|
Hand Analyses 9th May, 2007
Assuming that N-S are playing a range of 5-10 for their Weak Twos, we’d say that the North hand is almost too good for such a bid. Yes, it’s only 10 HCP’s, but it also has excellent Diamond fillers and a singleton. Our own choice would be 1♦, but each to his own.
As for West, he decided to take a shot at 4♠ rather than offer Partner a choice of the majors, a most reasonable choice considering the great discrepancy in the suits, in terms of both length and strength.
Playing in Spades, Declarer will make 11 or 12 tricks, it all depends on how he plays the Heart suit. The choices are: - Either, cash the Ace first - Or, finesse twice against the KQ
Both methods lose when South has the KQx, and both work when the suit is 2-2 with the honors split. So, the key cases are when South has KQ doubleton (cashing the Ace works), and when North has KQx or KQxx (finessing twice is the winning play). Needless to say, the second line has more ways to win and would normally be the percentage play. True, the bidding indicates Diamond length with North reducing her chances of also having 3 or 4 Hearts, but that does not seem enough to go against the odds.
Surely North will lead a Heart on this auction which works well for the defense, knocking out Dummy’s only entry before the Clubs can be unblocked. Making 9 tricks.
After West’s raise to 2♥, some pairs have exotic methods for inviting to game (for more on which please see the Bidding Quiz), but our featured East went the traditional route and made a simple raise to 3♥, an invitation which was accepted, no doubt with alacrity.
The auction shown was not particularly uninformative, and there’s a lot to be said for that. What would you lead from the South hand against 4♥? Dr Goodlead thought briefly about starting with the A♠, saying “I have 4 Hearts, perhaps a forcing defense is the way to go” But he considered that lead too dangerous, so he eventually decided to go with a Club, which was not a great success, as it takes away the guess in the suit. Now, with careful play, Declarer can rack up no fewer than 11 tricks. Please see Play Problem # 152.
South might have been tempted to overcall 2♥, but Double is the better bid in our view, it keeps more irons in the fire. When 2♠ came back to her, South might have considered a second Double, and no doubt would have done that if her K♠ had been somewhere useful.
Against 2♠, South has a natural enough lead of the Q♥, won by North’s Ace. North returns the Heart Three, won by Declarer’s King. How should East play the trump suit? The play in the Heart suit was quite revealing. North has shown up with the A♥ and if she also has the K♠ that would give South a maximum of 12 HCP’s for her Double. That’s plenty for her bid and insufficient evidence to eschew the trump finesse. How about North’s return of the lowest missing Heart? That’s definitely a clue! North surely started with 2 or 4 in the suit, and we would say that the doubleton is more likely, presumably North has hopes of over-ruffing Dummy. Yes, we’d be inclined to play for 5-2 Hearts, in which case we cannot afford to lead a Diamond (to get to the Dummy for the Spade finesse), and see it go: A♦ (by South), Heart ruffed by North, Club to South’s Ace, and another Heart ruff. That’s 5 tricks for the defense, and there is still a guess left for the trump King. No, surely the right play is to lay down the A♠, which, as good luck would have it, drops the off-side King. Now, it’s 9 tricks and a splendid +140.
Back to the bidding. Perhaps North should have bid 3♣ over 2♠. The hand is shapeless and the vulnerability not ideal, but there is the reasonable prospect of a 9-card fit. Of course, the danger is that Partner might think that we actually have some values and might take another call. This auction is a good candidate for a Lebensohl-style or Good-Bad-style 2NT, a gadget which has come up with alarming frequency in recent Wednesday Games. Yes, the thought here is that perhaps 2NT here is best served as a relay to 3♣, a weak way of competing to the 3-level. 3♣ directly would therefore show some values (but non-forcing).
So much for obscure bidding theory, how does the hand play in 3♣? Let’s say that North is Declarer and that East leads the Q♦. Declarer should duck the first round and win the second Diamond. If the Heart finesse is losing, then Declarer’s only chance of not losing a 5th trick is not to lose a second Diamond, and that will only be possible if East started with two in the suit, and if West can be kept off play. At Trick Three, the K♠ is led, won by East’s Ace. East has no good exit so will perhaps exit a low Club, after which the winning play for Declarer is to win the A♣ and exit a Club. Now East is stuck for an exit once more and eventually Declarer’s Diamond loser will go away. Of course, East can spectacularly try to force an entry to Partner’s hand by playing the K♣ (after winning the A♠), but Declarer has a counter to that, she simply ducks, wins the second Club, takes the losing Heart finesse, and is still able to dispose of the Diamond loser.
South considered that her hand was too good for a 3♦ preempt (we agree) but not good for a limit raise cue-bid (though it’s not far off), so her plan was to raise to 2♦ and then compete to 3♦ if necessary. South’s plan came unstuck when the bidding was at 3♠ when it got back to her, so she reluctantly sold out.
With trumps 2-2 and the honors split, 3♠ is destined to make 9 tricks, with a loser in each suit. The trump suit holding is similar to the E-W Heart holding on Board 1, except that this time we are also missing the Nine. The percentage play now is to finesse against the Nine on the first round, but that is moot when South plays the Nine, after which the correct play by Declarer is the Ten.
If South does push on to 4♦ she will be wrong in theory but perhaps right in practice. The contract is unlikely to be doubled, so East will need to find the opening lead of the Q♣ if he is to get a good board. A Club lead sets up a ruff for the defense and gets them the magic +200, anything else and it’s only +100 and a bad board.
On lead against 3NT, after the featured auction, East will no doubt lead a minor suit. Perhaps he’ll lead the obvious Club or maybe the ambitious J♦ (trying to “find Partner” on account of his own lack of entries), but it will make no difference, Declarer will come to 11 tricks in a canter. Yes, it’s our nomination for Flattest Board of the Week.
As a general rule, when we have a weak hand and an 8-card suit we preempt to the 4-level, but this suit is so bad that a vulnerable 3♠ seems like quite enough to us. North’s hand was too good for a 4♥ bid, so she doubled first. When the bidding got to South she had a choice between 3NT and Pass, and we like her choice of Pass, after all 3NT was no guarantee to make opposite a typical Double.
In 3♠ doubled, at first glance it looks as if West has 4 trump losers and 3 in the side-suits for a most unpleasant -800. But the tables will be turned if the play goes like this: A♦ cashed on opening lead K♦ ruffed by Declarer Spade Nine won by North’s King Diamond continuation ruffed by West Cross to the A♥ (North will no doubt split her honors) Diamond ruff Low Club to North’s Ace North cashes her Heart winner Club to Dummy’s King Diamond ruff Now, with 3 cards left, both Declarer and South are down to nothing but trumps. Declarer with Qxx exits a low trump to South who, with AJT left is forced to give Declarer his all-important 7th trick. Minus only 500 is a great board for E-W, of course.
The play in this hand is similar to a Trump Coup where Declarer must reduce her trumps down to the same length as the defender in order to effect the end-play. So, it was quite wrong for North to cooperate so willingly in Declarer’s plan. When North wins the K♠ she must not persist with Diamonds, instead she must shift to Hearts or Clubs. Now Declarer is a ruff short of engineering his end-play, and the end position leaves Declarer with ♠Qxxx, and South with ♠AJT and a Club. Declarer is on lead, and South scores all 3 of her trump tricks.
After West’s 3♣ Jump Shift, East had no reason to do anything other than bid 3NT. Suppose that North starts out with the J♦ lead. Prospects look bleak for Declarer, thanks to the poor communication between the two hands, and it looks as if the best chance is to play for Hearts to be 3-3. So, Declarer cashes AK♥, and exits a Heart (pitching Diamonds from the board). North wins and persists with Diamonds, won on the board. Even with the kind Heart break, Declarer still has just 8 tricks, and can get the 9th by leading a Club off the board, planning to finesse if South plays low. When the K♣ pops up it’s 9 tricks, Declarer losing a trick in each suit.
How does a low Spade opening lead work out? North wins the King, and plays on Hearts as before, this time taking care to unblock the A♦ first. North wins the third round of the suit and has no good exit … either she helps Declarer set up his Club suit, or she gives access to Dummy’s winner(s). Her best try is a Diamond, won by Dummy’s King, and now East exits with the K♠, again won by North, and again leaving her with no good exit. As before, it’s 9 tricks.
After South’s 3♠ limit raise, North saw no reason to mess around and simply bid the slam directly. Yes, 7♠ is also cold, but it’s extremely tough to bid. What makes the grand is the fact that South has no high cards wasted in Diamonds, and also has Diamond length, facilitating the cross-ruff … Declarer scores 3 side-suit tricks and no fewer than 10 trump tricks.
West reasonably decided to rebid 2NT here, even though he had no Spade stop. The alternative was 3♣, but that could be made on a weaker hand with a 5th Club.
Most players lead their “4th best” against No Trump contracts, but here the winner is “4th worst”! Yes, in order to hold 3NT to just 9 tricks, North must find the highly improbable opening lead of the K♦, squashing Dummy’s Queen and setting up 4 tricks for the defense. A less imaginative Spade lead (the Ten from that holding) allows Declarer to make 10 tricks. The percentage play in Hearts is to lead twice towards the KQJ98, catering for the Ace doubleton with North. But Declarer does not have the entries to do this and also take the Spade finesse, at least not without setting up winners for the defense. So, he plays the Hearts from the top, hoping that the suit is 3-3 or that the Ten is doubleton or singleton (about a 54% chance). When the Ten does come down Declarer has her 10 tricks … 3 Spades, 4 Hearts, a Diamond and 2 Clubs.
Back to the bidding. There’s something to be said for a rebid of 2♠ by East, at least so says Professor Oddbid. Yes, it’s something of an overbid, but it is certainly more descriptive than that 2♣ bid. Suppose that East does indeed stretch to a 2♠ reverse, what are your methods now? As luck would have it, there is a similar situation coming up on the very next board, please read on!
What are your methods after North’s 2♥ reverse? The featured N-S pair were playing Herbert responses whereby the cheapest bid is artificial and weakness-showing, the only way for the partnership to stay out of game (see the Bidding Quiz). But, even after South’s 2♠ announced a bad hand, North liked her hand too much to stay out of game.
3NT turns out to be a hopeless contract, at least if West leads a red suit. There’s certainly something to be said for a Heart lead. Declarer wins the third round of Hearts, cashes the Diamonds, and exits with the Q♣, won by West. West cashes the last Heart, and must now surrender Declarer’s 8th trick with a Spade shift. But that’s still down one.
West may conclude from the bidding that East has a load of Spades. An accurate deduction, but it would be disastrous if West tried the aggressive K♠ lead. Not only does this present Declarer with a gift in Spades, it also provides the entry and the timing for a 9th trick in Clubs.
This strange-looking auction may require an explanation. 2NT was a “super-accept” of the Jacoby Transfer, showing 4 Hearts and a maximum hand. Yes, there are other super-accept methods available, the one in use by the featured N-S pair is designed to give the minimum of gratuitous information to the opponents. Please follow the link for more on this. After the super-accept, South’s 3♦ was a “re-transfer” to ensure that the strong hnd was Declarer.
There’s nothing to the play on this one, with the Spade finesse working there are just two trump losers, looks like +650 around the room. Perhaps we were wrong about Board 6, maybe this is the Flattest Board of the Week.
Most players who use Drury by a passed hand opposite a third seat 1♥ or 1♠ opener also use it opposite a 4th seat bid. East’s 2♣ therefore showed Spade support, and decent values, and that was enough for West to jump to game.
Against 4♠, North can give Declarer an easy route to 11 tricks with any side-suit lead. What makes Declarer really work hard for that 11th trick is a trump lead. Dummy’s Jack wins the trick, now a low Spade to the King and the Ace. The doubleton K♠ has given Dummy an extra entry which can put to good use. He leaves that enemy trump out for the time being and cashes the A♣, then leads a low Club towards the board. North ducks smoothly (nice play!) and Dummy’s Ten loses to the Jack. South shifts to the J♥, Declarer plays low, and North is placed in a Morton’s Fork dilemma: - if she jumps up with the Ace, Declarer will eventually ruff out the Clubs and score 5 trumps, 2 Hearts, a Diamond, and 3 Clubs (Declarer ends up losing no Diamonds) - if she plays low, Dummy’s Q♥ wins, the Clubs are ruffed out, then a Spade to Dummy’s Jack, the Clubs are cashed (Declarer’s Heart loser disappearing), and now a Diamond towards Declarer’s hand for 11 tricks.
East might have opened 1♦ with a comfortable rebid of 1♠ if Partner bids 1♥. But there’s a lot to be said for limiting one’s hand early in the auction and we are generally in favor of slightly off-shape 1NT openings for that reason. West’s sequence showed 5 Hearts, 4 Hearts and invitational values, which was enough for East to go to game.
Against 4♠, as North, what would be your opening lead? It looks like a choice between a Club and a Diamond. As can be seen, the “safe” of a Club turns out to attack the right suit, after which Declarer must guess the Hearts correctly just to make 10 tricks. But the more attacking Diamond lead works less well, giving Declarer the chance to make 11 tricks with top-notch play (please see Play Problem #153). We consulted Dr Goodlead on the subject of the opening lead, and he led the “attacking” Diamond. “It’s quite likely that the enemy Hearts are 5-2. That makes my Qxx a poor holding, it’s easy to see the suit getting ruffed out, and minor suit losers disappearing. So, I’ll make the aggressive Diamond lead”. Right idea, wrong suit!
North’s first decision is whether to double for penalties (assuming that her methods allow a Penalty Double) or whether to introduce the Spades. No guarantees that 1NT is going down, but it usually will. Nonetheless, we’d get those Spades into the auction, as per the featured auction. N-S were playing Cappelletti, so 2♣ showed an unspecified one-suiter. South was required to bid 2♦, the Double was lead-directing, and North’s jump to 3♠ showed a good hand, but was not forcing. South had some useful cards and tried game. For more on North’s auction, and how she might bid the hand playing DONT, please see the Bidding Quiz.
Against 4♠, East leads a Diamond as requested by the Double and Declarer’s entry is immediately knocked out. To make this contract Declarer cannot lose more than one Club, and the best way to do that is to lead the Q♣ at Trick Two, trading on the probability that the King is with West. When that turns out to be the case, and when both black suits are 3-2, the aggressive N-S bidding paid off.
Even though 6♣ is a terrible contract we think that East’s shot at slam is eminently reasonable. It was just unfortunate that Partner turned out to have a minimum (well, what else is new?), no 5th Club, nothing useful in Diamonds, and some Spade wastage. But the good news is that this appalling contract is in the capable hands of East’s esteemed Partner, whose prowess is demonstrated in Play Problem # 154.
After East’s Double, South declined to bid her so-called Spade suit and instead did the comradely thing by supporting Partner. Very sensible, in our opinion.
2♥ will be down one if the defense can organize its Spade ruff. If that does not come to pass then the defense’s only chance for a 6th trick is if Declarer misguesses Diamonds.
West was too good to bid 2♠ over 2♦, and chose to double first. How about East’s 3♠ bid? A mere 5-count is not normally enough to bid in this situation, but as 5-counts go East’s is pretty good. He has no wastage opposite Partner’s presumed Diamond shortness, and he has a singleton of his own. We wouldn’t argue with Pass here, but we rather like the 3♠ call. West’s 4♦ was a slam try, but East had done plenty already, so bid 4♠.
There’s nothing to the play, two Aces to lose and 11 tricks for Declarer.
West should deduce that Partner probably has just 4 Spades. After all, East is marked with some values, and yet did not overcall 1♠. Even so, it’s hard to blame West for competing on to 3♠ on the known 10-card fit, and he was just unlucky that he ran into a highly speculative matchpoint Double by South. 3♠ is down one, and that’s the dreaded -200 for E-W. We’d expect 3♠ to be undoubled at most tables, in which case their -100 will be a normal result.
It’s true that N-S can make no fewer than 10 tricks in their 4-3 Heart fit and 11 tricks in Diamonds, but it’s a most lucky hand for them. The Diamonds come in for no losers thanks to that singleton Ten in the West hand, and there is the onside doubleton K♥ as well. Not a game that needs to be bid.
South’s 2NT bid was conventional asking Partner to describe her hand further. This particular convention has no name that we know of, so we’ll just call it “That 3344 Thing”, for which the responses are: 3♣ 3-card support, bad hand 3♦ 3-card support, good hand 3♥ 4-card support, bad hand 3♠ 4-card support, good hand North can count up to 14 as well as the next person, and may further conclude that this is about as many points as she can reasonably have on this auction, putting her into the “Good hand” category. Now it is but a small step to count the number of Spades and come up with a 3♠ response. After going through “That 3344 Thing” South just booted out 6♥, the contract likely to be reached at most tables.
As can be seen, 6♥ is a most unhappy contract, made impossible by the 4-1 trump break. It will probably be down two in real life, unless Declarer can somehow conclude that East is short in Diamonds. If Declarer is psychic, she’ll win the J♠ opening lead, cash A♥ and K♥, then the Clubs, and then just one Diamond. Now she exits a Spade, end-playing East, who can either surrender her trump trick or concede a ruff and sluff, allowing a Spade loser to evaporate. Either way it’s a glorious down only one. But probably no more than a fantasy.
Do you think that either of the N-S partners overrated their hand in the featured auction? Please see the Bidding Quiz.
Theoretically speaking, if North is playing in Hearts, she will make 9 tricks. The A♠ is mercifully onside, but the trumps are 4-2, there are a couple of Diamond losers, and 9 tricks it is. But the defense may experience a bump in the road! For example, East lays down the A♠, and continues the suit. Bad play by East? Well, of course his side does better to cash the Diamonds pronto, but it won’t be obvious to East that Declarer has the magic KQx holding in Clubs and no K♦. If Declarer holds the K♦ and a lesser Club holding then it’s surely right to knock out Dummy’s Spade entry at Trick Two. Alas for the defense, if East leads A♠ and out a Spade, Declarer scores a monstrous 11 tricks! Three rounds of trumps are drawn, and then she plays on Clubs. Because the long Clubs are with the outstanding high trump, both of Declarer’s low Diamonds get spirited away on the Clubs and the defense is left with no more than two tricks and an eagerness to proceed quickly to the next board.
Not much to the play of 2NT. Declarer has 8 tricks when the Diamonds break, with no prospect of an 9th trick, unless South has the misfortune to try the opening lead of a Heart.
The West hand is just too good for a 3♥ rebid, so he improvises with a jump shift into Diamonds, after which East has an obvious 3NT bid.
The “normal” lead against No Trump contracts, with that South Club holding, is the Queen, which by partnership agreement asks Partner to play the Jack if he has it. When the Jack does not appear and Declarer ducks, South knows that continuing the suit will cost a trick, so she shifts at Trick Two. But to what? Anything but a Diamond, that gives Declarer her 10th trick. Will it be obvious not to shift to a Diamond? Not really. Partner might have Jxxx of Hearts, and KJxx of Diamonds, and nothing in Spades, in which case a Diamond shift is devoutly to be wished. It’s something of a guess, we would say.
South’s 4♥ preempt was hardly ideal with all that outside stuff, but when you are dealt an 8-card major it does not always pay to be overly delicate. After 4♥, East had a reasonable 5♣ bid, and West must have been tempted to take a shot at slam.
Let’s say that West is playing in some number of Clubs, 5 or 6. Either way he’d love to make 12 tricks. Just to make things interesting, let’s say that North cashes the A♥ and shifts to a Diamond which Declarer wins in his hand. Trumps are drawn in two rounds, then A♦, ruff a Diamond, cross on a Club and ruff another Diamond. Now the whole hand depends on the play of the Spade suit. This is the end-position: Declarer Dummy ♠ Q852 ♠ AJ7 ♥ ♥ ♦ ♦ 9 ♣ 7 ♣ 2
That Diamond is a winner, and you will notice how Declarer carefully unblocked the trump suit in order to have the higher remaining trump in his hand. At this point, Declarer is in his hand and must decide how to play the Spade suit for 3 winners and no losers. Here are the options: - Finesse the J♠ and, assuming that this wins, cash the Ace, hoping that North started with Kx. But this line is pure dreaming. That would give South a 4-8-2-2 distribution! - Lead to the A♠, hoping that South started with the singleton King. It’s a long shot, but at least it has a chance of success. - The percentage play is to run the Q♠. The hope is that South started with a singleton Nine or Ten, in which case, after North covers with the King, we can get back to that precious Club Seven and finesse the Spade Seven.
That third line of play does the job whenever South started with the singleton Nine or Ten, and the second line has only one way to win (singleton King). Sad to say, the percentage line of play is also the losing line of play, but you picked up a bushel of style points if you unblocked the Clubs and ran the Q♠.
Once East has rebid 3♦, how do E-W get to 3NT when it is right? It’s a thorny issue, and we cover it in excruciating detail in the Bidding Quiz. For the time being let us just say that 3♠ was asking for a Spade stop, not showing one. Maybe not a universal treatment, so please do follow that link for more on this subject.
Against 3NT, South leads the J♠, and when the Diamond comes down doubleton it’s 12 tricks. 6NT is not a good contract requiring both the Spade finesse and luck in Diamonds but 6♦ is certainly a good spot, and well done by any pair who found this hard-to-reach contract. Where did the featured auction go wrong when they failed to get to the good Diamond slam? It’s not obvious … East certainly had a maximum for his 3♦ rebid, he’d probably have made the same bid even without the K♣ … and West might have been slightly tempted to make a move, but how was he to know that Partner had a perfecto? Some slams are just plain difficult.
Singleton Theory Addendum The Singleton Theory tells us that when we have a singleton, the odds are that the opponents do also, and that this should persuade us sometimes to break the “Eight ever, nine never” guideline. Scientists think that this is absolute nonsense, and will play for the drop unless they have other more concrete clues about the enemy distribution. Mystics, of course, decline to submit to the rules of mathematics, and are inclined to finesse in these situations. The Mystics pulled into an early lead in this ongoing saga, but on this hand the Scientists score an equalizer when they drop the offside Queen, while the Mystics take the losing finesse: Mystics 3, Scientists 3.
A simple auction and a straightforward hand in the play. 11 tricks.
If you think that the featured auction is somewhat Neanderthal then we would have to agree with you. 2♠ was Fourth Suit Forcing (to game) after which North tried 4NT (Roman Key Card) and ended up in the inferior matchpoint contract of 5♣ when two Key Cards were missing (1430 responses). We’ve mentioned before that using 4NT for Roman Key Card in the minors is ineffective, which is why many pairs use Redwood or Minorwood in this situation. For a refresher course, please see the Bidding Quiz.
3NT (or 4NT) is the place to be, outscoring the 5♣ bidders 430 to 400.
South showed Hearts and Diamonds and the obvious Heart game was reached. 6♦ is not a particularly good slam but it does have the virtue of making, thanks to the 3-2 Heart split and the falling Q♦. The odds of both of these working are only about 36%, so no need to be too proud of bidding this one.
South’s 2♠ was forcing, then she gave up when North could rebid only 3♥. It turns out that the hands fit well together and 10 tricks are possible. Here’s one way that the hand might be misplayed: K♦ opening lead, won by the Ace Diamond ruff on the board Cash A♥ Lose a Spade Ruff the Diamond return Lose to the K♥ Ruff the Diamond return Draw the last trump Now Declarer can play on Clubs for three tricks and for a total of 10 tricks. How was this misplayed? Well, if trumps had been 4-1 that line of play loses trump control. The correct play is to ruff that Diamond on the board with the Ace! This unblocks the trumps and requires Declarer to take one less ruff in her hand while she is drawing trumps, thereby retaining control even if trumps are 4-1. It’s too bad that the computer decided to deal 3-2 trumps, we can only award style points for those players who found the Ace-ruff play. You know who you are.
North could have bid 3NT directly, but that would be more appropriate with less HCP’s but a source of tricks somewhere, typically a long minor. Her actual sequence of doubling and then bidding 3NT shows the balanced powerhouse hand.
The way to hold Declarer to just 9 tricks is for East to cash a high Heart and shift to a Spade at Trick Two. Here are a couple of less successful defenses: - East decides to cash both his high Hearts, fearing that if he doesn’t do so he’ll never score that second Heart. Now, he belatedly shifts to a Spade but his defense has been doubly disastrous. Not only did he give up the 10th trick to the Q♥, he also set up the timing for a black suit squeeze against his Partner! Declarer plays low from Dummy on the Spade, cashes the Q♥, and runs the Diamonds. With only 4 cards left, West is unable to hold on to 4 Clubs and the K♠, so that will be 11 tricks for Declarer. - East cashes both his high Hearts but then shifts to a Club, disrupting Declarer’s communications. Declarer cashes the Q♥, and her remaining high Clubs, then runs the Diamonds, again squeezing West for 11 tricks.
White vs Red, holding that West hand, it’s tempting to open 3♠, but perhaps that should be reserved for 1st or 3rd seat … 2nd seat is the least auspicious position for bids which are “out there”.
Against 4♠, North leads the Q♦, won by South’s Ace. Now South should shift to a Heart, but it turns out not to matter. Even though Declarer can take the Club finesse and get rid of the Heart loser, he’ll probably go the other way, winning the A♣, and taking the losing ruffing finesse (pitching a Heart). Either way, it turns out to be 11 tricks.
We like that 3♠ bid by South (and the 4♠ nudge by North), the conditions are perfect for such tactics. Just 2♠ would be rather feeble, don’t you think. West’s Pass showed some values (at least a King) in the partnership methods. Who has discussed the meaning of that 4NT bid? Our East meant it as Ace-asking, but there are other possibilities. Anyway, East was really just guessing when he charged into 6♥, such was the havoc caused by the N-S preempts. It turns out to be a good guess, and 12 tricks are made.
© BES, Inc All Rights Reserved | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Home Hand Analyses Bidding Quizzes Play Problems System Library | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
