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Hand Analyses 6th December, 2006
Against 3NT, East has no good reason not to lead the unbid suit, won by Dummy’s A♥. This is not a good contract! There are 7 tricks in Dummy, and the stranded K♥ in Declarer’s hand, and poor prospects for any other tricks. Declarer’s best chance is to cash four Clubs right away, not so much with the intention of squeezing the opponents, but to strip them of convenient exit cards. As it happens, East does come under some pressure as well, and must pitch major suit cards. Declarer can afford to pitch 2 Spades and a Heart from her hand. Now, a Diamond to the Jack and the Queen, and East is end-played. He cannot lead a Heart, that gives up two tricks (K♥ and Diamond finesse), and playing on Spades doesn’t help. His best chance is to exit a Diamond … Declarer finesses successfully for her 8th trick, cashes the A♦ and this is the end-position: Declarer ♠ J85 ♥ KT ♦ ♣ West East ♠ A4 ♠ KT9 ♥ J97 ♥ Q ♦ ♦ 9 ♣ ♣ Dummy ♠ Q7 ♥ ♦ 87 ♣ 6 Now, Dummy cashes the last Club, West and Declarer pitch Hearts and East is squeezed. Clearly, he cannot pitch a Diamond … a Spade pitch will force the defenders to play a Heart at Trick 13 … so he tries pitching the Q♥. Now, a low Spade from Dummy and the defense is helpless.
A most complicated hand with which to start the set!
North’s 2♦ was Fourth Suit Forcing, in this case the purpose being to investigate a 5-3 Heart fit before settling on 3NT.
This auction calls for the Q♦ lead. West ducks, Declarer’s King wins the trick, at which point Declarer can count 8 top tricks, with the possibility of 11 if both black suits behave. The only suit which involves a decision is Clubs where the question is “Finesse or play for the drop?” The a priori odds (that is the odds before garnering additional clues) favor playing for the drop (54% to 44%). But it doesn’t harm to do some exploratory work before taking the key decision, and we suggest this sequence of plays: Win the K♦ Cross to the A♣ (precaution against J♣ singleton with West) Back to the K♠ and Q♠ (looking for clues in the distribution) In the absence of clues, play the Clubs from the top. Playing two Spades before making the Club decision will pay dividends if East were to show out on the first or second. If this were the case, the Club odds would shift dramatically, there would be presumed Club length with East and the finesse against the J♣ would be the right play. But nothing informative happens to persuade Declarer to go against the a priori odds, so she plays for the drop.
When the Clubs don’t work, Declarer has one more decision to make: - Should she establish her 9th trick by losing a Club (risking defeat if Diamonds are 5-2)? - Or should she play for 3-3 Spades (going down if they are 4-2)? On the lie of the cards both lines work, but we think that the better play is to lose a Club.
In this auction, E-W were dicing with death for a while! Even though their side has the majority of the HCP’s they were in trouble as soon as East (quite reasonably) overcalled 1NT. West had 7 HCP’s and could not sit idly by … his Double of 2♠ was card-showing, typically a hand with invitational values and at least two Spades. East was having no part of 2♠ doubled, his hand had rather poor defense for a 1NT overcall, so he tried to bail out in 2NT, a contract which was destined for at least -200. Fortunately for E-W, South couldn’t resist bidding 3♥ and the danger was averted. Well, it was averted only if both East and West were able to resist the temptation to double 3♠.
Playing in Spades, N-S have 9 easy tricks, and we predict a sprinkling of making doubled contracts on the scoresheet … look for results like +570 and +530 in the N-S column.
On the previous board, where there was also a 1NT overcall, we discussed (in the Bidding Quiz) some conventional treatments that Responder (West here) might use in this situation. Well, this particular West was unencumbered by such sophisticated methods and was able to raise Diamonds naturally. As on Board 3, the partner of the 1NT overcaller had 7 HCP’s and also as before he did not think he could sit idly by. Again, his Double was co-operative in nature, merely showing some values. East must have been tempted to pass the Double in pursuit of the +200, but guessed well to bid 2♥.
Playing in Hearts, N-S will make 8 or 9 tricks, depending upon Declarer’s ability to guess the Diamonds correctly. Playing in Diamonds, E-W score a lucky 8 tricks when everything behaves.
They say that troubles come in threes, and so it seems do 1NT overcalls, at least if West thinks that his 14-count qualifies. We know that we would bid 1NT here, that T♠ looks like a big card, and, if we are going to be a tad light, when better than when White vs Red? North is not quite good enough to double 1NT, and if she has a natural 2♥ bid available (see Bidding Quiz to Board 3) that should be her choice.
It transpires that the 1NT overcall we advocated merely jockeyed the opponents into the perfect spot … the trump suit is most friendly and 8 tricks come home with careful play, the only losers being a Heart, a Diamond and 3 Clubs.
What happens if West decides not to overcall 1NT? His only real alternative is to pass, and now North will bid 2♥ … yes, it’s pretty minimum, but that 5-card major is too good to hide. 2♥ will probably get passed out, although West will no doubt be wondering why he never took a call with the best hand at the table.
We wouldn’t chastise East for his vulnerable preempt on that broken suit, but it certainly will not be a success if the auction proceeds as shown. South’s Double is quite minimum, but she is following the dictum that she who hath the shortness in the opponents’ suit hath a duty to get into the auction whenever reasonably possible. North has a perfect penalty Pass … not enough for game, trump tricks, red opponents, who could ask for more?
Against 3♦ doubled, the defense will score +200 or +500, depending on South’s lead. Against a suit contract, leading from Kxxx is slightly safer than leading from Kxxxx, so we would guess to lead a Heart. This turns out to be a lucky guess, it’s the lead that gets +500, anything else and the Clubs will provide a Heart pitch.
The question here is whether or not South’s hand is worth an invitation to 3NT. In the featured auction, 2NT was a Transfer to Diamonds, at which point Opener can express an opinion of his hand and Diamonds by bidding either 3♣ or 3♦. One bid says “Good hand for Diamonds” and the other one doesn’t … different partnerships play it different ways, this N-S obviously use 3♣ as the more encouraging of the two bids, but South still must decide whether or not to go to game. We would not go to game ourselves, which shows how much we know because 3NT makes 9 tricks. But we would point out that Opener has a full 17-count, and AK♦, and the Diamonds are 2-2, and the Heart finesse works for the 9th trick. So, an unlucky board for those N-S pairs who stayed out of the poor game.
North clearly belongs to the school of thought that avoids letting the opponents play in 1NT at almost any cost. The Double was a DONT bid, showing a one-suited hand, after which South dutifully bid 2♣ and found herself as Declarer.
In 2♣, it takes double dummy defense to hold Declarer to just 8 tricks … Spade lead to Dummy’s Ace, Diamond to the King, Diamond to East’s Ten, low Club to the Queen, two more rounds of Clubs, revert to Spades. This stellar defense prevents the Diamond ruff in Declarer’s hand, and knocks out Declarer’s Spade entry before the Hearts can be unblocked. On less superhuman defense it’ll be 9 or even 10 tricks.
How does 1NT do? The Heart lead gives Declarer a 5th trick, and Declarer can get another trick by playing on Diamonds (low towards the Jack) or in Spades (finesse the Nine).
System Note: N-S were fortunate to be playing DONT on this board, that method allows 2♣ to be the final contract. Playing Cappelletti, that is not normally possible … 2♣ is the starting point to show all one-suiters, after which Partner bids 2♦ to find out which one-suiter it is … this propels the bidding to 3♣. However, in the above auction, North is a passed hand. By an unpassed hand, of course, Double shows a good hand, but as this holding is not a possibility by a passed hand, we’d suggest that the Double here asks Partner to bid 2♣.
If the auction goes as shown, then N-S can consider themselves a trifle unlucky. After Partner’s Weak Two, South can see that the opponents are most likely to have at least an 8-card Spade fit, so she boosts the bidding to 3♥ making it that much more difficult for E-W to compete. Alas for N-S, their opponents do not have that Spade fit, nobody can make much of anything, and it’s a case of “Why should they go down when we can?” We don’t fault North for preempting with a 4-card Spade suit, either, though some partnerships put this in the same category as devil worship.
3♥ is destined to go down one, but if South pusillanimously passes 2♥, things will work out much better for N-S. West will balance with a Double, and the opponents will stumble into a non-making contract.
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