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Hand Analyses 14th March, 2007
We don’t think that the East hand is quite good enough for a jump shift to 3♣, nor is it worth a slam try after West’s 3♠ limit raise (showing 3-card support).
In the play of 4♠, how would you play the trump suit? It’s usually correct to finesse into the long hand, which would suggest playing the A♠ and running the T♠. This is born out by these percentages for picking up the missing Queen: - Cash the Ace and run the Ten … 51% - First round finesse through the short hand … 48% - Cash the King and finesse through the short hand … 40% That third option is such poor odds because it gives up on Qxxx in the South hand. Anyway, no need to remember the odds, just the conventional wisdom of finessing through the long hand.
As it happens, the Queen is successfully picked up by going with the odds, and, with the Q♥ offside, it looks like 11 tricks for Declarer.
Obscure Squeeze Department Deep Finesse says that 12 tricks can be made and so they can, albeit in unlikely fashion. South cashes the A♦ and shifts, let us say, to a Club. The trump suit is picked up and all of Declarer’s black cards are cashed. South must come down to 3 cards, one of which must be the K♦, leaving room for just two Hearts. Now, a Heart is led to Dummy’s Ace, and the lead of the J♥ squashes South’s Ten, setting up Declarer’s Nine.
South is certainly maximum for that 15-17 1NT, and we would not argue the point if you assert that it is worth a 1♦ opening followed by a 2NT rebid. But 1NT serves our purposes well here, it gives us a chance to introduce one of our favorite gadgets! That strange-looking 3♠ bid showed shortness in Spades, 3 cards in the other major, and 5-4 in the minors. For more on this, please see the Bidding Quiz.
After the Double of 3♠, what would be your rebid as South? It looks like a choice between 3NT and 5♦. It seems likely that 5♦ will make on some hands where 3NT goes down (for example, if a Diamond must be lost), and 5♦ would be our choice in a team game. But, at matchpoints, we’d be inclined to gamble 3NT, it is quite likely to be cold for 10 or 11 tricks, and will surely have at least a play.
It turns out that Declarer can make 12 tricks in Diamonds, and the same number in 3NT, but, in the latter case, it would have been down one if the Diamond finesse had lost. A triumph for the gamblers!
Some pairs, such as the featured N-S, play the Michaels Cue-Bid as showing either a weak hand or a strong hand … with the in-between hands they bid their suits naturally. Therefore, that Double of 2NT confirmed that North had the strong version, but even that was not enough to get any cooperation from the miserable South hand. It certainly must have pained North to let the opponents play in 3♦, no doubt she was tempted to Double one more time.
How about West’s 2NT? We don’t suppose that there is any “standard” meaning for the bid in this auction, but a reasonable interpretation is surely “Really good hand, Hearts stopped”.
The bottom line is that N-S can make only 7 tricks in Hearts or Spades, and will no doubt be doubled if they venture to the 3-level. As for an E-W Diamond contract, North leads the A♠, and is promptly end-played at Trick Two, whatever she does provides West with an easy route to 10 tricks (or 11 if she shifts to a Club).
South leads a Diamond, and Declarer wins the Ten and returns one immediately. South wins the Ace and is stuck for a good shift. She knows (though Declarer doesn’t) that the K♣ is an entry to Dummy’s good Diamonds, and she further knows that Partner has a maximum of 3 HCP’s. In the circumstances, perhaps a Diamond exit is the wisest course of action … Declarer can run the suit, take the Spade finesse and cash the Spades, coming down to ♥ AQ and ♣ Q74. South will have ♥ KJ and ♣ AT3, and she can be end-played if Declarer reads the position correctly. Will he? He knows that South surely has the A♣ (without that card, South would not have played the 3rd Diamond, she would instead be hoping that North had the A♣ and that the Diamonds could be shut out). Declarer might also wonder why South did not shift to a Heart at Trick Three, and that might persuade him to play South for the K♥, in which case he will play A♥ and out a Heart, end-playing South in Clubs. Nicely played for 10 tricks.
N-S played in a cozy 2♦ contract, making a somewhat fortunate 9 tricks. But the question of the day is where were E-W while all of this was going on? Why were they not in the auction? Please see this week’s edition of “What Went Wrong?”
East’s sequence is the standard way of handling a game-going major 5-4 hand, and North will no doubt lead a Club against 3NT. Declarer plays the Q♥, which North ducks, of course, and South dutifully plays the Two, showing an odd number of cards in the suit. Declarer persists with Hearts and, thanks to South’s count signal, North knows that Declarer has no more cards in the suit and so wins the second round. In the heat of battle it won’t be obvious to North that her safest exit is actually a Club (the Eight). This gives Declarer another cheap Club trick, but he still has to pry open an entry to Dummy’s Hearts. Declarer wins the Club return, and plays on Diamonds. South gets in twice before the Diamond entry is established, giving the defense time to set up the 4th defensive trick in Spades. That will be 9 tricks for Declarer and probably a decent board for the defense, we’d expect to see some 630’s on the score-sheet.
System Note Do you play Smolen? Using this gadget, with East’s 5-4 major suit hand, after the 2♦ response to Stayman, East would bid 3♠, in other words his four-card major. This device allows Opener to become Declarer whenever they decide to play in the 5-3 fit.
Opposite a 15-17 1NT opening, North merely wants to bail out in Diamonds by whatever method that her system prescribes. In the featured auction, North was playing 4-suit Transfers, so 2NT was a transfer to Diamonds.
Playing in 3♦, South should be able to make 10 tricks. Of course, she will delay taking the Heart finesse, playing on Spades first in order to get a Heart pitch. Declarer has a guess in Spades, but not many Easts are capable of smoothly ducking the A♠, looking at that Dummy, so it seems normal to run the Ten. In fact, if the T♠ loses to West’s Queen, we would try to get our 10th trick from a Spade ruffing finesse, declining to give East credit for a brilliant A♠ duck.
System Note After Minor Suit Transfers, many (probably most) partnerships use the intermediate bid (3♣ in the featured auction) to say “I like your minor”, the so-called “pre-accept” method. Our N-S pair here was playing it the other way around, for reasons we discuss in the series of articles on Minor Suit Transfers in the System Library.
Aggressive bidding by West, for more on which please see the Bidding Quiz.
The fortunate lie of the Spades means that the suit can be picked up for one loser, but the 4-1 trump break in Diamonds ensures that the defense can come to 3 tricks. Here are two possible lines of play: - If North leads a Diamond, the defense negotiates a ruff for its 3rd defensive trick. - If North leads a Heart, Declarer wins in Dummy and finesses the T♠, losing to North’s Ace. Now, another Heart won in Dummy, trumps are drawn, but when Diamonds are 4-1 Declarer still manages just 10 tricks.
Against 3♥, South will lead a high Spade, and smartly shift to a trump. Eventually, Declarer loses a Club and 3 Spades for 9 tricks and +140.
West showed good judgment, we think, when he passed East’s 3♥ rebid, but on the lie of the cards 3NT turns out to be cold. North leads the J♠, and Declarer’s first piece of good fortune is that Spades are 4-4. Even so, it looks as if Declarer has only 8 tricks, but it turns out to be his lucky day when the K♣ is singleton.
Back to the bidding. Would you have taken action with the South hand? Please see the Bidding Quiz.
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