TIPS FOR IMPROVERS

Points of interest from the October 2014 duplicates

1       Exclusion Key Card + Asking for 3^rd round Club control on same hand !

Board 26 Monday 27 October – Vulnerability Amber – Dealer East

North                         East                         South                         West

                                 1 Heart                   Pass                           2NT

Pass                          5 Diamonds             Pass                            5 Spades

Pass                          6 Clubs                   Pass                            7 Hearts

Pass                          Pass                       Pass

Only one pair managed to even reach a small slam on the above hand and nobody reached the Grand Slam which is effectively 100%.

Although East has a very powerful hand with only four losers on the losing trick count it is still best to start off with a simple 1 Heart opener as the chances of the bidding dying at this level are very remote.  West has a routine Jacoby 2NT response showing four card Heart support and at least the values for game. 

At this point it is pointless for East to use ordinary RKCB as he has a void in Diamonds.  Consequently East should jump to 5 Diamonds.  As previously illustrated in Tip 1 April 2014 this inexplicable jump to the five level shows a void in that suit and asks partner to show how many key cards he has OUTSIDE that suit.  With 0 or 3 keycards he bids one step up – 5 Hearts – with one keycard he bids two steps up – 5 Spades.

Here West responds the second step showing one keycard.  At this point East might gamble on 7 Hearts but if partner’s Clubs are three small this would be a poor contract.  In such circumstances when all the keycards are present (the Ace of Diamonds not being required in this instance) the bid of a new suit at the six level asks responder “Please bid a Grand Slam if you have third round control of this suit”.  Over 6 Clubs West is delighted to jump to 7 Hearts.  Refer to Tip 2 March 2014 for another example of this.

2       Jumps to 3 of a Minor after partner opens 1NT

Board 5 Wednesday 29 October – Vulnerability North South – Dealer North

¹           Sets Diamonds as trumps

²           RKCB for Diamonds

The above hand is a great example of playing the modern three level responses to 1NT which I first learnt in 2005 when I started studying five card majors as played by the American Steve Robinson.

After a 1NT opening a jump to 3 Clubs shows 5-5 in the minors invitational ie 7 – 9 points.  A jump to 3 Diamonds shows 5-5 in the minors game forcing with possible interest in slam. 

Over 3 Diamonds if opener is very strong in the majors and has no interest in playing in a minor suit then he bids 3NT.  If opener wishes to set Clubs as trumps he bids 3 Hearts while if opener wishes to set Diamonds as trumps he bids 3 Spades.  The beauty of this is that responder knows which trump suit has been agreed.  Here South goes straight to RKCB for Diamonds and on hearing of three Keycards opposite then bids 5NT to announce that all the keycards are present.  North bids 6 Hearts to show the King of Hearts.  Thus North has shown 14 of his 15 points through Keycard.  South has a choice between playing in 7 Diamonds or 7NT.  If North only has two small Clubs there might be some advantage in playing in Diamonds rather than No Trumps so one might bid 7 Diamonds at teams but gamble on 7NT at pairs.

The odds of the Grand Slam making are approximately 85% (all 3-2 breaks = 68% plus 4-1 breaks with either ♦Jxxx or ♦xxxx or ♦J on right = 16.8%)

Only one pair out of eight reached the Grand Slam in the Wednesday Duplicate.

3       Easts hang your heads in shame

Board 10 Wednesday 29 October – Vulnerability Amber – Dealer East

Four pairs managed to reach 3NT on the above hand but all four misplayed it and so went down.

Note that despite having 17 points East should only rebid 2 Clubs because a jump to 3 Clubs would be game forcing and East is not strong enough to insist upon game when partner has only promised 6 points.

As West has a good 8 points he gives a false preference to 2 Diamonds to allow for East being strong enough to make a third bid.  When East now bids 3 Clubs this shows a strong 5-5 (at least 16 points) and an interest in game.  West should now co-operate but cannot bid 3NT as he has no stop in Spades the unbid suit.  Accordingly he bids 3 Spades to which East is happy to bid 3NT.

The opening lead is the 5 of Spades.  East must win the first trick because a switch to Hearts would be most unwelcome.  In addition it is important to appreciate that even if South has craftily led his 5^th highest Spade from KQ875 that the presence of the 9 in the Dummy means that the suit is certain to be blocked and the defence will be unable to take four Spade tricks.

Declarer has a choice between playing on Diamonds or Clubs.  It is correct to play on Clubs for two reasons.  Firstly you have an eight card fit rather than a seven card fit and secondly if the Diamonds are breaking they will still be breaking if you are forced to revert to Diamonds later in the play.

At trick two the Ace of Clubs is cashed in case South should have a singleton Queen.  Then Dummy is entered with the Ace of Diamonds and a Club finesse of the Jack taken which wins.  However although a 4-1 break is disclosed this is of no concern provided that when Declarer continues with the King of Clubs at trick five and another Club at trick six he must be careful to discard a Heart and not a Spade from the Dummy.  The defence continues with Spades but even if Spades are 5-2 they cannot cash four Spade tricks as previously observed and so 9 tricks are made with four Club tricks, three Diamond tricks and the major suit Aces.

I would strongly recommend that those Easts who failed to distinguish themselves should buy copies of two excellent books written by the American author Eddie Kantar titled Take All Your Chances at Bridge published in 2009 and Take All Your Chances at Bridge 2 published in 2011.  Each book has 100 hands which give excellent advice on how declarer should combine his chances to best effect to maximize the chances of success.

By playing on Clubs you will only do down if Declarer’s LHO has Queen to four Clubs and the Diamonds do not break 3-3.  The odds of the Clubs coming in for four tricks are:-

3-2 break = 68%

4-1 onside = half of 28% = 14%

Singleton Queen onside = 1/5 of 14% = 2.8%

Total Probability of Clubs coming in = 84.8%

When Clubs do not come in then if the Diamonds are 3-3 you will also make ie 15.2% x 36% = 5.4%

Thus the total probability of making the contract is 90.2%.