TIPS FOR IMPROVERS

Points of interest from the October 2015 duplicates

1       The 8 of Diamonds saves the day

Board 20 Thursday 9 October – Vulnerability Amber – Dealer West

Only two pairs out of ten managed to reach the excellent 6 Diamond contract above. 

West opens 1 Club and East responds 1 Diamond.  Note that you never jump as responder when you have a two-suited hand.  West rebids 1 Heart and now East bids 4^th suit forcing.  Now West should jump to 3 Clubs to show the strong six card suit and extra values.  East repeats his Diamonds to show a good six carder and now West can bid 3NT with a stop in Spades.  East is still interested in slam and continues with 4 Diamonds which implies that his suit is self supporting and can play opposite a singleton or void.  Although West has a void in Diamonds it costs nothing to cue-bid 4 Hearts showing the King or Ace  of Hearts (East knows that it is the King as he has the Ace).  That is all the encouragement East needs to jump to 6 Diamonds.  South has a difficult lead and is hardly likely to lead a Spade from Kx.  Say he leads a Club Declarer should trump in hand and immediately play Ace of Diamonds followed by Queen of Diamonds.  Although the Diamonds are 5-1 fortunately North has the singleton 9 of Diamonds so on a Club continuation Declarer wins in the Dummy discarding a Spade plays a Heart to the Ace and draws the rest of the trumps with the 8 of Diamonds proving the crucial card.  Finally Declarer crosses to the King of Hearts and discards his remaining Spade losers on Dummy’s winning Clubs.

The odds of the Diamonds coming in are 3-3 break (36%) + 4-2 break (48%) + 5-1 break with the singleton being the 9 (1/6^th of 15% = 2.5%).  Total probability of success = 86.5%.

2       Breaking the Transfer with 2NT

Board 6 Thursday 15 October – Vulnerability East West – Dealer East

Not a single pair managed to reach the excellent 4 Spade contract.  Some pairs reached 3NT which would always be defeated on the lead of the fourth highest Heart from East but which should make if East makes the more normal lead of the Jack of Hearts.  (On the Jack of Hearts opening lead North’s 9 of Hearts becomes a third guard in the suit and provided Declarer plays Spades to keep West off lead the contract cannot then be defeated).

However back to the bidding.  When South transfers into Spades if North simply bids 2 Spades this will (or should) end the bidding.  South should definitely not make a game try with a poor eight points at pairs and ten tricks would result for +170.  However while most readers are familiar with the idea that when opener has four card support for responder’s major he should break the transfer by jumping to 3 of the major it is perhaps less well known that when you have a maximum 17 points with three card support and good controls in a balanced hand you should break the transfer by bidding 2NT.  South now knowing that North has a maximum with three card Spade support wants to be in game but he first of all retransfers by bidding 3 Hearts and then raises 3 Spades to game.

4 Spades makes if:-

a)         Trumps break 3-2 and the Clubs break 3-3

            68% x 36% = 24%

b)         Trumps break 3-2, Clubs do not break 3-3 and the Diamond finesse is working

            68% x 64% x 50% = 21%

c)         East may sometimes lead a Diamond at trick one from a holding which includes the Queen as with only Spades having been bid naturally he would have three suits to choose from and might not have a Heart holding which looks safe to lead from.

d)         Either East of West has 109 of Clubs doubleton.

So in practice whenever Spades break 3-2 you want to be in game.

3       6 Diamonds – the play’s the thing

Board 21 Monday 26 October – Vulnerability North South – Dealer North

Only four out of 12 pairs managed to reach 6 Diamonds on the above hand.  However of these four pairs three of them played it so carelessly that they failed to make the contract.

I will give two bidding sequences depending on whether West makes a WJO in Hearts.

With West silent

With West bidding

Note that where West is silent that North should jump in Clubs not Diamonds because it keeps the bidding at a lower level.  As 3 Clubs is game forcing South should simply bid 3 Diamonds which shows at least a 5 card suit and denies either three Spades or four Clubs.  When North hears South bid Diamonds his hand is absolutely enormous.  Rather than simply raise Diamonds he should jump to 4 Hearts which is almost certainly a void showing splinter showing either a 6=0=3=4 shape or 5=0=4=4 shape.  With South holding a singleton Spade, good Diamonds and the Queen of Clubs (not forgetting his Ace of Hearts) this is all the encouragement which he needs to jump to the slam.

Where West makes a weak jump overcall then North doubles for takeout.  South bids Diamonds and North cue-bids showing a hand too good to simply raise to game in Diamonds.  Again for the reasons in the first auction South jumps to slam.

Let us assume that West makes the opening lead of the King of Hearts.  South has three losers in Hearts and no losers in any other suit.  Accordingly South needs only to ensure that he trumps two Heart losers in the Dummy in order to make 12 tricks.  Let us go through the play trick by trick in order to see how 12 tricks are guaranteed with maximum safety.  In fact as we shall see correct play actually leads to all 13 tricks being made on a squeeze against West.

Trick 1 – King of Hearts ruffed in the Dummy.

Trick 2 – The Ace of Diamonds is cashed to check that Diamonds are not 4-0.

Trick 3 – Low Diamond to the Jack (trumps are 3-1 the most likely break).

Trick 4 – Trump the second round of Hearts in the Dummy with the King of Diamonds.

Trick 5 – Low Club to the Queen.

Trick 6 – Cash the Queen of Diamonds discarding a Spade from the Dummy.

Trick 7 – Spade to Ace.

Trick 8 – Trump the second round of Spades.

Trick 9 – Low Club to the King.

Trick 10- Trump the third round of Spades.

On this trick West is squeezed.  He is still to discard in the following position:

If West throws a Club then South cashes the Ace of Hearts and makes the last two tricks with Ax of Clubs for 13 tricks.  If West throws the 10 of Hearts then now South has two Heart winners and makes the last trick with the Ace of Clubs.