TIPS FOR IMPROVERS

Points of interest from the May 2014 duplicates

1       When both opponents have bid a suit a bid by the 4^th player of one of the opposition suits should be played as natural

Board 13 Tuesday 20 May – Vulnerability Amber – Dealer North

North opens 1 Heart a routine Rule of 20 opener.  South responds 1 Spade and the focus turns to West.  Many years ago it was recommended that the best course of action was to pass and to come to life later on.  However this has now gone firmly out of fashion and it is best for West to bid 2 Spades.  This would usually show a good 6 card Spade suit in view of Spades being bid on the right of West but with a very strong 5 carder it is acceptable to bid with 5 on this occasion.  East may be tempted to pass but with three trumps headed by an honour, the Ace of Hearts and a singleton Club he is well worth a raise to 3 Spades.  West is happy to go to game with his five loser hand and attractive 5-5 shape.

The best lead for the defence is the singleton trump.  Normally a singleton trump is a bad lead but since South is known to have four Spades on the bidding it is unlikely to do any damage.  West must be careful to win in hand with the 10.  He then plays Ace of Clubs and a Club ruff.  A low Heart to the King and a further Club ruff with the Jack of Spades follows.  He thus makes 10 tricks with seven trump tricks, two Heart tricks and one Club trick.

2       Where is the Queen of Clubs ?

Board 24 Thursday 22 May – Vulnerability White – Dealer West

North South quickly brush aside the weak two opener from West and reach a contract of 5 Hearts.

At first glance it might appear that the contract depends on locating the Queen of Clubs but as the play develops you will see that this is not the case.

East leads the King of Diamonds (usual to lead the King from Ace King against contracts at the four level or higher).  When West plays low it is more likely that the singleton lies with North than with West so East now switches to the Queen of Spades.  West should overtake this with the King and return a trump.  Declarer wins in hand and trumps his second Spade in the dummy.  Now the second round of Diamonds is trumped and a low Heart to the King follows as East discards a Spade at trick six.  At trick seven a third round of Diamonds is trumped but the Ace of Diamonds has not appeared. 

At this point Declarer should stop to work out West’s distribution.  West is known to be exactly 6=2=3=2 and therefore East is known to be 4=1=4=4.  The position of the Queen of Clubs is now irrelevant because Declarer plays out his remaining trumps from tricks eight to ten.  At trick ten East in order to keep the Ace of Diamonds has to come down to a doubleton Club.  The Queen of Diamonds is now discarded from the Dummy.  The last three tricks are made with the Ace, King and Jack of Clubs, with the Queen of Clubs certain to fall and it does not matter whether it originally lay with West or East.

3       Safety Play in Diamonds almost 97%

Board 17 Tuesday 27 May – Vulnerability White – Dealer North

North opens a weak 2 Hearts which is passed round to West who doubles.  Over the double East bids 3 Hearts.  As those readers who have received my notes on Lebensohl will know this bid shows an opening hand with a Heart stop and exactly four cards in the other major Spades.

How should West respond to East’s cue-bid ?  Clearly the partnership have enough points for slam to be in the offing but it is not clear in which denomination they might belong.  The modern bid in these circumstances is for West to jump to 5NT saying to partner “please choose a slam”.  Over 5NT East looking at his chunky four card holding in Clubs and the Ace of Hearts chooses to play in 6 Clubs which West is delighted to pass holding Queen to four trumps.  (Note that even if West’s clubs were only QJx rather than Qxxx then 6 Clubs would still be a very good contract with the Heart ruff providing an extra trick even with a 4-3 fit.)

The play is very interesting.  If trumps break 3-2 then 12 tricks are guaranteed since Declarer would be certain to make five trump tricks, four Diamond tricks, two Spade tricks and one Heart trick.  However after winning the Ace of Hearts at trick one and playing a Club to the Queen followed by a second Club to the Ace the bad news arrives in the form of a 4-1 break with surprisingly the weak two bidder being the defender with four cards.  At this point North is known to have started with 10 cards in Hearts and Clubs and so therefore there is a significant danger that the Diamonds will break 5-1.

The correct play at trick four is therefore to run the 10 (or 9) of Diamonds.  If this wins then Declarer can then trump a Heart in the Dummy, finesse against the Jack of Clubs and on the last trump South has to discard in front of the Dummy from ♠Qxx ♦Jxxx.  If South discards a Spade then Declarer discards a Diamond from the Dummy.  If South discards a Diamond then Declarer discards the 10 of Spades from the Dummy.  In either case all thirteen tricks are made resulting in a score of +940 to East West. 

If the 10 of Diamonds loses to the Jack in the North hand then now North will return a third trump.  A Heart will then be trumped in the Dummy and now East will seek to enter hand to draw the last trump by playing a second Diamond to the 9 (or 10).  Thus if North has won a trick with the singleton Jack of Diamonds the contract will be defeated.  When the Diamonds are 5-1 the odds are 5 to 1 that the Jack is in the five card holding.  Thus the odds of North having a singleton Jack of Diamonds is one sixth of 14.5% (the odds of a 5-1 break) = 2.4%.  The only other scenario to consider is the possibility of a 6-nil Diamond break which is 1.5%.  If the Diamonds are 6-nil and North ruffs the first round of Diamonds then Declarer will now need to finesse in Spades to make the contract.   Thus on the 6-nil breaks half the time Declarer will succeed and half the time he will fail.

Therefore the failure rate of the safety play in Diamonds is 2.4% plus 0.75% which is only 3.15%.