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Hand Analyses 25th October, 2006
A little part-score skirmish with which to start off the week. North had the old, familiar 4-5 in the minors problem, and chose to open 1♦ in order to facilitate her rebid. One of the downsides of this approach is illustrated here … after North’s 2♣ rebid, South went back to Opener’s first suit, putting her side in the 4-3 fit instead of the 5-3 fit. And, it could have been worse, South would often do the same thing with 2 Diamonds and 3 Clubs!
In 2♥ East can make 9 tricks provided that he goes after a Club ruff on the board early in the play (before touching trumps, in other words).
After West’s Michaels bid, North’s Double showed a good hand, not a hand with Heart support (though many pairs do play that it shows Hearts) … a 2♠ cue-bid is available for showing support and a decent hand. East had nothing worth saying over the Double and South decided to show her 6th Heart rather than to keep the penalty option open, no doubt being influenced by the vulnerability.
Against 3NT, East will no doubt lead a Spade rather than try to guess which minor suit Partner holds. Declarer will duck this and win the second round. How should she play the Diamonds? Should she cash the Ace as a safety play? This would keep West’s Spades off play if he happened to have the singleton King. But that’s a bit of a long shot, and that line would lose a trick to various other suit combinations. No, better to run the Queen hoping for the best. Two cases to consider: Case A: East covers with the King and we play the Ace. Now, we’ll finesse the Nine on the second round of Diamonds … it’s unlikely that West has 3 Diamonds, but if he has we’d hate to let him in with the Ten. Case B: East does not cover the Q♦. What next? We’d suggest running the J♦ which will be a spectacular failure if West has Txx, but will pick up the Diamonds for no losers in the more likely event that West has Tx. Anyway, all roads lead to East scoring one Diamond trick and Declarer making 9 tricks.
Playing in Hearts, South can make tricks galore. Suppose that West leads a Diamond. Now, double dummy at least, South can make no fewer than 12 tricks! Here’s how: Diamond won by the Queen (doesn’t help to cover) A♠ and ruff a Spade Club finesse, the cash A♣ Back to the A♦ Ruff a Club Ruff a Spade Cash A♥ Exit a Diamond Now, at trick 11, East is end-played in trumps Yes, West can save a trick with the unlikely lead of a trump.
We wouldn’t blame West for preempting with 3♦ here, notwithstanding the vulnerability. This time, though, it will work out badly … North will pass, and then also pass the reopening Double. That will be a painful -500 for E-W.
More likely, N-S will come to rest in 3NT, and it seems to us that 10 tricks will always be made.
East’s Double was a Support Double, showing 3-card support for Partner’s Spades. It’s easy to see some E-W pairs missing this game … West might not invite with 3♠, there’s something to be said for 2♠ here … and, after West has decided to invite, East might get conservative with his square hand and poor trumps.
How does 4♠ do? Pretty well. The Spades can be picked up for no losers, notwithstanding the 4-1 break, and there will end up being one loser in Diamonds, and one in Hearts.
South’s original plan was to rebid 2NT after Responder’s bid of 1♥ or 1♠, showing 18-19 HCPs. Of course, South has only 17, but there is ample compensation in the long Diamonds. However, when the bidding gets back to her, West has thrown Hearts into the picture, so she rebids 3♦, hoping that Partner can make a move towards 3NT.
3♦ is the final contract, and with both Diamonds onside, and the K♣ also favorably placed, Declarer has only 3 obvious losers. Does that mean 10 tricks? No, there is one small problem, only one entry to the board and three finesses to be taken. Does that mean only 8 tricks? Not necessarily, South might get up to 9 in a couple of ways: - West might shift to a Club after cashing two Hearts, which gives South her extra Club trick without wasting that precious entry to the board … now the A♣ can be used to take a Diamond finesse and it will be 9 tricks. - Better defense is to play a third round of Hearts, leaving Declarer to do her own work. To see how she might make 9 tricks, please see Play Problem # 85.
We talk about West’s options in the Bidding Quiz, for the time being we’ll just say that, in the featured auction, 2♦ was a Jacoby Transfer, and 3♠ was a Splinter.
Some points in the play: - If South leads a Diamond, Declarer will be able to pitch one of those Diamond losers on the A♠ and arrange to ruff the other one on the board. Of course, if they win one Diamond and then shift to trumps, Declarer must revert to Diamonds to ensure the ruff. - If South leads a trump (the dreaded singleton trump lead, we don’t think so!), then the defense is ahead of the game and can stop the short hand ruff in Dummy. That’s no reason for Declarer not to lose a Diamond anyway, just in case they get deflected from the Heart attack. Let’s assume that the defense persists in extracting Dummy’s trumps. Now, when all hope of a short hand ruff is gone, Declarer must try a ruffing finesse against the K♠, and that proves to be a serviceable substitute. - Regardless of what South leads, how do you play the Clubs? Suppose that the opposing cards are 4-1. It would be good to cash the high honors in such a way that, when one or other of the opponents shows out on the second round we are in a position to finesse against the Jxxx of Clubs. By the time that we get to playing on Clubs, it will be apparent that North has the longer Hearts, so the plan should surely be to guess that if there are long Clubs out there they will likely be with short Heart hand. In other words, we play South for the long Clubs, and, not surprisingly, this is the winner.
What a troublesome hand for E-W! The hands just fit together so poorly and it’s easy to see how things might spiral out of control. We have struggled to construct an auction which might keep E-W in plus-score territory, but it wasn’t easy! No, we’re not entirely convinced by the featured auction either! Our prediction is that almost all of the E-W pairs will go minus.
1♣ looks like an obvious enough opening bid for East, but there’s something to be said for opening this hand 1NT. It’s a tad light, but it does have some preemptive value (especially against vulnerable opponents), and it does protect that K♠ from the opening lead. If East does open 1NT he may well land on his feet. South will be frozen out of the auction, and E-W may end up in this situation: West East Pass 1NT 2♣ 2♦ 2♠ ?? West’s sequence shows 5-4 in the majors and invitational values. That being so, East should probably just pass and hope for the best, there’s no reason to think that 2NT will play any better than 2♠.
Considering the horrible trump split, 2♠ plays remarkably well. North leads the J♦, and Declarer’s can scramble 8 tricks by going after Club ruffs. Win the A♦, ruff a Club, cross to the A♥, ruff a Club, cash K♦ and Q♦, and lead a Spade towards Dummy. The bottom line here is 8 tricks and a great result.
Speaking for ourselves, we wouldn’t hesitate to open that East hand 1♠ in 3rd seat, even though we are playing a 5-card major system. The odds are that the opponents will be on play and Spades are what we would like Partner to be leading.
How about West’s 1NT? Would you prefer a Redouble instead? It’s an option, but we don’t think the hand quite measures up.
Playing in No Trump, E-W will make a large number of tricks. Large here means 9, South has 4 quick tricks but that is all the defense gets thanks to the favorable Spade situation.
What does South’s cue-bid of 2♠ mean in this auction? Basically, it shows a good hand and nowhere to go. Cannot bid No Trump, too good for 3♦ (and anyway it’s a poor description of the hand), so what else but 2♠? This gets N-S to the obvious 3NT, and the obvious 9 tricks will materialize … N-S have two Spade stops, 5 Diamond tricks, and will need the Heart finesse for the 9th trick.
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