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!

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? 

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.

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.

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!

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.

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?

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!

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 .....

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.

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? 

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

1. 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!
2. The hand has good defence to any opponent's contract, with three possible defensive tricks.
3. 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?

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.

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.]

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.

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!

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

1. North is showing some positive values by raising the bidding level with a 2♥ bid.
2. 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!

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).

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?

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.

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. 

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?

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.

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]

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.

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 !

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.

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♦.

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.

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♣.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

1.   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.
2.   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

1.   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.
2.    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.

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?

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 .....

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?

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?

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?

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♣.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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]

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!

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.

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]

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).

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,

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. 

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!

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!

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.

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?

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?

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?

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?

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.

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).

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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).

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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.

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".

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.

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?

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!

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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 ...

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?

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!

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?

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?

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!

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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!

This hand was bid uniformly to 3N.  What should South lead?

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.

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.

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.

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 ....

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. 

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.

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.

 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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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!

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?

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?

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?

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?

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.