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Board 31 Monday 14 April

Q. Just one E/W pair found, bid and made 4  How might they have done that? 

A. Bidding. N/S Pass throughout.  West has an interesting hand that doesn’t quite meet the rule-of-twenty.  Critically East knows exactly where they are going so “fibs” by opening 1 in anticipation of offering Partner a Pass or Correct option.  East bids 2C (11+HCP and the change of suit forcing for one round).  West duly bids 2(no sign of a strong hand) and is surprised when East jumps to a 4. 

Play.  Q♠♣♥♦lead taken by East.  A small Heart draws North’s A.  North shouldn’t lead Spades as they have been bid by East so leads small Club taken by South’s A.  Whatever South leads is taken by Declarer who draws the K but wins the next trick and then takes out the last trump.  North’s Q is trapped.  Making 10 tricks.  Congratulations Jeanette Whalan and Carolyn Seymour.

Interestingly if East doesn’t open it is very difficult for the partnership to find the strength in their hands to bid to game.

Some Further Thoughts

I have been looking at this deal again because I noticed that most declarer's were only making 12 tricks. It seems that there is a good deal more still to explore. (apologies for the line spacing/font size but I cannot get this editor to give me what it used to)

The Opening Lead

If the bidding has stopped at 4♥ there is no particular reason for west to lead anything other than a top club and then playing by the odds should deliver 13 tricks for declarer. However if the NS are playing in 6♥ and the bidding has revealed that north has a first round control in clubs then I think that west should abandon a club lead. There are two reasons for this.

Leading a club might help the declarer if he has an entryproblem. He will need enough entries to his hand to ruff all his clubs. Leading a club reduces the entry requirement by one and that might be critical.

The other problem is that Declarer might hold QJx(x). Now aclub lead will let him set up a club trick. (Ruff the lead. Come to hand and take a ruffing finesse to set up a club trick.)

So let me examine the pros and cons of leading the other suits.

Leading a spade works if partner has the 10. Without any clues from the bidding the probability of that is 2 to 1 against (the 10 can be inany one of the other 3 hands and you have no reason to favour it being in yourpartner's hand). There is a possibility that east has the K. The bidding makesthat seem less likely but not impossible. Which spade? I cannot think of ascenario in which it actually matters, either East has the 10 or K or neither.Psychologically I would try a small spade.

Leading a low diamond could work if south's second round control of diamonds is through holding a singleton. Declarer just might read the low diamond as showing a missing honour. Making declarer guess at trick one is often a good ploy, especially against a slam. Declarer might also worry that a diamond lead was a singleton. Remember that the bidding has told south a good deal about north's hand but not so much about west's.

Even though it is usually a bad idea, leading your singletontrump might work in this case. It seems unlikely that your partner has a hightrump and even if he does, surely declarer will be able to enter dummy to take the finesse. The advantage of leading a trump is that declarer will probably have to win in hand and that might upset the timing for declarer.

The bidding suggests that north has a long diamond suit(with 13 cards and no clubs �) so my choice would be a low diamond. If south has the K nothing is likely to work, so lets put declarer on a guess at trick 1.

As the cards lie this is the only lead that should be problematic at pairs where making all 13 tricks is highly desirable.

The Play of the Diamond Suit

If west has led a small diamond declarer should decline the finesse. Taking it could be fatal if it is a singleton and west has all 3 missing trumps. Not likely but certainly possible so the first trick is not the place to put your contract at risk.

If the opening lead is anything else you need to tackle the diamond suit by leading the J from hand just in case west is void in diamonds (possible). Remember that your 12 tricks are safe as long as you can ruff your 3 clubs; you then have the A, A and K along with your six trumps. It is inconceivable on the bidding that east is void in diamonds because that would give west at least 11 cards in the minors even if the 2 call was not west's longest suit. Now with 7 spades missing surely east would have bid something.

So should declarer run the J? In my opinion, definitely not. That is a simple 50% chance and with a singleton opposite 6 to the AQ and plenty of entries you have a better chance of ruffing out the K. The probability of a 3-3 split in diamonds is 35.5% The probability of the K being a doubleton is slightly better than 16% and the probability of a singleton king is about 1%. That already adds up to more than 50%. However you have further chances if west has 4 diamonds which you will discover before ruffing the third round of diamonds high.

There are lots of variations depending on the opening lead because declarer will need to time the play carefully. Here is how declarer might plan the play on a diamond lead (by the way the play is much easier on a club lead). Win the A and play a trump, win with the A and note that the trumps are splitting  2-1. Ruff a club. Lead a low diamond and ruff it low. Even if west can over ruff with the last trump your contract is safe. As the cards lie, ruff another club lead a another low diamond. As the cards lie the K appears from the east hand (much to your delight because that means that those letting the J run on the first round were going to be held to 12 tricks. But suppose east only started with 2 diamonds and now discards a club; you will need to guess whether west started with 7 clubs, 4 diamonds, 1 spade and 1 heart or fewer clubs. Go back to the bidding, if east has 7 clubs and 4 diamonds and a singleton in both majors then east started with 6 spades and yet was silent. No it seems very unlikely that if east had only 2 diamonds that east would also have only 3 clubs. So ruff your last club and lead another diamond. Ruff and draw the outstanding trump before returning to dummy with the A in order to discard your 3^rd spade on the Q.

Now I do not expect you to work all this out at the table, but you do need to know how to play a 6 card side suit headed by the AQ opposite a singleton. If it was opposite a doubleton then the finesse is the best chance of making at least two tricks in the suit without loss but with only a singleton you have a better chance by aiming to ruff out the missing honour(s).

A thought about the bidding

Pre-emptive bidding can be particularly effective when youropponents seem set on exploring the possibility of a slam. After the biddinghas gone:

Pass   1♥   2♣  3♣

I think east might give serious consideration to bidding 5C (if you are going to pre-empt do not pussy-foot around).  Now north-south will have to guess what to do.  South is certain that 4♥ is going to make for at least 620, but can they take 5♣*off by at least 4 (3 will only be 500). I note that one pair reached 7♣ which is a good sacrifice at pairs (down 6 doubled for a loss of 1400 as against 1430 or 1460 for 6) as long as it does not provoke the opposition into bidding 7.