passes in first seat then South will open 1♥ and this will silence West. Now it is likely that N/S will end in a highly dubious contract. Should you open the East hand? - many aggressive players like to open on minimal values but I think a pass is right on this occassion. The hand is sub minimum with half its values in the short suit. Since spades are held you will probably get a chance to get into the auction later if appropriate. If South passes and partner opens, you are well placed to get to the right contract, so I see no need to open this hand. Any stories from those that held these hands? |
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| HotD Tue: Cheltenham Congress Pairs B14 |
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Board 14 of the Congress Swiss Pairs caught my eye. As can be seen from looking at the N/S cards, 6♦ is laydown and 7♦ just requires the trumps not to be 4-0. 7♠ also makes on the winning heart finesse. It is therefore somewhat surprising that only 7 pairs out of the 50 that held these cards managed to bid to any sort of slam (no-one was able to bid the grand). How might the bidding go? If East passes originally then N/S will probably get a free run and the auction would start 1♠ - 2♦. South now has an obvious 4♣ bid (splinter) This shows at most a singleton club, at least 4 diamonds, and asks partner to evaluate his hand in the light of this information. North now has an ideal hand with no wasted values in clubs (he expects just one club loser opposite a presumed singleton) and superb red suit controls. Given South's action, it is hard to imagine a hand worse than ♠ AQJxx ♥ Qxx ♦ Qxxx ♣ x opposite so slam will be at worst on a finesse. In reality, the South hand is likely to be better than this minimum holding making the slam virtually certain. RKCB would confirm possession of the A♠ and a small slam should be reached. The splinter does not totally commit N/S to playing in diamonds - if North had bid 2♦ on a hand such as ♠ xxx ♥ KQx ♦ KJxxx ♦ ♣ Ax then he can just return to 4♠ - to play.
If East opens the bidding with 1♣, does this make the slam more difficult to bid? Much will depend upon South's initial action. South appears to have the ideal shape for a take-out double, but is this such a good bid? The South hand is most definitely geared towards spades and a 1♠ overcall is a better description of the South hand. If you double to begin with, there will be auctions when if you bid spades later, you will be showing a much stronger hand than you actually hold. After (1♣) 1♠ then North should bid 2♦ (change of suit forcing) and the bidding can continue as above. In some ways the slam is now more likely to make as if the K♠ is missing, it is likely to be onside.
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| How do you defend? |
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The defence started with 3 rounds of hearts, South ruffing the third. South plays 2 rounds of trumps (all following) and now runs the ♣9 and you win the knave. How do you defend?
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A diamond return looks dangerous if South holds the ♦Q. Often when the choice is between conceding a ruff and discard and leading into a tenace, one prefers the ruff and discard. However, on this hand, conceding a ruff and discard proved fatal. South ruffed in hand, discarding a diamond from the table. He then ruffed out your ♣K. Ultimately, 2 diamonds were ruffed on table and one discarded on the ♣T. You know that declarer has 6 minor suit cards and a club return round to dummy will only allow 2 discards in South (even if declarer started with a singleton club). Thus a club return is safe in that you must eventually come to a diamond trick. |
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| Save the Entry |
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West cashes 2 top spades and switches to the ♣J. Plan the play.
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You have a potential club loser to take care of. The clubs might break 3-3 of if 4-2, the 4 clubs might be in the hand with 3 hearts, in which case you would be able to take out 2 rounds of trumps and ruff the fourth round in dummy. The best line, however is to play for diamonds no worse than 4-2. Win the club in hand and duck a diamond. Win the club return again in hand and play A♦ and a diamond ruff high. Now 3 rounds of trumps finishing in dummy allows another diamond ruff (if needed). The club Ace is a late entry to the long diamond allowing you to discard your club loser. |
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| A Straightforward Defence |
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Partner leads ♦6 against South's game. South puts up dummy's King and you win the Ace. What now?
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Dummy's clubs are menacing so you had better take some tricks quickly. If declarer had the ♦J he would have played low from the table at trick 1. The best return is therefore a low diamond to partner's knave so that hopefully he can play a spade through dummy before the club suit is established. |
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| A Sure Thing? |
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West leads a trump against your 4♥ contract. On a bad day you might lose a spade and 3 clubs. Can you turn this contract into a sure thing?
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The winning line is an elimination play. Win the heart in dummy and ruff a diamond. Another trump to dummy allows you to ruff another diamond. Now exit with a low club. The opponents cannot afford to continue to play anything other than clubs, and they cannot possibly arrange to play four rounds of clubs, finishing in the West hand. Try it and see. Either they give you the ♣K or they concede a ruff and discard. |
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| HotD-thu : Camrose Apr18 4B : B20 |
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This hand from the recent Camrose series had some interesting points in the bidding. The first bidding decision is actually taken for you here, and the option of 2♣ was the choice of five of the six players faced with the problem. The sixth opened 1♠, which carries a little risk (of being passed out) but only a little risk.
The second bidding decision was South's. It was surprising to find that there were two chosen options - pass and 3♦. Which is preferred? Firstly, it is always right to overcall in these situations if you can do so with reasonable safety; it won't always have an effect but if partner can raise you have hit the jackpot and will seriously disrupt the opposition's dialogue. So we do bid but at what the level? The fact is that 2♦ might have an effect if partner can raise, but at all other times it does not hurt the opposition, and it might help them. The answer has to be 3♦ (and that was the most common choice).
Over this West should do something to show values. One might be tempted by 3N but the hand is a bit strong for that, and 3N - and even more so the alternative of a natural 4N - might well frustrate partner. The choice is therefore (unless you have reversed its meaning with that of pass, as some do) that West doubles to show some values. Two players however chose pass at this point, and when partner bid 4♦ they were in a quandry; one bid 4♥ and there the matter rested, while the other bid 5♥ and fortunately his partner (having forced to game himself already) felt good enough to bid the slam.
After a double, when East cue bids 4♦, West can comfortably bid 4♥ and opposite some values (which, with no kings, is likely to include an ace) East is willing to continue.
The auction where South passed proved straightforward for East-West. West's iniital response was 2♦ but then East got to bid spades and hearts, and finally West raised to 5♥ and East knew to bid the slam (again reasoning that partner wouldn't do this with no ace or king).
In all, four of the six tables in the Home Internationals bid the slam, but two tables missed it. These two were England and Wales.
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| HotD-web : Spring Pairs 3 : 30apr18 : B21 |
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This hand offered a faimilar dilemma for pairs players - whether in a 4♠ contract to go for 12 tricks with the risk of making 10, or to settle for 11 tricks. In fact, there seems a reasonable chance of combining the two ...
The bidding shown and the opening lead make it very likely (some might say clear) that South holds the heart ace. So the ruffing heart finesse looks like a good opportunity to set up winners and discard losers. The quickest approach is to cross to dummy with a club, and run the ♥K. South should of course cover, and West will ruff. Back to the club king is the plan, but North ruffs the second club and cashes a top diamond. When the ♠K turns into a trick then declarer is held to ten tricks.
What about the line for a sure 11 tricks? Declarer can bash out the trumps at trick two, losing to the king if necessary, and the defenders will cash a diamond. After that - whatever they try, declarer can draw trumps, ruff out the heart ace, and throw three clubs on the top hearts. This is exchanging the discard of the diamond loser for the discard of an expected (one) club loser which is actually about to turn into two losers.
Can we combine the options and make 12 tricks when the spade finesse is onside? Clearly if the spade finesse loses we will have two losers - the key is to combine the spade finesse with setting up the hearts. How about this line? Win the diamond, cross to the ♣ K and run the ♠T. Carefully dropping the ♠8 underneath that retains a spade entry to dummy, and if the finesse wins you can switch to ruff out the heart ace, or play for a doubleton spade king by leading again to the ace and then back to dummy with the third spade. When you take the spade fiensse early and it loses, they do cash their diamond trick - but that is the end of the party; you can use the spade entry to dummy to ruff out the heatr ace and the club entry to cash the hearts, and you have obtained your expected 11 tricks.
Notice too the opening lead by North. The table where the lead was the ♣7 put rather less pressure on declarer - he could win and try a spade finesse, but still have (a spade entry and) time to to set up the hearts.
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| HotD-tue : Spring Pairs 3 : 30apr18 : B11 |
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This board was the only hand on which anybody bid a slam during last night's game, and it was only bid at two tables. The double of 3♦ both made East concerned about 3N as a contract, and make it more likely that partner's values were outside diamonds, and therefore suitable for a slam. Having said that, the void in spades suggested by the bidding was not good news.
Both declarers in 6♣ got a trump lead - a shrewd move by North. Without a trump lead, declarer can lose to the diamond ace, cash five top winners and then cross-ruff for seven more tricks. On a trump lead, and expecting a trump continuation after the ♦A, declarer would be a trick short on a cross-ruff. It is key therefore to set up a long card in either hearts or spades. An extra trick in spades mostly needs the spades 4-3 (a 62% shot) while an extra trick on hearts needs the hearts to break either 3-3 or 4-2 (an 84% shot) - clearly better.
But care has to be taken with entries. If you play diamonds early and they play a second trump, you can take one heart ruff but then need to ruff something back to hand to take the second heart ruff. After that ruff, coming off dummy is a problem as you are now running out of trumps. The answer, as shown by Bryony Youngs when she was declarer, is to take a heart ruff immediately. When the diamond is played and a second trump comes, you can win that in hand and take your second heart ruff. The top spades take care of the losing diamonds, and you are left with two top trumps in hand, one to ruff your way back from dummy and the other to draw the last trump.
[It is in fact possible to make the slam if you play a diamond at trick two, but this involves setting up a major suit squeeze on South and would not work if the hearts broke 3-3. Exercise for the reader to work out why you cannot discard two diamonds on the top spades]
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| Set a Trap |
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West leads the ♣J. How will you defend this hand?
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Declarer looks to have a 5143 shape from the bidding and even if it is 5242, any heart loser will disappear on the clubs as declatrer is marked with ♣Q on the lead. It looks like declarer has at most a possible trump loser (assume partner has ♠Jx). Well, desperate situations call for imaginative plays. Whether declarer wins the first spade in dummy or in hand, on the first trump lead you must play the ♠Q. Declarer will reason that spades are likely to be 4-1 and he will next play a low spade towards the ten as a safety play. Partner will win the knave and give you a club ruff! |
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| What's the best line? |
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West kicks off with ♥K. What is the best line in this contract?
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You probably have a spade loser and the diamonds may not sit well (or you might misguess the suit). If you get a favourable break in spades, you will be able to discard a diamond from dummy, so you might well play a spade to the 9 to keep West off lead. As the cards lie, this will work but you can improve on this chance if you play correctly. Win the lead and use 2 trump entries to ruff hearts. Now Ace of spades and a spade to the 9 will not only win when spades are 3-3 but also when East has a doubleton spade honour as he will be endplayed. If it turns out that East has 4 spades and can exit safely with a spade, then you will need a correct guess in diamonds (doomed to fail on this occassion) |
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| Take Care |
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West leads the ♥Q. Plan the play.
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The lead of dummy's bid suit will certainly be from length in this auction. The textbooks teach you to attack the entry to the danger hand first - the club finesse can wait until either East has no more hearts or else the suit has broken 4-3 and is no danger. So did you enter dummy with a spade to take the diamond finesse? Unfortunately, the finesse loses and West continues with a spade. Now when you take the club finesse, East is in to cash his spade winners. The principle of playing diamonds before clubs is a good one but you must not squander a spade control to take the diamond finesse - simply win the heart at trick 1 and play a low diamond from hand. It doesn't matter who takes the trick or what is returned. A later club finesse gives you 2 spades, 2 hearts, 2 diamonds and 3 clubs for your contract. |
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| Plan the Defence |
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West leads the ♠7 against South's 3♥ contract. How do you plan the defence?
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You need to take spade and diamond tricks to beat this contract. If you win the ♠A and return the ♦T, then you might be successful. However, if partner holds something like ♦ AQx then you will need to lead through declarer twice and where is your second entry?. The answer lies in the rule of eleven. Partner's lead of the ♠7 tells you that South does not hold any spades higher than that card and hence you can safely play ♠Q at trick 1. Now a diamond through will allow West to reach your hand again with the ♠A for another diamond lead. You hope the layout is something like that shown. |
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| HotD-thu : Squad Practice : 25apr18 : B18 |
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The County team squad have a practice match once most months, and there were 5 slam hands in the 18 boards played last night. This was the last of those and only two tables reached the best contract - one with a decent auction and the other with a guess. But can it be done scientifically and with full confidence?
Think first about what should happen after the bidding shown (there was a strong consensus that this was the right start). At this point slam is clearly the direction for West, and it is hard to imagine a hand for partner which does not give reasonable play for a slam. (Without two out of ♠K, ♥K and ♦A then East will barely have an opening bid, let alone a jump to 4♣) The key question from West's perspective therefore is how to count up to 13 tricks in order to make bidding the grand slam safe.
One option - chosen by some - was to bid 4N, asking for key cards. The first hurdle was overcome when East showed the two missing aces, but how can West continue? One West tried 5N (asking for kings) and after a 6♠ response had no choice but to bid the grand slam. All was well today but if East had held ♠K5432♥AJ52♦A43♣K then the grand would be a very poor contract (needing an even spade break, only a 35% shot). A more sophisticated approach after a 5♥ response to the asking bid would be 5♠ to ask about spades; if West has a response available showing the king and queen (have you?), then you can tell the grand slam is good and bid it. But a sophisticated East would have thwarted that plan by treating the fifth heart (and the known 10-card fit) like a hand with the heart queen, and would have bid 4N-5♠ rather than 4N-5♥. We conclude that 4N was not the ideal choice over 4♣.
The other choice is to cue bid and see what happens. At one table West started this way with a 4♠ cue; East could not sensibly ask for key cards as if partner showed two, it would not be clear whether one of these was the club ace (making a grand slam silly) or not. So East continued on the pattern with a 5♣ cue bid. West was now able to continue the description with 5♦ and at this point East knows that the only two unknowns which matter are the ♥KQ. One relatively old (and today, little used) convention is the 5N bid asking partner how good their trumps are. It's use here should elicit a 7-level response (actually a 6N bid is better) which shows two of the top three honours, this time in hearts. After that East can have an expectation of five top trumps and three ruffs* (8 tricks), three top spades (11) and probably two top diamonds to give 11 tricks. So an ideal auction should finish with 5N-7♥.
[East could almost bid 5N one round earlier but for fear of West holding ♠A♥KQ742♦T982♣AQ which comes with somewhat worse odds]
** This depends on West having three clubs, which is by no means certain and is not true on this hand. Two ruffs and setting up the fith spade will compensate, and then West has only two clubs, the fifth spade becomes a much better prospect.
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| HotD-wed : Spring Teams : 23apr18 : B26 |
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There are a number of patterns to play which we think of as "text-book" plays because they appear in bridge books and seem to be too perfectly created to be real. This board was randomly generated (admittedly by a computer) but it was a nice example of a text book play.
After a diamond lead declarer could rush for a club finesse to allow a diamond discard but even if the club queen is onside that needs all the relevant suits to be cashable, and so is not without risk. If we accept that there is a diamond loser, the question is how to avoid losing two hearts and a spade in addition to that. Losing one heart is inevitable, and losing one spade is very likely, so the focus is on the fourth round of hearts. The best solution is to be able to ruff that in dummy. The danger is that the opposition win the third heart, ruff the fourth with a higher trump than dummy has, and you still lose a spade. If instead you draw two rounds of opposition trumps first, then they might win the third heart and draw the last trump and deny you the vital ruff.
Is there an answer? Yes - and the key is when you lose the inevtiable heart loser. The pattern is to cash one top trump and then duck a heart in both hands. You can win the return and only now draw a second trump. That leaves one trump out (all going well) and you can now cash the ♥A and the ♥K and ruff the fourth heart.
In this particular instance, with the long hearts in the same hand as the short spade, you will also make the contract on a variety of other sequences of play, so the results merchants are unlikely to appreciate your play, but it is nice to play correctly.
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| HotD-tue : SpringTeams 4 : 23apr18 : B17 |
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Last night's players will not have been impressed by the slam potential of the hands, but when we look over the travellers we find that slams were bid on 7 different hands. On most of these hands this was just way too ambitious, but one was a reasonable slam (board 5, although the sole declarer in 6♦ and most declarers in 5♦ went down) and this one was an excellent slam. It was however bid at only one table.
The East-West pair here had the advantage of playing that over an opening suit bid, a new suit at the 2-level is game forcing (called "2 over 1 GF"). The important consequence on this hand is that West can bid 2♠ on the second round to confitm the trump suit at a low level. Over this East continued by bidding out shape, and at this point in the bidding West can tell that partner's shape is 5341. Looking at holding 15 HCP in partner's three suits, the fit looks ideal for bidding a slam.
From this point it took just a few cue bids and a check on the number of key card held to bid the slam. South started off the defence with the ♣A and a second club, ruffed. There was the prospect of setting up the club suit now to take care of the diamond losers, but declarer spotted that a 4-1 spade break would make that very awkward. The alternative of two diamond ruffs was much safer, so the play proceeded with one round of trumps, two top diamonds and a ruff, then over to ♥J for the last ruff and finally to the ♥A to draw trumps.
If I had any advice for aspriring pairs, it would be to adopt 2-over-1 game forcing.
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| Out for the Count |
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You play in 4♠ after East has opened 1♥ (showing 5). West leads the ♣8 and East plays off AK and a third club, West ruffing. West exits with a heart. Plan the play.
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You may think you are on a guess in the trump suit, but you can take yourself off such a guess. East is known to have 9 cards in hearts and clubs. If West had a doubleton heart he would probably have led that suit in preference to a club. Lay down a top spade and play a diamond to the Ace and a diamond from the table. If East shows out, then play East for 3 spades. Ruff the third heart and finesse in trumps. If East follows to the second diamond, then the King of spades will drop the Queen. |
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| A Far From Obvious Defence |
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Partner leads the ♠2 against 4♥ Plan the defence
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It is clear that partner can have very little. When things look desperate, play partner for the minimum he can hold that will beat the contract. It looks as if trumps offers the best chance of defensive tricks. Try the effect of playing AK and another spade to the first 3 tricks (a discard is of no use to South). Declarer wins trick 3 in dummy and on this layout has no option but to play a trump to his ten. Partner can win and play a fourth spade and a ruff with the ♥K promotes another trump trick for partner if he started with ♥Q9X. You need good vision to spot defensive plays like this - they are far from obvious. |
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| Plan the Play |
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Bidding 4♠ is a gross overbid on a working 4 count, but that is what happened. The defence led a singleton heart and East plays 3 rounds of the suit. You ruff the third round with the ♠T and it holds the trick. What now?
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You have been lucky so far and you will need that luck to continue. Suppose you play off the top trumps and discover that ♠QJ falls. Now the club finesse is pretty sure on the bidding but East will cover the first club lead from dummy and you will then be limited to 2 tricks in the suit and will have to rely on a favourable diamond position so that you limit your losses to 2 hearts and a diamond. You can improve on this considerably by ducking a diamond at trick 4 (before drawing trumps). You can then win any return, cash 2 top trumps in dummy and play clubs. In the endgame you can then cash the top diamonds before drawing the last trump. If diamonds are 3-3, draw the trump and claim. If West has 4 diamonds, you can ruff the fourth round of the suit and again claim your contract. If you fail to duck the diamond at trick 4, you might recover by taking 2 trumps, 2 clubs and ultimately play Ace and a low diamond. You are OK if diamonds are 3-3 and also if East has Queen doubleton and has failed to unblock his queen as he wont have a trump to lead at the critical stage. |
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| Atone for your Bidding |
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The bidding sequence is straight out of the chamber of horrors, but mercifully West does not find a club lead, preferring the ♠J. Can you atone for your partner's bidding by bringing home the slam?
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This contract has very poor odds but there is a line of play that will work when diamonds and hearts both break and West holds the ♥8. Win the spade lead and cross to the ♦A. Pitch 2 diamonds on the spades and ruff a diamond high. Now a low heart for a finesse of the 7 allows another diamond ruff high. A trump to dummy's 9 now brings the slam home! Don't forget to apologise to your opponents. |
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| HotD-thu : League 10 : 16apr18 : B20 |
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The six person squad led by Mike Lewis won their last league match on Monday rather decisively and put themselves firmly at the top of County League Division Two. They had three double figure swings in their favour - one of which was board 23 reported on Tuesday (when their opponents stopped in 3N and they bid 6N), another was when the opponents bid the slam on B25 and failed to make it, ands the third was this ...
Look at the defensive problem - after you cash two top clubs and you know that declarer has none left - do you switch?
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| HotD-wed : League 10 : B6 |
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This little hand from Monday was played in 1N at 13 tables out of 18 in play, and succeeded in making at nine of these. But for some it wasn't so easy to make the contract.
At the table on show North was declarer and East got to lead a five card suit. It is worth pondering after West's pass, that if either East or West is likely to have a five card major to lead it is East, and for that reason you might prefer that South played the hand! Declarer won the heart cheaply, and set about clubs with a club to the queen and king. Back came a heart and declarer tried the ♣J. West ducked this. When declarer now tried a spade East won and cashed the hearts. A diamond came through the ace next and the defence had 7 tricks while declarer had but two in each major and one in each minor.
If we backtrack a little we can see what declarer needed to do to make the contract. With two tricks in each major and the ♦A, the key was for declarer to get two club tricks. If West on the second round had beaten the ♣J with the ace, declarer would have been left with ♣T7 over the ♣92 and would have the required two tricks on winning the diamond switch. How can North stop this ducking play? The answer is the second round of clubs being a club to the queen; this will happen if North had starts clubs with the jack on the first round. Could this have been diagnosed? Not if fulfl detail, but on general pricniples, given either hand might have turned up with the singleton ♣8 or ♣9, starting the club suit with the jack might thave kept options more open at the start (but woudl lose to singleton honour with East).
Three Souths are reported as having a heart lead and surviving; you would think a heart through the ace queen at trick one would be better for the defence. In fact it isn't - or at least it isn't when East wins the king on the first round. East returns the suit but this means that West has no more hearts to play and the suit is never set up. On a heart lead from West, to have any chance East needs to duck the first trick and let declarer win it. After that we are in the same position as described, but declarer is likely to have won the trick in the South hand, and so will start by leading clubs towards the JT73 and that works beautifully because of the position of the ace and king.
It just goes to show how many little, different, influences play into any hand and how easily they can change the result.
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| HotD-tue : League 10 : 16apr18 : B23 |
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There were three slam hands in the one set of boards played in the three competitions last night. Board 5 was an excellent small slam, on which you can make 13 tricks, but not one out of the 19 tables managed to bid it. Board 25 was a potential slam in the other direction and was played at different tables in 6♣, 6♦, 6♠ and 6N(twice) - and only the table in the four-four diamond fit managed to bring home the contract. Different from both of those was this hand, on which the majority bid the slam. The auction started as shown at most tables and this is where choices diverged - your preference?
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There is a natural inclination to bid 3♣ on this hand but the fact of the matter is that you are just a little bit strong, as you could easily be making that bid with a certain 6 tricks and a chance of 7, where here you have 8 top tricks. The answer for many is that this is the sort of hand that a 3N rebid shows. With a 1N rebid as 15-17 and 2N as 18-poor20, the 3N rebid isn't needed for anything else, and it describes rather well a willingness to take a chance on making 3N.
What can North do over that? Clearly slam is in the offing but it is very hard to count the tricks, and there is also the queston of how does one check for missing aces - when a 4N bid here sounds like a quantitative raise? Most pairs settled for a pragmatic 6N at this point, but when they saw dummy and what looked like 13 tricks (2 spades, 3 hearts, a diamond and 7 clubs) they were rather annoyed with themselves. When the clubs turned out to break 5-0 (a mere 4% chance), they found that they were in the top scoring contract! The alternative over 3N would be to nominally support clubs with a 4♣ bid, and then be able to use 4N as ace asking on the way to 6N or 7N. Counting the thirteenth trick remains difficult.
Curiously the underbid of 3♣ turns out to be more convenient in a way, as it allows North to bid a forcing 3♦ and check whether that might indeed be the right demonination in which to play. In practice this just gets 3N from partner and the same dilemma as that experienced after a more immediate 3N rebid.
We must express commisseratioons to the one pair (across 18 tables) who did manage to bid the 96% grand slam, only to find that it was unmakeable and they have to lose 17 imps on the board when they would normally have gained 13 imps. They did however still go on to win their match comfortably - so well done to Tricia Gilham & Ricahrd Harris. Their auction, for the record, was 1♣ -1♦ -3♣ -4N(key card ask) - 5♦(3 key cards) - 5♥ (asking about trump queen) - 7♣ (got it and extras) - 7N. |
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| Think Endplay |
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West starts with the ♠K. On a bad day, you might lose 2 clubs, a diamond and a trump. So is there a sure way to make your contract?
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There is no problem if you don't lose a trump trick and it looks tempting to play West for short hearts on the basis that he has long spades. This might suggest playing a heart to the Ace. However, you should realise that if East holds the guarded ♥Q, you can make the contract via an endplay on East. You should therefore start with the ♥K in order to pick up ♥Qxx with West. Say West shows out. Now a heart to the Ace allows you to ruff a spade. Follow this with 3 rounds of diamonds. If East wins he has to open the club suit. If West wins he can play a club through but you play the King. Let' say this holds. Now you throw East in with a heart and you must make an extra trick. |
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| Play this Slam |
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West leads the ♦K. Plan the play.
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Take the ♦A and cash the spades, pitching diamonds. Now ruff a diamond and give up a club. Later you can ruff your losing diamonds high in dummy. If you play a round of trumps before the club, the defence can arrange to play a second trump and this will leave you a trick short. |
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| How do you defend? |
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You choose to lead the ♥5. Declarer plays 2 rounds of trumps ending in dummy (East having a singleton) and runs the ♣Q to your King. What now?
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Do you try for 3 diamond tricks by leading a low diamond to partner's possible King, or do you switch to a spade, hoping that partners hold the Ace and good enough diamonds for you to take at least 2 more tricks? The answer is obvious. If declarer held the ♠A, he would not be playing on clubs - therefore partner holds that card. Switch to a spade and partner can win and play a diamond through. |
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| Be Careful |
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West leads the ♦A. Plan the play.
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You ruff the opening lead in dummy. There will be no problem if the trumps break 3-2 but otherwise you might lose a trump and multiple diamonds. You can safeguard against this by cashing the ♠A at trick 2 and continuing with a spade to your ten. If it holds you will make 12 tricks. If it loses, West cannot take more than one diamond trick so you will make your contract. |
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| HotD-thu : CBC Pairs League : 11apr18 : B29 |
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This hand from last night was the best of the slam hands (B21 being the other contender for a margin above 50%) but it wasn't bid very often. In fact nobody played in the expected 6♠ contract and we had three pairs played in 6N, ostensibly to protect the tenaces in the South hand - but in the case where North has bid 4N en route that plan backfired, and one North ended playing in 6N.
The vast majority played in game in spades, where after the bidding starts 1♠-2♥-3♠ (or even 4♠), you would have expected South holding K-AQ-AQ to make very positive slam tries and North with the extreme shape to cooperate fully.
Would we expect the spade slam to make? Superficially we do need an even spade break (a 68% chance) after which either the heart ace onside, a club finesse, a diamond break or a squeeze, will see the twelfth trick emerge. The odds seeems decently above 50%, so the slam is worth bidding. At different tables all four suits were led against spade games. On a diamond or spade lead against 6♠ declarer is able to test all the stated options, first drawing trumps and then trying a heart to the king, and after that fails testing the diamonds before resorting to a club fiensse. Sad to say these all fail. Sometimes declarer will do best just to run all the trumps, and if they do that here, East must recognise the great importance of a suit headed by the nine, and never throw a diamond. On a club lead declarer loses the chances in that suit to preserve chances in the two other plain suits. This drops the odds on success.
What about the 6N contract to which some Souths converted? One South playing in 6N got a club lead round to the AQ, and we have to presume this West won't ever lead away from a king against 6N in the future. The other 6N declarer sitting South got a diamond lead. In this case East has an easier time recognising the importance of holding onto the diamonds, and declarer cannot try a heart to the king as when it loses the contract is down without a second chance. The play will inevitably be a case of cashing the diamonds and spades ending with North holding a small card in each hearts, diamonds and clubs, while South has ♥K♣AQ. What will West hold at this point? There is no good answer - and if South reads West's distribution correctly then either a heart to the ace will produce an end-play in clubs, or a club to the ace will drop the king. The fact that West did not lead either hearts or clubs but chose instead a short suit gives a pointer in the direction of playing West for both critical cards - so perhaps 6N is the place to be.
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| HotD-wed : Spring Pairs 2 : 9apr18 : B17 |
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There were a couple of exceptions, but seven of the nine tables played this hand in hearts on Monday. A number of players managed to trade tricks during the hand, and the first came from the opening lead. The opening bid shown was unappealing to many because of the poor lead directing quality of the bid, and that did sway one of the Norths into opening a weak 1N (to play there, for a reasonable result). No East-West pair managed to find the spade fit, most often because on auctions like that shown South showed spades first.
When partner did open 1♦, the first trade was when some Souths started off with the top diamond, which set up a trick for the king. Curiously against a heart contract, every other suit was also led. The lead of a club was perfect and the choice of a heart by two did no damage, but the fourth choice - the ♠J - was a gift to declarer but wasn't recognised; rising with the ace would have brough in the spade suit for no losers.
After the opening lead it was up to declarer to draw trumps and in due course play the spade suit. Even without the suggestion that South has spades, the percentage play in the spade suit is to run the nine at trick one; when the nine loses to the king, declarer can finesse twice now to pick up the jack and ten. The declarers who played a spade to the queen first, and lost to the king, traded back a trick to the defence.
The optimum defence gets six tricks for the defence but the only instance of that score was not that defence. The optimum requires a small spade lead by South (the only option NOT found) which allows North to win the ♥A, put partner in to get a spade ruff, and still have time to set up a club trick before the ♦ J becomes available for a discard.
Not everyone played the spade suit to best advantage, despite there being a strong hint as to what to do.
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| HotD-tue : Spring Pairs 2 : 9apr18 : B8 |
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This contract was the outcome of very natural bidding and it was surprising that this was the contract at only three of the nine tables. The defence started naturally with two top hearts and now North played a third round of the suit. How should West proceed?
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In practice declarer tried to ruff high but South overruffed. After winning the spade return, it was time to draw trumps (in two rounds). When declarer now played the clubs from the top that was five losers and the contract was one off.
There were two chances to improve on this. The first at trick three; with a ruff being almost certain to get an over-ruff, what about throwing a club loser away instead? Now when trumps get drawn there will be a trump left in the East hand with which to ruff a club, and that delivers an extra trick (an over-trick if the clubs break evenly).
The second chance was in the play of the clubs suit. Suppose first that we have gone wrong by ruffing the third heart. After winning the ♠A and drawing trumps, if we look at the bidding, there is an enormous likelihood that North's shape is 3623 and South's is 4234. If that is the case, then we need to think about North's clubs and which doubletons North might have. After a first club gets the ♣6 from North the possibilities of interest are Q6, J6 and T6. If we play the ♣9 from dummy on the six, we cater for them all. The nine will lose but the king next will drop North's second club, and we can finesse South for the remaining high club on the next round. That way we get three club tricks by force.
Neat? |
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| Put them to the Test |
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West leads the ♦J. You try the Queen but East covers. Play from here.
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You have a club to lose and there are three obvious red suit losers. Clearly you need to do something with the club suit. You need split club honours (or both with East) to succeed. If you lead the ♣Q from hand, East can win and the defence will switch to hearts - curtains. The potential winning line is to cross to dummy with a trump and lead a club from the table. If East plays low, your Queen will lose to West's Ace, but now you have a ruffing finesse against East, which will allow you to dispose of a heart loser. Could East have found the play of rising with the ♣K on the first club lead? I doubt it would be found at the table but the defense to 4♠ is easy if you start clubs from hand. Always put defenders to the test if you can. |
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| Safety First |
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West leads the ♠Q against your slam. Play the play.
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You have 11 top tricks and a successful finesse in herts or clubs will see you home. One of 2 finesses is 75% but you can raise this to 100% if you spot the safety play in clubs. This combination of cards offers a guarantee of 3 tricks. Play a club to the Ace and a club back towards hand. If East follow, you just cover their card and if East shows out, you rise with the King and play one back to the Jack - either way 3 tricks are assured. |
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| 20/20 Vision Needed |
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You lead the ♠Q. Declarer wins in hand with the ♠K plays a heart to the King and and a heart back to his Ace (East following), and leads the ♣4. What hope is there of beating this contract and how do you give yourself the best chance of doing it?
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Defensive prospects look bleak. Even if partner holds the ♦A , that is only 3 tricks and if partner does hold the ♦A, he cannot have anything else since he passed our opening bid. The only hope is to take 2 diamond tricks and that means that the first diamond lead must come from East (declarer misguessing). You need good vision to see a possible solution. When the ♣4 is led, play low. If South finesses the 9, partner can win with the ♣T and push back a low diamond. Declarer will place a top club with East on this defence and hence will place the ♦A with West. When the full hand is as shown, do you blame declarer for his line of play when you smoothly duck the club lead? |
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| HotD-fri : CBC Individual : 3apr18 : B11 |
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This hand from Tuesday presented a small lead problem, and it was interesting to see that exactly one alternative worked and that there is good logic for choosing that. Over the 1N opener it generally pays to bid for three reasons - you might have a decent contract to make, they might have to find a non-obvious contract and you can distupt their bidding, or perhaps just they are too comfortable on 1N and anything else is better for you. Over your 2♥ overcall it is slightly surprising when opener comes back in with a 2♠ bid, but you actually know more about his/her hand now than if it had been a 1♠ opener and 2♠ rebid. All suits are candidates for being led. Your choice?
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The key to most opening leads is having a plan in mind - some likely combination where the choice will work out favourably. Here the case for leading a spade it to cut back on ruffs in dummy (not very likely) or to avoid giving away a trick with the ace lead. The case for a heart is to find partner with short hearts and deliver a ruff; it could give away a trick to the king but that depends on where the king lies. A diamond lead might work if you were to find partner with the king and be able to take a ruff. Finally a club might be a be less commital as even when declarer has the king you might be able to set up some tricks there (and get to them).
We fiurst rule out the spade lead - it feels too dangerous as partner might have a four card holding that you carve by leading one and it fails the test of having a good upside. Leading from any ace has the danger that declarer has the king, but if anything on this bidding you might rate declarer less like to bid 2♠ when they hold the ♥K underneath the bidder, while the other kings would not discourage. This small bias plus the chance of finding partner short in hearts (no support) makes it clear that this is the suit to lead.
And if you lead one, and continue by ruffing out dummy's king, you will be able to collect 6 tricks in defence - and score much better than the -140 and -170 many pairs wrote down! |
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| Listen to the bidding |
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West has opened a weak 2♥ bid and leads the ♥Q against your slam. You win and play on diamonds. East takes his Ace and plays a second heart. How do you rate your chances?
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Once East turns up with the ♦A, the odds are heavily in favour of West holding the ♠K. This is bad news in that the spade finesse will likely fail but good news in that it looks like West has sole control of both major suits. In this case he can be squeezed. Simply cash your clubs and diamonds finishing in dummy. At this point dummy will hold a spade and the ♥9 and declarer ♠ AQ. West will either have to throw a winning heart or come down to a singleton spade. Either way, the last 2 tricks are yours. |
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| HotD-wed : CBC Individual++ : 3apr18 : B26 |
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This hand from last night (played in both pairs sections as well as in the Individual) proved problematic for many. The auction shown is one of the five instances where pairs bid to the slam missing two aces, and were duly punished. It is difficult to put on the brakes after the first three bids. The contract you want to be in is 4♥ - can you do that? After the start shown it might happen if West bids 4♥ but the hand is quite good for that. Or is it? Assuming you are missing the ♠A, partner will need all of ♥AKQ and ♣AKQ to make slam good. If you cannot stomach 4♥, then a 4♦ cue and passing 4♥ is an option. An alternative for East on the second round might have been a leap to 3♦ to show club support and a shortage there, but it wasn't clear whether that meaning would be understood in an Individual competition with an unfamiliar partner.
But the other contract people ended up in is more interersting - that is 3N. On a diamond lead you have seven top tricks and which ever major you play, the opposition will knock out the second diamond stop and you only have eight tricks. Can you do anything?
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The answer is yes, and it's the same approach as works on a lot of 3N hands. Simply cash your long suit. When you do this you find that the opposition are in real trouble. Whichever hand does not throw a diamond has to give you and extra trick in whichever major they discard. Neat! |
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| HotD-tue : Crockford's R3 : B25+ |
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Last week a local team played its third round Crockford's match against the strong Mossop / Hackett combination and came out on top. If they had made one trick less on board 32 it would have swung the match, and this was the hand.
The bidding shown was the bidding in the critical room; it started similarly in the other room although in that case there was some ambiguity over the meaning of the double of 1♠ and East-West focussed on their club fit instead. This let South show hearts on the second round of the bidding and our pair ended in 4♥ which went one off after the two minor suit aces were quickly cashed.
It was the aggressive double of 2♠ (perhaps driven by the fact that his side was behind) which made the difference. Notice how West doubled to show spades, a practice much more necessary in the days when third hand often psyched after a takeout double, and this allowed East to "support" spades on the next round. South started against 2♠ doubled with a trump but he should have known that his partner would have none. Declarer was able to contain his losses to three trumps and two outside tricks and making +670 was a useful 11 imps. Going down one in this contract would have netted -7 imps, and the result of the match would have changed!
Well done to Richard Chamberlain & Patrick Shields, Paul Denning & Richard Plackett.
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| Protect your Assets |
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West leads the ♠Q against your 2NT contract. Plan the play.
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You must protect your spade holding on this hand. Win the ♠K at trick 1 and play a heart to your Queen. If it loses, West cannot profitably continue with spades. If the ♥Q holds, you will then knock out the ♦A and come to an easy 8 tricks. |
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| Defend like a Champion |
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You lead the ♥AK and South ruffs the second round, crosses to the ♠J and plays a diamond to his ♦J. Any ideas on the defence?
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You have 4 tricks on defence but since partner has the ♥Q, he cannot hold the ♣K. He might however, hold the ♣T. Declarer doesn't yet know the position of the outstanding high cards and you can capitalise on this by mentally doanting your ♣A to partner. Switch to the ♣J when you win the ♦Q. This will run to declarer's King. When you later win the ♦A, play a second club. If the cards lie as shown, can you blame South for ducking the club round to his 9? Now you have 2 clubs, 2 diamonds and a heart to beat the contract. |
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| An Easy Hand |
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West's lead of the ♦J runs to your Queen. How do you play?
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You can develop a spade, 2 hearts, 2 diamonds and 4 clubs for your contract. The danger is that West will develop his diamonds before you have time to get at your 9 tricks. If you cross to a club and take a heart finesse, you will go down. West is marked with all the missing high cards so all you need to do is play a spade towards dummy at trick 2. If West wins, you have 2 spade tricks and wont need the heart finesse. If West ducks, the ♠K will score and now you can develop your heart winners. |
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| Spot the Problem? |
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West starts off with ♦AK against your game. How do you see the play developing?
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There is a danger on this hand that the trumps are breaking 4-1. Suppose you ruff t trick 2 and cash 2 top trumps (West following only once). Now you can't draw all the trumps and unblock the hearts as you have no way back to hand. West must have 6 hearts for his overcall and you just have to hope that he doesn't have a 7 card suit. The winning line is to take one top heart in dummy whilst you still have the third spade on the table with which to return to hand. As you draw the last trump, you discard the remaining top heart from the table, freeing up the heart winners in your own hand. |
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| HotD-thu : Spring Teams 3 : 26mar18 : B19 |
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Sometimes the traveller on a given hand leaves one quite puzzled, and that is true for this hand from Monday. This is a truly excellent slam, and it was bid by the majority (6/10) of tables on Monday, but at the same time it was missed by a serious number of pairs. That itself is not so curious, as slam bidding is always difficult, but what is strange is that all those in game were recorded as playing in 5♠ with an overtrick. The question is how one gets to the 5♠ level and then stops. I know that at table 9 the reason this happened was because of a wrong response to the key card ask of 4N, which meant they thought they were missing two aces. But could that have also happened at another three tables? Stories please!
You might also be curious to note that board 20 is also an excellent slam, and it was bid at only two tables. Aagain not so unusual except for the fact that one of those tables didn't just bid to the excellent 6♦, they bid on to the impossible-to-make (under ANY layout of the cards) 7N slam - but duly brought it home.
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| HotD-wed : Spring Teams 3 : B5 |
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Sometimes the little hands involve more thinking and work than the big hands. On this hand it is very easy to get too high and even the bidding shown has led to an uncomfortable contract, while it is just a part-score with 24 hcp between the two hands. Against 2N, South led a middle club and the club queen won trick one. From declarer's perspective there are two sure tricks in each of clubs, diamonds and hearts, and a very strong likelihood of exactly one trick in spades. Where will the eighth trick come from?
The two prime candidates are an extra in hearts or an extra in diamonds,. The former offers a 50% shot for running the heart jack, while the latter is a 35% chance for finding a 3-3 break. It seems natural to go for the heart finesse, but this loses. Can declarer recover? Curiously yet - and logic gets you there. South should have received an encouraging signal from partner at trick one, and know that it is safe now to continue clubs (ie declarer didn't start with AJx) and declarer should duck this and win the next club.
The ♥T is an eight trick waiting to be reached, and aiming to reach this is better than ducking a diamond, as ducking the diamond will create a sixth winner for the defence (assuming two club losers to go with one heart and the two top spades). So declarer's next move is to cash the top hearts and try a spade to the ten. If either spade honour is with South this will generate an entry, but the ten loses to the king and back comes a diamond. This suggests the clubs are breaking 5-3 and that fact - plus the danger of a sixth defensive trick even if the clubs break evenly - leads declarer to win this with the ace.
Back to spades now and the ♠J, but when South plays small (ie doesn't cash out six tricks), it looks like North has the ace and so overtaking with the queen is pointless. North lets the ♠J win, but declarer continues with a third spade and North is now in trouble. The last three cards for North are ♥8♦Q8 while declarer is down to ♦K96. Leading a heart gives an eighth trick, a small diamond gets king and another, and a top diamond gets ducked.
So declarer always gets eight tricks but only after a lot of work. It's curious to notice that of the declarers in NT, there was one made 11 tricks, two made 10 tricks and three made 9 tricks. Does this offer a hint as to how difficult it is to defend accurately or was there a better line?
An alternative to banking on the heart finesse was to try two top hearts and then go for diamonds if the queen doesn't fall. This does get a better than 50% chance of generating the extra trick, but it also creates a sixth defensive trick too often. Choosing this line today will get four heart tricks and gives declarer time to duck a diamond to get three there also. This could account for making nine tricks, and the lack of entries to the long clubs will allow a tenth.
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| HotD-tue : Spring Teams 3 : 26mar18 : B3 |
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This monster hand proved impossible for many to handle last night. The first decision was in fact South's and there were some who opened 1♠ and some who opened 2♠. The choice depends on your style of weak two bids, and where you see the primary role as obstructive when in first seat and non-vulnerable against vulnerable opponents ("at green"), then a hand with such a good suit and two aces is just too strong. There are actually two alternatives to opening 2♠ - one of which we often forget; the difficulty with opening 1♠ is that partner reads more into the bid than the hand contains, but there is always the possibility of PASS. We need to ask ourselves in this context whether we would expect to get to the right contract if partner happened to open the bidding - and clearly we would, and in that case we are barely disadvantaged by passing.
When South opened 2♠ at table 1 North tried a forcing 2N bid, and heard from South that the hand was a maximum with a good suit. This in fact, did not help North at all in determining the right contract. When he now bid 4♥ that was read as a cue bid in support of spades, and it was only by then bidding 5♥ that he was able to set the contract. In this case South was right - when partner bids 2N over your weak two bid, the only options are playing in the suit opened or in NT. If North wants ever to play in a different suit, they need to bid it and not bid 2N! The 5♥ contract went down one.
When South opened 1♠ at table 8 North started by bidding his suits and we heard 1♠ - 2♥ - 2♠ - 3♦ and now South gave preference with 3♥. At this point North settled (unambitiously) for 6♥ but that proved too high when the first round of diamonds was ♦7-♦6-♦Q-♥4, and there were still two diamonds to lose.
Three tables managed to stop in 4♥ . I wonder if any of those were cases when South passed and West opened 2♦, warning North of the problems in that suit and making 4♥ the obvious contract?
Do let us know your stories.
Richard Harris adds : Boring, really, I opened 2S partner bid 4H. Certainly very good for 2S but keep it simple.
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| Think it Through |
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The opponents are playing a strong no-trump. The 1NT rebid shows 11-14 in their methods. Partner leads the ♠J. Declarer wins with the Ace and finesses the ♦J (partner producing the ♦9). Over to you.
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When defending, you should count delarer's tricks. It looks like declarer is destined to make at least 5 diamonds, 2 hearts (you know the finesse is working) and 2 spades after the lead (even if partner holds the ♠K). Hence there can be no point in returning a spade. If declarer holds the ♣K you have no chance but declarer might have a hand with all his values outside of the club suit. When you win the ♦A, continue with ♣ AQ6 and hope partner's clubs are good enough. |
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| Order is Key |
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You lead the ♣K on which partner plays the 7 and declarer the 3. How do you continue?
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If you assume that partner has started a peter with a doubleton club, then you look to have 2 clubs, a club ruff (or overruff) and hopefully a heart trick. The problem with playing off 3 rounds of clubs is that declarer will discard the ♥3 on the third round of clubs and you will not come to a heart trick. The solution is to ensure you take your tricks in the right order. Switch to a heart at trick 2. Partner can win and return a club. Now you have 3 tricks and a further club promotes your side a trump trick. |
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| A Popular Contract |
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3NT is the most popular contract. How do you play on the lead of the ♣2 when dummy wins the first trick?
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You appear to have plenty of tricks and ample stoppers in the black suits but if you play on diamonds, the defense may hold up a couple of rounds and then they may be able to deny you an entry to dummy. If the cards lie badly, you will be restricted to only 2 winners in each suit. The correct play is to lead hearts first. The defense can hold up their Ace until the third round but that wont help them as you have a guaranteed diamond entry to the table. This way you must make 3 heart winners and 2 each in the other suits. |
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| How do you defend? |
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You lead a top club, on which partner plays the Jack and declarer the 7. Given that declarer probably holds a singleton club, how do you see the defense collecting 3 more tricks?
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Partner can't hold much, but a couple of well placed Jacks might be enough. Try the effect of switching to a low spade at trick 2. Let's say partner produces the Queen and declarer wins the King. Then when at some future point, declarer plays on diamonds, you jettison the Queen under declarer's King. If partner can gain an entry with the Jack of diamonds, then a spade return will be enough to beat the contract when the cards lie as shown. |
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| HotD-Thurs: League 9 19Mar18: B13 |
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This is another hand where most matches resulted in a double figure IMP swing. The poular contract was 3NT by South. What should you lead as West? In the past, leading fourth highest of your longest and strongest was the norm, so players would look no further than a low heart. This is not a success on this hand as it gives declarer his ninth trick. Nowadays, the thinking is to avoid conceding tricks on the opening lead, and a heart from such a holding is very likely to do that. At my table, West led his second highest diamond. Now declarer has only eight tricks and will eventually lose a spade to East. A heart through declarer will defeat the contract. However, declarer could see that his contract was safe if West held the ♠A, and if East was dealt this card, he could be put to the test. Winning trick 1 with ♦A, declarer played a low spade from dummy, East played low (wouldn't you?) and declarer had his nine tricks. It is very difficult to go in with the ♠A, but if the bidding has indicated a decent club suit with South, East may reason that declarer is known to have ♦K from partners lead, and a spade trick may be all he needs. Bearing in mind that West may well have a decent heart holding from which he did not lead, then perhaps the indications are there. In the event, all five tables that played in NT scored at least 9 tricks
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| HotD-Weds: League 9 : 19Mar18 : B19 |
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This was an interesting play hand from Monday's league game. Quite a few pairs reached major suit games as North after club intervention from East. Suppose first that you play in 4♥. East starts with top clubs and you ruff the second round. Now you might play for one of the major suit Kings with West, and it looks as if playing diamonds is right to give you a ruffing entry to South for a finesse in your chosen major. At trick 3 you lead ♦K which East takes and plays another club, forcing you to ruff again. Now you cannot really afford to ruff a diamond and take the heart finesse for it it loses, a heart return will lock you in hand with no way to take the spade finesse and you finish with 4 losers. Also a winning heart finesse may still leave you with a heart loser if West holds ♥KTx. Hence you are best to abandon the idea of ruffing a diamond and just play ♥A and another. You score the game when the ♥K is singleton or when as here the spade finesses works. Indeed, you could have played trumps in this fashion earlier, without bothering with the diamonds. Everyone in 4♥ duly brought home their contract. Some tables played in 4♠ and this contract invariably failed, even though both majors break and the trump finesse is working! What went wrong? I guess East started in similar vein with 2 clubs and North ruffed. Now knock out the ♦A and take a second club ruff. Trumps are getting thin on the ground, and if you ruff a diamond and take the spade finesse, you eventually lose a heart to East who has minor suit winners to cash - you have lost trump control. The key to the hand is simply to play hearts early, just like the play in 4♥ . You need to set up your heart suit whilst you still have trump control. When East wins the heart, he can force you to ruff again but now you can knock out the diamond, ruff a diamond on table, take the spade finesse and claim 10 tricks.
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| HotD-Tue : League 9 : 19Mar18 : B3 |
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Board 3 from last night led to large swings in several matches. I imagine that at most tables the bidding arrived at East after 3 passes. The East hand is very powerful - 22 HCP but with 4 aces and a good 6 card suit. A useful rule of thumb is to add a point when holding 4 aces, so this hand should be treated as a good 23 count and opened accordingly. After a 2C-2D start a 2NT rebid looks normal and most pairs would play transfers after this start so 3D-3H would be the obvious continuation. Now the spotlight falls on West. Partner has not broken the transfer so probably doesn't have prime support. However, the West hand is shapely and shapely hands can produce many tricks if there is a good fit. Here West can continue with a bid of 4D to show a second suit. Remember that West is a passed hand so East will never be playing West for huge values. Over 4D, East would bid 4H with a definite preference, support diamonds with a fit, or bid 4NT to deny interest in the red suits. On the actual hand, a bid of 6D looks obvious and the good slam is reached. Four pairs duly bid to the top spot but 2 pairs got to 6NT and 5 pairs stayed in game (generally in NT). The best score for N/S occurred when they were allowed to play in 4Sx which went for only 300 (well done for competing). How was the auction at
Roger Schofield adds : We reached 6D via a Lucas 2H, 2NT enquiry, 3D, 6D
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| Defend this hand |
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Partner's lead of ♣J is ruffed by declarer who runs the ♥Q to your King at trick 2. How do you defend?
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You have to project at least two high honours in partner's hand to defeat the contract. If partner has ♠AQx, a spade shift will do the trick. If partner has the ♠Qxx along with the ♦A, a diamond shift is necessary before the spades can be established for diamond discards in dummy. If partner wins the ace and returns a diamond your side will come to two diamonds, a spade and a heart. The second scenario is a bit more likely, so a low diamond shift is called for. |
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| Amend for your bidding |
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Your decision to pass 3NT with a known spade fit was dangerous. What if West started with a strong five-card club suit? Consistency is important in bridge and we achieve that by reducing the number of guesses we make. Bidding the major-suit game every time you have an eight-card fit achieves the former by reducing the latter. In any case, what is your plan for nine tricks after West starts with the ♣K?
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The ♣A is your entry to the spades, so you must preserve it. Duck the opening lead and make sure you unblock a high club from hand. If West switches you will have an easy ride by playing spades from the top and then entering dummy with a club. West however, continues with a second top club at trick 2. Again, you duck in dummy and unblock again. Now West cannot damage you as you have a tenace position in clubs. You play spades from the top and will make a minimum of 3 spades and 2 in each of the other suits. |
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| Careful Play Needed |
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North makes a support double to show 3 hearts. South initially signs off in 2♥ but later revalues his hand and pushes on to game. West starts with 3 top spades. Plan the play.
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You have lots of tricks on this hand but are in danger of losing trump control if the hearts break 4-2 as is most likely. Your first move should be to discard a diamond on the third round of spades and win the diamond switch with the Ace in dummy. Now you can't afford to play off 3 top clubs before drawing trumps else you will suffer a ruff and if you draw the trumps and they are 4-2, then you will have no way back to hand to enjoy the clubs. The solution is to cash just 2 high clubs before playing trumps. On the 4th round of trumps, you discard dummy's last club, clearing the way to cash 3 more club winners in your hand. |
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| Wake up Call |
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Partner leads the ♠5 to your ten and declarers King. At trick 2 declarer leads the ♦K and partner discards the ♠J. How do you defend?
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The discard of an honour card indicates possession of the lower equal(s) but no higher honuor. In other words, declarer started with the ♠AKQ. Given the strength of declarer's diamonds and the strength of dummy's hearts, it looks like a club shift is in order, but which club?
Because you need four club tricks, you should shift to the queen hoping partner has AJ10x. If you shift to a low club, declarer with a Kxx can duck the trick around forcing partner to win and there go the four club tricks. In desperate cash out situations when leading through declarer, small cards in dummy, the lead of a low card promises the king or ace. With a lower honour, the honour should be led, |
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| HotD-thu : CBC Pairs League : 14mar18 : B1 |
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'The first board in last night;s Pairs League provided a neat option in the play.
On the bidding first, East bid sensibly to the limit here with the 4♦ preempt being justified by the 74 shape. Some who bid 5♦ by themselves were allowed out cheap, losing 300 where they should ahve lost 800, but that does not justify the bid!
Against 4♠ East started with a top diamond. There are occasions where this lead would have caused a headache for West, given the fad for leading the king from both AK and KQ holdings - should West ruff or not? Here the clear lack of any entry to partner for a second ruff means it is clearly best to duck. Declarer wins the ace, and draws trumps and can count 9 top tricks. But where will the tenth come from?
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There are a number of options here which go wrong. If declarer plays a club to the king, West will win the ace and play back a club easily. If declarer plays a heart to the queen then West will win the king and play back the hearts jack. Again no tenth trick.
Paul Denning found a better answer here; after drawing trumps he played a heart to the ♥8. West was endplayed and had to give the tenth trick whichever suit he returned. Neat! |
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| HotD-wed : Spring Pairs 1 : 12mar18 : B23 |
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After the slam hands, this was the big swing hand from Monday, with games made in both directions. The key decision was that of North after the bidding shown. The expectation must be high that East-West will find their heart fit, which makes it much better for North to bid 4♠ now rather than wait until later. When North did raise, one East doubled and there the matter rested. This was not a good choice by West, who should have recognised that the double was oriented to takeout - as a defender's strength will more often be outside rather than inside the suit the opponents bid. It was not all over yet, but after the lead of the ♥A it was too late. All declarer needs to do is trump two hearts in the dummy and then lose the top spades and one diamond when the finesse fails. One declarer in 4♠ managed this but the other made a careless ruff of a club with the ♠4 and was over-ruffed with the ♠5 and had to go one down. To beat the spade game by force, West needs to lead trumps.
When North passed the opening bid, it was clear for East to bid - and the choice was between 3N and a takeout double. The shape made the latter more natural but it was possible that 3N was the right contract and if so it would be best played by East. Whichever path was chosen, East-West will soon be in 4♥ and North must bid 4♠ now to give the other side a problem. With an eleven card fit the likely choice is to bid 5♥ and four tables ended up in that contract; two tables ended in 6♥ but why that might happen remains a mystery. Against 5♥ the normal spade lead results in one down. The two pairs defending 4♥ had a more difficult task - and failed. They needed to start with a club ruff to beat it, but didn't find that.
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| HotD-Tue : Spring Pairs 1 : 12mar18 : B18 |
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The first session of the Spring Swiss Pairs saw 20 pairs compete and over the first three matches the leaders were Ian Constable & Lesley Harrison. There were three slam hands which the field found difficult to bid, of which this was one. Five pairs were sitting in the "right" direction for these slams - one with 12 tricks decently over 60% and the other two with 13+ tricks on top. Of those five pairs, two bid all three slams, two bid two slams and one pair bid just one slam. But if you were sitting the other way, you still had a role to play.
How easy it is to bid these slams (B12, B18, B21) depends seriously on how much bidding the opponents do. Few East-Wests entered the auction on B12 but the one instance of which we know resulted in North-South reaching the worst of the contracts which were reached (4♥). On B21, there was often a heart bid by East and support by West but these bids took away little bidding space from North-South. The illustrated hand however brought out more effective interference.
The opener by East wasn't found at every table but it should be; at that vulnerability, and with a spade suit, every opportunity to bid should be taken - and if this hand doesn't fit the range of your weak two opening, you need to adjust the range or you will be losing points by not getting into the action when you should. What should South do after a 2♠ opener? The hand is an opening bid but it is in the range for a weak 1N opener and it only one card away from a weak 1N shape. It is therefore a very minimal hand on which to bid. Of the tables we know, two players overcalled 3♥; while honest and somewhat descriptive this bid is considered by some to be a gross overbid - coming in at the 3-level vulnerable on a weak-NT equivalent, and committing to a single suit. A takeout double is preferred.
But the key question is what happened after 3♥. There were two extreme results obtained at the two tables who bid 3♥; at one table North bid 3♠ and then passed partner's 4♥ rebid. It is hard to say why. At the other table North wheeled out an ace asking bid and heard of three aces and bid 7N. Quite different evaluations - making it difficult to say whether or not 3♥ worked on the day! A third table after the same start bid the hand 2♠-3♥-P-6♥-end.
Do we know of any other auctions? We know now of one table which passed as East on the first round and North-Souyth had a smooth auction to 6N which scored very well. Finally there was a table which started the auction with 3♠-X-4♠ ; what should North now do? He settled for 6♣ and wrapped up 13 tricks.
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| The best chance? |
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Against your slam, West leads the ♥J. What is your best chance?
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It looks tempting to play dummy's ♥Q at trick 1, succeeding when West has led from ♥KJT. However, leading a heart from such a holding is very dangerous and is therefore unlikely. If the diamond finesse works, you will be OK, but you can give yourself a slight extra chance by drawing trumps and eliminating the clubs. Now a heart exit will gain whenever East has King doubleton heart as he will have to lead a diamond or give you a ruff and discard. |
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| How do you Play? |
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Plan the play on the ♥8 lead.
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One option for a tenth trick is the club finesse, but on the bidding this is hardly likely to be successful. The bidding and lead indicates that East holds the top hearts, in which case you can succeed by keeping West off lead. Cover the ♥8 with the ♥9, Say East wins and switches to a diamond. Rise with the Ace and play a trump to dummy. Now lead the ♥J and discard your remaining diamond. Ruff the diamond return high in hand, cross to dummy with a trump and ruff a heart high. Now another trump to dummy allows you to lead dummy's last heart, discarding a club and endplaying East into leading a club or conceding a ruff and discard. Note that by carful management of your trumps, you can generate the 3 trump entries to dummy that you need. |
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| Treat it as a true card |
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West leads a low club. You win in dummy and play a heart. East produces the King. If you choose to treat this card as a singleton, how do you continue?
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If the ♥K is a singleton, you will need to produce a trump endplay on West to make your slam and to do this, you will need to play for a favourable lie of the cards. Cash the top clubs, discarding spades, and unblock the ♦Q. Now a spade ruff to dummy will allow you to cash the top diamonds, pitching spades from hands. A diamond ruff puts you in hand to play a trump towards the 8. West has to win this trick an return a trump into your tenace. You make your contract when the layout is as shown.
Patrick Phair adds :
| "Treat it as a true card". This hand requires declarer to guess West's shape, and provided West has only three clubs there is a chance of success. The recommended line also works against 3-4-3-3, since when East follows to the third (master) diamond from the table declarer knows to ruff it and ruff another spade before running H8. Declarer can in theory also succeed against 4-4-2-3 provided East has SK (declarer can ruff two spades in dummy but not three). In this event East will play SK on the second round -- but if East does this on the actual hand and declarer believes it he will go down. |
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| How do you Play? |
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West leads out ♦KQJ to the first 3 tricks. East overtakes trick 3 and switches to the ♣9. Plan the play.
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The bidding marks West with both missing Kings and if he holds 4 cards in hearts, then this hand will play itself. Win the ♣A and play a spade to the Queen and a spade back (lets say West shows out on the second trump). Now take the heart finesse and return in trumps to cash 2 more spade winners. West is squeezed on the last spade. If he lets go the ♣K your clubs are good and if he lets go a heart, a further finesse brings in 4 tricks in the suit. |
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| HotD-thu : CBC Mens/Womens Pairs : 6mar18 : B9 |
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This interesting hand from Tuesday's game highlighted the differences between playing matchpoint pairs and playing teams. The bidding and the opening lead will be the same in both cases; although it is not likely to win, declarer has to try the ♥J at trick one in case the opening leader has the king and the queen. The downside of doing this is that it lets the defenders clarify the heart position to a certain extent. It's not, however, all plain sailing for the defence. After winning the ♥K at trick one, the standard return from the North hand is the ♥5 - which will be either lowest of three remaining or North's only heart. South cannot tell which it is at this points, but East can.
Declarer has 7 top tricks and extra possibilities in spades (2 tricks), diamonds (3 tricks) and clubs (1 trick). There is nothing to say where the missing honours are, and playing matchpoints declarer cannot afford to lose tricks others might make, so it is inevitable that the diamond finesse is taken. When South wins it is not all over; if South continues with ♥Q and another, we find that North wins the fourth round and has no hearts left to play. Declarer wins the black suit return and cashes the remaining tricks to make the contract.
Could the defence have done better? The answer is yes - it is up to North to spot at trick two the danger of a blockage in the heart suit. The return at trick two needs to be the ♥T or the ♥8, and indeed this was found at a few tables. The false-card return deceives partner initially but with five hearts South is never worried.as the suit is still cashing. When South plays a lower heart at trick two (having led fourth best) North knows it is safe to unblock again on the next round,
Could declarer have done better? For that we have to look at the teams game and forget about the overtricks. If the focus is on making the contract, then declarer would do best to try the other options before taking the diamond finesse. The right order is to try first the top spades in case the queen falls, and when that fails to cash the clubs. When the fourth round turns out to be a winner, that too gets cashed, and look at what happens to South! There is no safe discard; the only winning chance for South is to discard a diamond, and to do that smoothly. If declarer now finesses in diamonds the contract will go down two. At the crucial point South might have been tempted to throw the ♠Q, playing partner for the ♠J, but declarer's play in spades makes no sense without the jack, so that can be avoided.
Well done to Allan Sanis who smoothly bared the ♦K against Max Davies-Smith to beat the 3N contract (only one down as the ♠AK had not been cashed), and went on to win the Mens Pairs with Keith Sharp.
Richard Harris adds : South overcalled 2♥, so on the ♥ lead I played the J with more confidence - lost to the K and (I think) 5♥ returned. The ♦K must be wrong now and ♠Q too. Played on Clubs and both defenders discarded ♠ so easy to make 10 tricks, fortunately!
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| HotD-wed : CBC Mens/Ladies Pairs : 6mar18 : B1 |
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The first board in these strongly supported events illustrated well the importance of competing. There were two crucial decisions which affected the result.
The opening bid of a weak 2♥ might not be the choice of the purist, but a four card major on the side is no longer a killer for a weak two bid, and with a suit of this quality few would hesitate. The opening comes as somewhat of a surprise to South; clearly a raise is in order, but might a slam be making? The key here is for South to count the missing key cards - and there are four of these missing and even if partner has as many as three, slam might still be no better than a finesse. Clearly there are dangers in the five level, so any investgiation leading to that level is too much. The hand deserves just a raise to game.
Spotlight now on West. The hand is an ideal shape for a takeout double of hearts - but do you do this at the four level just as you would over a 1♥ opener? The answer is that you must - or you will constantly lose out to the world today which is bidding more than ever before. Here a takeout double will get partner to bid 5♦ - which makes 11 tricks when the spade finesse works. In practice, it is likely to lead to the opponents continuing to 5♥, but that's fine too - as you have three tricks to take against it.
I note that in the Mens Pairs 6/11 pairs were allowed to play in 4♥, but in the Womens' Pairs 10/12 were allowed to play in 4♥. Does this tell us anything?
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| HotD-tue : Spring Teams 2 : 5mar18 : B7 |
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On Monday this hand was the most spectacular hand of the thirty three in use. Everyone would open the West hand with 1♣; it looks normal for North to pass now, opposite a passed partner, but it seems that at least two adventurous souls managed a 1♥ overcall. Neither path stops East shouing spades, but where there was an overcall South could now bounce to 3♥. None of this deflects West from bidding 3♠ and it's up to East now to decide how high to drive.
Only one pair managed to proceed to the grand slam from this point. This East was willing to trust partner to have a club control and leapt to 5♥ as an ace ask excluding hearts, and over the 2-key-card response bid the grand slam. The heart ace took the place of the missing ♣K to allow the grand to make.
The other successful auction had no opposition and started 1♣ - 1♠ - 2♠ - 3♦ - 4♣, the last bid confirming four spades and a club control. Now came a diamond cue, a heart cue, and a 4N asking bid which discovered three key cards opposite. Again 7♠ looked the obvious contract. Fortunately the spades did break 2-1 and not 3-0.
Only one pair did not bid any slam.
Patrick Phair adds : The heart ace meant that partner could claim as soon as spades were 2-1. But with the king instead the grand will still come in if the diamonds are 4-3.
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| Your best chance |
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West starts with the ♠2 against your game. East wins the first trick with the ♠K and returns a spde to the 9 and ten. You duck and West continues with a third spade, knocking out your Ace as East follows. What is your best play from here?
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Unless the ♦A is singleton, they are sure to duck the first round of the suit. Hence you need to try and give the opponents a guess in diamonds. Suppose you start by leading the Queen of diamonds and overtake with the King. Lets say West follows with the ♦5. Now you lead the ♦J from dummy and East has a problem if he started with say ♦A43. He will not know whether partners 5 was low from 567 or high from 52. If he decides on the latter then he may duck to deny you 4 diamond tricks. Once you have stolen 2 diamond tricks, you can cash out. |
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| How's your defense? |
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Declarer ruffs the opening lead of ♠A and leads a club on which partner shows out, discarding a spade. What do you play when you win the ♣A?
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If partner has a diamond trick it can't run away. It looks safe to return a spade but if you do then you will regret it. Declarer will cash all his minor suit winners, coming down to ♠J♥A9 in dummy. West will hold ♠K♥KJ and will have to discard before dummy. He is squeezed out of his major suit trick. You need to return a heart when you win the ♣A to kill dummy's entry. The squeeze can no longer operate. |
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| What's your Plan? |
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West leads the ♠J. Plan the play.
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The first thing to sort out is your play to trick 1. If West has led from ♠KJ, the finesse will still be there later. If East has the ♠K, then you have an avoidance play. Put up the ♠A on the opening lead and come to hand with a diamond to lead the ♣J. You intend to let this run and don't mind losing to the Queen with East. If West covers with the ♣Q then you win and return to hand with a heart to lead a second club. The critical point has now been reached. It is essential to just cover whatever card West plays, so if West produces the ♣4 on the second round, you must play the 7. That way you guaranteee 4 club tricks without giving West a chance to gain the lead a play another spade through dummy. In total, you will make a minimum of 4 clubs, 2 hearts, 2 diamonds and a spade. |
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| Count your tricks |
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West leads the ♣J, ducked all round. The ♣T follows, East playing the 5 on dummy's 6 and you ruff. Play from here.
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If spades break badly, the force has left you poorly placed. However, the contract is secure if trumps break 3-2 provided you are careful. You have 4 diamonds, 2 hearts and 3 spade tricks in hand and your tenth trick can come from a ruff in dummy. At trick 3, duck a trump. Suppose West wins and plays another club through your King. You ruff, play off the Ace of trumps (leaving one outstanding) and then cash 4 rounds of diamonds throwing 2 hearts from dummy. Then you can ruff a heart in dummy for your tenth trick. The defenders can only make a club and 2 trumps |
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| HotD-thu : Spring Teams 1 : 26feb18 : B19 |
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Sometimes the strangest hands turn out to be the easiest bidding exercises. The North hand here - with its 0166 shape - is not an everyday occurrence, but when the opposition have opened 1N there is a single, simple bid which described the hand quite well - an unusual 2N. With conventional defences to a 1N opener catering for all the major suit related hands, this bid is free and most commonly used as "both minors, or a game forcing 2-suiter". Responder gives preference between the minors and if the strong hand it held, then it bids again over that (suits up the line). In practice, South simply bid 3♣ and there matters rested.
The North hand proved to be more of a bidding problem when East-West were playing a strong 1N opener, and now West opened the bidding with 1♣. The North hand here - withonly one card in the majors - should primarily be concerned about the opponents getting together in a major suit fit, and needs to be taking steps to avoid that happening. The most effective choice would be (risky) 3♦ which would have ended the auction. When at the table North chose 1♦, East was able to double to show both majors and now West bid 1♠, raised by East to 3♠ and there the auction ended.
Neither of the auctions so far described reached the cold game available for North-South. It was however reached on three occasions - do tell if you know how that happened! [Actually one story has emerged, wherein West opened 1♠ and North made a takeout double - but the tale has been deemed as too horrible for publication]
In practice the 1♣ opener did cause a problem here, but it is worth noting that with a lot more people opening 1♣ on all balanced hands outside the 1N range (which means it might only have two clubs), it is becoming common to ignore that suit and treat a 2♣ overcall as showing clubs, and a 2N overcall as showing the minors. Here it would have been just what was wanted over a 1♣ opener.
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| Hotd-wed : Spring Teams 1 : 26feb18 : B15 |
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This deal produced a surprising variety of levels for the final contract - with two tables in a part-score, two in game and four in a slam. A number of tables faced this problem on the first round - what do you bid as North?
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Three answers to this question have been reported. There were some who bid 3♣, which, if this is agreed as showing a constructive hand (most people play it as pre-emptive), is indeed a reasonable option. [Did this end in game?]
The two part-scores both arose after North doubled the opening bid. The Norths had looked at the strength of the hand and declined the simple overcall. This was mis-guided; the rational for doubling rather than overcalling is similar to the criterion for opening 2♣ rather than one of a suit; you choose the double if you see a positive danger of the overcall being passed out and you are embarassed by missing game. With just a few extra HCP and with this shape, and with it being easy for someone to bid either red suit, the likelihood of a 2♣ overcall being passed out with game making is really quite remote and the issues if partner leaps in hearts over a double are very real. In practice after the doube, one table proceeded P-2♠-P-3♣-end and the other saw P-2♥-P-3♣-end. In neither case should South have passed 3♣, so they might have survived the double - but that does not excuse it!
And finally to the 2♣ overcall - will this work out well? Take a look at the South hand now. Many will actually have opened the bidding with this, but for those who didn't this must surely represent a maximum pass. With four card support for partner and a singleton, there is just one bid leaping out at us - a 3♠ splinter being a perfect description. It doesn't take much thought now from North to realise that 6♣ is the place to be. The only concern is a possible club loser but you are expecting 10 cards between the two hands, and South is very likely to have an honour in the suit.
Well done to the four pairs who bid the slam and clocked up +1370. |
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| HotD-tue : Spring Teams 1 : 26feb19 : B13 |
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The first session of the Spring Teams took place last night. There were 11 teams, with the top four collecting points (8 for the winner) towards the 5-session series. The winning team was Tony Letts & Roger Schofield, playing with Brian Goalby & Keith Sharp. Their biggest gain was when their opposition faced this problem on board 13. The 2♦ opening showed a weak two in a major or a strong (20-22) balanced hand. The East hand is a very decent 14-count with a five card suit - do you come in or do you pass?
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In practice the choice made was to overcall 2♥. This ended the auction and dummy went down with a 5152 shape, and East was left playing in the opener's suit! This went down one while the other table bid and made 4♠ after North had opened an unambiguous 2♥ (so the team gained 13 imps). It was just about impossible for West to recover after partner's overcall, as in this position most partnerships agreed that bidding the other major (expected to be opener's suit) is a cue bid sugesting support for partner - which is clearly not the case here.
This needs to be clocked up as a gain for the North-South system. It created a trap into which East fell. There are times when the ambiguity works against the Mutli-2♦ opener, but most people believe that the gains generally balance the losses.
Could East have avoided this trap? The answer is yes; the key is to consider what you would have done over a 2♥ opening or a 2♠ opening on your right, The answer is both cases is that you would pass - and that argues that you should reists the temptation offered here. |
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| A Thoughtful Defence |
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Your partner leads the ♣6 to dummy's King, your Ace and declarer's ♣7. How do you defend?
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Partner has clearly led a singleton and it is tempting to give him his ruff. However, if you do that, where will you find 2 more tricks? Partner would surely have led a top diamond if he held AK, and a vulnerable preempt marks the ♠A with South. Your best chance is to find partner with the ♦A. Switch to the ♦Q at trick 2. If South covers, partner can win and put you in with the ♦J. Now you can give him his club ruff. If declarer doesn't cover your diamond, then give partner his club ruff and he can then cash his ♦A for the stting trick. |
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| Maximise your chances |
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Against your game, West starts with two top spades. You ruff the second round. How do you continue?
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If the heart finesse works then you will have 11 tricks. You can improve on your chances by not playing trumps immediately. If East holds the Ace of clubs, eliminating spades and diamonds will force a heart return or a ruff and discard when he wins the trump Ace. Hence you should cash a diamond and then ruff a diamond in dummy and a spade in hand. Now play off your last diamond before exiting with a trump. If your luck is in, East will win and is endplayed - otherwise you will need the heart finesse.
Patrick Phair adds :
| no need to ruff anything -- just discard dummy's spade on the second diamond, then cash the third diamond and exit. |
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| Sublety Required |
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You lead the ♠K on which East plays the ♠3 and declarer the ♠4. Partner would unblock on your King lead so you may safely assume that declarer hold ♠AJ4. What do you do next?
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You need to put partner in for a spade lead through declarer. If partner holds the ♦K then declarer will have the ♣A and plenty of tricks. If partner holds the ♣A then declarer will eventually take a heart finesse and again the contract will make. A sublte defence is required. Switch to the ♥7 at trick 2 and you will probably find that declarer will rise with the Ace and knock out the Ace of clubs. Your spades will then get established with the ♥K as an entry to cash them. |
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| A Fistful of Finesses? |
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West leads the ♥J, and you can see finesse positions in 3 suits. It may be possible to avoid the heart finesse by coming to hand with a trump and finessing the club for a heart discard and eventually establishing a long club for another discard. Howevr, the heart finesse might be right and several other chances remain, so you finesse the Queen at trick 1. East wins the King and returns a heart, attacking dummy's entries. Play from here.
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In dummy with ♥A, you must immediately play on clubs. ♣A, ruff a club high, ruff a heart, ruff a club high. If clubs have broken, you have one more shot before resorting to the spade finesse. Lead the ♦T to the Queen in dummy. If the 7 drops, you can ruff another club high and re-enter dummy with the ♦6 to then throw a spade on the established club. |
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| HotD-thu : European Winter Teams : 21feb18 : B58 |
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Every second year a week long European Open Teams is held in Monaco, and this year the competition finishes over the next few days. The leading team in the qualifying round - and now in the last four - was the team of Zia & Meckstroth, Brogleand & Lindqvist. This was the last swing board in their quarterfinal, and the swing was vital to allow Zia's team to progress.
You can see from the bidding that Boye Brogeland had his rose tinted glasses on for this hand; playing 2-over-1 game forcing, his partner's 3♥ bid was unlimited, so making a slam try was expected. It looks like 4♣ was intended as a non-serious (serious slam values would bid 3♠) cue showing short clubs, and the 4♦ return cue bid was now more positive than the hand justified.
The lead against the slam was a club to the ace, and declarer ruffed a club before playing a diamond towards the king-queen. West rose with the ace (as good as ducking) and played back a second diamond. Declarer tried the other top diamond now, ruffed with the ♥8 and overruffed, and the proceeded to take the rest of the tricks on a complete cross-ruff.
The 13 imps from this swing (4♥+1 in the other room) was vital in the team's 11 imp win. Can you see the opening lead which would have beaten the slam?
The action continues today with the semi-finals and the final is on Friday. You can see the results and bulletins at http://www.wintergames.bridgemonaco.com and you can watch the closing play on BBO (www.bridgebase.com).
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Leading a trump at trick one beats the contract.
A trump after the diamond ace isn't good enough as declarer can now settle for only one spade ruff but set up the long club en route to drawing trumps and will get a second diamond also on this defence. |
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| HotD-wed : League 8 : 19feb18 : B21 |
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This hand from Monday produced only a few swings but contained some instructive points.
The first decision was what North should lead. With both minors bid by the opposition, it has to be a major and the ♥Q was the preferred choice. More interedstingly, there were some tables where the bidding was 2N-3N and with that bidding also - since responder has shown no interest in the majors and presumably therefore holds the minors - the same lead stands out.
From declarer's perspective there are lots of hight cards, and once the spade ace is gone a clear eight top tricks and chances in either minor for a ninth. There is a danger of the opposition cashing hearts, but with a two way club finesse on offer, there should be a chance of finessing into the safe hand when the time comes.
The one position to avoid is needing to play spades after the hearts have been set up (as you have no control over who will win the trick), so playing spades must come early. The decision on the club finesse can come later. The key is knowing who has the long hearts and here it is vital for declarer to encrouage the opposition to disclose, and to watch carefully. On the lead of the queen, ducked in dummy, South needs to encourage (or North won;t know whether or not it is safe to continue the suit when on lead) and that should locate the ten for declarer. The best choice for declarer is to duck at this point and watch the continuation. When North now plays the jack, the length is surely with South,. If North had the length (either 4 or 5), the continuation would have been a small one.
Having won the king of hearts at trick two, declarer should play on spades, and if declarer is keen to knock out the spade ace, South probably does best to refuse to take it! Ducking twice creates a dilemma for declarer for whom the danger suit switches from hearts to spades. Again reading the opposition shape is vital. If South had won the spade ace earlier (likely) and played a third heart, declarer needs to avoid losing a trick to the long heart hand. On this particular layout you would want to win the heart ace and run the club jack. This loses but you have 9 tricks at this point.
Curiously if you misjudge the heart position and take the finesse the "wrong" way - it works and you are rewarded with more tricks than you would otherwise get. Funny game this!
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| HotD-tue : League 8 : 19feb18 : B4 |
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This hand from last night produced a big variety of scores - at least one table played in every denomination! The bidding shown was at table 5 and seems inevitable; but, amazingly, there was no other table in the same contract. The contract looks sensible, but it became more tricky when North led the ♥Q at trick one it was ruffed by South, who returned the ♦K. You win this with the ace, and the next step is to draw trumps; when you play the ace of clubs and over to the king, South shows out. You draw the North's last trump with the jack, and lead a spade. South plays small - what's your choice as West?
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Let's count our tricks first. There are five trumps in the West hand and one ruff in East, plus the two top hearts and the diamond ace - a total of nine. You need two more tricks (from spades).
The key to the answer here is counting out the opponents' shape. North has shown up with 8 hearts and 3 clubs and a diamond, and so has at most one spade. Alternatively, South has only one card in the rounded suits, and has at most 6 diamonds - and so must have at least 6 spades. You only have one trump left with which to ruff a spade in dummy, and you need to make two tricks with spades in order to achieve your game.
If North has the singleton ace of spades your ♠7 or ♠J will force the ace, setting up the king but how can you get a second spade trick? The answer is that you cannot make another trick without South winning the queen - and then the contract is down.
If North has a singleton queen of spades - what can you do? Clearly the spade king is the winner here, dropping the queen and allowing you to set up a trick from the JT as your eleventh trick.
If North has no spades or a small spade - you can win with the ♠T , but what then? It seems very much like you will still lose two tricks to South - but look what happens when you exit with a top spade. South wins and has the choice of leading from the other top spade or leading from the diamond queen. Either option gives declarer the necessary 11th trick.
When you add all this together, you are going to make the contract is all cases but one, and the play which covers all but one of the layouts is to rise with the spade king. Very well done by Tony Letts to find this and make his game. |
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| Plan the Play |
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West leads the ♦Q. Plan the play.
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It is lazy to rely on hearts to produce the twelfth trick. If spades are 4-3 then the suit can be establisjed for a discard. The play should go as follows: win the diamond and play ♠A. Cross with a trump to ruff a spade. Next ruff the ♦K and a further spade ruff high. If spades have broken 4-3 then draw trumps and you can throw 2 hearts on the good spades in dummy, conceding just one heart trick. Of course, if the spade suit does not ruff good, you will fall back on playing hearts and hoping for a favourable position in that suit. |
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| Combine your chances |
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West leads the ♠Q. How do you play?
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If you draw trumps and take a diamond finesse, East will win and return a club and you don't know whether to play for the diamonds to break or for the club finesse to be right. A better line is to start the diamonds by leading the 6 from dummy. East cannot rise with the King without conceding the contract, and you now have time to test the diamond position before committing to the club finesse. If the trumps are 2-1 you can do even better by plaing on elimination lines. Ruff aspade high at trick 2, cross to a trump and ruff another spade high. A further trump to dummy allows the last spade to be ruffed. Then play a diamond to the Ace and continue with the ♦6 towards your queen. On this line you win whenever diamonds are 3-3, when either defender has singleton or doubleton ♦K, and when the club finesse is right. |
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| Dilemma |
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Partner leads the ♣T against 4♠, declarer playing the Knave from dummy. Do you win or duck? If you win this trick, what do play at trick 2?
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Should you play partner for a singleton club, or should you duck, playing partner to have a doubleton club and a quick spade entry? Often these dimemmas are a complete guess, but here there is a logical answer. Suppose partner has a doubleton club. In this case, declarer will not be able to discard a diamond from dummy and in due course you will make 2 Aces, a diamond and a spade trick (or possibly 2 diamonds and no spades). If partner has a singleton club, it is imperative to give him a ruff. You don't know partner has a singleton, but you do know that winning the Ace and returning a club is most unlikely to cost the contract. |
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| Retaining an Option |
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West leads the ♣9 against your slam. Plan the play.
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The lead marks East with the ♣A, which means it is highly likley that West holds ♥A and ♦K. Suppose the first trick goes ♣9KA ruff. After drawing trumps you can catch West on the horns of a dilemma by leading the ♥9. If West beats air with the Ace, you will have 3 discards to dispose of your losing diamonds. If West ducks, the King wins in dummy, and your second heart is ditched on the top club. The flaw in the above analysis is that East can duck your ♣K at trick 1, forcing you to make your discard prematurely. The way to counter this is to play low from dummy at trick 1. Later you put the heart through West and only then set up your club trick for a discard. |
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| HotD-thu : CBC Pairs League : 14feb18 : B3 |
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There were a few points worth discussion on both the bidding and the play on this hand from the opening session of the Spring run of the popular Pairs League. In the bidding it is important that the opener shows a good fit when partner transfers into spades, and 4♦ does that and highlights the lack of a club control at the same time. It remains a preference that the strong hand is declarer and this is best accomplished by a re-transfer. If the East hand had a heart cue bid to make, the answer is to bid 4♠ if you would be willing to pass that if partner bid it over a cue, and to bid on after 4♥-4♠ to show a cue that wasn't willing to stop. In the play the first question is the opening lead. Into a very strong hand, the key is not to give away any tricks, and the majority found a spade lead. The three who led a club or a heart all ended with 4♠ making. After a trump lead and a second round, declarer can see the potential for two losers in diamonds and two losers in clubs. The first step therefore must be to try the heart finesse, aiming to throw a loser on the third round. When this fails North again has a key choice to make. A heart lead leaves all the work for declarer to do. A diamond lead turns out much the same, although it is not without dangers. A club lead however puts declarer to an immediate test. Since declarer could have on a guess for the club queen (holding say AJ2) nobody ever leads away from the queen in this position, so declarer should place South with the queen and rise with the king, making the contract. So best if North finds a red suit return. After that the best declarer can do is to guess the clubs. There bid nothing useful as a clue. Of the Wests playing in 4♠ on a trump lead just over half made 10 tricks. |
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| HotD-wed : Winter Pairs 5 : 12feb18 : B12 |
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The travellers posted on the internet after each of our bridge games regularly produce surprises. Look at this board - where no East is recorded as playing the hand in spades. Whether playing a strong 1N opener or a weak 1N opener, it is surely right to open the West hand with 1♣ and North will pass. It has long been an accepted principle that you bid the higher of two 5-card suits first (to make it easier to bid the other later). Yet it seems that most Easts decided to ignore that and preferred to bid the stronger heart suit, before the higher ranking spade suit.
The difficulty with that approach is evident in one stand-out result on the traveller - the case where South played the hand in 2♦. How could that happen - that East-West miss a 9-card spade fit? Let's look at what happens if East bids 1♥ and South (perhaps not everyone's choice) overcalls 2♦ For West to bid spades at this point is a serious overbid and will get the partnership too high too often. Once West passes it round to East - what can East do? To double will encourage partner to bid too much in clubs, and to bid either hearts or spades now will seriously distort the description of the hand. So both East & West pass - and score -90 instead of +450.
Unfortunately most times that people bend the "rules" and bid the lower suit first, the opposition do not interfere and they manage not to get into trouble. This hand illustrates why you must bid the higher suit first, but I fear that only one pair will have noticed and learned!
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| HotD-tue : Winter Pairs 5 : 12feb18 : B10 |
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There were four hands last night wih excellent slams to be bid, but of the 24 opportunities (each board played 6 times) only 8 opportunities were taken up. Across those hands, only one pair had no chance to bid any slams (unlucky for Anne & Peter) but every other pair had at least one chance and the highest success rate goes to Ian & Val Constable bidding two out of three. Bidding a slam last night scored you either 100% or 90% or 70% on the board - never a bad result. Pairs 3 and 10 were unlucky that two slams were bid against them.
Everyone who had the opportunity failed on at least one of the candidate slams. This is not all criminal, as sometimes the bidding of the opposition can work against you, as illustrated by the hand shown. After the bidding starts with either 1♣ or 1N from East and South shows the majors, it is impossible for West to do other than jump to a game in a minor before the North-South players can get together. Indeed the par result comes from North-South sacrificing over whatever minor suit game or slam is bid. It coul dbe that the one pair who bid the slam did so over a 5♥ or 5♠ bid by the opposition.
There was one quite anomalous result - and it is one to learn from. East opened 1♣ which was the system opening on weak NT openers as well as club hands, and over that South bid 2♣ not realising that against such an opener the partnership played 2♣ as natural (usually 2♦ is used fo rthe majors inthese cases). West bid 2♦ and East faced a dilemma. With the clubs sitting over, nothing looked appealing and he guessed a pass. When this was passed out, partner was not pleased! It is not clear who was at fault here, as when the 1♣ opener might be a weak NT, the West hand in these cirumstances needs to be able to make a non-forcing bid at the 2-level in order to compete the part-score. If indeed 2♦ is non-forcing, then West needed to bid 3♦ to ensure that partner bid again. Whether South should have protected after 2♦ - P - P is a question to ponder, but clearly here passing was a winning action.
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| A stunning defence |
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You lead the ♦7, won in dummy with the King. At trick 2 declarer runs dummy's ♠8 to partners 7 and your Queen. What now?
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Partner can't hold much but he could have a singleton ten of hearts and it looks from his ♠7 that he has 3 spades. If so try the effect of switching to the ♥K. When you win the next trick with the ♠A and continue with ♥J, partner can ruff dummy's Queen and this sets up your ♥9 as the setting trick. |
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| The Clues are There |
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West leads the Ace of hearts. East encourages and wins the next 2 tricks with the King and Queen of hearts. At trick 4 he surprises you by contuing with another heart. How do you plan the play? |
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You might be tempted to ruff in dummy, discarding your diamond loser from hand, but you should regard East's actions with suspicion. He is not out to do you any favours for sure. He would not be giving you a ruff and discard if he was looking at the ♦K in his hand. The danger of discarding a diamond is that West might do the same, and if spades break 4-1, with West holding 3 diamonds, you will be stuck in dummy with no way to reach hand to draw the remaining trumps without suffering a diamond overruff. The winning line is to ruff the fourth heart in hand, draw trumps and later take the diamond finesse. It will not help West to overruff you at trick 4. |
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| A Pointer from the Play |
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West leads the ♥4 which runs to your Knave. How should you continue?
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If hearts are 4-4 you can safely knock out the ♠A. However, if hearts are 5-3 you will now go down when the diamond suit was breaking. You can't tell how the hearts lie and you cannot combine the chances. The best line is to play diamonds in the following fashion. Start by leading the Queen from hand and watch the small cards. Not knowing the location of the diamond Ace, the defenders will be anxious to give honest information at this stage. If the ♦2 appears on the first round, I would be inclined to play the suit for 3-3 and later overtake the ♦J with the King. |
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| Sole Concern |
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Partner leads Ace and another club against 5♦. Your King wins the second trick as South follows. How do you defend?
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At this point your sole concern is to preserve your possible trump trick. If say you return a neutral heart, declarer may win and lay down a top diamond. When the ten falls he may enter dummy with a spade and view to run the ♦9 and pick up your holding. You can prevent this by returning a spade at trick 3. There is an interesting corollary of this play. Suppose you held xxx in diamonds and partner has Jx. A spade return at trick 3 might induce an astute declarer into thinking that you hold Jxxx in trumps and be tempted into a first round finesse holding AKQTx |
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| HotD-thu : Swiss Teams 5 : 05feb18 : B19 |
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This hand was most commonly played in 4♠ making, but there were many defenders who felt they should have done better (and it was surprising that so many found the spade fit).
The first question is what South should open; if you have a weak 2♦ option this hand seems ideal, and if you haven't then the weakness in the majors, and the quality of the diamonds, makes this an easy 3♦ opener at this vulnerability. Surely over such an opening West will pass and East will find a take-out double. Over that, West needs to consider how the penalty will fare against the potential score for a vulnerable 3N, and one might expect the latter to dominate. You need, however, to factor in the fact that while the diamond contract will surely go down, you wan't always make 3N. If partner is good enough to make 3N easy, then there must be a chance too of collecting +800 (keeping the opener to five trump tricks r four trumps and one outside trick).
Only two pairs defended diamond contracts, and they both lost out to 4♠ making at the other table.
Defending 4♠ there were leads of a small heart from South three times, and a less obvious lead of the ♥A from North twice. After cashing the ace, West continued at table 3 with a heart ruff for partner, but that was ruffing a loser. Declarer won the return of the ♣T and had an easy time - drawing trumps, losing one club and ruffing the fourth heart. With a trump back after the ruff, declarer has a lot more to do. Given the need to draw trumps, declarer can ruff the fourth heart but not the fourth club.
After a heart lead from South at table 13, North won the ♥Q and ♥A, and thought it safest to cash the ♦ A before giving partner the ruff to beat the contract. When the ♦ A was ruffed the defensive ruff disappeared. There are now 9 tricks in sight (club finesse and give up a diamond) but somehow declarer managed 10.
How others made their 10 tricks would be interesting to hear.
Curiously the two tables where East-West's game went down were both in the same match, as were the two tables where East-West played in a part-score. So both of htose matches had a flat board.
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| HotD-wed : Swiss Teams 5 : 05feb18 : B16 |
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The opening bid on this hand divided the population on Monday (and half the field ended in a part-score, half in game). The hand is formally in the range for a Weak Two opening (decent 6 card suit, 9 HCP) but at the same time it is a seriously constructive hand (7 losers) and has more potential than many opening bids.
Opening at the one level is possible, the danger being that partner takes you seriously, and pushes to game on a misfitting 12-count.
Opening at the two level faces the danger that partner, with a suitable hand, discounts any chance of game.
Is there an alternative? There is - and it was found at some tables - the alternative being to pass. Coming into the auction later on a hand like this can give you a better chance of honestly reflecting what sort of hand you have. In practice pass led to partner opening the bidding, and then volunteering some spade support in competition while the opposition bid hearts. Isn't it easy to bid game now? That's how it went ...
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| HotD-tue : Swiss Teams 5 : 05feb18 : B8 |
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It was no suprise to see all but two tables play this hand in clubs, when North holds such a long and strong suit. The par contract is in fact 5♠ doubled down two, so well done to team 8 who at least got to play the hand in spades. It was curious to see that there were three pairs who stopped in 4♣ and two who bid 6♣. You would have expected those who stopped out of game to regret their decision, and in a way they did, but two cases of 4♣ making an overtrick were in the same matches as 6♣ going down one, so those two teams actually gained 5 imps for stopping in 4♣ on the board!
The opening bid with the North hand deserves some discussion. Three choices are known to have been taken (did anyone open 5♣ as the fourth?). Of the known openers the highest was 3N, which shows a solid running minor and little else. Usually it has a 7-card suit and usually it does not have a king outside, but one can see how keeping the opponents out of the majors was appealing to North. It would have had more appeal first in hand, but has less after one of the opponents has passed. The downside of preempting partner emerged when partner took it out to 4♣ (pass or correct) and that ended the auction; that is how two Souths got to play the hand with eight trumps lying in dummy, but in a part-score.
The lowest opening was of course 1♣ and that is recommended on this hand, You have more HCP that your RHO and you just don't know whether to play in clubs, or to allow partner to play in 3N. Partner in 3N is of course more comfortable that you playing in 3N, as any major suit tenaces will be protected. The auction should start 1♣ - P 1♦ and at that point West is entitled to enter the auction. For most people 1N here, by a passed hand, promises 5-5 in the unbid suits and this looks to be a perfect decsription. Exactly how the auction will continue is far from clear but there should be a strong bid from North and another from South, and it is hard to imagine other than a 5♣ contract at the end.
The final opening bid of which we have news is 2♣. There are two reasons why it is wrong to open with 2♣ on hands like this. The first is that if you do this but also open 2♣ on a 4315 hand with 23 hcp, then partner is going to have enormous difficulty working out what to do later in the auction. The correct rationale for opening at the two level - given hands nearly always bid more clumsily with less space - is that you are scared that your 1-level opening will be passed out and you miss a good game. That is never going to happen on this hand. But there is a second reason this is wrong - and that is because the use of 2♣ or 2♦ to show multiple hand types is restricted, because this is a conventional opening. The restriction is that if the hand might be based on any of the four suits, then the hand must contain 16+ HCP or 5+ controls (A=2, K=1). This hand fails on both counts, and the rules are that when you are found to be using an unlicensed convention your best possible result is -3 imps. It is nice when the regulations actually push you in the direction of good bidding!
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| How's your card reading? |
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West leads the ♥8. You duck trick 1 and win the second heart, West discarding a diamond. You lead the ♦K and West takes his Ace and returns the ♦J, which you duck. Your ♦Q wins the next trick, East following. You then lead a club to dummy and cash the ♠A. East follows to both these tricks but discards a heart when you play a club to your Ace. What now?
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Have you counted the hand? East shape is known to be 2731. The spade finesse is likely to be right but this does not give you the contract as you only have 3 spades, 1 heart, 1 diamond and 3 club tricks. The only chance is to drop a doubleton ♠Q. Hence cash a top spade, then a spade to the ten and a club to dummy to make the fourth spade trick. |
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| A Simple Defence |
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West leads the ♦6. Declarer ducks in dummy and you win the Queen. Now what?
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There is not much future in returning partner's suit as it is unlikely that West will have the 2 entries required to establish and cash his tricks. On the bidding, there is a good chance that declarer will hold only a doubleton spade and you should switch to Ace and another spade. Provided West has a quick entry, this will give the defence 5 tricks. Declarer would have done better to have won the first diamond, but you won't be successful at this game if you don't take advantage of opponents mistakes |
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| Draw the right inference |
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West leads the ♦T and you see that prospects are not that great. At trick 1, East produces the ♦Q and you win with the King. Both opponents follow on your spade to the Ace, and on the second round of trumps, East produces the ten. Over to you.
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The normal percentage play is to finesse, but there is something a little odd about the early play. Why did West lead a diamond from a ten high suit if holding the ♥AK. The most likley explanation is that West is missing the ♥K and hence must hold the ♠Q else East would not have passed his partner's opening bid. The correct play is therefore to rise with the ♠K in the hope of dropping a doubleton Queen. |
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| Plan the Play |
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Wst leads the ♣J. You win the Ace and play a spade to the King and Ace, win the club return with the King and cash the ♠Q, on which West discards a club. How do you continue?
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East passed originally and has shown up with ♠A and ♣Q. If East has the ♦A then he won't also hold the ♥K, and the contract will succeed easily. However, If East has the ♥K then West will hold the ♦A and the contract is in danger. If this is the layout, then you can make if East holds the ♦Q without the ♦T - giving East a flat 11 points on which he may not have opened. The correct play at this point is to lead the ♦5 from hand. West cannot profitably rise with the Ace and so you finesse the 9. If that draws the Queen, the opponents cannot attack hearts before you set up a diamond for a heart discard. |
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| HotD-thu : League 7 : 29jan18 : B2 |
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This hand produced a double figure swing in every match but one on Monday, and in that match it was flat in a slam which might have gone down.
The first quesiton on the hand is how should West respond to a 1♠ opening from partner. Clearly you are going to raise to the spade game, and you will at least splinter on the way - but with two aces and a void, are you too strong to splinter? The reason for asking is that the splinter bid leaves partner in control, so will this hand match expectations? If you would bid the same way with a small heart rather than a void, then the answer is probably no. If you can distinguish between voids and singletons in your raises to game, then you will be able to match expectations. If you are too strong to splinter, you need to start with 2N to show good support (or some other force).
Whatever you choose, North will not resist showing hearts, and indeed some Norths (and this might be over-doing it) introduced the heart suit at the five level. East, with a minimum opener, will attempt to sign off, and that should be the end of it, but in six cases it was not, and - sometimes over a raise to 5♥ by South - West jumped to the slam.
Declarer in a slam is looking at a loser in each minor, and just enough trumps in dummy to ruff the losing hearts. The only answer is to set up a winner in one minor to take care of the loser in the other. The best line in a slam on a heart lead is to ruff, and lead a small diamond away from the ace. Even though the ten loses to the king and the queen is now dropping - the slam is in trouble if South wins the ♦K and plays a club. The reson is that declarer cannot combine taking three heart ruffs with drawing trumps before cashing the ♦J. But there is an answer - declarer needs to win the ♣A, take one heart ruff while drawing trumps, and then run the trumps to squeeze South in the minors. It takes a minor suit lead at trick one from South - ignoring partner's suit - to beat the slam.
Well done to the three who bid and made it. I trust those who bid and and failed did their best.
In the other direction, two pairs got to play in 5♥ doubled, and, despite three losers, both of them made their contract. In each case their +850 combined with a team-mates' +450 for a 15 imp swing.
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| HotD-wed : League 7 : 29jan18 : B4 |
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This was a curious hand from Monday; by contrast to yesterday's hand, everyone played in the same demonination on this hand (clubs) and at only (?) three different levels - partscore, game and slam !
But the first question is what you say over the opposition's weak 2♠ opening?
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It is clear with this sort of shape you are not going to let the opposition play in game in spades, but you don't know which suit you want - you need to get partner involved.
There is a very easy way to do that - and we can see evidence of it being used at three (only three?) tables. These were the times when North bid 4N over 2♠ it show the minors, and South now picked clubs. Of course the five pairs who stopped in 4♣ cannot have bid this way. When partner bids 5♣ over your 4N, you don't have a good sense of how many tricks you will make, but you need two covers cards from the three gaps you have (♥A,♦A,♣Q) and that is too much to ask of partner. So pass seems prudent.
Even then your trials are not over. The winning lead against a strong two suiter is often a trump, as the declarer may need to ruff out the non-trump suit to make their tricks. That is the case here and three tables found the club lead that makes declarer stop and think. On a club lead, it looks right to knock out the ♦A next, but then they play a second club. You cash the other top diamond and see the ♦9 drop from the hand which opened 2♠. You are now in the fortunate (or is it unfortunate?) position of having a choice of plays. You can ruff the third diamond and hope the suit breaks 3-3, or you can take a ruffing finesse against the jack, through the hand which - on the basis of vacant spaces and the spade distribution - is more likely to hold both the missing cards.
Sad to say the ruffing finesse is the losing option and your game goes one off if you choose that. It is most surprising that there was only one declarer who ended in that position. My partners are often unlucky. |
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| HotD-tue : League 7 : 29jan18 : B6 |
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It is not often you come across a hand where the North-South pair have chosen to play in all five denominations, and at all levels from 2 through 6, but here we have one!
There were two violations of Burns' Law ("thou shalt have more trumps than the opposition") took place and it is hard to believe they were deliberate. The lowest contract of any pair was 2♣ which we can only assume was an accident with checkback or fourth suit forcing; we currently lack the details to help you avoid this one in the future! There are three unavoidable trump losers, and declarer made 10 tricks.
The other violation of Burns' Law was a 4♠ contract, and for this one the best guess is that South had opened 1♠ and a later 4♠ cue bid was interpreted as an option to play, and that "option" was accepted. The trump quality here was rather better than in clubs and there was little difficulty achieving 11 tricks.
Of the remainder there was only one denomination with only one supporter - this was the 6♦ contract reached by team 5. Their bidding started with a strong NT over which North showed his suits, and after 1N - 2♦ - 2♥ - 3♦ - 3N, he raised to 4N showing slam interrst and no fiurther shape to show. This was min-interpreted as asking for aces, and the 5♦ response was mis-interpreted as showing delayed diamond support. The 6♦ contract was playable but the winning line was odds against (run the ♦J on the first round).
More common that these three suits was the choice of playing in hearts, and there was one team in each of 4♥, 5♥ and 6♥. They all made 11 tricks. The pair stopping in 4♥ got there after South de-valued the opening hand and trerated it (being aceless and with KQ-doubleton) as a weak NT. After North had shown his suits, South felt uncomfortable bidding 3N with such good hearts and the possibility of finding a singleton club opposite, and chose to show heart support. With a club to lose, the heart slam just depended on playing either spades or diamonds for four tricks. This was achieveable in either suit but in practice the losing option is more attractive.
And finally we get to the six teams who played in 3N at four different levels. The 3N choice does seem rather pessimistic and the 6N choice by three teams seems a little ambitious with a combined 31-count and no fit. (One of these was after the same mix-up which led to 6♦). It was however the most consistently successful contract, making on all three occasions, Two are recorded as having a diamond lead away from the queen, which does indeed make the contract straightforward. Why someone would lead from a queen against 6N when there were two other suits without queens, is a mystery.
Two pairs showed evidence of triying for slam, but stopping out, as the sample bidding shown with the hand illustrates. It is impossible to argue with this evaluaiton and stopping in 4N is indeed going to be the best place the greatest part of the time, as even with all finesses going wrong there are always 10 tricks.
What is amazing is that there was only one pair played in 4N.
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| Counting is key |
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On a low club lead, East wins the knave and continues with the Ace, West discarding the ♠3. The ♣K follows and your ♥5 is overruffed with the ♥9. West now returns the ♠T. You win and draw the remaining trumps with the king and ace (West held ♥ QT9 originally). How do you continue? |
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You have already lost 3 tricks, so need the diamond finesse. The diamond pips are such that you can avoid a loser in the suit even if the suit breaks 4-1. If you lead the ♦Q at this point, this will be covered and you will not know what to do after returning to hand with a spade. East might be 2227 or 3217 shape. In order to reveal the distribution you must cash the ♠A before playing the ♦Q. Now you return to hand with a spade ruff and see how many spades East started with, allowing you to take a deep finesse on the next round if you know that East started with a singleton. West cannot split his 98 as you still have a trump entry back to hand. |
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| Count the Shape |
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West leads the ♥10 against your game. You draw 2 more rounds of trumps in hand (West started with 3), and then finesse the ♣Q successfully. The ♣A is followed by a club ruff (West following with the ♣K. What now?
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You may have been tempted at this point into playing off 3 rounds of diamonds and hoping that West has to win and give you the ♠K. However, this would be poor play as West is known to hold 3 hearts, 3 clubs, and surely 5+ spades for his vulnerable overcall. The winning line depends upon assuming that West holds the Ace of spades (a pretty good bet) - simply cash the ♦ AK and exit with the ♠K. Now you will either lose 3 spade tricks or 2 spades and a diamond trick (depending on who wins the second round of spades) but then either opponent must conced you a ruff and discard for your contract. |
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| Count the Points |
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West leads the ♣K and you win with the Ace. Both opponents follow when you csh the ♠A and West plays the queen on your next trump, as East discards a club. How should you continue? |
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You have a club loser and a probable diamond loser, so need to avoid losing 2 hearts. It looks tempting to throw West in with a club at this point, but he may be able to safely with a diamond, and you may later lose a diamond and 2 hearts. Provided diamonds are 3-2, you can make sure of the contract by taking the diamond finesse at this point. West is marked with 7 points in the black suits and passed originally. If he has the ♦K then he can't hold the ♥A. If the ♦Q holds, continue with the ♦A and if the King has not dropped, exit with a club. West will then have to open up the hearts or concede a ruff and discard. |
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| Careful with Your Defence |
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You start with the King of Diamonds and partner plays the 9 (highly encouraging in your style). Assuming partner has the ♦A, how do you see the defense developing?
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At the table, this contract slipped away from the defenders. West followed with the ♦2 at the second trick, which East won with the Ace. East now underlead his ♥A, but South guessed correctly to rise with the King, cashed the Ace of trumps, and then discarded his second heart on the clubs. Who was at fault? West rather than East - knows he has a trump trick and hence should continue at trick 2 with the ♦Q. When this holds, a heart switch forces East to take his Ace and the contract is beaten. (Note that a heart at trick 2 might be a mistake:South might hold ♥ AKT, instead of the ♣K, and now a diamond will go away from dummy on the third round of hearts. This is quite a common situation. When you hold a trick that partner does not know about, aim to prevent him making a dangerous play. |
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| How do you play? |
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Plan the play on the lead of ♦Q
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With so many trumps on the table, you may think it unnecessary to give up a diamond trick, and there are certainly many chances on this hand. The heart finesse could be right, the Ace of diamonds might come down in three rounds, and it might be possible to establish a spade trick in one way or another. However, you can make a virtual certainty of the contract by discarding a heart from dummy on the opening lead. East wins and returns a heart and you rise with the Ace, draw trumps and discard another heart on the ♦K, losing just a diamond and a spade. |
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| Place the Lead |
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West leads the ♠3 to Dummy's Ace and Easts ten. You continue with the King os spades and East discards the ♦2. What now?
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Your potential losers are 2 hearts, 1 diamond and 1 club. It would be unwise to put the contract at risk by finessing the club to East. Your contrcat is safe on the reasonable assumption that West holds the ♦A. Just run the ♣J at trick 3. Suppose West wins and returns a club. Win the Ace in dummy, return to hand with ♠Q and lead a nlow diamond towards dummy. West cannot afford to win the Ace, so must duck. When the King wins the trick, you cash 2 more clubs, throwing a diamond from dummy. Now exit with a diamond and West must open up the hearts or concede a ruff and discard. |
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| County Pairs Board 19 |
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Board 19 from Monday's pairs has some points of interest. The bidding will probably start P-P and North has a decision to make. The North hand would be too strong for a preempt in first or second position, but once partner has passed, anything goes. 4♥ has considerable merit but I guess most people would opt for 3♥. East is minimum for a bid of 3NT but no other option is particularly appealing. A double might work when partner holds spades but does not work very well otherwise and in any case will 4♠ be that great a contract with this flat hand and suits probably not breaking. 2 tables played in clubs going down whilst 2 Easts played in 3NT making. At my table, South decided that it would be too difficult to set up and cash partner's hearts, and opted to lead a diamond. This made it easy to establish 9 tricks. At the other table where 3NT was played successfully, a heart was led and one can only assume that the defense managed to get their wires crossed subsequently - South not finding the spade switch when in with the ♣K. On a heart lead declarer should play the Queen from dummy as this forces North to win the first trick. North wins and returns a heart. Here North has a chance to give a suit preference signal - the ♥J to show spade values and the ♥T with a diamond card. When declarer plays clubs, South can gain more information by ducking the first two rounds of the suit and winning the third. This allows North the opportunity for 2 discards. By discarding 2 diamonds, North is making it very clear that his only possible entry is in spades and a defensive mishap is avoided.
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| Manage your Entries |
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West leads the ♣J against 3NT. Where do you see 9 tricks coming from?
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A quick count of tricks show that you will need 3 spade tricks to fullfil your contract. Unfortunately, the club lead has knocked out one of dummy's entries, and if spades are 4-2, you lack the entries to dummy to set up and cash the spades unless you play carefully. Suppose you play a top spade at trick 2. The defence can duck this trick, win the next spade, return a club, and unless spades are 3-3, you will be limited to 2 tricks in the suit. The winning line is to simply duck a spade completely at trick 2. Now you can win any return and force out the ♠A, with the heart entry remaining in dummy. Now provided spades are not worse than 4-2, you have 3spades, 3 clubs, 2 hearts and a diamond. |
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| When you can't see anything else |
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On your lead of the ♣K, East plays the 4 and south the 9. Since the ♣3 is missing, you know another club is cashing so you play the ♣A, 6 from pertner, 10 from declarer. What now?
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It looks as if East is concealing the ♣3 - probably because he does not want to encourage a switch. It looks as if there cannot be any tricks for the defence outside of the trump suit. When there is only one thing to play for, you must go for it and play partner for ♠ Tx. Continue with a third club at trick 3. When declarer leads a spade towards dummy, rise with the Ace and play a fourth round of clubs to promote a second trump trick for your side. |
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| How do you play this slam? |
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West leads the ♣10 against your slam. This looks like a singleton so how do you set about making your contract?
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If clubs were 3-2, the slam would be laydown, but the lead looks like a singleton so you will need to conjure up an endplay to make this contract. Win the lead and ruff a heart. You can use 2 trump entries to dummy to ruff 2 more hearts. Now provided the trumps were not 3-0, you can play 3 rounds of spades, ruffing in dummy, and then exit from the table with a low club. East can win the trick, but then has to lead a club or give you a ruff and discard. |
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| Plan the Play |
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West starts with a top heart against your game. Plan the play. |
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Given that West is a strong favourite to hold the ♠A, this contract is 100%. Ruff the opening lead, Play a trump to hand and ruff another heart. A second trump to hand allows you to play a spade to the King and a second spade. Even if West has ♠AJx, all he can do is cash a second spade and then either play a club round to your hand, or concede a ruff and discard enabling you to get rid of your losing club. |
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| HotD-thu : League 6 : 15jan18 : B6 |
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This hand was played by all teams in 3N and almost all of them by South. The leads varied and two successes came from diamond leads by West, which we can only begin to justify if rather than bidding 1♦North sensibly treated hearts as more important and bid 1♥ en route to 3N. Of the remainder, there were four heart leads and six spade leads. In either case the key issue is how declarer plays the club suit. One choice seen was to start with small to the queen which lost to the king, and after that the defence had two chances to play spades before declarer could set up a ninth trick. Not a winning choice. Keith Stanley started by winning in South and cashing ♣A before crossing to the North hand before leading a second club. With a choice of playing West for either KJ or JT doubleton, restricted choice tells you to go for the former, and Keith duly did this to pull in five club tricks and his contract. The final option is to start clubs by leading small to the nine. This gains when the jack-ten are sitting under the ace-queen, and still keeps the finesse of the king as an option. When the nine loses to the jack, you win the return and try a second club. You cannot afford two club losers, so you need clubs to break 3-2, and if East follows small you are back to choosing whether West started with KJ or JT, and should get that right. It is more difficult if East plays the ten on the second round; here there are three Jx doubletons to consider against one KJ doubleton, so finessing the queen is indicated but fails. The bottom line is that 3N expects to go down, but it would be very easy for East to miss the vital play and now 3N makes! |
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| HotD-wed : League 6 : 15jan18 : B2 |
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This was the problem faced at a number of tables on Monday; would you take out partner's double, as requested, or pass for penalties? |
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Here's the case for passing : your side clearly has the majority of the high card points, and they are at three level. You also have four trumps, and you are expecting a club lead which can hardly do any harm to the defence. What could be easier?
Let's look at the case of bidding : if we disregard our diamonds, then we have a minimum hand (11 HCP) and no fit for the majors partner is suggesting. The only valid option seems to be 3N, but we have a lot of tricks to find outside clubs. Not terribly convincing.
It is no surprise that the majority chose to pass, but should the -670 they wrote down a few minutes later be a surprise?
What we haven't examined yet is the case against passing partner's double : the two major factors we need to ponder are the knowledge which South has of the vulnerability, and what our defensive tricks will be. Being vulnerable against not, South should be thinking of making say seven tricks when they bid 3♦ as any fewer would be embarrassing even if not doubled. If dummy produces just two tricks, say from the major suit kings, then this 3♦ contract might make. From the defensive perspective, we'll surely have at least one club and at least one diamond, but will we have more?
This thinking led a few Easts to bid 3N as the least bad option. Success or failure was then in the hands of South. When a low diamond was chosen, that was declarer's ninth trick (after playing out the ♠ST) and a score of +400 to East-West. |
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| HotD-tue : League 6 : 15jan18 : B1 |
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The first board last night was an uncommon shape, but was amazingly amenable to a very accurate description. You might wonder first how often a 7600 shape comes up. The answer is one hand in 17970, which means that in Cheltenham Bridge Club, playing 200+ deals every week, we should see perhaps three of these in an average year. They won't all be as strong as this hand, and it might be that you are not in the seat which holds this hand (and nobody gets to all sessions). When you open up this hand as North, there is only one thing you want to know - if partner has the club king I want to be in a grand slam, and if not then I want to try playing 6♦ (not 100% guaranteed but a decent chance). Despite the strength of the hand, the best approach on hand like this is to start by bidding your longest suit. Opening 1♦ and bidding 6♣ on the next round gets you to the right level, but will partner know what to do? You would not bid like this without 12 tricks, and so you must have only one loser. If that loser was an ace then you would have opened 4N to ask partner for specific aces. So partner will know that the major suit aces are of no value, but if looking at the club king, partner will know that this is the loser held by North, and will produce a raise to the grand slam. If the loser was elsewhere, then North would have taken another route to slam, as you could never jump to 6♣ with only five of them. Sometimes bidding is easier than it looks! |
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