a) Double. 

Well, wouldn't anyone?

b) Pass. 

No, this isn't "one of those" trick deals where the defenders live to regret an injudicious double. If 6♠ won't make, how on earth can anything else make when the opponenst have shown in the bidding that they have a spade fit? To be fair, there's not a great deal of point in doubling as you're clearly set for a near top whatever happens. But double would turn a 90% board for two down into a 99% board for two down doubled on the night (some Norths were already going one of two down in game, usually undoubled).

c) Pinch yourself, to check you're not dreaming. 

An understandable reaction... but no, this bidding really happened (see EBU Game 3 on 3rd December 2021)

d) Call the director, there's obviously been a mis-deal. 

There's no such thing as a mis-deal on BBO, nor, for that matter, bids out ot turn, leads out of turn or revokes. They're all "impossible" in online bridge.  The TD must get very bored.

e) Wait for the dust to settle and claim 100 for honours. 

Sorry, I forgot most of you aren't old enough to remember the "good old days" of rubber bridge! My attempt at humour (via BBO chat) to lighten the mood went down like a lead balloon with the opponents.

If you were expecting a serious article, I'd hate to disappoint you, so there is a point or two of interest in the deal:

1. A penalty double of a freely-bid slam is often taken to be a "Lightner Double", asking partner to find an unusual lead, usually with a void and wanting a ruff.  This is because the likely gain from a penalty double is relatively small (typically 100 instead of 50 non-vulnerable, or 200 instead of 100 vulnerable), whereas if a thin slam happens to make, the potential loss is much greater. Skid Simon devotes the entire opening chapter of his classic bridge book "Why You Lose at  Bridge" to discussion on this very point. Of course, these arguments do not apply so strongly at MP scoring, as played at most clubs nowadays.

2. Assuming the double was a Lightner double, what should you lead? Well, based on the likelihood that partner's hoping for a ruff, a heart would be indicated as the most likely lead.  And if the double was simply based on certain tricks in the trump suit, the lead could hardly matter. As we hadn't discussed whether slam doubles were Lightner, I played safe and led a diamond, which in fact cost a trick. Best defence gets the slam three down on a forcing defence after a heart lead and continuations when in with the master trumps. Try the deal on Play it again if you need convincing.

But we were happy to settle for two down doubled, for a 300 penalty and a joint top on the board. A gift.

Dave Simmons
December 2021

I looks like your luck may be in on this deal after all, you now just need the ♣K to be onside. You take the club finesse playing East for ♣Kxx and... you're one down, for a bottom.

Now see how Richard's thinking went: "I figured that East would probably have 4 clubs for his double and if that included the King I couldn't pick it up, so my only chance was that West had the singleton King. Otherwise the contract was doomed. If East hadn't doubled I would certainly have taken the finesse for one off."

Obvious (?)... once you think of it! That's why Richard is an NGS ♦A and we're not!

Several instructive points on the deal [that's what post mortems are for... to learn from them so you can do better next time, not to tell your partner how you would have bid or played the hand in their shoes — usually with a large dose of hindsight!]

1. Pre-emptive bids such as weak-twos and weak jump overcalls are often very effective. Note that West wasn't put off bidding 2♥ by having four cards in the other major, and that East cheekily increased the barrage by raising to 3♥ with only doubleton support. Not textbook bidding maybe, but at love all it often pays to bend the rules and bid light.

2. East's final penalty double was a typical "match Point double". He can't be sure that 5♣ is going down, but it looks pretty likely. Whereas at teams or rubber bridge, it would be crazy to double (see point 3 below).

3. As Richard's analysis pointed out, the double tipped him off on the right line to take. On the face of it, East risked conceding an extra 150 if 5♣ makes, to gain an extra 50 if it goes one down. Much worse, without the double declarer would have gone down so the double in effect cost 550 instead of gaining 50... very poor odds indeed.

4. Richard was certainly lucky on this board, as he needed all the key cards to be favourably placed to stand any chance of making. But he backed his judgement where most of us wouldn't. One of his favourite quotes is Gary Player's "The more I practice, the luckier I get". I'm beginning to see why he likes that quote so much!

Dave Simmons
August 2021

One look at dummy and I feared the worst. My club holding looks worthless as my club honours can be finessed, and worse still, declarer could easily have ♦xx, and be able to establish diamonds with a single ruff to discard any spade losers. Declarer has plenty of trumps and no entry problems. To defeat the contract, it looks like we have to take three tricks in the major suits, and quickly, with one heart and two spade tricks just enough to defeat the doubled contract..

As stated, our normal agreement on a King lead would be to signal count, but a count signal is irrelevant here... dummy just has a singleton heart, and it's hard to imagine any holding for declarer that would make a heart continuation sensible (in some cases, a trump continuation may be required, but not here).

In this situation, it's irrelevant whether partner has led ♥A for attitude or ♥K for count, the only useful signal is a suit preference signal. Partner may need to know whether to switch to a diamond or a spade, and the way to show this is by playing a low card as preference for the lower-ranking suit (in this case, diamonds) or a high card as preference for the higher-ranking suit (spades).

In this case, a diamond switch would seem to be an unlikely requirement, but it does no harm to signal for a spade anyway. You have to hope that partner has ♠K and you can cash two top spades off the top.

You may be wondering "what if declarer has ♠K"? Then it makes no difference what you do, declarer can simply lead towards his ♠K and make it later. In that case, the defence's third trick will have to come from elsewhere.

So marks out of ten as follows:

a) ♥2.  0 marks.  A count signal is irrelevant and can be no help to partner. In fact, this card might even be interpreted as a request for a diamond switch.
b) ♥5.  3 marks.  Play the highest of your heart spot cards to request a spade... but ♥5 is not a clear signal.  So...
c) ♥J.  7 marks.  Be kind to partner and make your suit preference signal as obvious as you can.  You can surely spare the ♥J (crying out for a spade switch).

But why only 7 marks out of 10 for the third answer? 

Because the winning defence is obvious once you think of it... it's cash-out time. Overtake ♥K with ♥A, cash ♠A and lead a low spade to partner's presumed ♠K. This cannot cost a trick, and guarantees the defence will take their third setting trick, assuming it is available. Click on Show All Hands to see that this was indeed the case.

At the table, I played ♥5 as a rather feeble suit-preference signal. My partner was understandably reluctant to switch to a spade from ♠KJ10 in case it cost a trick and opted for a "safe" heart continuation. Inevitably, my first reaction was annoyance as I thought a spade switch was "obvious"... but on reflection it was entirely my mistake. The spade switch may have been obvious to me, but partner can't see my hand.

That was an expensive mistake and easily avoided... with the benefit of hindsight. Declarer made an easy 11 tricks in 5♣ doubled for a nice round score of 0% to us, whereas 10 tricks would at least have salvaged an Avge/- for us with a 44% score.

The moral of the story: make life easy for partner... if you can see the winning defence yourself, don't give your partner the opportunity to go wrong.

Dave Simmons
April 2021

With no high-card points (HCPs), the knee-jerk reaction is to pass. But wait a moment... you do have 4-card trump support and two singletons, so your hand is a lot better than you may have thought at first sight. It could be worth scraping together a 2♥ response?

Hand evaluation methods vary, and there's no guaranteed method. But one thing's for sure, any hand evaluation method must take into account shape as well as HCPs, or it's worthless. Using the losing-trick count (LTC) on a trump fit, your hand has 8-losers, so on that evaluation method, the hand is in fact too strong for a minimum 2♥ response. So maybe 3♥?

This would certainly be the bid in some systems if North had intervened with a take-out double. This is also the case if you follow the simple rule of always "raising to the level of the fit" — here you have at least nine hearts between you (as you're playing 5-card majors), so you bid to make nine tricks in hearts.

Yet another school of thought might well argue that if partner has a minimum opener, your left-hand opponent (LHO) may well be stacked, so an immediate pre-emptive raise to 4♥ could even be called for (if your system recognises an immediate jump raise to game as weak). On the same basis, some bridge tigers out there would open a pre-emptive 3♣ third in hand, especially at favourable vulnerability, but perhaps not for the faint-hearted!

Decision time, then: Pass, 2♥, 3♥ or 4♥. Not an easy decision unless you habitually apologise to partner with the phrase "Sorry partner, I couldn't bid. I didn't have enough points", a phrase that only extreme torture would force from my lips!

However, at unfavourable vulnerability, perhaps discretion is the better part of valour, and East is content to bid a reluctant 2♥, which partner immediately raises to 4♥, ending the auction.

Not a lot to the play, as the cards lie (click on Show all hands). North is likely to lead a trump (best) from that horrible choice. On any lead, declarer has five trumps in hand, two aces, and two ruffs in dummy for an easy nine tricks. Slack defence can allow the 4♥ contract to make, and there are double-dummy lines that make a guaranteed ten or twelve tricks, depending on whether South goes up with the ♥K at trick one.

So maybe 4♥ wouldn't have been such an overbid, after all! 

Dave Simmons
April 2020

Well, you can quickly rule out a trump — ridiculously passive with discards on dummy's hearts staring you in the face, not to mention the risk of partner holding ♠Kx (hardly impossible, on the bidding)!

Similarly, a third club seems futile — there's no prospect of a trump promotion with South's trump holding.

That leaves a heart or a diamond. Normally, a singleton is an attractive lead, but ♥J looks very dangerous... what if declarer wins in dummy, draws trumps and discards any diamond losers on the remaining top hearts. I suspect most South's didn't think any further than that, and switched to the "obvious" diamond. However, a little more thought shows that it's not quite as simple a decision as all that. What if declarer has a singleton heart? Then a heart switch will kill dummy's hearts — declarer will be forced to play for immediate discards with no second entry to dummy, and you will ruff the second round of hearts, as the cards lie.

So what's it to be?

The deal was played nineteen times in 4♠ on the day, with a top club led almost every time. Most of the NS pairs made just two tricks, scoring 32% on the board. But three brave Souths found a heart switch at trick 3, resulting in one down for a joint top, scoring a spectacular 95%!

I'm still trying to work out whether this was brilliant defence, or just a lucky guess... you tell me.

Dave Simmons
March 2020

Well, after that bidding, it's obvious there's some freak distribution about, so you need to worry about defensive ruffs. For West to make a pre-emptive weak-jump overcall at unfavourable vulnerability missing ♥AKQ10, she must surely have at least a 7-card heart suit. Similarly East must have at least a 6-card club suit to bid at the 4-level missing ♣AK, with at most a singleton heart.

Anyway, trick one is easy, call for dummy's singleton ♥A with fingers crossed... phew, it's not ruffed. What next? Do you take the trump finesse, or bang out ♠A and another, attempting to minimise the risk of a ruff. Both lines could be a spectacular success or failure, depending on the trump layout. Suzanne decided on the natural line of taking a trump finesse at trick 2.

West won with the ♠K and returned a second heart. Do you let the heart return run to your ♥ KQ10? If so, you're down straight away, as East ruffs! Did you carelessly run the ♠10 at the previous trick, hoping to repeat the trump finesse if it held? If so, you're still down straight away! East now over-ruffs the second heart.

At the table, Suzanne ruffed the second heart high with dummy's carefully preserved ♠10, but was still faced with the problem of returning to hand to draw trumps. Clearly, it can only be done with a club or a diamond ruff. She thought long and hard. Holding a singleton, going for a club ruff seems the obvious route, but if West is void in clubs (likely on the bidding), crossing in clubs will be fatal. There again, crossing in diamonds doesn't feel so great either, as [at least] two rounds of diamonds have to stand up for this to work.

If you tried to cross in clubs, hard luck — you're down, as West ruffs the first round. Suzanne played ♦AK and led a third diamond, East following with 4, 10 and Q. Do the diamonds break 3-3 or 4-2? Can you afford to ruff high to avoid a possible over-ruff? As the cards lie, this is the one decision declarer can't get wrong! Click on Show All Hands to see the detail.

Suzanne ruffed high, drew trumps and claimed. Phew!

Some other points of interest on the deal:

• West did well to find the heart lead... on a diamond lead, 6♠ is an easy make... declarer just runs the ♠10 at trick 2 and can't go wrong.
• What do you think of the 3♥ and 4♣ bids by EW? Both these contracts could go for a mouth-watering penalty doubled, vulnerable. But the 3♥ bid (especially) makes the slam quite difficult to bid.
• Would declarer have made the slam with no opposition bidding? Almost certainly not! Declarer is tipped off about the risk of defensive ruffs by the bidding. If the opposition had passed throughout, I'd expect Suzanne to have gone [very unluckily] two down, as she'd have had no reason not to run the ♠10 at trick 2, and the defence can now score both a heart and a club ruff. Ouch!
• Accurate declarer play starts with the bidding — listen to the bidding and use all the clues to help you work out the likely distribution.

On this occasion, Suzanne fully deserved my comment of "Well played, partner".

Dave Simmons
February 2020

Your best chance of avoiding a heart loser is to cash the ace, succeeding when the king is singleton either side. The alternative of running dummy's queen wins only when specifically West holds a singleton jack, half as likely.

However, cashing the ace of hearts will not be so clever if East holds ♥KJx, as you will lose two tricks. You can be sure of avoiding two heart losers by leading low towards dummy, or (slightly better because you avoid a loser entirely when East holds a singleton king), lead low from dummy and cover East's card.

Because the way to tackle hearts varies according to how many heart tricks you can afford to lose, you should take the spade finesse at trick two. You win the ace of diamonds and lead a spade to the queen (or run the jack). [Click on Show All Hands to reveal the East-West cards]

When the queen of spades wins, you know you can afford a heart loser. At trick three, you lead the two of hearts and, when East plays the three, you in turn cover with the four, earning style points when West discards for winning the first round of trumps with the four.

You can now cash the ace of hearts and set up spades, crossing to the ace (in case East forgot to win the king last time), ruffing a third spade and conceding only the king of hearts. Slam made.

(C) Andrew Robson, 2020

This was the problem my partner faced at the table.

It looks likely that South has doubled with ♠Kx and ♥KJx, in which case there are two inescapable losers. Of course, South's double could also have been based on a void in trumps, expecting at least one trick in the side suits and hoping the bad trump break will also inconvenience declarer (and even mislead them into finessing the wrong way for a trump honour).

After some thought, my partner decided to take the double at face value, showing good trumps, and played South for ♥K. She crossed to hand with a club ruff and led ♥Q, planning to run it if South ducked, hoping to pin the singleton ♥J in the North hand. This would be a spectacular success if the layout was ♥Kx with South and ♥J singleton with North. At the table, South covered the heart lead (it went ♥Q, ♥K and ♥A)... but North showed out, alas. So there was still one inescapable trump loser.

Now all that could be done was to draw trumps, run the ♠J and hope for the best. I held my breath as the play went ♠J, ♠2, ♠4 and...... ♠5 from South. Another spade finesse and a claim from declarer quickly followed. The 6♥ doubled slam just made... even non-vulnerable this scored a very handy 1020 points and a swing of 15 IMPs on the night..

Be honest, as declarer wouldn't you have just banged out ♥A and moaned about your bad luck when the trumps broke 3-0. Click on Show All Hands to confirm.

For that matter... as South, wouldn't you too have doubled the 6♥ slam with a holding of ♣AKxx ♦KQxx ♥KJ3 ♠xx. Of course you would.

But at Teams, this is can be a very expensive mistake. Suppose the slam goes one down... you gain an extra 50 points, non-vulnerable; whereas if it makes, declarer makes an extra 230 points (1210 instead of 980).  Odds of roughly 5-1 against the double paying off. And how likely is a voluntarily-bid slam likely to go more than one down... "not very" must be the answer.

In reality, the double can potentially cost a lot more than that. Suppose that the double alerts declarer to a bad trump break, or gives declarer a clue to the winning line. If they now make a contract that would have gone down if passed out quietly, then the loss is in fact 1210 against a gain of 50 (more like odds of 25-1 rather than the original 5-1).  Were you really that confident you'd defeat the slam?

This scenario could well have been the case here, as the double alerted declarer to the possibility of a bad trump break, and made them think how the trumps might be situated.

Would you back a favourite at silly odds of 25-1 on? Not likely! Then don't double a slam at Teams (or at high stakes rubber bridge, for that matter), there's too much to lose and very little to gain.
 

Now suppose the contract is just 5♥ (doubled). The clue to the successful line is in the second half of Rixi's book title ("...Play Safe"), which certainly applies to Teams (but not Match-Pointed Pairs).

From the bidding, the lead and the confident double South could have as much as ♦KQx, ♣AK, ♠Kx and ♥KJ(x), so things don't look good.  Of course, South's minor suit honours are just waste-paper as the cards lie (the contract must have been bid on distribution, not high-card points, and the opposition knew that), but you are still facing at least two losers in the majors. You can't do anything about ♠K if it's offside, so success in this contract boils down to restricting your trump losers to just one. This is trivial if trumps break 2-1, but after the double, there's a suggestion that North has all three (or perhaps it's South).

It's an opportunity to demontrate your expertise in safety play, as Brian pointed out to me a couple of days later. Just win the opening lead with ♦A, and lead a low heart (the "standard" safety play missing KJx in a suit)!

If North follows with a low heart, simply cover it (the ♥5 will do here, if you like to showboat). If South shows out... fine, and if not, the trumps are breaking 2-1 so there's no problem. Of course, if North shows out on the first trump lead (as is the case here), simply go up with the ♥Q and take the marked trump finesse the other way when you have regained the lead. So on any layout, you only lose one trump trick, and guarantee making eleven tricks in 5♥ doubled, with in this case the luxury of a spade finesse for the overtrick.

This is a classic safety play — you throw away the chance of a possible overtrick (if the ♥K is singleton), but guarantee making your contract, which is the important thing.
 

Dave Simmons
October 2019

a) Lead is ♥K.

The defence has found a good attacking lead, and you're faced with the immediate loss of a heart if you lose the lead again, after drawing trumps in two rounds.

The diamond suit looks good for a potential discard of your heart loser, so do you take an immediate diamond finesse, hoping North has the ♦K, or cash ♦A and take a ruffing finesse the other way, hoping that South has the ♦K. On the face of it, this looks like a 50% guess, so mentally toss a coin?

Wrong... there's a certain way of making the 6♣ slam regardless of who has the ♦K. Take the ruffing finesse against South's presumed king, and simply discard your losing heart if South doesn't cover your diamond. Even if North has ♦K, he can no longer cash a heart winner, and there are still two master diamonds in dummy on which to discard declarer's potentially losing spades. A win-win play!

So in this case, the ruffing finesse is superior for two reasons
i) the contract is not immediately defeated if the finesse fails, and 
ii) the ruffing finesse establishes two further winners for discards, even if it does fail.
 

b) Lead is ♠9.

Things are now rather trickier... for starters, you need to decide whether to take an immediate spade finesse or go straight up with dummy's ♠A. Well, ♠9 looks like a top of nothing lead, eg from ♠9xx, ♠9x or maybe just ♠9 singleton; but could North be bluffing, or simply have made an unorthodox lead from ♠K9x (there's no law against it)?!

If you decided to play low, unlucky... South wins the ♠K and returns a spade, ruffed by North... for an immediate one down!

But even if you go up with ♠A, you're not out of the wood yet. You can take a ruffing finesse in diamonds, but if North has ♦K, you'll be one down just the same as the defence is now bound to cash their ♠K straight away.

It's a risk you have to take. You run ♦Q with fingers crossed. If South covers with his ♦K, your problems are over. You ruff and cross to dummy, discarding your two spade losers on the established diamonds. You now have the luxury of running the ♠Q as a second ruffing finesse as an encore, planning to discard your final heart loser if it is not covered.

Assuming you have sufficient entries to dummy, the defence is helpless. Whether they cover or not, both ruffing finesses work (as the cards lie) and declarer can return to dummy to discard loser(s) on the established winners. On this line, declarer makes all thirteen tricks, for a spectacular top in a 6♣ slam.

By the way, did you spot the need to retain a low trump in the West hand as a possible entry to dummy when ruffing away South's winners? Nice try, but no cigar if you didn't. In the excitement of playing a slam, it's easy to miss this sort of detail! See Show All Hands to check it out.

When you've got no hortage of top trumps, it's always good technique to retain your low trumps in the long hand when drawing trumps, to keep all your entry options open. Now you can't go wrong when trumps break 2-1, you have an additional guaranteed entry to dummy with ♣9.

At the table, three pairs were in 6♣, going down twice and making once (on a variety of leads, including the ultra-passive ♦7). One bold pair bid to an optimistic grand slam in 7♣, missing three kings. They also went one down, but had the dubious satisfaction of at least making twelve tricks!

Oh yes... and at our table, the bidding didn't go as suggested. We defended 3♥ doubled — don't ask!

Dave Simmons
August 2019

At the table, it was obvious to North (looking at her spade suit) that South must have both red suits for the CRO overcall, and on that basis it probably didn't take long to select the lead of ♥Q.

I held up my ♥A for a couple of rounds, and tackled the clubs. But the contract was doomed, with South having both the long hearts and a guaranteed entry in clubs... one down, for a bottom. Click on Show All Hands to see the gory detail.

Without an overcall by South (whether CRO or a simple 1♥ overcall), North would no doubt lead the "obvious" spade. West then makes 3NT comfortably... it makes on any lead other than a heart, as the cards lie.

Well bid Norma, and well played Therese for finding the heart lead... I was expecting a middle rather than a bottom on that board, but no-one else found the killing lead. Indeed, not many were even playing in NT, but no doubt the bidding went differently at many tables (both East and South have minimum opening bids, and may pass).

As for the bidding, a word on CRO:

A takeout double traditionally shows the three other suits, but what do you overcall with a two-suiter? Well, in this case, an overcall of 1♥ would also do fine (planning to rebid diamonds if offered the opportunity). But on many occasions, a fit in the second suit is missed under those circumstances.

Various defensive bidding conventions exist to show a two-suiter economically, in a single bid. The most common nowadays is the Michaels cue bid, whereby cue-bidding opener's suit shows a two-suiter in the majors (over 1♣ or 1♦), or "the other" major and an unspecified minor (over 1♥ or 1♠). Equally, 2NT (the Unusual NT) shows both minors or the two lowest unbid suits.

But other conventions also try and pinpoint the precise two suits involved, and are necessarily more complicated (eg Ghestem or CRO). CRO works as follows (CRO is a mnemonic for Colour, Rank, Other):

• C... Cue bid shows two suits of the same colour (so 1♣ — 2♣ shows both red suits, as in the example above)
• R... 2NT shows two suits of the same rank (1♦ — 2NT shows both majors, 1♥ — 2NT shows both minors, etc)
• O....3♣ shows the two other permutations (so 1♥ — 3♣ shows spades and diamonds, 1♦ — 3♣ shows hearts and clubs, etc) 

[Note that playing CRO or Ghestem, 3♣ can no longer be a weak jump overcall, if that's what you like to play!]

If you fancy playing these conventions, you'll find that it's a trade-off between ease of use and improved functionality. For many, conventions such as CRO or Ghestem are too difficult to remember at the table. On one notorious occasion Pierre Ghestem forgot the details of the convention that he himself had invented! Hence the popularity of Michaels, which has become almost universal in the tournament world.

Well, your answer may well be "rely on table presence", instinct, superstition or just the mental toss of a coin; but the scientific answer is to rely on the "Principle of Restricted Choice", documented by Terence Reese in his book The Expert Game way back in 1958. Nowadays this approach is familiar to many club bridge-players, not just experts.

The idea is simple, and counter-intuitive. If South held ♦QJ doubleton, he could equally have played either ♦J or ♦Q. But if he had a singleton ♦J or singleton ♦Q he would have had no choice but to play the card whch he did play. So the Principle of Restricted Choice says that it is in fact twice as likely South has a singleton in this situation, as with that holding he would have had no choice which card to play, whereas with a doubleton, he might just as well have played the ♦J rather than the ♦Q (or vice versa).

This seems to defy the laws of averages and probability, but is (so I'm told) simply an everyday example of Bayes Theorem in action — must have missed the lecture that day! The Monty Hall paradox is another example where the same principle is dressed up in the guise of a popular American game show... try Googling "Monty Hall paradox" and enjoy.

Of course, the Principle of Restricted Choice is just that... a principle. There's no guarantee it will work, but playing the odds is a winning strategy... long-term that is. Plenty of cunning defenders think they are misleading declarer by always playing the ♦Q from ♦QJ, but this is not the case. Technically, the best tactic is to simply pick a card at random with a doubleton holding like this, so declarer can draw no inference from your play. But tell that to the declarer who has just guessed wrong and finessed into the doubleton ♦J, leaving the defender smirking after playing the ♦Q on a previous trick, no doubt congratulating himself on putting one over on you! The unlucky expert is left muttering to himself "Restricted choice, my elbow", or words to that effect.

Of course, there are other considerations to take into account as well. For example in this case there is a presumption that South has a relatively short diamond suit as he has shown length in clubs, for his overcall. Also, the a priori odds of the outstanding diamonds splitting 6-1 between the defenders are significantly less than those for a 5-2 split. But the basic principle remains: ♦QJ doubleton is just one specific holding, whereas ♦Q and ♦J singleton are two distinct holdings. So the singleton is in theory twice as likely.

To cut a long story short, Suzanne squirmed for a while, and eventually took the finesse. Click on Show all hands to confirm the happy ending for us (on this board, at least). Five declarers were in 3NT, four going one down and just one making. Well played, partner!

Dave Simmons
July 2019

Well, I hope you wouldn't do what I did, and simply concede an "unavoidable" trump loser!

There is a much better alternative... just exit with a top diamond. This can't do any harm if the diamonds break 3-2, and as the cards lie it hits the jackpot! North has been left with a singleton ♦Q at this point, and is comprehensively end-played at trick 6, having just clubs and hearts left. Click on Show All Hands to see the details.

North only has losing options: a club switch gives dummy that vital entry with ♣A to take the marked trump finesse, and a heart concedes a ruff and discard, scuppering South's trump holding of ♠Q10 sandwiched between dummy and declarer. It was certainly lucky that North started with just ♦KQ doubleton, but you need to take advantage of this sort of good fortune at bridge (there's always plenty of bad lies awaiting you, to make up for it).

The moral of the story... never give up, however bad it seems. Three down doubled was a near-bottom for us whereas if we'd got away with two down doubled it would have out-scored most of the field in 5♣, who were making a comfortable eleven tricks without breaking sweat.

You must be feeling pretty pleased with yourself for deciding to open 1♠ on a marginal ("rule of 19") opener when dummy goes down, as there look to be a certain twelve tricks in the 6♠ slam, with all thirteen if the club finesse comes off. So you put up dummy's ♣J and West wins with the ♣K. Back comes a club and the roof falls in... East ruffs the second round of clubs and you're one down. Click on Show All Hands to see the gory details.

Unlucky?!

Well, at Match-Point duplicate maybe. But at Butler Pairs (or Teams, or rubber bridge), you have only one consideration as declarer: how to make the contract... overtricks are irrelevant. When things look straightforward, consder what might go wrong.

As Martin realised (it was still obviously rankling a week later), all he had to do was go up with the ♣A, draw trumps, unblock diamonds and concede a club (the losing heart goes away on the diamonds later). So even if the club finesse works, there's no need to take it! Almost the only thing that can go wrong playing in 6♠ is if the defence find a club ruff at trick 2.

So yes, it was unlucky, as (according to a bridge website), the a priori likelihood of East having a singleton club is only 7.5% (ie "unlikely") But that's not the point... going up with ♣A is a safety play that caters perfectly well for this eventuality, and at Butler Pairs costs precisely nothing — now that's my favourite sort of safety play, a "no-lose" option(*). 

On the night (at Butler Pairs) 6♠ making on the nail and 6♠ making with an overtrick would have scored exactly the same (+13 IMPS). Whereas 6♠-1 lost 13 IMPs, a massive swing of 26 IMPs on just one board. That's Butler Pairs for you!

Of course, the decision is more difficult at Match Point scoring, as 6♠+1 outscores both 6♠ making (and 6NT for that matter). It now requires guesswork and judgement as to whether you think the field will have bid the slam (and which slam). If you think "everyone" will be in the 6♠ slam then there's a case to be made for ignoring the safety play and "going with the field" and taking the club finesse for an overtrick. Whereas if you think you've done pretty well to even bid the slam (as here), then you need to concentrate on making it... play safe for a top, regardless.

Dave Simmons / Martin Leach (February 2019)
 

(*) Is going up with ♣A a no-lose option? Well, that's not entirely true. Suppose East has ♠J9xx and has led away from the ♣K... now the club finesse is in fact the only way to make the contract.

Judgement is required. Is a 4-0 trump break more likely than a 5-1 club break? Would East lead from an unsupported King against a slam? Does the lead look like a singleton? I'd say on balance that going up with the ♣A is still the percentage play to make the slam, but it's not absolutely clear cut in this case.

Who said bridge was an easy game. 

Martin Leach / Dave Simmons
February 2019

Well, Bridgewebs Play it again shows that double-dummy defence will indeed defeat 3♣ by North, but it takes an unlikely trump lead to do so.

If you play the hand through, it turns out that on a trump lead the defence can play three rounds of trumps before declarer can engineer a ruff of his second losing diamond in dummy. So North ends up losing a spade, two hearts and two diamonds. This defence is very difficult to find — almost impossible at the table, especially on the bidding.

That's also why 3♣ by South is unbeatable...  because West doesn't have a trump to lead, even if he'd been tipped off!

Could we have done better? Well, only with the benefit of hindsight.

If East responds, say, 3♦ to my double, I'll correct to 3♠ which makes at least 9 tricks comfortably, for a middle. Indeed, 4♠ should make our way, despite the nasty 4-1 trump break, via a trump "elopement". Play it again demonstrates how this works, and also shows it can make an "impossible" 11 tricks (using foreknowledge of the spade layout)... but that's just the computer showing off and cheating!

Dave Simmons
January 2019

a) On the obvious lead of ♠5 ("fourth highest, from your longest and strongest suit against a NT contract"), declarer would have made 3NT easily.  Click on Show All Hands, and you'll see that the hand could have come straight out of David Huggett's popular Declarer Quiz in Bridge magazine.

Just win the opening lead with ♠K, cross to dummy's ♦K and run the ♦J to West, who is the "safe hand" in this case. On the bidding, West looks more likely to have the ♦Q, but that's not the point. If the finesse loses, it's no disaster as West can't continue spades without conceding another trick in the suit. In practice the finesse wins, and declarer can now cash the diamonds and make 3NT at a stroll, with an overtrick or two.

Note that this is definitely not the hand to play for the drop in diamonds "eight ever, nine never" (one of my least-favourite bridge mantras). A holding of ♦Qxx with East would spell disaster in that case, as East would win the ♦Q and fire back a spade through declarer's remaining tenace of ♠Q8, easily defeating the 3NT contract.

b) Congratulations to David Johnston, who found the unexpected (and unwelcome) lead of ♥Q at our table... there's no guarantee that this is a better lead than a low spade of course, but it shows that he thought about the lead. On this confident bidding, he obviously felt that South had a good spade stopper such as ♠ KQ10, and decided on a sneak attack in hearts instead. Contrary to popular belief, fourth highest is not always the best lead at NT, it is simply the default choice, if the bidding and your hand don't suggest a better alternative.

On this occasion, David hit the jackpot, as partner has ♥Kxxxx. Suzanne saw no point in ducking, and realised that the club finesse had to work for the contract to stand a chance. But the contract also depends on that all-too-familiar dilemma at bridge (find the Queen, missing just four cards in the suit)... do you play for the drop, or finesse (and if so, which way).

She led ♦J from dummy at trick 2, but Geoff Holloway smoothly played and declarer went up with the ♦A (as she'd always intended, no doubt). The lead of ♦ J is a "no lose" play on this sort of holding, you never know, East may cover or (just as fatal) hesitate. 

Suzanne now led the ♣J (covered by West) and returned to hand with ♣10, leading a diamond towards dummy. West put her out of her misery by discarding, so there was no agonising decision between playing for the drop or finessing... she had an unavoidable loser in diamonds. She cashed her remaining clubs, cleared the diamonds and settled for one down (East must have discarded a heart on the fourth club, judging by the score).

Looking at the traveller, game made by NS would have been a top, whether in 3NT or 5♦. In effect, either game is dependent on declarer finding the ♦Q.

So how do you now rate the following bridge mantras, all eminently sensible for beginners in the game to use as an initial guideline:

1. Always lead fourth highest of your longest and strongest suit against a NT contract.
2. Always cover an honour with an honour.
3. "Eight ever, nine never" (ie always play for the drop if you're missing four to the queen).

Well, to be honest, I'd give them all the same score... "Null points" (ie a big round zero).

I score them all so badly not because they are always wrong, but because they are simplistic (and often wrong). Playing the cards well at bridge requires you to think about these sort of decisions. I'd be tempted to rephrase the above mantras as follows:

1. Lead fourth highest of your longest and strongest suit against a NT contract if you have nothing better to go on, based on the bidding, the level of the final contract, and your own hand.
2. To cover an honour with an honour is a difficult choice, wrong almost as often as it's right.
3. In the absence of any other information or justification, the odds slightly favour playing for the drop if you're missing four to the queen... there's very little in it.

Not quite as snappy as the first versions, but much more accurate!

Dave Simmons

No doubt you all ruffed the second spade, but did you spot the "Heffalump trap"... if you ruff low with ♣4, you will end up losing a trump trick to the ♣K. Needless to say, Suzanne didn't fall for that one, and ruffed with ♣10. She now needed to cross to dummy to take the trump finesse, hoping John has the ♣K — which is pretty likely after his 1NT bid and subsequent double. So a low diamond was led towards dummy, and a key moment in the defence arrived. Colin correctly ducked with his ♦A, and Suzanne won the trick with ♦Q. She could now lead ♣9 and run it when John played low... that's why it's fatal to ruff with ♣3 at trick 2, as you only have one entry to dummy for the trump finesse!

Suzanne picked up John's ♣K with three rounds of trumps, and now had to tackle the diamonds for just one loser. It looks pretty much a 50-50 guess as to whether the ♦J or the ♦A is doubleton at this point, but Suzanne postponed that decision, and played ♥A and ♥4, hoping the defence would make a mistake. John won with ♥Q and continued with ♥K (any other return is fatal at this point).

Suzanne was forced to ruff, and now had to play the diamonds herself. She led a low diamond and Colin ducked again(!) giving her a guess. She guessed wrong, running the diamond to John's doubleton ♦J. John was forced to return a heart, but there are only two diamond discards available, and Colin could still win the very last trick with ♦A for that crucial second undertrick. Well defended, especially by Colin.

On the night, -500 proved to be a disastrous score for EW, as many NS pairs were in 5♠ going one down, and two out of the three pairs in 4♠ failed to make the regulation 10 tricks. With the benefit of hindsight, Suzanne could probably work out that John can't have the ♦A, as he's already shown up with 12 points outside diamonds, and he opened 1NT. But maybe the play didn't go quite like that... I must confess I could only remember the play to the first seven tricks with any confidence when I tried to recrete the play later, as my scorecard said one down, and the Bridgemate said two down. The Bridgemate was correct, unfortunately for us, and we lost a rather unlucky 10 IMPs on that board, when one down would have cost us a mere 5 IMPs, still our worst score of the night!

A look on Bridgewebs confirms that 4♠ by North making 11 tricks on the ♦J lead is the standard outcome. But I was intrigued to see that two declarers had managed to make 12 tricks and I resorted to Play it again to try and find out how.

At our table, I was North and won the opening lead with dummy's ♦A, led the ♠J and was delighted to see the ♠K show up on from West the first round. Winning with ♠S, North knew there was only one trump loser, but at MP scoring every trick counts. Is there any way to make an extra overtrick for a top? From the bidding, it is pretty likely that East has ♥K and ♠Q...

This hand looks ideal for a theme much-loved by compilers of bridge quizzes, the so called "strip and endplay"... with a bit of luck, I can force one of the defenders to lead away from the ♥K (the endplay) or concede a ruff and discard after removing his safe exit card in clubs (the strip), by throwing them in with their trump winner.

So play off ♣A, ♣K and ruff a club. Ruff a diamond back to hand (just in case) and lead a trump, putting East on lead...

Partial versus full strip is the key decision!

There are several perfectly reasonable alternatives, most obviously 1♣ or 4♣.

In the early days of Acol, the system always included a bid labelled "The gambling 3NT", whereby an opening bid of 3NT showed a long solid minor suit, and little outside. Over the years, bidding style has changed slightly, so nowadays the Gambling 3NT is usually taken to show absolutely nothing outside the long suit (ie no aces, and probably no kings).

This hand is a textbook opportunity to bid a gambling 3NT, and the NS bidding went 3NT — 4♣ — Pass, as indicated.

3NT is the gambling 3NT opening, and 4♣ is the conventional weakness response, asking partner to "pass or correct", depending whether their long minor is in clubs or diamonds.

You may ask "what's the point?" as you may well have ended up in 4♣ either way. Well, the key is in the word "Gambling"... if North feels that 3NT has a sporting chance (perhaps he has a hand with a couple of aces, or an ace and two kings), he can pass 3NT, hoping to make it. And if he doesn't, he settles for 4♣ or 4♦ as above. So the Gambling 3NT gives you the best of both worlds.

Looking at the full deal illustrates this "gambling" point very well: if West is on lead to 3NT, nine tricks roll in for declarer on the inevitable spade lead, whereas if East is on lead, the defence should take the first nine tricks easily enough on a red suit lead... a 5 trick swing! As we all know, 3NT contracts are notoriously difficult to defend, and hitting the right lead is often as much a matter of luck as judgement.

In practice, North will always rescue 3NT into 4♣ on this hand as he holds a stopper in only one suit. But the bid still works out very well, as it is quite difficult for East-West to compete at the 4-level, and the pre-emptive side of the Gambling 3NT wins out, as East-West miss out on a cold game in 4♥ or 4♠.

To be honest, I've put down "Gambling 3NT" on my convention card for years, and it's hardly ever cropped up. But unlike many other conventions (transfers, splinters etc), it's almost impossible to miss at the table, as an opening 3NT has no other meaning in Acol (you'd of course open 2C and rebid 3NT with a balanced hand of 25+ points).

Dave Simmons

The winning line is to play just one top trump and then duck a trump. That way, there's still a trump in dummy to prevent the clubs running, but South is (fortunately) exhausted of trumps, so there's no longer a diamond ruff available. Declarer now loses just two trumps and a club on any return.

This line isn't guaranteed to work, but is the best shot after the 3♣ pre-empt, as trumps are much more likely to break 4-2 than 3-3 as South has shown extreme length in clubs.

Don't worry if you didn't spot this line... neither did declarer on the night, and I had to cheat with "Play it Again" to see how it could be done!

Dave Simmons

There are three fairly obvious alternatives: 3♥, 4♥ or even a takeout double (intending to rebid 4♥ over the likely black suit response).

I felt that 3♥ was a bit feeble and was put off a double by my unbalanced shape. So I went for an immediate 4♥ , which was passed out.

This proved to be a disaster as the cards lie, and I didn't cover myself with glory, managing to go four down on the first board of the night. Looking at the full deal, most Wests would surely bid their 8-card club suit on the first round (4♣ or 5♣ sccording to taste), and the bidding would now be entirely different, which explains the spactacular mix of outcomes with scores ranging from +1100 to -600 (see Board 10 from 14th June).

So what's this got to do with bridge mantras, I hear you ask? Well, one of the world's top players (Bob Hamman?) has advice for this very situation: "If you have a difficult choice of bids, and one of them is 3NT, then bid it".

It certainly crossed my mind to bid 3NT at the table as the heart suit may well run for 6 tricks, trumps or not. But I reluctantly chickened out (yes, 3NT does go just the SIX down on the "expert" lead of ♣A... but is East going to find that lead)? On what seems a more likely diamond lead, I have eight tricks off the top as the cards lie for just one down, which would certainly beat the outcome in 4♥ on the night!

In practice, the outcome in 3NT would be irrelevant, and the bid works well for an entirely different (and unexpected) reason. My partner would certainly have rescued a doomed 3NT into 4♠ and then we stand a chance of a top on the board. Next time, I'll follow my instinct.

Dave Simmons

Well, I'd say it was near-impossible, but it depends to a degree on your system and understanding. Here's a few possibilities, all based on the opening being a standard Acol 2♣ game force. Other sequences are of course possible, playing Benji, "Strong Club" systems etc.

1.  2♣  2♦  3♦  4♦  5♦ / 6♦ 

2.  2♣  2♦  3♦  3♥  4♦  5♦ / 6♦ 

3.  2♣  2♦  3♦  3NT  NB / 6NT

4.  2♣  2♦  3♦  4♣  4NT  5♦  6NT

5.  2♣  2♦  4♦  5♣  6NT

6.  4♣  4♦  5♣  5♥  6NT

All the sequences start with an Acol 2♣ game force followed by a 2♦ negative response. Not that all these sequences have the potentially horrible effect of making the strong hand as dummy in a subsequent diamond contract, something usually to be avoided, but almost inevitable here.

1. This is probably the most common sequence, whether ending in 5♦ or 6♦. It depends how lucky South is feeling on the night, but 6♦ is at worst only one down... 6NT could be many more down if clubs are lead!

2. North feels they should rebid a suit with an honour, and pick hearts rather than clubs as it doesn't rule out a 3NT contract.

3. 3NT is a sort of second negative and sign-off, but may imply a few scattered points outside diamonds(?). It has the same drawback as the 2♦ response, exposing the strong hand as dummy in a NT contract. The jump to 6NT in this bidding sequence is a pure "punt", and no harm in that... it will simply get you a very good score or a very bad score! "Are you feeling lucky, punk?" as Clint Eastwood would say.

4. Now it gets a bit more interesting... North decides to bid 4♣ rather than 3♥ (as in 2 above) as it shows probably the only worthwhile feature in their hand, the ♣K. This bidding is a bit unlikely, to be honest. But as the cards lie, it works perfectly, assuming North-South play RKCB (or its poor relation "key-card Blackwood") as the 5♦ response now shows a keycard in clubs (the Ace or the King). Now the slam bids itself... result!

5. This is my best attempt at an elegant sequence. The 4♦ jump rebid should be taken to show a solid self-supporting suit, and maybe North expertly decides to show a club control by bidding 5♣ rather than the automatic 5♦  This is a "no lose" action if you think about it! Now the slam bids itself... result!

6. At the opposite extreme, suppose the North-South system caters for an immediate bid of 4♣ to be Gerber (no comment). Once again the slam bids itself, as there is now room to ask for both Aces and Kings without getting too high. Playing "creeping Gerber" gets the same result. So there you have it, once in a blue moon, Gerber proves to be useful, rather than the opposite... every dog has its day!

But don't worry, a hand like this won't turn up again for another ten years.

Dave Simmons

One glance at dummy confirmed partner had the expected "powerhouse", and I counted four probable losers... two black aces and two red kings.

I ruffed the second club and led ♦Q in an attempt to force an entry to dummy. South won with her ♦K and returned a spade. I tried running that to dummy's ♠10 but North won with his ♠A and returned a spade. I was about to cross to dummy with a diamond to take the trump finesse when I spotted two possible flaws with this line... if the diamonds break 4-1 the second diamond will be ruffed, and even if they break 3-2, I'm quite likely to get a diamond or a spade ruffed if the ♥K is offside.

Judging that 3♥ making might well be a good score on that misfit, I decided to minimise the risks of a ruff by banging out ♥A and ♥Q.

If I'd thought a bit harder, I may have decided to lead out the queen of hearts at trick 3 instead of the queen of diamonds. That way I still lose one trick to a king, but can now draw trumps ending in dummy and take the diamond finesse with no fear of a ruff if it fails. I made another mistake a couple of tricks later, I should rise with a top spade, which may well give me an entry to dummy with ♠10 unless North ducks.

When the provisional rankings came up on the club laptop, it was a blanket finish with the top three pairs all on well over 60%, but the scorer soon noticed that there were still five scores to be received, as the Bridgemate system seemed to have gone on strike during the final round!

Once the missing scores were fished out from deep within the system, it was well past midnight, but a glance at the ranking revealed that we were now in third place. That final board had not been good for us, 3♥= was a near bottom, whereas 3♥+1 would have scored above average... and well enough to reverse the position of the top three pairs in the ranking!

The moral of all this (well two in fact):

At Match Point scoring, every trick counts and every board is of equal importance. Missing the overtrick on this board was just as expensive for us as our failure to bid the grand slam on board 4. 

The second?  Well, Andrew Robson (arguably England's top living bridge player, and almost certainly the best known) has provided a huge amount of advice and tips for aspiring club players over the years, but none more valuable to my mind than this seemingly mundane tip, applicable to players of every level:

"Concentrate extra hard on the first and last boards of a duplicate session"... if only I'd remembered this advice on Thursday. Sorry, partner!

Dave Simmons

This looks like a classic "Double, Bid or Pass" dilemma, for those who followed the excellent series by Andrew Robson in the EBU's English Bridge magazine.

Clearly, North must have a very strange hand to pass initially, but come in at 5♦! Presumably either a big fit in both minors (though he might have preferred 4NT in that case, asking partner to pick the better minor), or possibly lots of diamonds and a shortage in clubs.

On this occasion, my partner was definitely not weak, so perhaps remembering that well-known bridge mantra "if in doubt, bid one more", or more likely thinking that I must surely have ♦K for the bid, partner bravely bid 7♦ before pointing out with a smile that I'd be playing it!

A heart was led and down went dummy, to reveal that there was in fact very little to the play (click on Show All Hands to confirm). Sadly, there was no entry to my hand to take the diamond finesse, which I (rightly) suspected would have worked. So I had no choice but to bang out ♦A and another diamond, and settle for one down when the ♦K didn't drop but the clubs broke 2-1. To my relief, I later realised that 7♣ would have fared no better — there's now a trump entry to take the finesse and avoid a diamond loser, but instead there's now an unavoidable loser in spades.

Note that my 5♦ bid is perfectly reasonable, despite having such an awful hand. It has absolutely no defensive tricks, and if partner is also weak, the opposition must have a laydown game, probably a slam. But with that double fit in the minors, the hand is suddenly rather attractive, and is unlikely to go down by more than two or three tricks. And if partner is strong, we may push them one too high, or make game ourselves.

Looking at the traveller at leisure at home, it was easy to see that the winning option as the cards lie is to double 6♥ which inevitably goes two off. Some lucky pairs were either left in 4♥ (as EW) or 5♣ (as NS) after less adventurous auctions, both making. It was certainly more fun at our table, if less rewarding. But give me just the ♣J or a singleton spade, and the grand slam would have made.

Oh well, it's not often I'll play in a grand slam with only 1 (ONE!) high-card point in my hand, and come close to making it. Unlucky.

Dave Simmons
January 2018

Well, most mere mortals would surely pass in a flash, but not my intrepid partner! She "went into the tank" and eventually came up with the bid of 5♠, or should I say "5♠?!" for those familiar with the chess notation (ie "good, bad or just a bit crazy... who knows")

Clearly, 5♠ is likely to go several down doubled, maybe a lot worse than that. But there again, it is favourable vulnerability, so three down doubled will show a small profit over a making game by NS (so the sacrifice may be worthwhile at IMP scoring).

Click on Show All Hands, and you will see that East was "rewarded" with horrible breaks in both black suits. Unsurprisingly, North doubled, so the contract ended up as 5♠ doubled, by East.

In fact, on double-dummy lines, this does indeed go four down for a score of -800, and in practice might well go down by more than that if declarer panics and loses trump control. At the table, South led out ♥A, ♦A and a club (which was ruffed by North). At this point I was fearing a penalty of massive proportions, but in fact it's now fairly straightforward for East to escape for just three down, only losing one more trick in each of the black suits. East may well have felt that they "got out of jail" on that one!

Interestingly, NS can make 12 tricks in hearts, so in theory, a non-vulnerable sacrifice in 6♠ (six down, doubled) would still show a profit over a vulnerable 6♥ slam, of just one IMP! Not to be recommended though. Unsurprisingly, only one NS pair managed to bid the slam on a combined 25 points, very well done.

Interestingly, not only does the slam make but would still make exactly the same 12 tricks without NS holding any black suit honours... on a combined 18-count. Which shows that in bridge, it's often shape that counts as much as points on these big hands.

In 6♥ by South, West may well kick off with ♠A and another spade, which makes life very easy for declarer, as it happens. However the lead of ♣10 would not be so friendly, and declarer now probably has to find the ♦Q to make 12 tricks. If East has bid aggressively showing a black 2-suiter, they are very likely to be short in diamonds, and declarer should finesse accordingly. Otherwise, it's a two-way guess. On a good day, the slam makes with 5 trumps, 3 ruffs and 4 diamonds, losing just one spade trick.

Dave Simmons
January 2018

Here's how it might be done:

The ♥Q is a genuine singleton (not a false card) as partner must have at least 3 hearts for their raise to 2♥. So there's no point in leading your second top heart.

Try switching to ♦A, and reflect that you'd be happy for partner to be on lead to give you a club ruff. Aha... there may be an opportunity for a coup.

Did you notice what card partner played under your ♦A? If you've agreed to play attitude signals, let's hope you were concentrating!

At our table, partner encouraged, showing the queen. So continue with ♦3, your lowest diamond, technically showing suit preference for clubs (not that partner needs the hint). When their ♦Q holds the trick, it should be pretty obvious from the underlead that West wants a ruff (it must be a club). So East switches to a club and partner ruffs as expected. That's 4♠ straight down, with declarer likely to lose another diamond at the death, assuming West now safely exits with a trump.

At four out of the six tables where 4♠ was played on the night, ten tricks were made. West presumably attempted to cash their four top winners in the red suits, with declarer ruffing the second heart and making an easy ten tricks by drawing trumps and then playing ♣K, uncovering the marked club finesse.

Dave Simmons
January 2018

Well, a glance at dummy and it's obvious you need to rely on the ♦K being onside... a 50% chance. But first things first, how do you play the trump suit?

If the clubs break 2-1, there's no problem, so why not consider a 3-0 break for a few moments. This is no problem, so long as you guess who is most likely to have the ♣Qxx.

At the table, I decided there was very little in it on the bidding: South's overcall suggesting that a shortage in clubs was more likely, but a count of points suggesting that South would have very little for their vulnerable overcall without the ♣Q (9 points at most, even if North had an absolute yarborough).

With my mind already half on the diamond finesse, I decided to ruff the spade lead in hand and play a low club to dummy's ace. 

Disaster! South showed out, and I was left with an unavoidable trump loser. My mood wasn't improved by soon discovering that the diamond finesse worked, so I'd missed a makeable grand slam.

On reflection, a better line is to win the opening lead in dummy, and lead the ♣J, hoping to tempt a cover from a defender who may have touching faith in that old adage "Cover an honour with an honour"! If South plays low, you intend to go up with the ♣K anyway, but this is a "no-lose" play. As the cards lie, this line hits the jackpot for a different reason. South shows out, and it's now easy to pick up the ♣Q with North, by taking the marked finesse in trumps the other way.

After drawing trumps, you then lead the ♦Q for another finesse, and the diamond suit comes in whether South covers or not, as you can ruff the third round. I was kicking myself for days at not making that grand slam, for a top.

Interestingly, the traveller revealed that three pairs were in the inferior 6♦ slam, and one pair in a distinctly uncomfortable 6NT contract.

However, the play in both 6♦ and 6NT reveals the wisdom of "Cover an honour with an honour". When declarer leads the ♦Q from dummy, covering with the ♦K ensures declarer has a loser in the suit, whereas ducking lets declarer get away with no losers in diamonds. Given that two declarers made all 13 tricks in 6♦ it would seem that the defence got it wrong at least twice.

So what's the difference, you may ask. Why is it right to cover the ♦Q in a 6♦ slam but wrong to cover the ♣J in a 7♣ slam?

Well, there's no quick answer to that, the depressing truth is that the adage "cover an honour with an honour" is one of the most misleading pieces of bridge advice ever, wrong almost as often as it's right. The subject is well covered by Victor Mollo and Nico Gardner in their book "Card Play Technique", which still features in many experts' top 10 list of bridge books, despite being written over 50 years ago. But in a nutshell:

a) It's right to cover the ♦Q, because that's your only chance to take an honour with your ♦K. Declarer is bound to run the ♦Q and lead a second diamond if you don't cover. Whereas...
b) It's wrong to cover the ♣J because it's the higher of touching honours, and your partner can't possibly have a club to promote by covering (on the bidding, he has at most a singleton club).

In other words, glib mantras don'r help. You need to think, preferably in advance. When it comes to covering, it's usually just as bad to make the right decision after an agonised huddle as to make the wrong decision smoothly.

Who said bridge was an easy game?!
 

Dave Simmons

a) The bidding question is all about "system". 

Some prefer to play three weak-twos rather than the traditional Acol strong-twos, the popular Benji Acol, or even the unspeakable Multi-2♦. So it was relatively easy for those pairs who play three weak-twos to open 2♦ with that South hand, announced as "Weak".  After a 3♦ raise by North (pre-emptive, not encouraging), East made a no-nonsense 4♠ overcall, to end the bidding.

Note that South is quite right to open a weak-two even with a rather feeble suit consisting of ♦J1098xx. That's a perfectly sound weak-two at favourable vulnerability, where pretty much "anything goes" (at least, that's the way I like to play it). Weak-twos are often more pre-emptive than lead-directing. On this occasion, the weak-two opener may well shut out West from bidding, whose heart suit and overall strength are both somewhat below strength for a vulnerable 2♥ overcall.

Against the inevitable lead of a top diamond against 4♠, declarer won in dummy and discarded a losing heart on the second top diamond straight away, then took the (losing) trump finesse on the reasonable assumption that South was likely to be short in spades for his weak-two opener. The outcome was a routine 4♠+1, or so we thought at the time (an overtrick either way is neither here nor there, at Butler scoring).

I muttered inwardly to myself "Hmmph, so much for the pre-emptive power of a weak-two in diamonds" but I was wrong. Looking at the traveller, I'm guessing that without the weak-two opener, several East-Wests bid unopposed to a 6♠ slam. This is admittedly a bit of a punt on the bidding shown — hypothetical, but hardly unreasonable (especially at Butler Pairs). Surely this is an odds-on slam for East to bid, once West has opened 1♥ and shown two aces to the subsequent Blackwood enquiry.

b) So what do you lead against the slam?

There are two main schools of thought about leading to a suit slam when holding an ace... Always or Never!  A radical third alternative is to consider the bidding first.

On the bidding shown, with hearts bid on your left, a heart lead from ♥AQx seems pretty risky (to put it mildly), as it could easily set up the entire suit for declarer (imagine dummy goes down with ♥KJxxx and declarer holds ♥xx, for example). Alternatives are a safe diamond (also the unbid suit), your singleton club (futile here, but very tempting if you didn't have a side ace) or an ultra-passive trump lead (if you chose the trump lead against a slam, perhaps you should eat more Weetabix).

The ♦J would have been my choice, but what do I know?! On the night, the ♥A lead is a big winner. Click on Show All Hands for confirmation. Dummy goes down revealing hearts as the only possible weakness, and a second heart follows automatically, not even requiring an attitude signal from partner, who (conveniently for the defence) holds the ♥K. One down.

Three pairs out of seven bid the slam on the night, and two out of three made it easily enough. So commiserations to the pair who bid the slam and were the only East-West pair to go down on that board. They lost 12 IMPs on the deal, but on any lead other than a heart the slam would have made easily for a score of +10 IMPs, a swing of a mere 22 IMPs for that pair on just the one board.

But that's bridge (and in particular, Butler Pairs), love it or hate it.
 

Dave Simmons

I toyed with leading my singleton ♣K, but that seemed pretty risky, even at Teams. After all, South may well have ♣A and leading my ♣K might save him taking a losing finesse. So I decided to lead the "obvious" ♦A to have a look at dummy first. It was quite possible that a diamond continuation could well lead to an over-ruff or a trump promotion if North and East were equally short in diamonds.

Big mistake! As the cards lie, the lead of the ♣K is the only lead to defeat 4♥.

Click on Show All Hands to reveal all. If I could have seen dummy before leading (as in "Mini-bridge"), I suspect I'd have been even less likely to lead the ♣K as it looks favourite to cost a trick with ♣QJ in dummy.

Back to the play. Declarer ruffed in dummy, crossed to ♥A and led a "sneaky" ♦10, which held the trick after I ducked. He continued with ♦J which I covered, ruffed with dummy's ♥6 (oops) and over-ruffed with partner's ♥7. Declare is now expecting the worst — the defence must surely cash their three black suit winners for one down. But no, the club suit was blocked so this was not easy.

The defence can in fact still defeat the contract at this point (East needs to make the unlikely play of underleading ♣A) but East understandably cashed the ♣A instead (crashing my singleton ♣ K) and then had little choice but to lead a second club, hoping for a ruff. No luck there either, as I am out of trumps at this point. So declarer got out of jail by scraping home in 4♥ doubled for a good score of 10 IMPs to NS. On the other hand, 4♥ going one down doubled would have scored 5 IMPs to EW, so there was a net swing of 15 IMPs on just that one board.

This is a good hand to use Bridgewebs "Play it again" to investigate the various lines. Double-dummy, you'll discover that declarer can even make an overtrick in 4♥  on the lead of ♦A, but only by relying on the clubs being blocked on that 6-1 break, which is hardly a percentage line, to put it mildly!

Back to the bidding. Looking at the four hands, 5♦ is an unlucky one down on that horrible 4-0 trump break (inevitably doubled by South). And 4♥ can be defeated, but only if I lead the singleton ♣K. So technically, the "par" contract on this deal is 4♥x-1 by NS, but that's with the benefit of double-dummy bidding and play! In the real world, 5♦x-1W is a much more likely outcome.

On the night, most EW pairs played in diamond contracts ranging all the way from 2♦+1 to 5♦x-1. So that was one of many big swing hands on the night, and one I would probably have enjoyed more as a spectator on BBO. It would have been good to watch the likes of Andrew Robson grappling with that bidding dilemma, or Zia finding the killing lead.

It's always so much easier when you can see all four hands!

Dave Simmons

From the play, it looks like declarer may be trying to establish hearts for a discard, so you need to decide whether to attempt to cash another spade or switch to a club, hoping partner has the ♣K for the setting trick. If declarer has a second losing spade, it may be essential to cash your top spade. Not an easy decision, and one that may be influenced by your bidding system.

Playing Acol, partner has supported your opening 1♠ bid so he probably has 4-card support for his bid (he must have ♠6543, you can see the rest). That means declarer's ♠A on the first trick was a singleton. Playing 5-card majors the situation is a lot less clear-cut, as a raise to 2♠ with just 3-card support would be almost automatic with a weak hand.

As the cards lie, attempting to cash a spade is fatal. Click on Show All Hands to confirm. Declarer gratefully ruffs, forces out the ♦A, and now a club switch is too late, assuming declarer reads it correctly.  He can go up with ♣A, draw trumps and discard his losing club on dummy's fourth heart.

As North, you need to find a club switch at trick 3 to defeat declarer. At our table, North (Peter Rice) did well to find this defence. Looking at the traveller, the outcome is divided equally between those who made 10 tricks in diamonds, and those who made 11 tricks, with the contracts ranging from a cautious 3♦ to an optimistic 6♦ (the latter presumably a bit of a punt, as there are two aces missing)!

As is often the case, accurate defence is the key to doing well on this board at match-point scoring.
 

Dave Simmons

In this case, leading a low diamond from your suit headed by the ♦KJ defeats the contract, whereas leading out one of your aces gifts declarer the eleventh trick. Clicking on "Show All Hands" confirms this after a brief inspection.

But maybe this is no surprise to you, as leading an unsupported ace against a suit contract is deemed to be the worst possible lead you can make — even worse than leading away from an unsupported king. So on this occasion, it's not so much a case of picking the best lead, but selecting the "least worst" option, which often seems to be the case in real life, when I'm on lead anyway!

This Hand of the Month is all about choice of lead, and BridgeWebs has a wonderful tool to analyse this (and much more besides), namely "Play it again". If you are unfamiliar with how to use this amazing piece of software, read the write-up which is currently on the home page of the club website, and uses this very deal as an example.

The traveller shows that seven East-West pairs were in a club contract, making 10 tricks (5 times) and 11 tricks (twice). Declarer was West on four of these occasions and East on three. Using "Play it again" it is easy to confirm that it takes a diamond lead from South or a red suit lead from North to defeat 5♣, and that 3NT played by East is impregnable.

Wouldn't it be nice to see what lead was made each time, so we could make an educated guess as to the influence of the opening lead on the eventual success (or otherwise) of the contract. Well, in fact there's a very simple mechanism to do this...

Just capture the lead on the Bridgemate! 

Perhaps I'll raise this with the committee for consideration soon.

Dave Simmons

Well, this isn't a difficult hand, but only just over half the field made 10 tricks in hearts.

Win the club lead and draw the solitary trump... so far, so good. But the two hands are unhappily mirrored in distribution, so there's no chance for a ruff despite having 12 (twelve!) trumps between the two hands.

After West's double, the ♠Q looks likely to be onside, so a spade finesse will give you the tenth trick. But not so fast, is there a better line that will give you an extra chance?

You can increase the odds up to a near certainty by simply giving up the lead with one of your minor suit losers! The opponents can cash their three tricks, but then have to concede a ruff and discard, or open up the spades for you.

Even on best defence (West taking his three top tricks and leading a low spade), you just duck the spade in dummy and up pops the ♠Q... bazinga!

Note that this is a no-lose play. Even if East irritatingly plays the ♠10, you win with the ♠K and can still take the spade finesse. The contract can only be defeated if East holds both the ♠10 and the ♠Q, and the defence don't make a mistake. On a good day for declarer, the defence will end up in the wrong hand and lead up to your ♠AJ tenace, or mistakenly conceding a ruff and discard. But if you carelessly finesse the ♠J assuming it's bound to be right, you'll be disappointed.

Click on "Show All Hands" to see the full deal.

On the day, 4♥ just making scored 66 out of 92 MPs, 4♥ going one down scored 25 out of 92... and we got a solitary top with 92 out of 92 MPs courtesy of the opponent's double!

Which just goes to show that it's not just the bidding and play, you also need a lot of luck to do well at duplicate bridge. But you still need to take advantage when the opponents gift you an opportunity.

Dave Simmons

Well, applying the SQOT to a suit of ♠AKQx arrives at the answer 4+3 = 7, so on that basis it's OK to overcall 1♠ with such a suit.

At our table, that's exactly what East did. Click on Show All Hands, and see just how effective this bid turned out to be.

With no stopper in spades, NS were scared off the 3NT contract (laydown as the cards lie), and bid to a game contract of 5♦ instead, sensibly deciding against the slam with two losers off the top in spades. At the time, this felt like accurate bidding, so imagine my surprise when I looked at the traveller the next day and discovered that this outcome scored poorly!

The explanation was simple... most Easts had passed with that hand. NS then bid to a game in 3NT or 5♦, and without the spade overcall by East, there is no obvious reason for West to lead a spade. On the lead of any other suit, South has an easy 12 tricks in NT, or all 13 tricks in diamonds. A contract of 5♦ just making comes a poor third behind those other two outcomes. So on this occasion, the deal was a triumph for advocates of the SQOT.

However, I wouldn't recommend overcalling 1♠ on a suit such as ♠QJ10x, which passes the SQOT for a 1♠ overcall just as much as ♠AKQx. This demonstrates that aids to bidding such as the SQOT need to be taken with a pinch of salt, or a large dose of common sense if you prefer, as one holding is worth two more tricks than the other.
 

Dave Simmons

Assuming I can pick up the clubs without loss (quite likely), I have 7 tricks off the top and the choice of hearts or spades to look for the extra tricks required.

If the spade finesse loses to the ♠Q, another diamond will come back and I'll be facing almost certain defeat. And after West's weak-two in hearts and East's failure to lead a heart, they must be 6-0 and I can make two extra tricks in hearts with the marked finesse, and enough entries in clubs to lead up to my hand twice more in hearts.

So I lead a heart at trick 2 and confidently play the ♥7 when West plays low.

Disaster! East wins with the ♥J and returns a second diamond. I can still make 8 tricks, but the minute I lead a spade, East claims the rest for one down.

I've been mugged by a weak-two bid on a 5-card suit, a pretty weak one at that (See Show All Hands for the gory details). I should know better... at favourable vulnerability, the modern aggressive style in top circles is to bid on nothing, especially third in hand.

At other tables where perhaps East opens 3♦ and West certainly doesn't open 2♥, declarer is likely to rely on a simple spade finesse for the extra tricks, and make 11 tricks without breaking sweat. So everyone else is making a comfortable 3NT+2 or 4S+1, whereas I'm getting a bottom in a miserable 3NT-1.

I'd rate the defence at my table as follows:

East's decision not to open 3♦... brilliant!
West's decision to open an ultra-light 2♥ third in hand... brilliant!!
East's decision to lead a diamond rather than his singleton ♥J... brilliant!!!

As Robert Schumann said in somewhat different circumstances, "Hats off, gentleman, a genius"! Or in this case, perhaps two. So look out for Chan and Quek, England stars of the future?!

Counting losers, it looks like there are at least 3 unavoidable losers, ♦A and ♥AK, and making the contract depends on guessing the trumps right if they don't break 2-2.

Declarer quickly realised this was a hand well-suited to a cross-ruff, and spotted a chance for 11 tricks. He ruffed the opening spade lead in hand, and immediately led a low diamond towards dummy's ♦J. "Key play", as Andrew Robson would say. North played low without too much thought... wouldn't you? (Click on Show All Hands.)

Bazinga!  Win with the ♦J, cross back to hand with another spade ruff, and discard dummy's remaining two diamonds on ♣AK. Now lead the ♦K for the marked ruffing finesse. North covers with the ace in "stable-door" mode, ruffed. Cash the ♠A discarding a club and lead a low trump towards hand, intending to finesse the ♥9. When South's ♥10 appears, it's game over. North wins with the ♥A and returns a trump, but declarer can still ruff his remaining club loser for 11 tricks and an "impossible" top.

The hand was played 16 times in the two sections, with 4♥ making 10 tricks being the usual outcome. Only two declarers managed to make 11 tricks so it was a joint top in the Green section.

The "obvious" plan for the defence is to cash ♣A to have a look at dummy, then maybe cash ♣K and ♠A hoping to defeat the contract straight away.  Not a winning line as the cards lie, in fact, rather the opposite (click on Show All Hands to see the details).  The bidding has given away a couple of big clues about declarer's likely holding. 

Firstly, declarer has shown at least five clubs, and your club holding of AK97 could well be bad news for him.  Also, by leading a top club you are exposing your second top club to a "ruffing finesse" if dummy only has a singleton club (or even worse, a void).  As the cards lie, all is well and there are clearly two club losers off the top, so maybe you cash the second club.

But where do you look for the setting trick?  Tempting as it is, you should not lay down ♠A in hope rather than expectation.  You have 5 spades, partner has supported your spade overcall so must have at least 3, and dummy is now revealed to have another 4.  Do the sums... declarer can have at most one spade, and from the bidding is more likely than not to be void in spades.  Another consideration is that if declarer does have a loser in spades, it can't run away.  The only suit in dummy on which he could conceivably discard a loser is spades itself.  As the cards lie, the only continution that allows the contract to be made at this point is the ♠A, and passive defence (a club continuation or a red-suit switch) holds declarer to 9 tricks.

At our table, Bernard and Margaret Eddleston from Hitchin Bridge Club were defending.  Bernard was on lead, and (to my mind) correctly avoided a club lead from the bidding, selecting the ♠A instead hoping to hit partner's suit.  This looked to be an unlucky guess — don't forget, he hadn't seen dummy at that point.  I ruffed, immediately cashed ♦A, crossed to ♦K and threw my two heart losers on the established spades.

But with the diamonds breaking 3-1 and the clubs breaking 4-2, I had already blown the contract, and I was given no further favours from this experienced pair.  Their accurate defence from now on saddled me with an inescapable third club loser, as repeated forces in hearts and spades by the defence gave nothing away.

Can you spot where I went wrong?
 

As is often the case, it was right at the beginning...  I must cross to dummy without first drawing an additional round of trumps, that way I still have trumps to spare to ruff a losing club (high) and return to hand with a trump to draw the remaining trumps.  The excellent "Play it again" double-dummy facility in BridgeWebs demonstrates the winning line nicely.

And what's the real moral of the story?  Well, there are several. 

For the defender on lead, don't despair just because the opening lead doesn't work out, there may still be chances to defeat the contract. 

For declarer, if you get away with a fortunate lead at trick one, all the more reason to plan the play carefully and think long and hard before playing to trick two, especially if it looks like a key contract — there's plenty that can still go wrong.

And of course, the most obvious point of all... bridge is not played double-dummy.  Anyone can spot the killing defence to 5♦ seeing all four hands (a heart lead works rather well as it happens), but that's not the point.  When it comes to the opening lead, for example, you have to do your best from what you can see in your hand and infer from the bidding.

Perhaps in this case the best "blind" lead is in fact a trump, to protect that club holding of ♣AK97 which looks worth three tricks to the defence, but only if declarer is forced to lead clubs from hand repeatedly and no ruffs are available in dummy.  A good alternative suggested by Bernard afterwards is a top club at trick one to have a look, followed by a red suit switch at trick 2, which also works fine.

Finally, I'd suggest that anyone who came up with the lead of ♥Q at trick one must have seen this deal before... even Bernard couldn't come up with that one at the table.

Dave Simmons.  Oct/2016

In fact, there's a classic "no lose" opportunity for an elimination and endplay if the trumps break 2-2, which virtually guarantees the contract on any distribution of the other three suits (click on Show All Hands). Win the first trick in dummy and immediately ruff a diamond low (it's pretty unlikely that North would lead a singleton ♦K against a slam). Then draw trumps in two rounds, noting the even split in trumps... it's going well so far. Now eliminate the diamond suit by entering dummy twice with two top hearts and ruffing a diamond with two top trumps.

Return to dummy with the third top heart and lead the ♣10, letting it run when South doesn't cover. Even if North now wins with the ♣J (worst case), he is end-played, forced to lead another club into my ♣AQ or concede a ruff and discard in one of the red suits.

Fantasy bridge... well almost. At the table, I almost found that line. But I drew trumps before ruffing out the diamonds (it would have been galling if that first diamond ruff had been over-ruffed), so I only had enough entries in dummy to ruff out three rounds of diamonds and take the club finesses, a partial elimination.  And I cannot tell a lie... I have adjusted the deal slightly, for maximum effect. In reality it was South who had both club honours, not North, and my ♣10 was covered by ♣J and ♣Q for the twelfth trick.

So my elegant line gained nothing, as a simple double finesse would have worked all along!

I was left with the moral victory of being able to enter dummy by leading my carefully preserved low trump, ♠3, to dummy's ♠9, and repeating the club finesse for all 13 tricks.

On the night, two pairs bid the slam, and three pairs made all 13 tricks. Roger and I were the only pair to do both, so got an outright top. But how much more satisfying it would have been if the club honours had both been offside (as in the hand illustrated above), and we were the only pair making 12 tricks, with a string of 4♠+1 outcomes elsewhere on the traveller...

Next time, perhaps?!

Dave Simmons

Of course, you lead a third spade, for a perfect trump promotion (click on Show All Hands). Partner has a stiff ♥Q doubleton, but that third spade magically creates another trick for the defence, as East can ruff high, ahead of dummy.

Many defenders seem to have a blind spot about trump promotions for some reason, but not our opponents on this occasion. I ruefully entered the score on the Bridgemate, 4♥=N, knowing it would not be good. Sure enough, the next day revealed the grisly truth: only 3 pairs out of 6 had found this defence, and they all ended up with a joint top. On any other lead, declarer rattles off 12 tricks without breaking sweat.

So what's this got to do with bidding, you may ask. Well, after West opens 1♠, that gives East an obvious choice of lead (partner's suit). If West passes however, East may well choose another lead from that hand, with a "safe" choice such as ♦J or a top-of-nothing club, especially at Match Point scoring where conceding unnecessary overtricks can be notoriously costly. Expert advice is that when debating whether to make a marginal opening bid or overcall, one of the most important criteria is "do you want the suit led if you end up defending?" The answer is obviously Yes here, so I would suggest it was a good decision to open the bidding.

Of course, one hand in isolation proves nothing, but my guess is that nowadays, experts would open that hand 1♠ every time.

And if you say "Sure, but you were playing one of the top pairs at the club, I would never have found that bid, or that play", it may come as a bit of a surprise which pairs found this defence and which pairs didn't... have a look at the traveller for yourselves. As I said to our opponents at the time, that defence couldn't have been bettered by a star pair in the Bermuda Bowl, so it was well-played indeed. Pick on someone else next time, please!

Dave Simmons

... This is a rare case where a hold-up on the first three rounds of a suit is required! North can work out at trick 1 that the club suit is blocked, so if he also holds up on the third round of clubs, declarer needs not one but an unlikely two entries to dummy, the first to establish and the second to run the long clubs. North's third-round hold up has killed dummy's long club suit stone dead. Let's see how the play would go.

Declarer is probably more irritated than dismayed by the marathon hold-up, as it looks like he has a second entry to dummy with the ♦10 assuming the suit breaks 3-2. He cashes two top diamonds, and that wipes the smile from his face — the suit breaks 4-1 and his second entry has disappeared.

The best he can do now is to cross to the ♠K and take the marked diamond finesse, for 10 tricks (see what I mean about double-dummy). The defender's clever play has saved a crucial overtrick, which often makes a significant difference at Match Points, especially when the contract appears to be a "routine" one like this, on the bidding.

You may think opportunities for triple hold-ups at bridge are rarer than hen's teeth, but consider the opening lead again, after a slightly different auction of say 2C – 2D – 3NT. On this bidding, there's quite a good case for considering the lead of a heart or spade (as the opposition haven't looked for a major suit fit via Stayman).

On a good day, North may hit on the inspired lead of ♥J rather than the regulation low club. Bingo, the lead strikes gold, and now declarer is in big trouble, cursing his luck that the defender has found the one lead that can trouble him.

Now the only way he can make the contract (barring an unlikely singleton ♣K) is to pray that the defender with the club stopper also has the shorter hearts. A hold-up is no good, nor is a double hold-up as the cards lie.  But a triple hold-up of the ♥A does the trick, exhausting North of hearts, so that when he gets in with his club stopper, he can do no further damage. Declarer just loses three hearts and a club.

So there you are... a routine 3NT making on the nail, with optimum double-dummy play by both defence and declarer, for a flat board... well, maybe in the Bermuda Bowl.

On the night, anything from 8 to 11 tricks were made by West in NT, and several pairs ended up in diamonds somehow, making from 10 to 12 tricks. One pair even managed to bid and make a small slam in 6♦ despite the bad breaks in both minor suits... you try it, it looks impossible to me!

Which all goes to show that there's no such thing as a standard contract at club bridge.

Dave Simmons

She chose the simpler line, and ran the spade. South is certainly less likely to hold the ♠Q as he's shown extreme length in hearts, so is likely to be short in spades. But South could hold something like 8 hearts and ♠Qxx on the bidding, and the odds against a 5-1 split in spades are also quite small. Not much in it either way, in my opinion. Maybe toss a coin time?!

Click on Show All Hands to see the gory details. Declarer decided to finesse, guessing right of course, and was claiming all thirteen tricks a few seconds later. But note that the equally reasonable line of going up with the ♠A and trying to ruff out the ♠Q happens to fail as the cards lie.

Looking at the traveller afterwards, the vast majority of results were 6♣= / 6♣+1 by West and 6♥-1 by South (the contracts often doubled, both ways). Our opponents were the only pair to bid 7♣. And if 7♣ goes just one down, we get a near top with 32 Match Points, but as it was we got an absolute bottom and a Eurovision-style "null points".

Getting 32 MPs on that single board would have dragged us up by a few percent, scraped us into the top twelve in the rankings and earned us half a Blue Point for our trouble. But it was not to be.

Oh well, next year at Eastbourne...  see you there?!

Dave Simmons

Of course, the answer is "Your guess is as good as mine", or even "Insufficient information" (in particular, I've not said what club partner led at trick one).

Let's suppose partner led ♣3. This could be the standard lead from three to an honour (♣J73) or a singleton. That would leave declarer with either one or three clubs, respectively. So no great help there.

Here's an advanced tip for ambitious partnerships: adopt the signalling convention "Ace for Attitude, King for Count". It is tailor-made for this sort of situation. At trick 2, lead the ♦K, asking partner to show count. If he's paying attention, he will play a low diamond, showing an odd number, or a high diamond showing an even number. If we'd been playing this method, the problem would be neatly solved. Partner's ♦2 shows an odd number of diamonds, so West knows he can cash precisely two diamonds, and must look to clubs for the fourth trick. Bingo!

Click on Show All Hands to see the situation. Not only does the second club cash, but a further club neatly promotes an extra trump trick for East's ♠J. Two down for +200 and a resounding top for EW.

Did you find that difficult? Well, who said bridge was an easy game! OK, Iain McLeod said it in 1952, but the game has moved on since then.

I first came across this tip in an excellent book that I spotted in Buntingford Library a couple of years ago, David Bird's 10 Ways to Improve Your Bridge. And Neil Rosen wrote up the same technique recently in a useful article in English Bridge, June 2015 (Advanced Defence, P44). But beware, this technique is not trivial and requires detailed partnership discussion. For example (as David Bird makes clear, but Neil Rosen doesn't) it means that you have to lead the Queen from KQ if you want the customary attitude signal from partner!

Oh yes, and what happened at the table. Well, don't tell Steve, but my brain was overloaded at trick one with all the excitement, and I didn't properly take in his lead (it was the ♣7). If I'd been thinking straight, I could have worked out that this could only be a singleton or doubleton lead (assuming standard leads), so I could safely cash the second club. Instead, I led a third diamond, declarer ruffed, and the roof fell in... nice try, but no cigar!

So the real moral perhaps is that fancy systems are all very well, but get the basics right first. My advice is to agree a sensible set of standard leads and simple signalling methods with your partner, then get into the habit of using them consistently and always watching what card partner plays.

I'll try and follow my own advice next time I play at Hitchin!

Dave Simmons

On the face of it, there's little choice but to play for the drop in clubs. On a 2-2 split, it's obvious that the contract makes easily.

An expert declarer can give himself an extra chance. He should lead the ♣10 to the ♣A (the play of the ♣10 is an unblocking play). If both defenders play low clubs, there's no option... just play off the ♣K with fingers crossed. The contract makes on a 2-2 split, and goes down on a 3-1 split. However, the declarer may be "rewarded" by seeing East drop a club honour on the first round, let's assume for the sake of argument that it's the ♣J.

Now you see the point of the ♣10 unblock. Declarer can cross to hand and lead his remaining low club, planning to finesse the ♣9. This makes the contract if West started with ♣Qxx, a play which would have been impossible if he'd simply played clubs from the top in the first place.

But in reality, declarer is faced with an uncomfortable choice, as East could just as easily have played the ♣J from ♣QJ doubleton. If so, the finesse will lose and dummy's remaining club winners are dead in the water!

What do you do? Well, the expert who has heard of the principle of restricted choice will now finesse, as it's [allegedly] the case that because East played the ♣J on the first round, he's now less likely to have the ♣Q. The argument goes that if East had had the ♣Q, he might equally well have played it on the first round, so the presumption is that he hasn't got the ♣Q. Whereas with the singleton ♣J, he'd have had no choice but to play as he did. in other words, the ♣J was his "restricted choice". Mathematicians will recognise Bayes theorem here, and laymen may have come across the Monty Hall problem, which is the same idea dressed up in game-show context. (Try Googling "Monty Hall problem" for plenty of interesting discussion, such as the Wikipedia article).

By the way, the play of a club honour by East has nothing to do with the standard old-timer's semi-bluff of playing the Q from QJ doubleton. The principle of restricted choice applies equally whichever honour shows up on the first round, assuming the player is equally likely to play the J or the Q when he has both (which happens to be the defender's best strategy). In practice, after East plays a club honour on the first round, declarer will cross to hand with a spade and lead a second club. West play a second low club, no great surprise there. It's the moment of truth... declarer has to decide whether to finesse or play for the drop in clubs.

To cut a long story short, the percentage play here is to finesse, if you believe the principle of restricted choice (and you should). 
Click on Show All Hands to see if this line would have paid off at the table.

You can see that East did indeed have the doubleton ♣QJ all along, so anyone who played the "expert" way would have been rewarded with a bottom, and have scant consolation in knowing that his line was in theory the better line, while his opponents try their best not to chuckle too openly.

That, in a nutshell, demonstrates the fascination and frustration of duplicate bridge. Like it or not, luck plays a large part in the outcome of any single hand, or an entire event of 24 boards for that matter. If you played this hand a hundred times, the expert line would pay off about two thirds of the time.

But in reality, you play this hand once and probably get a top or a bottom... sadly you can't demand a 67% score just because you feel that you played it better than most, and were unlucky to go down!

And how did I play it? We'll never know, the opposition had other ideas!

Dave Simmons

Go into the BridgeWebs Scorecard for this deal, and click on the "Play it again" button (just below the deal in the BridgeWebs Scorecards display).

The very first time you use Play it Again in BridgeWebs, you will be given some choices. Click on "BS Online" to select the Bridge Solver Online module to run the analysis.

[Note. A full explanation of how to use Bridge Solver Online from this point can be found on the EBU website at www.ebu.co.uk/node/2034, where it is invoked from within the EBU's SIMS results service, as opposed to BridgeWebs. But BS Online looks just the same invoked from either interface.]

Continue by selecting a contract to analyse, in this case click on the 3 in the grid representing the 3♠ contract by West. Now all should be revealed!

The only lead to defeat 4♠ is in fact the ♣A (that card is coloured green with a 4 suffix on it, the rest are coloured yellow with a 3 suffix). To elaborate, the green card shows that playing that card results in the best outcome for that side (yellow cards represent inferior lines), and the numerical suffix says how many tricks will result from playing that card (assuming best play by all players from that point onwards).

Looking at the hands, this analysis certainly looks plausible, as it looks like that on any other lead, declarer can cross to the ♦K and lead a trump. Assuming South ducks, he goes up with the ♠K and draws a second round of trumps. If not, he plays a second round of trumps on regaining the lead. Either way, game over.

Back to the analyser. Play the cards one at a time by clicking on them. After 4 clicks, we arrive at the second trick, and the analyser shows that North has only one continuation, the ♣10, to hold the declarer to 9 tricks (as before, it's the only card in green).

At this point, West probably gains the lead with ♣K. You can see from the double-dummy analyser that whatever West leads at this point, he can now only get a maximum of 9 tricks against best defence. The analyser can show what would happen on any continuation, but at our table West followed a sensible line, crossing to the ♦K, and leading the ♠10 from dummy. 

The moment of truth has arrived! The analyser now reveals that the only way for the defence to hold the contract to 9 tricks at this point is for South to rise with the ♠A and lead a third club, promoting partner's ♠Q. At the table, South made the instinctive play of covering the ♠10 with the ♠J — "nice try, but no cigar"! West won with the ♠K and returned a trump. Now EW are guaranteed 10 tricks against any defence.

If you've been correctly following the analysis in Play it Again, the winning and losing plays in the above lines should have been clearly identified throughout in green and yellow.
 

So how did we do on the night? Well, we made a good start by choosing an aggressive club lead rather than a probably futile heart lead. After the ♣A lead and ♣10 continuation by North, declarer correctly decided to cross to dummy with a diamond to lead a trump towards his ♠K, but South missed his moment of glory and failed to find the star defence at that point.

The hand was well played by declarer, and the winning defence was certainly difficult to find at the table... but not impossible. So any players trying to improve their bridge play, whether as declarer or defender, could learn something from the Play it Again analysis on this deal (and many others, for that matter).

The analyser is particularly good at identifying the best opening lead against NT contracts, which is hardly surprising as it has the advantage of seeing all four hands, unlike the poor defender often squirming at the table with a choice of equally unattractive leads!

Oh yes, and did any of this make a difference on the night?

Well no! Declarer was in 3♠ at our table, and either 3♠ making for 140 or 3♠ making with an overtrick for 170 would have scored exactly the same in MPs as it happens (an Avge+ for EW). But of course, if we'd been defending 4♠ rather than 3♠, there would have been a huge difference between declarer making 9 or 10 tricks: one outcome would have been a top, the other a bottom.

But that's just duplicate bridge for you. Luck still plays a big part in the outcome of any individual board, like it or not, however well (or not so well) you play it.

Dave Simmons

You have 13 points and 9+ playing tricks in spades. Clearly, 4♠ is pretty likely to make, and you may be in the slam zone if partner has a couple of aces.

Some of you may be tempted to open an Acol 2♣ on the basis that game is almost certain with this hand, and to give you room to investigate a slam.

Well, I can think of at least two reasons why this is not a great idea:

1. You don't have enough high card strength, so you may mislead partner.  
Traditionally, 2♣ requires at least 5 quick tricks (in top honours), or 23+ points for those who learnt their bridge after 1970
(if you discount the singleton ♦K, you only have two quick tricks, hardly enough for an opening bid, let alone 2♣)

2. You have virtually no defensive values
How many tricks can you expect to make if the opponents compete in hearts say?  A cautious estimate would be... none at all.  Even the most optimistic defender could hardly expect to make more than 2 tricks with this hand.

Much the same arguments apply against opening 2♠ if you play Acol strong-twos, or the Benji equivalent.

So to me, this hand is crying out to be opened pre-emptively, 4♠ being the obvious choice on the well-tried principle of bidding what you think you can make.

But hang on, with a 7-card suit such as the KQJxxxx and nothing outside, you'd open 3♠;
and with an 8-card suit of the AKQxxxxx you'd open 4♠;
on that basis, why not open 5♠ with this 9-card suit AKQJ10xxxx? It seems logical enough in principle.

Well, common sense intervenes. You'd feel a bit silly going one down in 5♠ if partner has nothing much opposite, when everyone else is making 4♠ for game. And as we'll see in a moment, an opening bid of 5♠ is reserved for a different sort of hand altogether. But if your long suit was a minor suit, yes 5♣/5♦ is probably the opening bid (expecting to make, or as a pre-empt: who knows?).

And what about missing a slam?  Well, you're missing three aces so on average partner will only have one of them.  Even if he does have two aces, you could easily have two losers off the top in hearts.
And if he has all three aces? Well, won't he consider raising you to 6♠ even with no spade support?  (Roman Key Card Blackwood is perfect in this case, as he can find out if you have one two or all three of ♠AKQ, and bid accordingly).

Seeing as these hands crop up about once in a lifetime, it's hardly worth worrying about, but there are two "expert" bids that can also help with freak hands like this:

Opening 5♥ or 5♠ would show precisely eleven top tricks just missing the AK of trumps.  Partner passes or raises to the appropriate slam.

And with a hand like this: ♠AKQJ10xxxxxx ♥x ♦A ♣--, that rare beast an Acol 4NT opener comes in handy:

Unlike standard Blackwood, an opening 4NT doesn't ask how many aces, it asks for specific aces, as follows:
5♣ shows no aces
5♦ shows ♦A
5♥ shows ♥A
5♠ shows ♠A
5NT shows two aces
6♣ shows ♣A

Again, this enables opener to bid the correct contract of 6♠, 7♠ or 7NT with total confidence. That's in the unlikely event that both you and partner know the convention, and remember that you are playing it, of course?!

Not much to the play on this board (click on Show All Hands to see the details): West leads out ♣A, and if he's sensible will switch at trick 2, (on the bidding, declarer is much more likely to have a club singleton than partner). Declarer should now be held to just 10 tricks, though he can run the spades and hope the defenders slip up.  

Par outcome: 4♠ tick!

Dave Simmons

In 7♦, your only thought should be making the contract. Once the trumps break 3-2 (phew!), is there anything else that can go wrong?

Well, the hearts could still break 4-0 and one defender may have ♥Jxxx.  Stranger things have happened.

On a spade lead, it's pretty straightforward.  Draw trumps, cross to the hearts, and even if they break badly, you can ruff a heart, and cross back to the ♣A and claim all 13 tricks.

On a club lead (which was what I got), not quite so easy.  If South turns out to have all four hearts to the Jack, then all you can do is curse your bad luck, smile through clenched teeth, and congratulate your opponents on their defence. But if North has all four hearts, you can still make, so long as you play carefully. Draw trumps, play a heart to dummy discovering the bad break, cross back to hand with a spade, and take the marked finesse in hearts.

Did I follow this line?  Well, I cannot tell a lie... in the excitement of playing only the second grand slam of my life, I just ran all the trumps on the unlikely chance of a defender discarding a heart, and then crossed to dummy and ran the hearts from the top. If the hearts happen to break 4-0, it's now too late to do anything about it.

Not a difficult hand, but easy to play carelessly in the heat of the moment. Click on Show All Hands to see that on this occasion I got away with it -- the hearts broke, and 7♦ makes with two overtricks! 

But next time, I'll try and remember Rixi's excellent advice before I play the hand... not the next day!

Dave Simmons

Declarer could see that the slam depended on two finesses. As long as they weren't both wrong, the slam makes. He tried the heart finesse at trick 1 with no great optimism, and sure enough West won the trick with ♥K, and returned the ♦Q.

Declarer could have taken an immediate club finesse and put himself out of his misery, but decided that there were additional chances of a squeeze, so he cashed two rounds of spades (they broke 2-1), returned to hand with ♠9 to cash the ♦A, returned to dummy and cashed ♥A (is this the Vienna coup?!) and ran the spades. East was showing signs of stress by the 11th trick.

Here's the situation as declarer leads the last master spade from dummy (South):

North
♥ 10
♣ A97
                East
                ♥ J
                ♣ Q103
South
♠ 2
♣ KJ4

North throws a club and East is squeezed.

At the table, East reluctantly threw a club. Declarer crossed to ♣A and led a low club, and was spared a guess in clubs when the ♣Q inevitably popped up -- a sort of show-up squeeze in reverse? Of course, if all else fails, declarer can still take the club finesse, so it's a "no lose" line of play. And if the finesse loses, it's going to be a bottom anyway.

Declarer was feeling quite pleased with himself at this point thinking that making 6NT should score a near top, but the Bridgemate only showed an average plus -- several pairs had made all 13 tricks in 6♠!

Click on Show All Hands to see the actual layout.

As is often the case, the explanation is [probably] down to the opening lead. On anything but a heart lead, declarer can draw trumps and take the club finesse straight away. Even if this fails, there is an extra chance for the twelfth trick if the suit breaks 3-3. But as the cards lie, the club finesse works, the club suit breaks 3-3, and declarer rattles off all 13 tricks without the need to even consider the (losing) heart finesse.

Roger and I had the rare experience of bidding and making three good slams over the session, and scoring an aggregate of just 47% for those three boards combined! Normally, making a slam almost guarantees a good plus score. A case of the 100 year wave? It certainly felt like it!

Dave Simmons

I was convinced that declarer must have a good diamond stopper for his 6NT bid, and could see that the lead gave him a free finesse if he held ♦AQ, and I'd just be gifting him yet another trick by going up with the King if he held ♦AQJ. So I decided to withhold my ♦K and ducked.

Big mistake! Declarer won with the ♦J, led a heart to the ♥K and when that held the trick, claimed the rest with five tricks in each of the black suits and the ♦A for luck. 12 or 13 tricks is much the same, a top in anyone's book. Click on Show All Hands to see the gory details.

Of course, I should have done what most players would have done without a thought, and gone up with the ♦K on the first trick. Declarer can run 11 tricks, but must lose the last two tricks as Roger will cling on to ♥A and ♦Q like grim death.

When a pair punt a 6NT auction after a bidding sequence like that, it's very likely to be a top or a bottom. Our opponents very nearly got a bottom after they were hustled into the wrong slam. Roger deserved a top for his diamond bid and lead, but I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with my play to the first trick. Looking at the scores later, I realised that my mistake on the play of just that one card cost us well over 5% in the overall rankings... scary.

Roger, I owe you a drink!

I was on lead, with a tricky choice. I was briefly tempted by the singleton trump as the safest lead and unlikely to cost a trick, but rejected it as too passive. So it was a choice between the red suits.

Normally, the heart lead would be the choice, but given that declarer probably has at least 8 tricks to run once he gets in, the ♦A seemed sensible, to hold the lead and have a look at dummy.

Once dummy went down, I was relieved I hadn't led a trump. A heart switch was obvious (on the bidding, declarer is much more likely to have a singleton diamond than partner), so I switched to ♥10, and Roger cashed out with ♥K and ♥A, as I followed with a low heart.

Then the master stroke: Roger led his third heart, and put declarer to the guess. 

West agonised for a while. If both hearts and spades break evenly, the contract can't be beaten. And if North has a doubleton heart and four spades to the 10, there's nothing to be done, the defence have engineered a textbook trump promotion.

It looks from the play so far that North has a doubleton heart. How galling would it be for declarer if he ruffed low, and North made a trick with ♠10 from two or three small -- or even worse, a singleton -- when the trumps are breaking all along. So declarer made the percentage play of ruffing high with ♠J and drawing trumps, only to find that it was Roger who had the four trumps, and he made the setting trick from a trump holding of ♠10xxx.

An easy hand for declarer to play... double-dummy! But the defence found the only line that gave declarer the chance to go wrong. And on this occasion, it paid off.

If it's MP scoring (or if you're in 5♥ of course) there's no option. Simply take the heart finesse like everyone else and hope it works. If it does, you'll make 11 tricks, for a likely average+.

But playing any other form of bridge (Rubber, Teams, even Butler Pairs), it's not so simple.  Now the reward for making your contract (420 points), and the corresponding penalty for failure, far outweighs the value of a mere overtrick (30 points). So you need to ask yourself is there any risk in taking the heart finesse.

Well, there clearly is.  The heart finesse could lose to the ♥K, and the defenders could then cash two top diamonds and score the setting trick with a diamond ruff. Sure, it's unlikely, but certainly not impossible.

If you were playing for England and in the happy position of being 5 IMPs up against the demon US pair Meckstroth and Rodwell on the very last board of the Bermuda Bowl, it would certainly be a no-brainer. You'd know that if that killer defence was available, Meckwell would find it, no question. So PLAY SAFE, or you might regret it for the rest of your life (which might not be for long, as your teammates would probably kill you anyway, and plead justifiable homicide)!

OK, this wasn't the Bermuda Bowl. But Roger spurned the finesse anyway, and calmly cashed trumps from the top to score 10 tricks without breaking sweat. Click on "Show All Hands" to have a look and see if this caution was in fact necessary...

Well no, as it happens. The heart finesse worked all along, and no defensive ruff was available. 

The traveller reveals that of the eight pairs who were in 4♥ three made 10 tricks and 5 made 11 tricks. So we lost one whole IMP on the board. But I for one was impressed by Roger's technique on that one.

Dave Simmons

First things first, the lead. I doubt if anyone will look beyond the diamond suit for the opening lead. Best choice is a top diamond (♦A or ♦K according to partnership agreement) to have a look at dummy – you never know, dummy may go down with ♦Qx doubleton, and you can cash the first five tricks (dream on). Definitely not a time to "lead fourth-highest against No Trumps" on this holding!

Dummy in fact goes down with ♦53 and partner plays a discouraging ♦4, presumably denying the ♦Q. (If he holds the ♦Q doubleton, he should unblock).

What now? (This is where it gets a bit more difficult – but who said defence was easy!)

You need 7 tricks to defeat 1NT, and leading out two more top diamonds may well present declarer with that vital seventh trick if he has the ♦Q guarded.

Playing for the drop of the doubleton queen is one approach, but that seems fairly optimistic. An approach with a better chance of success is to try and find an entry in partner's hand, so that he can return your diamond lead through declarer's likely holding of ♦Qx.

So a switch is indicated, but which suit to lead? A club from ♣Kx is a very high risk choice, likely to cost at least one trick (if not several) if you pick declarer's strong suit. A heart from the ♥Jx has much the same drawback. That leaves a spade as the only choice, and it has the incidental benefit of making your intention clear – you can hardly be trying to find partner's suit with a spade switch, with ♠KQJx in dummy!

Either partner has the ♠A in which case problem over – he wins and returns a diamond immediately. Or else declarer has the ♠A and the spade lead doesn't cost a trick. Note that against a 1NT contract, you often need to defend cautiously, not aggressively – unlike defending against 3NT where losing a trick on the lead is often a risk worth taking, if it establishes your long suit.

"Plan A" fails – declarer has the ♠A. But after declarer has cashed four spades and two hearts, he's run out of winners. He is still a trick short of making his contract, and has to surrender the lead to South. A belated diamond return now ensures the defence takes the rest of the tricks, for one down. Click on Show All Hands to see the full deal.

On the night, the traveller shows a row of 1NT contracts all making, so I'd guess that not a single pair out of eight managed to find this defence. Did you do better?

Finally, be aware that you can still net a lot of IMPs with part-score hands at Butler Pairs. The difference between 1NT making (7 tricks) and 1NT going one down vulnerable (6 tricks) is 190, or 5 IMPs. Not to be sneezed at – it only takes a couple of part-score swings like that to easily beat a non-vulnerable game swing of 7 IMPs and almost match a vulnerable game swing of 11 IMPs.

Dave Simmons

I hoped that clubs would break no worse than 4-2, and after winning the opening lead in hand, cashed the ♣A and ruffed a club, crossed back to hand with a spade ruff, and ruffed a second club high with ♥A. This was both to avoid a likely overruff, and retain a low heart in dummy so that I could easily return to hand with a trump, catering for a 4-1 heart split. I played off the four rounds of trumps and reeled off my established clubs, feeling rather pleased with myself.

Oops!  John produced a fifth trump out of nowhere, and I was down. In my excitement at the prospect of doubled overtricks, I hadn't spotted that Colin had discarded on the very first round of trumps -- the hearts had split 5-0. Click on Show All Hands to see the gory details.

It made me feel slightly better the next day looking at the deal when I realised that there was little I could have done about it at that point. As Bernard Magee commented in the booklet "... declarer ruffs and probably plays ♥K to find the horrible news. There is no way back now and two off [in a slam] is the likely result."  Quite!  But one down or eight down in 5♥ doubled, it's all the same at MPs -- our worst score of the night.

Looking at the Bridgemate at the time, I was amazed that we'd got such a bad score on the board. The key was Colin's opening bid as dealer, which pretty much determined everything that happened afterwards, in both the bidding and play.  

Of course, the slam can make easily enough double-dummy. If declarer optimistically relies on the clubs splitting 3-3, he only needs the one club ruff, and the 5-0 trump split doesn't inconvenience him. Equally, 5♣ doubled is trivial to make on anything but a heart lead (which results in a killing defensive ruff). All declarer has to do is bang out three rounds of trumps, hoping for a 3-3 split.

So would you have opened with the North hand?  Plenty at the club wouldn't. And a few would, I suspect.  

If you evaluate your hand for an opening bid using "the rule of 20" (add high card points and the length of the longest two suits), the hand is arguably a point light. But to me, a punt at 1♠ with that hand looks perfectly reasonable, especially if NS had been non-vulnerable. The main downside to opening 1♠ on that 5053 shape, especially playing 5-card majors, is that there's no satisfactory rebid over a 2♥ response from partner. But if partner responds 1NT or 2♣, then there's no problem -- show your 2-suiter with a 2♦ response, and expect a good score. As Dirty Harry would say, "Are you feeling lucky, punk?!"  One thing's for sure -- Colin's decision to open the bidding on that hand paid off in spades on that occasion!

There are several morals to be drawn from this board:

• Opening light can be very effective -- but beware, it is a high-risk strategy
• Marginal doubles can also be a good strategy (but only at MPs!) -- again beware, it is a high-risk strategy
• Predicting the bidding on any deal can be a difficult job, even for experts like Bernard Magee
• Spotting when an opponent shows out on the first round of trumps is not a bad idea in general, Dave!

Dave Simmons

As with any lead, there's no right or wrong answer.  But some leads certainly work out better than others.  Robyn picked a cracker!

On this occasion, she made the excellent choice of ♥J (the standard lead from KJ10x) from the unbid major, preferring to retain her ♦AQ tenace over declarer's presumed ♦K. When dummy went down (Show All Hands), I could see declarer was certain to run at least 10 tricks once he got the lead.

I took the lead to be from something like ♥J108xx or even top of nothing, and I placed declarer with the ♥K. So I went up immediately with my ♥A, switched to ♦J through declarer's Kxx, and the defence can now easily take the first 9 tricks as the cards lie.  Luckily for me, declarer didn't have ♦A and ♥xxx (equally possible on the bidding and opening lead), in which case the diamond switch would have been a disaster.  At the time, I didn't even give it a thought!

And if Robyn had equally reasonably chosen to lead the "obvious" ♦4, the traditional choice at NT of fourth highest of her longest and strongest suit?  Then declarer quickly rattles off all 13 tricks!

So a 9 trick swing on the choice of lead.  It goes to show that fourth highest isn't always the best lead against a NT contract. And sometimes, as defender you just need to be lucky, and guess right.

It's an obvious Acol 2♣ opener, but after that, it's not so easy.

Bidding is always a matter of opinion, but here's my suggestion:

The hand is balanced (5332) shape with 28 points.  With stoppers in every suit, this seems tailor-made for No Trumps.  Some may be seduced by the heart suit, but ♥AKQJ9 makes the same 5 tricks playing in hearts and No Trumps.

Most Acol books tell you how to bid strong balanced hands as follows:
20-22 points -- open 2NT
23-24 points -- open 2♣ and rebid 2NT (non-forcing)
25-26 points -- open 2♣ and rebid 3NT

Unsurprisingly, most summaries don't bother to go above 26 points, presumably on the grounds of lack of frequency.  But with this hand the right approach must logically be to open 2♣ and rebid 4NT.  In fact, I did find a couple of references that confirmed this, though they varied between 27-28 and 28-30 points as the requirement for a 4NT rebid.

So on that basis, the bidding could be short and sharp: 2♣ 2♦ 4NT 6NT.  It also happens to arrive at a reasonable enough contract, makeable on the club finesse, and other chances.  (Use Show All Hands to see the details).

Is that how I bid it on the night?  Of course not.  Roger and I had never discussed this sequence, and I was put off bidding 4NT by a worry that partner would take it as Blackwood.  So I bottled out in 3NT, and hoped the slam wouldn't make, or that not many pairs would bid it.

And the play?  Well, I received a friendly looking low spade lead into my ♠AJ tenace, and won with the Jack.  And then...  realised I'd made the most basic blunder in the book – playing to the first trick without thinking!  I was stuck in hand with no obvious way to dummy to take the club finesse.  I eventually scrambled 12 tricks, but knew this would be a poor score as the cards lay so favourably for those who'd bid the slam.

In fact, with both the club finesse working and the ♦Q dropping doubleton, all 13 tricks should probably be made in 6NT played by East.  By a strange coincidence, this is the third year running that the opening session of the year has featured a grand slam being bid and made, every time by East.  Conspiracy theorists will no doubt blame "the computer", but this is pure coincidence.  Mind you, I may try and sit East on 8th January next year!

Dave Simmons