Hand # 23, December 8, 2016

This was one of the most unusual (and fantastic !) hands I have ever held, I am looking at the North major suit hand (with a loser count of 1!!) and my partner opens 1C. At my table - not the auction shown, and that auction will be discussed in detail - I bid 1H, partner bid 2C and I then bid a forcing 2S. Partner did not support spades at this point and we eventually ended up in 6S, of course making 7.

The auction actually shown illustrates how it is easily possible to get to 7S if partner bids 3S, instead of 3D, after you rebid 2S. But the partnership must be playing an expanded version of the Grand Slam Force (GSF), first introduced by Ely Culbertson around 80 years ago.

The Culbertson GSF asks partner to bid a Grand Slam if partner has 2 of the 3 top trump honors. It is highly useful when all the outside suits have more than enough top winners and you are worried about the quality of your trump suit. If partner does not have the 2/3 honors, the convention said you sign off at the 6 level.

Most experts still play the GSF, but have taken advantage of the room to bid below the trump suit to show various trump holdings. There are many ways to modify the GSF and the one I play is as follows:

Assume you have 3 steps below your trump suit (spades are trumps): 

    step 1 shows the Q or at least a ten card fit

    step 2 shows the A or the K (but not both)

    step 3 shows the A or the K and a 10 card (at least) fit

    With 2/3, bid 7 of a king you haven't shown yet below your trump suit or bid 7C         

If your suit is hearts, step 1 shows the A or K and step 2 is the above step 3. If your suit is diamonds, 5C is as shown above as step 3. 

Now return to the auction where South raises 2S to 3S. North can bid 5NT (GSF) and South can reply 6D, showing the KS. Now South can confidently bid 7S.

When the hand was played 12 times, 4 pairs did not even reach slam. That is the definition of a pessimist: Holding a 1 loser hand and partner opens the bidding and you don't reach slam! Two pairs did reach a Grand - congratulations to them. One told me that they used the GSF to reach the slam, similar to the auction shown here.

Lessons:

1) Add the GSF to your tool kit if you are not already using it and decide how to play step responses when you have room below your trump suit.

Hand from 11/19 Swiss Teams

IMPS, East is the dealer, N/S Vulnerable;

                      East                  South               West                  North

                        p                      2C                    p                     2NT (5+H w/2 of top 3)

                        p                      3S                    p                     4D

                        p                      4NT                  p                     5D (1430---0 of course)

                        p                      5NT                  p                     5H (2 Kings)

                        p                      7NT                  p                      p

                        p

This is a hand that came up in the November 19th Team game that had 20 tables. It was a very good mix of players and very competitive.

South counted a 4 loser hand, so opened this 2 Clubs and partner was happy to show his 5 card Heart suit headed by 2 of the top 3 honors by bidding 2NT(standard response to show Hearts when playing 2D is a game forcing waiting bid and 2H is a negative hand less than a K or A). South showed his fine Spade suit and now North made a nice bid by showing that he had "something else" in Diamonds. South was busy counting tricks and now could come up with 5 Hearts (maybe more if North has a longer suit), 2 Diamonds, 1 Club and  5 Spades (this is being slightly optimistic). Because it is free to check on Aces and Kings, South asked for Aces and then Kings.

What happens if you don't show the Heart suit by bidding 2NT and instead bid 2 Diamonds? Yes, partner knows you have at least an Ace or King, but is missing such valuable information about the Heart suit.

The question is where should this hand be played? Hearts? No Trump? How was transportation going to be? The King of Diamonds could help get to the North hand!

 Are you an optimist or a pessimist? South was an optimist and bid 7NT.  2220 scored up and when comparing with partners the other team did not reach any slam! This was a 17 IMP gain!

Above I asked what if partner bids 2 Diamonds instead of 2NT and that is what happened at the other table. You can really never catch up to all the information that is given with the initial 2NT response. Knowing partner has a 5 card suit and knowing exactly which cards he holds in Hearts is so valuable.

LESSONS:

 1)  Know your bidding system with partner over an opening 2 Club bid. Many partnerships play that 2NT shows 5 or more Hearts with 2 out of the top 3 honors.

 2)  Be prepared to show any other controls that you have to partner after your initial response showing at least 1 control.

 3) Don't miss slams in team games. As the saying goes, "There goes the ball game!"

 4) When this hand was replayed and rebid by many tables in a class, several wouldn't ask for kings and stopped at 6. When it is free, find out all the information you can!

 5) Count your tricks. Notice the Opener counted his losers to start with and from then on counted his winners!

 6) Be optimistic!

Hand # 11, Tuesday, 11/15/2016

This is another example of a slam that should have been reached at almost every table and was actually reached only 1 time out of ten (with another pair bidding the wrong slam and going down 1).

The auction shown is a suggested one that reaches 6C and, if South is in a very aggressive mood, might have even reached the makeable 7C grand slam. We will go over the bids and thought process in detail.

South starts with 1D and North, not quite good enough to bid 2C playing "2/1", responds 1H. South has 19 high-card points and all 4 aces and shows his strength with a jump-shift (game forcing) bid of 2S. North is now thinking about a NT game, or possibly a slam, and makes a waiting bid of 2NT hoping to learn more about South's hand.

South cooperates by completing the picture of her hand with a 3C bid. Now North knows they have a 9 card trump fit in clubs and South is short (possibly void) in hearts. Loser Count methods apply and North has an L. C. of 6 and can expect South to have an L. C. of 5 or 6. That means a small slam, or even a grand slam in clubs, might be there if they have sufficient key-cards - but note, however, that North has 0 key cards in clubs. (See the Unit 207 website for a copy of the recent lecture on Loser Count if this concept is new to you.)

North has a problem using the standard Roman Keycard Blackwood method for asking South about the 5 missing keycards, If South responds 5D or 5H, it is already beyond 5C and 5NT may be too high. This is possibly why many North's choose to sign-off in 3NT as a better duplicate option than 5C. 

In the auction shown, North/South were playing a form of Keycard Blackwood known as Minorwood. In Minorwood, a bid of 4 of an agreed upon minor, when there is a game force in effect, asks for keycards. Responses are steps for 0-3, 1-4, 2-5, 2 without the minor Q, and 2 with the minor Q. (People playing 41-30 reverse the first two responses). The Minorwood bidder can next ask for the Q of the Minor (one step) or the lowest K (2 steps) - with all NT bids and bids of the minor being sign-offs and not counting in the 1 step or 2 step count.

So, North bid 4C Minorwood and South showed 2 (or 5) by responding 4S. North then signed-off with 5C, knowing that South would go on if holding 5 key cards instead of 2. South considered bidding 7C but decided reaching 6 would be good enough.

The play in 6C (or even 7C) is fairly straight forward. Say clubs are 2 - 2. Then you can ruff 3 diamonds in the North hand and cash 3 hearts, 2 spades and all 4 clubs in the South hand along with the diamond ace for 13 tricks. If clubs are 3 - 1, you have to maneuver to ruff 3 diamonds while only drawing 2 rounds of trumps and keeping the A of spades as an entry back to draw the last trump. You don't even need the extra bonus of the QJ doubleton of spades falling to set up your 10.

Lessons:

1) Be on the lookout for a slam when it is clear you and your partner have most of the points. If you also discover a good trump fit, re-evaluate your hand using Loser Count methods to see if you want to go on and look for slam.

2) When bidding slams with a trump fit and short suits it is usually better to avoid NT and take advantage of ruffing tricks. The exception is when you have long running suits and can expect the same number of winners in NT.

3) Minorwood helps solve asking for key cards when your agreed suit is a minor and possible responses to a 4NT ask might get you too high. (Another conventional asking bid, called Kickback, uses the suit above your agreed upon suit as the Roman Keycard ask and also solves this problem). 

Hand # 18, Saturday 10/29/2016

The bidding (beginning with E and only passes by N/S) was 1C  – 1D – 1N – 2D – 3D – 4H – 4N – 5H – 5S – 6C – 6H – 7N

This is purely a bidding discussion since the play in NT or Diamonds is trivial, there being 13 top tricks. 

The bidding does deserve some explanation.  East opened 1C because the partnership has an agreement that opening 1D shows at least 4 cards to the QT.  1D was natural. 1N was the normal rebid showing a balanced hand and 12 – 14 HCP. 2D was an artificial game force (XYZ). 3D was a normal raise. Responder bid 1D in response to 1C so he must have diamonds. 

Next, 4H was Kickback.  Kickback is a key card asking tool using the suit above the agreed-to trump suit as RKC.  Kickback is also known as one-over because one bids the suit one over the trump suit to ask for keycards.  4N showed 1 (or 4) keycards. 

Now the bidding becomes real fun.  5H confirms that the partnership has all 5 keycards (the four aces and the king of trumps) and also the queen of trumps, iIn addition, 5H s a grand slam try and asks for cheapest kings up the line. Very similar to 4N – 5N not playing Kickback. 5S shows the spade king.  Spades is the cheapest king because 5S is cheaper (in bidding) than 5N and 6C.  5N would deny the spade king and show the heart king (the king that cannot be shown because the asking bid is 5H).  6C would deny both the king of spades and the king of hearts and show the king of clubs.  6D would deny any outside king. 

Next, 6C asks for the club king - it means: if you have the club king, partner, I think we have a grand slam. Thanks for telling me you have the spade king but I really want to know about the club king.  Without the club king, responder is supposed to bid 6D and with the club king, responder is supposed to bid 7D.  

6H is not one of the two possible responses to the 6C ask.  What can it mean?  I meant it to mean that, yes, I have the club king and on the way I am showing you the heart king as well.  Why does it show the club king?  Because it goes beyond 6D, that is, it forces a grand slam and the club king is what partner asked about so responder must have the club king to go beyond 6D. 

Now asker can count 13 tricks: 4 spades, 2 hearts, 5 diamonds, and 2 clubs.  7NT!  And the contract can be claimed before the dummy is put down (if you really believe your partner J). 

This is this kind of bidding sequence that is one illustration (at least to me) of the beauty of this game we play.  I keep coming back hoping that among the many hands I play, there will be a few that are very beautiful like this one.

By the way, what would happen if I had opened 1D?  1D – 1S – 1N – 2D – 2S – 3D – 3N – 4H and onward as above.  2D is an artificial game force as above and 3D sets the trump suit.  

Friday, October 28, Hand # 4

Should you always lead a singleton against a suit contract?  No.

Some people are so enamored with leading a singleton,  I’ve actually seen people lead a singleton when they didn’t have any trump! Obviously you shouldn’t lead a singleton when you have no trump, but you also shouldn’t do it when you have too many trump!

First, a note on the bidding.

Partnerships have various agreements regarding on how to respond to a 2c opening.  The one played here is one played by quite a few partnerships in our club. North’s 2h response showed a very weak hand. Any other bid would have been game forcing.

After South bid 2s, North had a number of options; 3c, 2nt, 2s. The one thing North couldn’t do was pass.

After a 2c opening bid, responder should never pass a new suit bid by opener!

I was sitting North and chose to bid 3s.  This had the advantage of limiting my hand.  I told my partner I had support, but I wasn't willing to go to game even opposite a 2c opener.  I would have preferred 3-card support, but a 2c opener tends to have either a six-card suit, or a two-suiter.  With just a five-card suit, opener usually rebids 2nt.  I didn’t want to bid 3c, and hear partner bid 3s.  Then I wouldn’t know what to do.

The Play:

West led her singleton club, found her partner with the ace, and got a ruff. She couldn’t have hoped for better.

She didn’t realize she just allowed South to make an unmakeable contract.

Why was it wrong? Based on the bidding, she should have realized that she had a natural trump trick anyway.  She didn’t need a ruff, and often if you lead a singleton, you run the risk of establishing a long suit for the opponents,  which was exactly what happened here.

Declarer was able to win the return, pull the remaining trump, and discard his two losing red cards on the long clubs.  Making 5.

What would have happened had Wed led the Q of hearts, or the K of diamonds? East would hold off and win the third round of clubs so South couldn’t set up that suit.  South would eventually lose one card in each suit.  Down 1, instead of making an overtrick!

Lesson points:

1.  After a 2c opening bid, responder must not pass a new suit by opener.  You are forced to either 2nt, three  of a major, or four of a minor.  But as long as opener keeps mentioning new suits, responder must not pass.

2.  Always be thinking ahead in the bidding. "If I bid this, and then partner bids that, what will my next bid be?" If you don’t have a good answer, then maybe you should find a different bid.

3. It is usually not right to lead a singleton against a suit contract if you have long trump, especially if you have an honor in the trump suit.  Often you do better by setting up your own suit, and trying to “tap" the declarer.  In the case at hand, West was always going to score a trump, and East was always going to score his ace of clubs, but because West led her singleton club, that was all they got.

Hand # 8, Sectional Friday Morning, 5/6/2016

Editors Note: This contribution is from one of the newer players at the BCA and does an excellent job of showing the thought processes of a beginner learning the competitive game of duplicate Bridge.

This hand occurred at the Spring Sectional at BCA on Friday, May 6, in the 10 AM Game, Board #8. I played it in the Limited game (299’er), where it was played by 8 pairs.  It was also played in the Open room by 17 pairs, in two sections. The play of the hand is not particularly interesting: most E/W pairs ended up in Notrump or Clubs, where 12 tricks were there for the taking, no more and no less. But the bidding was not as uniform as I thought it would be when I sat at the table.

My partner, West, opened 2 Clubs, strong. With 12 HCP, I had enough for a positive response. But I didn’t have a suit strong enough for a positive response, and, since we play Austin Standard, a 2NT bid would be a positive Heart response, so I couldn’t bid that. And I didn’t know what bid would indicate a positive Notrump response.  Ignorance is bliss – I responded 2 Diamonds, waiting. My partner bid 2 Notrump: at least semi-balanced and 22-24 HCP. I added that to my 12 and got 34-36 HCP total. To me, that said 6N`T, or maybe 7 of a suit if we had a good fit. I briefly considered that latter possibility, but reasoned that I had had an opportunity to mention a strong suit and hadn’t (I bid 2D instead), and my partner had had an opportunity to mention a strong suit and hadn’t (she bid 2NT instead). And, to be honest, my goal was to get a good result, not necessarily the absolutely best result. So I bid 6NT over my partner’s 2NT, and she made it without any commotion.  At the time, I thought the result might be the same at almost all tables.

Not quite so. 47% of the tables in the Open room played at 6NT; 50% in the Limited room. 3 tables in the open room played at 6 Clubs, none in the Limited. There were two overbidders in the Open room (at 7NT), and one overbidder in the Limited room (at 7 Clubs). Were there pairs who didn’t make it to slam? Yes – three in the Open room and two in the Limited room. I think it’s almost a “sure thing” you’ll get to slam if West opens 2 Clubs, but the possible bidding sequences are much more convoluted if West doesn’t start with 2 Clubs. Are there reasons not to? Perhaps some West’s thought they didn’t have enough quick tricks, or too many “losers”?  I really don’t know. Sometimes it’s a blessing not be aware of all the complicated thinking and bidding that occurs in the Open game.

 SundayTeam Game, 4/24/2016

South opened the bidding 2C with her powerful 4 loser hand. North showed at least an A or K with her 2D bid and soon the pair found themselves in 4S.

West led the 8H and East put in the 10 when declarer played low in dummy. Declarer won the AH and played AS, KS, JS. On the third spade, West signaled club strength and East won the QS. East now cashed the KH and tried to cash the QH. Declarer ruffed and played another round of trumps on which West was forced to pitch his last heart (a club pitch would leave only the AJ and declarer would have the 10C in dummy for a winner after playing the K and Q). Declarer next played the KC and West saw that he would have a problem leading if he won the A, so he ducked. Declarer then followed the old but reliable adage - play off all your winners and often good things will happen. On the last trump, West was squeezed and had to part with either the JC or a diamond. West chose a diamond and declarer won three diamond tricks to make the contract. If West had kept 3 diamonds, declarer could establish a 10th trick by playing clubs. 

Let's look at the position after 7 cards had been played to make this clear.

                                                    --

                                                    -- 

                                                    A108

                                                    1062  

--                                                                                                        --

--                                                                                                        7 

Q97                                                                                                    J5  

AJ5                                                                                                     976

                                                    5

                                                    --

                                                    K6

                                                    KQ8   

At this stage, declarer can play the last trump or first play the KC and then the last trump - and West has no way of preventing declarer from establishing another winner in either clubs or diamonds.

In the post-mortem, West told East that leading a club instead of trying to cash another heart might defeat the contract. However, whether West wins the ace and gets out a club or ducks the KC, the same squeeze will take place when declarer runs her trumps. 

So, is there any defense that stops 4S from making? Yes, one very unlikely one to occur at the table, however. East, when in at trick 4 with the QS, must not cash even 1 heart and instead must lead a high club. West has to duck the KC and then there is no way declarer can "rectify the count" for the squeeze. Declarer has to lose a heart to East first and another club lead brings home 4 tricks for the defense.

What if declarer ducks the opening heart trick to get her loser out of the way? Then, East must immediately abandon hearts and lead a club, ducked by West (otherwise the squeeze will still work). Again, not a very likely defense!

Note that a squeeze like this can often happen even if declarer doesn't know where all the critical cards are hiding. Just playing winners and watching the opponent's discards is often enough.

Lessons

1) As declarer, even if you don't know how or where an extra trick will come from, play off all your winners and watch the discards carefully. Often, that's all you need to do to get a magical extra trick.

2) Squeeze defense is much harder than executing a squeeze - almost impossible for mortal defenders in this hand. That is good news for declarers but sad news for the defense!

Hand 31, Friday, March 11, Open Game

    Auction:

                  S              W               N               E

                  p               1C             1S             2H

                  X(Rosey!) 2NT            p               3C

                  p                p               p                

How long do you keep a convention on your convention card and not have a chance to play it? This was truly a test of longevity for the Rosenkrantz Convention (named for George Rosenkrantz, however some say it was first thought of by Mrs Rosenkrantz). My partner and I had waited many months for this to come up! This is really a wonderful convention that will give your defense a big boost!

Rosenkrantz  Double:  After partner OVERCALLS and the next hand bids, a double or redouble shows the Ace or King in parther's overcalled suit (some also include the Queen). You should have at least a doubleton in the suit so you can tolerate it if partner has to rebid the suit. If you simply raise partner's suit when you could have doubled or redoubled, you are denying one of the top honors.This is an alertable double or redouble and should be written in to the space on your convention card in the square for Doubles. How far you want to play these is up to you, but I suggest 3 Spades.

Today's hand was just about made for the Rosenkrantz Double. You can see when South made the Special X (of course North alerted it), I have nicknamed it Rosey!

North led the singleton Heart and what a wonderful lead to get this hand off to a winning direction. South took the Ace and studied the board. It was a consideration to lead the King of Spades and another to overtrump the dummy when partner led one back,  however the Heart certainly had to be a singleton. South returned the 6 of Hearts (the highest) to ask for the Spade back. North ruffed the Heart with a small Club and confidently returned a  Spade. South took the King and played another Spade. North took her Ace of Spades and returned a high one and South overruffed the 8 of Clubs on dummy with the 9. South now led a another Heart and declarer tried ruffing with the Ten, but North overruffed  with his Ace. North now led another Spade and now South's Queen would become a winner!! Down 3 for an absolute top board.  

Lesson:

1) Learn what the Rosenkrantz Double is either to use it or so you know what it is when the opponents use it.

2) If you have to pick whether to use this or the Responsive Double you can say that you will only use it when the opponents have bid more than one suit, so you don't have a conflict. You can play both. If you choose to not play Responsive Doubles at all, you can play it all the time.

3) Try some new conventions out to perk your game up! They can be fun and very rewarding!

Hand # 27, Wednesday Morning, 3/9/2015

A straightforward  hand where 14 out of 15 pairs reached four hearts and 10 of these pairs made what was expected: 11 tricks. But 4 pairs in 4 hearts tied for top on the board by making 12 tricks. Looking at why leads to an interesting lesson about overcalls.

The auction shown occured at one of the tables where South made 12 tricks (and probably was duplicated at most, if not all, of the other tables where South made 12 tricks).  East overcalled 2 spades trying to be competitive and fearful if he passed that the auction would either stop at 2 hearts or partner would balance with 3 of a minor when they should compete in spades. Because players learn to be highly competitive and to always push when the opponents have found a low-level fit, this seems not unreasonable, Some pairs even play "pre-balance" bids which allow East to have less than a normal overcall just as if East were in the balancing position,

The overcall backfired, however, when West made the natural opening lead of the king of spades against 4 hearts, thereby losing the spade winner that the defense would take with any other lead. Was this bad luck or is there something to be learned from what happened?

i

The answer is that a would-be overcaller should consider one more thing before bidding, even with more than enough points to make a bid. Picture the opponents buying the contract and your partner on lead with something like Kx in the suit you want to overcall with. Would her leading the K embarass you and possibly cost a trick? If so, then perhaps it is wiser to pass and, hopefully, come back into the auction later when partner can reason that your failure to overcall earlier could be because of a weak suit.

Had all the East's used the "Kx" rule they would have avoided making the overcall that gave several North/South pairs a top.

Lesson:

Before overcalling, picture your partner on opening lead with Kx of the suit you are thinking about bidding. If leading the K could be costly to your defense, perhaps you should not overcall!

Hand # 15, Friday Morning, 2/19/2016

This hand gave North/South the opportunity to use a simple convention to distinguish a bid made competitively from a bid made by a good hand.

Douth could possibly have opened a weak 2H bid, but thought the hand too weak with too many losers and not nearly enough tricks to open at the 2-level vul vs non-vul. So, after 2 passes, North opened 1NT with a maximum and a good 5 card spade suit. East, with a good 5-5 in the minors, bid 2NT (unusual - asking partner to bid her best minor).

Now South certainly wants to compete with a 3H bid - but how to stop partner from thinking this shows a good hand with at least 5 hearts? The answer is by playing the "unusual over unusual" convention. With this convention, a bid of 3C shows a good hand with the lower major, or a good hand with hearts. A bid of 3D shows a good hand with the higher major, or a good hand with spades. That frees up the 3H or 3S bids to show weak hands competing with a long suit. So South can freely bid 3H, expecting partner to pass.

The "unusual over unusual" convention can also be used when partner opens a major and the next hand jumps to an unusual 2NT. Partnerships can extend the convention to cover cases where the unusual NT bid or a Michaels bid is used to show the highest unbid (or lowest unbid) suits. Knowing whethewr partner is competing with a good hand (and not just showing a long suit or a fit) can make the difference for bidding good games or slams.

The play in 3H after a diamond lead was straightforward, with declarer losing 2 clubs, 1 diamond and 1 spade.

Now, true confessions: I sat North and, despite knowing my partner meant 3H to play, I bid 4H. After all, my hand was worth more than a 1NT opening when played in hearts and I could picture partner possibly holing a singleton diamond and making game - or the KC and six hearts. So my partner went down 1 in 4H while reminding me that we played "unusual over unusual" and I should have passed!

Lessons:

One of the hardest bidding problems is how to be competitive while not giving partner the impression you have a reasonable high card count. Pre-emptive jumps solve this problem on some hands and the "unusual over unusual" convention is a tool that can help on other hands when the opponents take away your bidding room.  

Board # 25, Thursday 2/11/2016

On Saturday, 2/12/2016, the local Bridge Unit (#207) sponsored a lecture at the BCA on Bridge Squeezes. So it is timely and appropriate to show an unusual hand that occurred a few days before the lecture that presented the opportunity for a squeeze the way it was defended at some tables.

Everyone at the table had at least a 7 card suit and West held 8 diamonds. In addition, there were 4 singletons and 1 void among the 4 hands in this wildly distributional deal. Many auctions began with North opening 2C. Despite having only 15 high card points, most North's felt the 4-loser hand was too good to open 1 heart or 4 hearts.

East chose to show his good club suit by doubling 2 clubs, South passed (perhaps playing that a pass showed values or just waiting to see where the auction was going before bidding spades). West couldn't resist bidding 2D with his 8 card suit and North ended the auction by bidding 4H.

East led the AC and looked at dummy. Perhaps West held a singleton club and could ruff a second club and lead a diamond for East to ruff. But, instead, declarer ruffed the 2C that West led (the 2 telling partner that, if he was the one who ruffed the trick, West wanted the lower suit or diamonds led). Declarer now considered the situation. She could play top trumps and, if they split, make at least 5 hearts. If they split 3 - 1 and the defender with 3 held the Q, 4 hearts would make. On the other hand, declarer could try to ruff a diamond in dummy and possibly make all the rest of the tricks. Declarer ignored the 2D bid by West that signaled freakish distribution and played the AD. West ruffed with the 6H and played the QC, East pitching a spade while declarer ruffed. Next, declarer hoped that West did not have the QH and led a low diamond to ruff in dummy. However, West ruffed with the QH and gave partner a spade ruff for down 1!

What about the promised squeeze example. Say Declarer, fearful that West had 1 or no diamonds (and noting the 2C West led at trick 2) chose to play 2 top trumps at tricks 3 and 4. The QH would drop, insuring at least 11 tricks for declarer. Now, remembering that when you have all but one of the rest of the tricks, declarer could run her long trump suit and see what happened. When declarer plays all the rest of the hearts and the A♦ , dummy would come down to AK10♠, -, -, J♣. West could hold the Q♣ and the QJ6 of spades but the next lead (of the K♦) would force West to either part with a spade guard or the club guard. Dummy, pitching after West, keeps the established new winner and declarer makes 6H!  

This squeeze is easy to execute - all declarer has to due is watch for the Q♣ and throw the J♣ in dummy at the end if it is not good.

Lessons: 

1) Be cardful on freakish distributional hands - it might be wise to "play safe" instead of making what might be a risky play.

2) Run all your long suit winners.Good things often happen producing extra tricks you might not have even anticipated. 

This hand of the week is about bidding since the play is trivial whether you end up in 3N, 5C, or 6C.

South opens 1C and North bids 3N.  Most people play that 3N in response to a minor opening bid shows 13-15 HCP, no four card Major, and a relatively balanced hand.  North’s hand fits this description to a tee.  What should South do after North responds 3NT?  South’s hand has two flaws for NT, the singleton spade and the three hearts to the queen.  The reason that the spade singleton is a flaw for NT is obvious but why is the Q third of hearts a flaw?  Because we know that North has at most 3 hearts so only if North has a reasonable holding in hearts, will hearts not be a problem.  However, playing matchpoints, we are all taught that minor suits should be the last priority after Major suits and NT have been explored.  So the question is do the two flaws override the notion that we do not want to play in a minor suit?  The answer is that we don’t know so we need to explore the situation.  How do we do that?  By bidding 4C.  4C is not Gerber but rather it is a bid showing a good hand with a good club suit and a worry that NT is not the right strain. 

North then bids 4H.  What is 4H?  It is a cue bid in support of clubs.  How do we know it is a cue bid and not an offer to play hearts?  Because North denied as many as 4 hearts when she bid 3NT.  The 4H bid should be enough for South to bid 6C.  She has first or second round control in all the outside suits, a sixth club, and 17 HCP.  When you know where the contract should be played, just bid it.   What about a grand slam in clubs?  It would take a perfect hand from North for a grand slam and, even then, it would probably require a finesse.   

What if South’s major suits were interchanged; that is, South has a singleton heart and the queen third of spades.  Now maybe NT is viable.  After all, partner has cue bid hearts so that shouldn’t be a problem for NT and now our Queen third of spades might fit nicely with whatever spades partner has when she bid 3NT.  How would we explore that possibility?  By bidding 4NT.  4NT is not Blackwood (or RKC), it is an offer now to play NT.  If that was the bidding, then North would have a difficult problem because her hand is bullish for clubs but NT is king at matchpoints.      

Lessons:

1) When partner suggests NT as a strain, you need to evaluate your hand for NT play.  This particular hand is only good for NT if partner has good Major suit cards.  You can express worry about NT by bidding 4C.  As long as partner understands what you are doing, then bidding 4C should allow the partnership to explore whether this hand should be played in clubs or NT.  

2) 4C is not always Gerber.  I like to play that 4C is only Gerber if it is a jump over partner’s last NT bid.  1N – 4C is Gerber.  1D – 1S – 1N – 4C is Gerber.  The above auction is an example where 4C is natural and, therefore, not Gerber.

3) 4NT is not always Blackwood (or RKC).  Again, the partnership needs to discuss when it is or it isn’t Blackwood.  In the above situation, it isn’t Blackwood because the strain is still not settled.  It is a good guideline that the partnership needs to settle strain before trying for slam.

4) 3NT is not always the right strain even when playing matchpoints.  This particular hand was played 17 times, 13 times in NT.  Only 6 pairs made their NT contract, presumably because the defenders either didn’t lead spades or blocked the suit when they did lead spades.  

5) When you know what the level and strain should be, just bid it.  After you know where to play the hand, any further bidding will only help the opponents.

Friday, Jan. 22, Board 10 

The auction was pretty straight forward but there was an inquiry as to whether North had shown anything with his initial pass. Why do I bring this up? It is a common convention for the partner of an opening 2C bidder to show values with a PASS after interference and show a bust with a DOUBLE. South advised that they do not play this convention and she had no information what the pass meant. South's hand looks good enough to venture a 4 Spade bid over partner's 3 Spade bid. North, however, could have taken stronger action with his 5 card Major suit and an outside Ace, after his partner's double.

Looking at dummy it is hard to see how this declarer could have any trouble at all with this hand. After all, where could East-West come up with many tricks?

East dutifully led the Jack of Clubs and West won the Ace and looked over the dummy. He could most likely count on the Ace of Diamonds to add to the Ace of Clubs, but where could any other tricks come from? It looks like the trump suit was the only hope for any more tricks if declarer held the Ace of Hearts, so looking at the AKQJ on dummy, he made the dummy ruff his King of Clubs with a high trump. Declarer played a 3 rounds of Hearts, ruffed another Club on dummy and then played his 2 top trumps off the dummy. He now led a Diamond off dummy and West rose with the Ace and played another Club. He had now promoted the 9 of Spades for a third trick and a good board for East-West. It was planning and persistence that paid off with an eventual trump promotion  - all without having any idea of what East was holding in the trump suit. 

Defense can be just as much fun as declaring a hand (and some think even more fun!). Watching your partner defend effectively can really be fun! This hand it was partner's plan and he executed it as well as he could. The final promotion was thrilling! Who would have thought the 9 of Spades would ever take a trick? Holding this to 4 was worth over 9 match points with a 15 top.

Lessons:

  1) Know your system of bidding over partner's 2 Club opening when the opponents interfere. A common method is to utilize the pass to mean VALUES and the double to show a BUST.

  2) In match point play, try to imagine what partner could have to get your best result. 

  3) Don't give up just because you don't have a lot of points.

Hand # 10, Friday AM, Austin Secional 1/8/2016

First comments on the bidding:  East opens 1C.  Some people might open 1D but I think 1C is right.  If one has 5 weak clubs and 4 strong diamonds, then you might open 1D intending to rebid 2C.  On this hand, though, the clubs are very reasonable to open and rebid if necessary.  The problem with opening 1D with this hand is that you will never convince partner that you have 5 clubs which might be important for a club slam. 

South bids 2S preemptive.  South might very well bid only 1S with his 10 count but one of his points is the jack doubleton of clubs and 2 of his points is the queen doubleton of hearts.  His hand is closer to a preempt than a 1 level overcall although he would like a stronger suit.  West bids 3H showing 5 hearts and a very decent hand.  He is showing enough to support partner bidding 3N or 4H.  He would prefer to be able to bid at only the 2 level but South’s preempt puts a wrench in the works.  That is why one preempts.  North passes and now East has a problem.  Nothing seems reasonable.  He can bid 3N but he has the worst possible stopper: Ace doubleton.  Another choice is 4H even though he has only 2 hearts.  He hopes partner has a sixth (or more) heart or that his hearts are very good.  He chooses 4H. 

The opening lead was the jack of spades and East can see when dummy is put down, that 3N would have been an easier contract.  But they are in 4 hearts.  In hearts, it is usually easier to count losers than winners.  East has no spade losers if he assumes that South has the queen of spades (or he can ruff his third spade in dummy); he has 1 diamond loser, and no club losers.  What about hearts?  He has at least two heart losers and he might lose three depending on the opponents hearts and who has which hearts.  But there is nothing he can do but trek on and do the best he can. 

He wins the ace of spades, and plays the ten of hearts, covered by the queen and his king.  North lets him win the trick since the duck can’t hurt and might make declarer misplay the trump suit.  North has two sure trump tricks since he has the 9 and now he is hoping partner has some other heart spot for another trick.  It is often good on defense to duck the ace of trumps in this kind of situation.   Now how should declarer continue in trumps?  If trumps were originally 3-3, any play will hold his losers to two.  What if they  were originally 4-2.  At this point declarer has the J853, North has the A94, and South has the stiff 7.   From declarer’s point of view, if North has the A97, there is nothing he can do but if South has the stiff 9 or the stiff 7 left, then declarer can play his jack and smother the 7 (or 9).   Declarer plays the jack and North now wins the ace while South plays the 7.  Now declarer’s remaining 853 will force out North’s 9 (from the 94) so that his 5 can draw the last trump, the 4.  When North wins the ace, he decides to lead a club knowing that if the club switch is wrong, he can try a diamond when he gets in with the 9 of hearts.  Making 4.  Good play and good defense.  

Lessons:

1) A doubleton is the worst possible stopper in NT because you can hold up only once.   If you have an alternative to 3NT, then it might be better to choose that alternative.  4H in this hand. 

2) Do you like it when the opponents preempt?  No, I don’t either.  That’s why we preempt when we get the chance.

3) When you hold the ace of trumps, it is often right not to give it up early.  Sometimes it gives declarer a guess how to continue.

4) Watch the spots.  The spots in the trump suit in this hand are important.  If you don’t watch the spots, you might go down.  

Hand # 14, Wednesday Morning, December 30th

The bidding is how it went at our table, although I think at most tables South would have opened the hand. After West opened 1c, North bid 2c, Michaels, showing at least 5-5 in the majors, East cue-bid 2h showing a good hand with club support. This is a convention known as “unusual over unusual” and is used after the unusual two no-trump bid, but can also be used in a Michaels auction. In any case, N-S ended up in three spades, a fairly normal contract.

The hand was played 12 times. 4s was played twice. Three spades once. And two spades once. It was also played in hearts five times, and east-west won the bid three times; twice in clubs, once in diamonds. Four spades is cold, yet it went down twice, and when three spades was played against us, it also went down. The player who played 2s managed to take 8 tricks.

At our table the queen of clubs was led by west. East won and shifted to a high diamond, and continued diamonds forcing dummy to ruff. There are two ways now for declarer to take ten tricks.

A. She can play for both majors to break 3-2 (as they do). She leads a low heart toward her queen, losing to the king. Ruffs the diamond return. Cashes the Ace of hearts and ruffs a heart with the ace. Now she can pull trump ending in dummy, and the hearts are all good. That line of play works on this hand, but it requires decent breaks in both majors.

B. A safer way would be to lead the ace of hearts at trick three, (in case hearts are 4-1) and give up a heart. (you now find out hearts are breaking). Again you ruff the diamond return, ruff a heart, cash your king of clubs, and cross-ruff the hand. You will end up scoring ten tricks: The ace of hearts, the king of clubs, and 8 trumps.

If the defenders try to prevent the cross-ruff by returning a trump instead of a diamond, you can take ten tricks by setting up the hearts as in A. Since you weren’t tapped in diamonds, you can survive a 4-1 spade break.

So ten tricks were there for the taking, and yet, three of the four times it was played in spades, the declarer only managed 8 tricks. The other time the declarer took nine. What went wrong?

Judging by what happened at our table, the only explanation was failure to make a plan. A declarer can sometimes be overwhelmed by all the possibilities, and will just start playing the hand haphazardly, first leading trump, then deciding to ruff, then deciding to try to set up a long suit. But a declarer who took a moment to count her tricks, count her losers, count trump, and count hearts, and then make a plan, would have earned a cold top.

Lesson Points.

1. Make a plan. If you can have some flexibility in your plan, so much the better, but sometimes you just have to hope for a certain lie of the cards and go for it. But even then, you have to figure out what it is you need to hope for. There’s nothing worse than finding a perfect lie of the cards, but going down anyway because you failed to plan for it.

2. Don’t overlook the value of a long suit. The six-card hearts suit was golden, even though it was Ace-empty. After losing one heart, and ruffing one heart, you have four heart tricks. That’s like having four aces! Yet it’s surprising how often declarers fail to take advantage of a long suit, especially when its in dummy.

Hand # 20, Wednesday Morning, 12/16/2015

East forgot a useful convention but came out tied for top anyway! After South opened a weak 2H and West doubled, East should have remembered the Lebensol convention - which allows the responder to partner's double to show if he has a good bid or just a weak hand forced to bid by partner's takeout double. The convention works as follows: A 2NT response is made on all weak hands instead of bidding your suit. Partner alerts and must bid 3C (unless his double was based on a hand with a long, strong suit that was too good to just bid that suit at some appropriate level - in other words a hand very interested in slam). After partner bids 3C, the 2NT bidder can pass if that is the suit he has or bid his suit on the 3 level expecting partner to pass.

So, when the responder to the double of a weak 2-bid directly bids a suit on the 3 level it shows a good hand and is forcing to at least 3NT or the 4-level in a suit if you play disciplined takeout doubles in immediate position (showing better than an opening hand). In any case, the doubler knows his partner has something like 8 to 10 points and is encouraged to look for game.

After West doubled 2H, East forgot Lebensol and bid 3C. West looked at his 4 loser hand with a great club fit and, reasonably, raised to 6C. If partner had a good hand with clubs, 6C should be a good contract.

South led the AH and continued the K, ruffed in dummy. East could count 11 tricks by ruffing another heart high in dummy and playing winners. Alternatively, if trump were 2-2, East could pitch two diamonds on dummy's good spades and crossruff to get to 12 tricks. Testing this line, East played 1 high trump in dummy and discovered the bad news. Pulling all the trump was not an option - was there anyway to succeed?

Declarer realized that all he needed was North to have 4 or more spades. He cashed all of dummy's spades and was relieved to note North following while he pitced 2 diamonds. Now, he cashed the AD and ruffed a diamond low. A heart was ruffed high in dummy and another diamond ruffed with the JC. Now, the QC was cashed leaving dummy with two high trumps for the last two tricks. 

Lessons

1) Lebensol is a very useful convention that allows you to show either a weak hand or a good hand when responding to partner's double of a weak 2-bid. It is easy to forget, however!

2) There are many hands where declarer should not pull all the opponents trumps if he can make better use of the trump suit by ruffing.

3) If you need the opponents to hold a certain distribution to make a contract - cross your fingers and play for it!

Hand # 27, Friday Morning, December 11,2015

Dealer south.

1c - 1s - p - p

p

That’s right. The bidding is correct. North- South have a 4-4 spade fit, and West is playing 1s in a 4-1 fit!

West was stuck for a bid after South opened a club. Some would say he should have passed. Others might have doubled, since he does have support for the other three suits. Still others might have over-called a no trump, despite only having fourteen points. He chose to bid his chunky four-card spade suit.

I was East, and I think my pass was a much worse bid. My thought at the time was that since we were in a misfit, I didn’t want to go from bad to worse.  But that shouldn’t mean I shouldn’t have bid my hand. I think my correct call was 1nt, despite having no club stopper.

How many times have you heard someone say, “but all you did was overcall!”

Just because someone overcalls doesn’t mean he can’t have an opening bid or better. It is better to assume an opening bid, and bid accordingly. If partner had opened 1s, I certainly would have bid one no trump. Yes, in this case I would have liked a club stopper, but at least I had four, and a 1c opener is often short. For all I knew partner might have a had a big hand with five spades and five diamonds.

When dummy came down, partner did not say anything except, “Thank you, partner.” There was no pained expression on his face.  He didn’t glare at me. The result: Partner managed six tricks for down one, earning seven out of a possible twelve matchpoints, which equates to a 58% result.  Most of the time, North-South played 2s making two.

Lesson Points

1.  Unless partner is a passed hand, don’t discount his bid just because he’s an overcaller.  It’s not his fault he didn’t get to bid first. Of course you need to be aware he might have less than an opening bid, but you should not assume it.

2.  Keep your cool even if you’re in a terrible contract. Don’t get upset, and more important, don’t let the opponents know you’re in a terrible contract.  

You shouldn’t say anything even if you’re in a good contract. Every comment only helps the defenders. It doesn’t help your side one bit.

Hand #8, Friday Morning, 12/4/2015

This is how I earned myself a bottom holding the North hand.

I opened a heart with a nice 14 point hand and my left hand opponent overcalled 1NT! East upgraded her hand to the NT range because of the well placed heart cards and did not make the takeout double so many other East's did. West, naturally, with a 6 card diamond suit and 9 points, raised to 3NT. 

South, holding 10 third in partner's major, led the 4 of hearts. I looked at dummy and, if declarer held the expected 15 to 18 points, knew partner had at most a Q in his hand. Hoping it was the Q of hearts, I rose K after dummy played low and lost to the A.

Now declarer played the Q and J of diamonds - overtaking the J with dummies K. Since that gave me two diamond tricks, I won the A. Next, hoping my partner led from the QH, I led a heart won by declarer in dummy with the J. Declarer played another diamond and I was in with the 10. Now, I was mostly thinking about not giving declarer any overtricks but still did not want to give up without trying to set the hand - after all, it was still possible partner held the QS. So, I led the KS and watched hopefully for partner's spot card.

We play upside down count and attitude and, when partner played the 8S, it seemed to me a negative signal denying the QS - look at the spots, the actual holding is the only possible one where partner would have to play the 8 as the lowest card while holding the Q (assuming, reasonably, that declarer has no more than 4 spades).

So, instead of cashing the AS and continuing spades to set the contract two, I played a third heart. 

When the smoke cleared, declarer had wrapped up 10 tricks and a top - and I had a well deserved bottom.

It was only in the post-mortem that we realized that my partner had an expert play that might possibly have stopped me from a self-destructing defense. When I led the KS and it held (with J2 in dummy), my partner, holding Q1098, knows I hold the A and wants the suit continued. The play of the 8 will appear to discourage - what to do? Play the QS under partner's K! With the J in dummy and partner known to have the A of spades, that could only mean you hold the 10 and want partner to cash that A and continue. We would set the contract 2!

Now let's look again at trick 1: I should have reasoned that if declarer had any 2 card diamond holding or even 3 cards missing the Q or the J, I can keep declarer from enjoying dummy's long diamonds by ducking the opening heart lead. Even if partner had led away from the Q of hearts, that would not cost (declarer always has at least 2 heart tricks and, if partner has the Q, I can lead them when I'm next in).

Lessons

1. Think carefully about the hand before playing to trick 1. It may make the difference!

2. Every systen of signaling has its difficult hands. Think creatively, instead of just following a signaling system blindly, and hope partner does the same.

Hand # 21, Monday Morning, 11/30/2015

Playing with a variety of partners can be challenging and especially when it comes to ace asking bids and wondering if you are on the same page with partner. Today's hand was about bidding, plus a play problem. North passed and East opened 1 No Trump, West used Stayman and found out the good news about the Spade fit and marched on from there! 4 Clubs was Gerber, plain Gerber! East answered even though she had a question whether 4 Clubs really was Gerber!! Trusting partner all the way to 7 SPADES!! There was no way even using Key Card to find out about the Queen of Hearts, so Gerber worked here as well as Key Card would have!

Match points drives many players to always put slams in No Trump. One good lesson that I have learned over the years is that 7 of anything making is going to be a good board! If the suit feels safer (say you have some distribution), then put it in 7 of a suit rather than 7 No Trump.

When dummy hit (the lead was of course the Queen of Clubs) East was not pleased to see that she had to find the Queen of Hearts! The elusive Queen!! More on that as the hand goes on. Declarer won the Club trick and decided to do a little detective work to find the Queen. She first pulled trump and then played on the Diamond suit, even playing the 13th Diamond from her hand before touching the Heart suit. On the last Diamond, South discarded the 2 of Clubs and North threw a Club also. Declarer played her last Club and saw the 6 come out of South's hand. From this she figured out that South had started with long Clubs and therefore was SHORT in Hearts. Why? No one would lead the Queen without at least the Jack and most likely the Ten too, therefore South should have 5 Clubs. That left him with short Hearts!

There was the answer she was looking for! If you don't have anything else to go on, then play the hand with the long Hearts for the Queen! Success is sweet and earned in this case.

Declarer was the only one in 7 Spades making, 2 others were in 7 No Trump and going down one. Every other pair was in a small slam, five making 7 and three making 6. This declarer in 7 Spades got the TOP board. 

Lessons:

 1) Be thorough in your bidding (slow and accurate) on your way to a slam. 

 2) Make sure you know which slam conventions you and your partner are using!

 3) When faced with finding the Queen, try to do some detective work and don't just make a guess (50%).

 4) When bidding 7, put the contract where it is the safest.

Hand #9, Friday Morning, 11/13/2015

A note on the bidding: East could have bid 3NT for his third bid, but was hesitant with ace doubleton. If West held the Qxx of spades, no trump would play better if West was declarer.  As it turned out, with West holding J109, it would have played better from the East. With West playing it, there was only one spade stopper. If East played it, there would have been two.

The play: North led a low spade, ducked in dummy. South returned a spade to dummy’s ace. Declarer came to his hand with a club, and took the heart finesse. When it won, he returned to his hand and led a second heart.

There’s a bridge adage that says, “Play the card you’re known to have.” While this also applies to declarer play, it is especially important for a defender.

There are many instances where playing that card will cause a declarer to go wrong, and even if you can’t forsee exactly how it might happen on any given hand, it is still a good rule to follow ( so long as it can’t hurt).

On this hand, Dean Truair, sitting north, made the expert play of the king of hearts, when West led his second heart.  He  knew from the bidding that West only had two hearts, and he also knew that hearts were splitting 3-3.  But by playing the king, he created the illusion that hearts were not breaking well for the declarer.  If that was the case, if declarer continued hearts, he was set to lose a heart, three clubs and a spade.

Alas, in this case, declarer had no other options, so he played the third heart, and scored his nine tricks. However, since the hand was played from the “wrong side”, Dean and his partner got a good board anyway.

Lesson Points

1) Good bids and good plays often go unrewarded. With ace doubleton in a suit likely to be led by the opponents, it is usually right to let partner be declarer. That didn’t work here.

2) Play the card you’re known to hold.  The opportunity to make this play occurs on numerous occasions., even if you don’t know how it might cause the declarer to go wrong on any given hand.

For example, on this hand, if declarer had the ten of diamonds instead of the six, he may have been talked into the diamond finesse, as opposed to playing for hearts to break.

Hand # 11, Thursday, 11/5/2015

The bidding is 2S (S), P, P, X, P, 3NT all pass.   The opening lead is the Ten of spades. 

First the bidding.  South has a normal weak two although some may require a better suit.  West has a nice 13 HCP hand but no convenient bid.  X should show 4 Hearts or a stronger hand so he passes.  East has a pretty easy takeout double of the 2S bid in the balancing position and now West can come alive with a 3NT bid.  Note that if West had doubled originally, the likely contract is 4H which has 4 likely losers: 1 spade, 1 club, and 2 diamonds.  Therefore, West’s discretion is not making a takeout double immediately pays off because 3N is a much better contract. 

Now the play and defense.  North leads the T of Spades and South plays the Q and West wins the Ace.  West has only 8 tricks (2 Spades, 4 Hearts, and 2 Clubs) without a Diamond trick so he needs to develop a Diamond trick.  He leads a Diamond and North wins the Ace and leads a second Spade.  Now South can set up Spades retaining the King of Diamonds as an entry.  Down 1 (or 2 if West plays for North to have both of the high Diamond honors).

Can declarer do better?  What if he ducks the first Spade and wins the second Spade?  Now assuming South has at most one high Diamond honor (if he has both high Diamond honors, then he would have opened 1S, not 2S), the contract is cold.  West can force out the two Diamond honors.  If North wins the Ace first, he doesn’t have a Spade to help set up Spades and if South wins the King, then he can set up Spades but now has no entry.  Making 4: 2 diamonds, 2 spades, 4 hearts, and 2 clubs.   

Lessons:

1. Making a takeout double of a Spade bid (1 or 2) should show 4 Hearts or should be a stronger hand than a minimum takeout double.
2. It isn’t always correct to play 2^nd hand low.  In the first and third described scenarios, if North plays second hand low (as we have all been taught), then the contract is made because South has to use his Diamond entry before his Spades are set up.
3. It isn’t always correct to play 3^rd hand high.  In the third scenario, if South (third hand) plays low, Declarer has no alternative but to win the Jack and then should go down. 
4. When you are missing two high honors in the suit you must develop (Diamonds in this hand), do what you can to extract all cards of the dangerous suit (Spades in this hand) from one of the defenders so that if the honors are split, you can develop the suit without the dangerous suit being set up.
5. This hand illustrates the maxim that there is no Always nor no Never in Bridge.  For the defense to succeed in this hand, it must violate two rules that we have all been taught: 2^nd hand low and 3^rd hand high.

Hand #20, Thursday, 10/15/2015

This is a defensive problem where 22 out of 22 pairs got it wrong!! North/South were supposed to only make 2S, yet 21 pairs made 3 and 1 pair even made 4! What went wrong in every East/West defense?

The auction shown took place at one table. The bidding was normal up to West's reoppening double. West had two 4-card minors and did not want to sell out to1S. Since West had passed the original takeout double by North, it was clear the double had to be for takeout in the unbid suits. South had the top of her original 1S bid and showed it by bidding 2S, which closed the auction. Three of the 22 N/S pairs actually got to 4S on this 12 opposite 9 point fit - showing how eager our players are bid (overbid!) games.

Now for the defense: East started with the AD (A from AK) and looked at dummy. No continuation looked particularly good, so East passively played the KD and the JD. Declarer then pulled trump ending in hand.

Declarer next played a club to the K in dummy. Based on count signals, West knew declarer had 2 clubs and he held off the first round and won the AC when the Q was continued. Now, West thought, I can lead partner's bid suit before declarer gets a pitch on dummy's good club. West led the 10H, declarer ducked and lost the A and could claim the rest - making 3 Spades.

The heart suit is what is known as a Frozen Suit. Neither side can lead that suit from any hand without losing a trick. If declarer has to play the suit from dummy or hand, she will always lose 2 tricks. If either defender plays the heart suit, declarer only loses 1 trick. A key part of good defense or declarer play is recognizing frozen suits and trying to make the opponents be the first to lead them.

West has a good count on the hand after seeing East follow to 2 trumps and show 3 diamonds and 3 clubs - East has 5 hearts and declarer therefore has 4 hearts. West can safely continue another club since one sluff in declarer's hand still leaves 3 hearts and will force her to break the frozen suit.

How did one pair make 4 spades? Probably, after leading a high dimond, East saw many possible piches for declarer and switched to the AH, hoping partner, who had shown less than 3 in the auction, had a singleton or the K. This set up all of declarers hearts and, after pulling trumps, declarer could pitch 2 diamonds in dummy and only lose the A of clubs - making 4 spades. 

So, how do you recognize frozen suits? Often you are looking at a J or Queen in dummy and hold an honor yourself. Examples for declarer holdings might be Jx(x) opposite Kx(x) or Jxx oposite Qxx. Another declarer holding might be 109x opposite Kxx with a defender behind the K holding the A and one of the other honors. Lay down these suit holdings and see why they are "Frozen" for yourself (if the defenders cards are in the right places). The holding 

                                                                                              1094

                                                                                   AQ75              J852

                                                                                               K63

is particularly interesting in that it is doubly frozen for the defense and also requires careful play. Say you avoided leading the suit (which would always give declarer an eventual trick) and declarer leads the 10 from dummy. East cannot cover J or declarer eventually makes the 9. So, East ducks and West wins the Q. Now, if either East or West leads the suit, declarer makes a trick - it is still frozen. If declarer has to lead the suit the next time it is led, he loses all the tricks.    

Lessons:

1) Learn to recognize possible frozen suit holdings and avoid leading them.

2) Don't panic on defense and, out of fear, lead a frozen suit late in the hand. Count declarer's tricks and only desperately lead suits when you can see declarer will have enough pitches to throw away his possible losers.

3) Learning when to cover an honor in second position (or not cover) can be very difficult! Switch the 9 and 6 between dummy and declarer in the doubly frozen example above and now East must cover if the 10 is led from dummy.

Hand # 30, Tuesday, 9/22/2015

This interesting hand was not actually played at the BCA last Tuesday, as only Boards 1 to 27 were used. So what appears below is an imaginary auction and play for a an instructive and interesting hand. 

North, looking at his 23 point hand filled with controls, could hardly believe it when his partner opened 2H in second position. They play disciplined weak two bids in first or second position, so North was assured his partner had 6 good hearts and at least 5 high-card points. In order to find out about key cards, North asked with 4NT. The partnership played 1-4, 0-3 and South showed the A of spades with 5C. Now, a bid of 5D asked South if she had the Q of trumps and any outside K. If South had outside Kings and the Q of trump, she wouid bid the lowest King. Without the Q of trumps she would bid 5H. With the Q of trumps and no outside King, she would bid 6H - which is what she did.

North can now count 12 tricks off the top (assuming 6 heart tricks). He could bid 6NT safely. However, if partner had the Q of diamonds or the J of spades (or the JS dropped when the suit was played, or was clearly finesse-able), then North could count 13 tricks at NT. It is a general rule to not bid a Grand unless you can pretty well count all thirteen tricks - but assume this North was somewhat of a gambler or needed a top score to have a good game - so North, knowing he had to have good chances, bid 7NT!

Now to the play: East should make as safe a lead as possible against a Grand and, in this case, that calls for a lead of the Heart 2. Declarer (North) wins with the A and can count 12 tricks off the top with a 13th trick possible from either spades or diamonds. North plays the K of hearts and continues with the K and Ace of diamonds and the K of spades. Now a spade to dummy's Ace and then run the rest of the hearts. Declarer was planning to come down to the 7S and JD in dummy and the Q10 of spades in hand, with the lead in dummy. If any defender held both the QD and 4 spades they would be squeezed and if the spades were 3-3 a lead to hand would bring home the contract. If the diamond Q fell early or if the JS fell, the play would be over. As the cards actually were, however, when declarer led to the AS at trick four East showed out making the finesse of the JS a clear winner for a 13th trick. A brave bid would be rewarded by a top!

Lessons: 

1. Keycard and asking bids for the Q of trumps are useful conventions for slam bidding. In this example, 0-4, 1-3 allowed room to sign-off in 5H if that was all the hand called for.

2.  Generally, it is safer to play slams in a trump fit and to only bid Grands when you can count all 13 tricks. However, when you can count at least 12 tricks in NT with all suits stopped - at matchpoints bid 6NT and, if you think you have good chances for a 13th trick and you need a top, consider risking 7NT.

3. Cashing the diamond A & K early, as well as the KS, before going to dummy maximizes declarer's chances.

Hand #16.Tuesday, Sept.15, 2015

E/W Vul, Dealer-W

                    W               N                E               S

                    2C              p                2D             3H

                    3S              p                4S             p

                    6S              p                 p               X

                     p               p                 p

We spend lots of time preparing for conventions that sometimes hardly ever come up. As is the way with bridge players, my partner and I crammed in a few quick thoughts about our conventions before the game last Tuesday. I have been reading about some interesting hands and was thinking about the Lightner Double and asked if we were playing it and we briefly went over how we each understood how it was used. We both said that it has been forever since it had come up. We would use it against trump slams to ask for an unusual lead, usually with a void in some side suit.

In the third round of our game we played board 16. West opened 2 Clubs with an edgy hand (looks be one too many losers)., North (me) passed and East showed a positive bid with 2 Diamonds. Now partner jumped to 3 Hearts, after all we were not Vulnerable and they were. West bid 3 Spades , North passed again and now East tried a shutout bid of 4 Spades. South passed and  West decided to "go for it" with a 6 Spade bid! I am loving this with my QT54 of Spades and passed. East passed and now, lo and behold, my partner DOUBLED!! Oh my Lord! It had to be the LIGHTNER DOUBLE!! What a coincidence! Nothing to decide now since he had bid Hearts and those are out. He can't be void in Diamonds with me only having one, so I led the 6 of Clubs. Partner ruffed and returned a Heart and declarer won the stiff Ace. Declarer now led a small trump to the King on dummy and eventually lost two more trump tricks for -3 doubled.

If East had bid Clubs at his first opportunity (after partner's 3 Spade bid)  they might have found 6 Clubs which makes. West could have tried 5 Clubs instead of the jump to slam after partner's 4 Spade bid and that too might have helped get to the right spot.

The board was played 12 times and six pairs got to 6 Clubs and five made it, there were a couple 3NTs (making 3 once and 4 once), one 4 Spade making, two 5 Club contracts (one was doubled and down 1), and of course this 6 Spade contract doubled and down 3.

There are times I wonder if I am dreaming or psychic and this coincidence was  one of those times! It seemed surreal that the Lightner Double came up so soon after talking about it, what are the odds?

Lessons:

1) Keep studying conventions that are seldom used, they will come up and you have to be ready! Don't miss the fun of getting to use your rare conventions!!

2) Preempting is effective in jamming the auction for the opponents. When you are not Vulnerable, and the opponents are, is the time to bid your long suit as high as you can.

3) The Lightner Double (thought of by Theodore Lightner 1893-1981) is used against trump slams to ask for an unusual lead because partner of the leading defender has a void.  Lightner's rule was that the lead should not be a trump or a suit bid by the doubling partner. Listen to the bidding to determine the suit partner is most likely void in. (There are several variations of the Lightner Double, this is the one I play - another version is to play it calls for a lead of the first suit bid by dummy, which can be used against NT slams while playing the Lightner Double for voids when opponents bid a trump slam).

First, a comment on the bidding.  North opens 1S in third chair.  East makes a practical bid of 4H since his partner is a passed hand.  South bids 4S, not knowing if it will make or not but with 5 Spades, she knows that the number of Spade tricks on defense is limited.  West might consider a 5H bid but has some hope that her King of spades and King, Jack of diamonds will supply enough defense to beat 4S.  As it turns out, best defense beats both 4H and 4S so West’s decision not to bid on is best (presuming that the defense beats 4S).  

East leads the Ace of Hearts.  When dummy comes down, he should consider the defensive situation.  In fact, West can help East if she will play the 9 of Hearts on the Ace which should be a suit preference because of the singleton Heart in dummy.  If East reads the 9 of Hearts as a suit preference, the hand will be over quickly because East can play the Ace of Diamonds and a diamond to West’s King, Jack and then West can play the fourth diamond hoping to generate something more with a some kind of uppercut.  However, West might wonder about a Club shift rather than leading a third Diamond because leading a third Diamond would set up a pitch if, in fact, North has the doubleton Diamond rather than East.  Sometimes West will not be able to tell what is going on in the Diamond suit, particularly if North keeps his deuce hidden (as he should).  But if East does shift to the Ace of diamonds, there would be no story to tell.  At the table, West continued the Queen of Hearts making Declarer ruff in dummy.     

Dummy ruffs the Queen of Hearts with the Ten in dummy just in case West has a singleton Heart.  Now what is the plan?  Declarer has 1 possible Spade loser, 1 Heart loser, and 2 sure and 1 possible Diamond losers.  What should Declarer do?  First, take a Spade finesse.  The odds are 37 to 13, almost 3 to 1, favoring the finesse over playing to drop the singleton king off side.  So, at trick 3, Declarer leads the Jack of Spades and finesses.  It wins!  Draw the last trump winning the Ace in hand.  Now what? 

The best chance to hold the Diamond losers to two is find the Jack with East.  You have all the Diamond spots missing the AKJ so finding East with the Diamond Jack will hold the Diamond losers to 2 as long as you lead toward the QT86 in dummy twice putting in the ten (or 8) if East plays low.  Is there any other chance?  There is one extra chance if the defense will cooperate.  If East has the doubleton Ace (or King) of Diamonds and fails to play it on the lead of the first Diamond, then East will be endplayed on the second round of Diamonds and have to concede a ruff sluff so that Declarer can get rid of one of his Diamond losers.  But, in order to have that endplay work, the Clubs must be eliminated.  So, play the AKQ of Clubs ending in hand and now lead the 9 of Diamonds toward the QT86 in dummy.  Why the 9?  If East doesn’t have the J of Diamonds, we are hoping to convince East to play low on the first round of Diamonds.  Note that if East does play low, he will have to win the second Diamond with the Ace and since he would be now down to all Hearts, he will have to concede a ruff sluff allowing Declarer to get rid of his last Diamond and make 10 tricks.  At the table, East did play low and was, therefore, endplayed on the second round of Diamonds and did have to concede a ruff sluff so that Declarer did make his contract.  Well done!

Lessons:

1)  When unsure what to do in the bidding, it is often right to bid on in partner’s suit particularly when you have 5 card support and a singleton.  When South bid 4S in this hand, she didn’t know if it would make or not, but she was sure that her fifth Spade limited the defensive prospects and bid 4S hoping it will make or that it is a good sacrifice against a making 4H.

2) As Declarer, make a PLAN.  In a suit contract, it is usually easiest to count losers and see what you can do, if anything about them.  On this hand, Declarer could count 5 possible losers.  If the Spade finesse worked, that would eliminate one and then he had to worry about limiting his Diamond losers to two. 

3) When you have 10 cards in a suit missing the king, the finesse is almost 3 to 1 over trying to drop the singleton king off side. 

4) When on defense, you need to visualize what is going on and what Declarer is trying to do.  On this hand, East needs to realize that if he plays low on the Diamond, he will surely be endplayed.  Therefore, East should play the Ace of Diamonds when Declarer leads the 9 from his hand.

5) When partner leads a card that is likely to win and there is a singleton in dummy in that suit, you can help partner with a suit preference signal.  Playing low asks for the lower of the two available suits (eliminating the suit led and the trump suit) and playing high asks for the higher of the two available suits.  Playing a middle card shows no preference or asks for a continuation of the led suit.  

Hand $27, Friday Morning, 9/3/2015

Dealer:South, No one Vulnerable

                                          S                     W                  N                E

                                          P                     1C                 P                1D

                                          P                     1H                 P                1S

                                                             P                     1NT               P                3NT

                                                             P                      P                  P

Here is a good example of North staying interested in the hand even though his values are minimal. North had no attractive lead and led the 4 of Diamonds. Declarer played the Ace and South played the Jack. Declarer then led the Jack of Clubs off dummy and let it ride to North's Queen. North now switched to the Queen of Hearts and South played the 2 (encouraging, playing upside down signals). Declarer doesn't have her suits established and decided to let N/S have this trick. Now North switched to a Club and declarer won this in her hand. Declarer next led the 8 of Diamonds and played small off the board! South took the Ten and led the Ace of Hearts to hold the contract to 3.

Deceptive carding makes it much harder for players to read the position at the table and the Jack of Diamonds worked well as it appeared to be a restricted choice card with North leading from 4 to the 10. You can't blame declarer for falling for the ruse. North aided and abetted by switching to the Heart when in and then making the neutral lead of the 2nd Club. This all looked like he really did have Diamonds and was avoiding playing them again.  Look at the Spade suit. Imagine if North had switched to a Spade after taking the Club Queen? Spades is a frozen suit (I will define this below-don't miss it!) . 

How much is holding this contract to 3 worth? Almost all the marbles! A shared top for the defenders.

Frozen suit: A suit neither side can lead without damage to it's side. In this case, if N/S lead a Spade, they will not take a Spade trick. If West leads a Spade, N/S will always take a trick. Once you start noticing frozen suits you will see them all over the place and know that you need the opponents to play them first! 

Lessons:

1) Pay attention and play well, even when you have very few points.

2) Get ready to false card as soon as you play, don't hesitate or you will give the "Show" away!

3) Be watching for frozen suits and don't lead them for the opponents. This is the time for a neutral lead!

Hand # 5, Wednesday, 9/26/2015

West has one of the best hands he has ever held - a 27 point monster! Before he bids he hears partner open a weak 2S bid in second position. How do you bid this powerful hand?

If partner has nothing other than KQJxxx of spades, there should be good play for 7S. It also will play well in NT if East has an outside entry. So, West started with an asking bid for an outside feature - 2NT by their agreements. If East showed a QH or a QD, West thought a slam in NT might work. Note: West might also have started with a forcing 3C, as it is possible that will lead to the best slam).

After 2NT, East bid 3S and West thought it would be probably impossible to reach East's spades if playing in NT. So West tried keycard Roman Blackwood with 4NT and learned East had one key card. The 5H bid asked East about the Q of spades and East showed the Q by bidding 6S. Now, surprisingly, South doubled this final contract and all passed. The opening lead by South was the 10H.

14 pairs played in spades, almost all in slam, and none were able to make 6 with the 5-1 spade split and no way to get to East's hand other than ruffing something and shortening declarer's trumps.

That would be the end of the story - tough luck due to the 5-1 spade split, except that, especially after the double, an expert declarer should be able to make the slam. Here's how: Assume the 10H is either from 10x or 109(x) or even 109(xx). Win the AH and play the AS and see, with relief, the 10S fall from North's hand. Clearly, with the double, South has the J753 of trumps left. He probably has only 2 clubs (if just 1, declarer has little or no hope to succeed). So, assume he is 5-4-2-2 or 5-3-3-2 or 5-2-4-2 as his most likely distributions, assuming he has 2 clubs. 

Declarer next cashes 2 clubs (carefully watching to see if the defense makes it clear that South had a doubleton). Then, declarer plays the K of hearts and ruffs a heart with the 9S. If South over ruffs with the JS, the hand is over - declarer can ruff a diamond back to hand and pull all of South's trumps and claim. So, South must pitch a diamond.

Next, declarer plays A, K of diamonds and ruffs a diamond. Declarer is down to KQ8 of spades and a club and South has 4 trump left. Declarer plays the club and South has to ruff and lead around to the KQ8 of trumps! 

Note that this line of play would work for any of the likely distributions for South as long as declarer ruffs the right cards from dummy. The double and the fact that, with 8 clubs in the East/West hands and only 6 hearts and 5 diamonds, South was not likely to have 3 clubs, made these the most likely distributions that give declarer a way to make the slam.

Lessons

1) Be very careful when you double a contract - you may be alerting declarer to a bad split and allowing him to find a way to overcome it.

2) As declarer, try to picture favorable distributions that will allow you to make your contract and play for the most likely of these - watching to see if opponent discards change your view of the hand.

Hand # 4, Thursday, 8/20/2015

Less than half of the 13 pairs who played this hand got to the very easily makeable 6 Spade slam - so this is another lesson about slam bidding (or not bidding good slams!).

First a word of wisdom a world class player once told me: in duplicate club games (not imps scoring) don't try too hard for games (in our games many pairs go all out to bid many games that fail!) but do try to reach good slams as they will yield many match points (in our games, most pairs are much more afraid of going down in a slam than in a game!). 

So what about this hand? The auction shown did not occur at my table as my partner and I have many artificial conventions. But the result was the same as if my partner had shown a splinter bid forcing to game with short clubs after I opened 1 spade. With that bid by partner, and holding a jump shift hand, how could I (West) not reach slam? West has a 4 loser hand (2 spades, 1 heart, 1 diamond) and expects no worse than 7 losers in partners hand, You only need a total of 12 losers to have a good play for slam (assuming you're not off 2 cashable key cards) and you can find that out with keycard Blackwood.

On the auction shown, after the 4NT Blackwood bid showed one key card missing, West bid the 6 spade slam, knowing that 7 was off an ace or the K of trump and not a reasonable bid.

There was nothing to the play whatever the lead, as you can pull trumps and discard 2 of dummy's diamonds on clubs.

So why did more than half the field not reach this slam? My guess is that East, with only 10 high-card points, bid something like a sign-off at 4 Spades early in the auction. So, the question is, why should East have encouraged partner with something like a splinter bid in clubs instead of just bidding a spade game? Because East has a 6 loser hand in Spades (1 spade, 2 hearts, 2 diamonds, 1 club) and that is one less than needed to force to game, leaving slam a possibility and worth showing to partner.

I also think that West, with a 4 loser hand, even after partner signs-off in 4S early in the auction, should not give up trying for slam.

It all goes back to the observable fact that our club players are very (possibly overly!) aggressive at bidding duplicate games and much less aggressive bidding slams - where they count points too much, instead of losers when having a good fit with partner. 

Lessons
 

1. Try being more aggressive bidding slams when you have a good fit and loser count suggests a slam is possible. On the other hand, be less aggressive bidding games on marginal point count hands without exceptional loser counts.

2. Splinters and keycard Blackwood are helpful slam bidding conventions partnerships should employ. 

Board 17, Friday Evening, August 7, 2015

Distributional hands are fun and can be challenging to describe. WIth a good 5-5 hand you can open one suit and jump in another (and then bid the 2nd suit again) to try to show this. So what about a 6-6 hand?

North was the dealer on this non-vulnerable deal and has a terrific hand if partner has any minor cards with her. North opened 1 Diamond, LHO bid 1 Heart and South of course bid 1 Spade, passed back to North. Time for some action!!

North jumped all the way to 5 Clubs (hoping this would show the big distributional monster that she had. East passed and now partner, who is a well known excellent slam bidder (Mary Anne Laier), jumped to 6 Diamonds!! Mary Anne has just reached 5000 Master Points (Diamond Life Master) and many of her points have come from her astute slam bidding. She is in many good slams that no one else is in and particularly minor suit slams.

East led her Ace of Hearts and the play was not difficult. Ruffing the first trick in her hand, declarer ruffed a Club, ruffed a Heart back to her hand, ruffed another Club, played the trump king and ruffed another Heart. Next, declarer pulled trump and when the Queen of Clubs came down, claimed 7.

A nice top board thanks to the slam bid. Everyone made 7, but no one else bid the slam.

Lessons:

1. Use your imagination when bidding distributional hands. Normally a jump to the 5 level (2nd bid in a 2nd suit) shows a very distributional hand. (Note: patnerships playing Exclusion Blackwood should discuss whether this auction shows a void in clubs and great spade support or a very good minor 2-suiter.)  

2.  There is a saying" 6-5 Come Alive! " Good advice with a 2 suiter.

3. When you are the partner of the big 2 suited hand, be thinking "SLAM"  if you have a fit for partner and key cards.

This hand is both an interesting bidding hand and an interesting play hand. 

First, the auction.  East opens 1D (not everyone would open 1D but I think it is an opening bid), South overcalls 1S, and West bids 2C (not my choice but not the most terrible bid I have ever seen .. I think a preempt would be better).  Now North bids 2D.  What is that bid?  It usually shows support for partner’s overcalled suit (spades, in this case) and at least a limit raise in support of spades.   South bids 2S saying she has just a minimum overcall and has no interest in game.  What should North bid now?  Possible bids are pass, 3S, and 4S.  Although, North has only 12 HCP, he has a clear better hand than a pass.  He has 4 trumps, what looks like two tricks in clubs (because of West’s bid of 2C), a stiff ace of diamonds, and a bonus Q of hearts which may or may not be useful.  I think a bid of 3S is the minimum one should bid and 4S certainly would not be terrible.  I choose 4S because my hand is bullish in lots of ways.  The four trumps are key.  The stiff diamond ace is very good.  And, as discussed above, the AQ of clubs feels like two tricks. 

Now the play.  The opening lead is a diamond which will be won in dummy, of course.  But before one plays even the most obvious of plays (like the ace of diamonds in this case), declarer should pause and make a plan.  The best way to go about a plan in a suit is to count losers and then see what can be done about them.  This hand is kind of different because there is a suit (hearts) in dummy that can be a source of tricks.  Therefore, it might be easier to think about how to set up dummy.  If that is our plan, then we want to draw trumps and force out the AK of hearts.  We may have to worry about our diamonds since we have so many but maybe we can use the clubs and hearts in dummy to get rid of the diamonds and ruff one if necessary.  OK.  That is our plan. 

Win the ace of diamonds and lead a trump.  Let’s say East plays low (the best defense).  Win the king of spades.  Now what? Cash the king of clubs and ruff a diamond. Next, play the ace and queen of clubs planning to pitch diamonds if East doesn't ruff or ruffs with the ace of trumps.  East is done for.  If he doesn't ruff you have no more diamonds and can lead another trump from dummy. If he does ruff with the J, you over ruff and ruff your last diamond and start playing hearts.. 

If East wins the first spade lead at trick 2, there is nothing he can do that will stop declarer. If he leads a heart (the best defense), West will win the ace and return a diamond which you must ruff because if you don’t you will lose 4 tricks: 2 hearts, 1 spade, and 1 diamond.   Now you have a problem because you have two diamonds to do something with.  If you draw the last trump, you will have a diamond loser which East will win when he wins the king of hearts.  How to solve that problem?  Play a club to your king and ruff another diamond.  Now cash the ace of clubs pitching your last diamond.  Now try to cash the Q of clubs.  If East ruffs, overruff, draw the last trump and set up hearts.  If East doesn’t ruff, pitch a heart and lead a heart off dummy.  You will eventually get to your hand to draw the last trumps.  You will lose 2 hearts and 1 spade. 

Lessons:

1. When partner overcalls and you have 4 card support, your hand is better than it may seem.  On this hand, you have only 12 HCP but, in support of spades, your hand is worth much more. 
2. Sometimes, one just needs to take a stab at what you think partner will make or, at least, have a good play for.  On this hand, from North’s perspective, South has to have a decent play for 4S even if the overcall is a minimum.  KQJxx of spades and a doubleton heart might be enough. 
3. Before you play even one card from dummy, stop and make a plan.  Many contracts have been lost because the wrong card was played at trick one.  Even if you are forced to play a card (as in this hand), it is good discipline to stop and make your plan before playing the card. 
4. This hand is a bit difficult to plan because there are so many options.  Even though one normally counts losers in the master hand (usually the hand with more trumps), sometimes that isn’t sufficient. 
5. Even after you make a plan and start executing it, you may have to modify the plan after a few tricks.  This need to modify happens most often when a bad break happens. 
6. The most fun plan but probably the hardest to execute is what I call the “go with the flow” plan.  You start with a basic plan and then depending on the defense, you have to change one thing or another.  On this hand, although it appears that there are only 3 losers (1 spade and two hearts), one possible defense threatens to set up a diamond for their 4^th trick and you must figure out how to mollify that threat.  

Hand # 24, July 17, 2015

Preempting is a strong tool that we all use to try to steal a hand, mess up the opponent's bidding and occasionally get to a better contract. Here is an example of a 3 level preempt "doing it's job" for most of the East-West pairs.

How many South's would double with just 7 points? The South hand is perfect in shape and so I luckily got to be the partner who was "protected" by South. Partner was none other than Marilou Powell, a seasoned expert with great instincts on when to bid or double.

There are a couple ways to treat a bid in direct seat over a preempt. One, you can double or bid with just a regular old opening. Partner knows you might be minimum (or the better hand, he doesn't know which) . It is easy to get into trouble with a minimum hand in direct seat if your bids vary from time to time. To bid with a very minimum hand over a 2 or 3 bid is risky at best when you think of how many tricks you are committing the partnership to.

Or two, you can agree with your partner that you will have MORE than opening to double or bid in direct seat. This is the one I recommend and is used by most experts. If you have this agreement, then it becomes very important for the partner in pass out seat to protect the partner by taking some action. Of course, the South hand could have been much stronger to do this double. North knows that you are protecting and should not go crazy! The easiest way to remember this way of bidding over pre-empts is the following: In the immediate position you bid on[y your hand, paying careful attention to the level you are committing the partnership to. In the balancing position you bid both your hand and assume partner may have  up to a typical opening bid.

Now take a look at the North hand. There was no doubt for me that I would sit for the double. 3NT crossed my mind, but unless partner has a really huge hand it is out of the question. Setting 3 Diamonds seemed certain, so pass was my choice. I supposed that we would set this contract several tricks. 

Imagine my shock looking at the dummy after I led the 9 of Hearts covered by the Ten, Jack and Queen. Now declarer has lots of Heart tricks. This looked  seriously scary now! If we were lucky we would get 2 Spades and how many Diamonds? We needed 3 Diamonds out of my AJ85!! 

Declarer played the Jack of Clubs to the Ace and led the 6 of Diamonds and partner played the 9 of Diamonds!!  The 9 was a HUGE card! That 9 helped build 3 tricks for me in trump. Declarer played the King of trump , I took my Ace and played the Ace and another Spade to partner's King. Whew!! We eventually took the other two Diamonds for a plus 100 and a 10.33 out of a 12 top. What beat us? Only two 3NT boards their way that went down 2 and 3. There were six 3 Diamond bids, down one, UNDOUBLED for a below average score.

Lessons:

1. Decide with partner how you are going to play over preempts. Chose one of the actions and bid that way all the time. Remember most experts "bid their hand in the immediate position" and bid "both their hand and partner's" in the balancing position.

2. Be prepared to "protect" partner in pass out seat so they don't have to bid with weak opening hands in direct seat.

3. After partner's  reopening double, if choosing between a risky bid or passing and taking a plus score for a set, choose the plus score.

4. Remember that bidding is a delicate dance between you and your partner. Dance well and you will end up in the right contract!

Hand #27, Wednesday Morning, July 7,2015

North opened his powerful 19 point hand with 1H and had to venture 3NT the next time, after East's 3S pre-empt. A 6 of spades was led and North played low from dummy and won with the 7. Now, (a little late, as we'll see), North started to PLAN how to take 9 tricks. There were seven sure tricks (2 spades, 1 heart, 2 diamonds and 2 clubs) and any additional tricks would have to come from clubs or hearts. Clubs offered the best chance as all it would take to produce 4 tricks would be a singleton or doubleton honor or a 3-3 split. 

North was happy to see the JC fall on the second club trick and went to dummy with the KD to lead the 10C and force out the QC. West won the QC and continued a diamond, ducked by declarer. A third diamond was won by the A and all North needed to do now was get to dummy to cash the set-up club tricks. North led the JS, intending to overtake with the QS to get to dummy. East, however, was alert and knew North had only the KS left in hand - so East rose with the A of spades and continued a spade. Declarer was stuck in his hand and eventually went down 2 tricks.

What did North do wrong? Planning should begin before playing to trick 1. Declarer can see that he will need two entries to dummy after trick 1 to set up club tricks and one of those entries will have to be in spades. So, declarer has to win the first trick with the KS! Now, East cannot prevent declarer from getting to dummy in spades to cash 2 more club tricks. Winning a trick cheaply at trick 1 in this case cost declarer a makeable contract.

A familar variation on this theme occurs when a declarer, playing NT, finds a dummy with a long, solid suit missing the A and dummy's only other highcards are QJx (opposite declarer's Axx) in the suit led. Declarer can easily win the first two tricks in the suit led by playing the Q at trick 1. However, if the Q holds, declarer will be unable to get back to dummy after the defense holds up the right number of times in dummy's good suit. Declarer has to duck the opening lead in dummy and win the A in hand regardless of what spots are played. Now, declarer has the needed entry back to dummy i by leading to the QJ.  

Lessons 

1) PLAN before playing to trick 1. Pay special attention to preserving entries that might be needed to get from hand to hand before and after setting up your tricks.

2) Winning a trick cheaply can become an automatic habit but it is not always the best or right thing to do.    

June 26. Board 7, South Dealer, Both Vulnerable

      The auction:

                      S      W       N       E

                      P      P       1NT    P

                      3C*  P        3S      P

                      4S    P         P       P 

       *  Puppet Stayman asking for 5 card major

       Every system has it's glitches and for all those who play Puppet (3C) over 1NT, here is a hand with the glitch. After North opens 1NT South has to decide whether to use regular Stayman, Puppet Stayman or perhaps just bid 3NT with his flat 4-3-3-3 hand. It is a tough decision and if you look at the results on the final scores you will see people are playing in Hearts 3 times  and Spades 9 times!

      North decided to open 1NT with high cards in the doubletons. This hand is just a 15 count so opening 1 Spade is also an option.

    What I am trying to say about this hand is that it could be bid many ways by both the opener and the responder. There isn't always a definitive answer to what is "right" in bidding. We all bid the way that seems like the best at the time.

   Responder asked for a 5 card major, so North bid 3 Spades and now South is pretty hard pressed to not bid 4 Spades. No chance to find the 4-4 Heart fit which so often will result in an extra trick.

   The 7 of Hearts was led and taken in hand by the Queen in his hand. Declarer led a Spade out of his hand and played the Ace, catching the King from West. This looks bleak if the King is a singleton. No sense prolonging the inevitable so a small Spade was led off dummy and the miracle of the Queen appeared from West. Now trump losers are held to just one!! Who would have thought with this holding that could be the result. With just two Club losers the declarer brought in the contract!!

  Even though 4 Hearts will make here, most declarers made 4 Spades even though Deep Finesse says only 3 can be made! 

  So what is the glitch? It is because 4 Hearts can be reached with regular Stayman, but never through Puppet with this hand. Seems like every system has certain hands that it can't give the best result on (that being to reach 4 Hearts where there is the possibility of making 5) and this is one example.

  What is more curious is that so many did not reach game on this hand. Why? Possibly with a 1 Spade opening responder will not think they have enough for game(10 points and flat hand). 6 pairs did not reach game, 2 pairs went down in game (one in 4 Hearts and one in 4 Spades) and only 4 pairs bid and made game! One pair in 4 Hearts even made 5 when the defenders failed to ever lead Clubs! 

  This is why duplicate is so much fun!! One hand, many results and auctions! We are all racing to find the best on each hand!

 LESSON:

 1.  Use Stayman bids(regular and Puppet) to help find 4-4 and 5-3 major suit fits.

 2. Opening 1NT could get you to more games than opening 1 of a suit.

 3. When things seem impossible such as the trump on this hand, persevere and don't leave your opponents trumps outstanding. They will start ruffing your winners if you do!

Hand #19, Friday Morning, 6/15/2015

First, let’s look at the bidding.  East’s 2C is reasonable but may run into some trouble if the opponents preempt.  Opening 2C with two 5 card suits is often not the best strategy because if the opponents do some preempting, you might lose one or both 5 card suits and have to guess at high level.   On this hand, however, the opponents can’t reasonably get into the auction even though they are not vulnerable against vulnerable (the best time to get into an opponent’s strong bidding). 

West bids 2D which shows at least a king and is game forcing according to the agreements this East West pair use.  Now East bids 2S and West bids 3S.  Bidding 3S says that besides the minimum king he showed with his 2D bid, he has some possibly useful card(s) outside (in this case, the queen of hearts and the king of diamonds).  East now bids 4C, a slam try probably showing a second suit.  West has the worst possible club holding (three small) for this bidding so just returns to 4S which ends the auction.  If East West were playing that they cue bid both aces and kings, West might consider bidding 4D over 4C but with West’s 4333 distribution and the three small cards in clubs, West’s 4S bid seems best even if the partnership cues both aces and kings.  The final contract is 4S with an opening lead of the J of clubs.         

Dummy is put down and East makes a PLAN.  It appears that making 5 is assured unless the opening club lead is ruffed or spades happen to be 4-0.  Assuming neither of those nasty happenstances occur, East should ask herself if 6 is possible and, if so, what she needs to do to make 6.  The scoring is matchpoints so every overtrick is important.   Declarer must lose a diamond trick so the only possible way to make 6 is to somehow dispose of her heart loser.   Where could that heart loser go?  Notice if the ace of diamonds is onside, then the king of diamonds could be used to dispose of declarer’s heart loser.  Now we have a plan.  Win the opening club lead (unless it is ruffed, of course), draw trumps, and lead the J of diamonds toward the king.   If South plays the ace, win the return and get to dummy by ruffing a club (which also sets up the clubs if clubs happen to be 4-1) and use the king of diamonds to dispose of your heart loser.  Making 6!  What if South ducks the ace of diamonds?  Go up with the king because although you led the J, you really have no finesse against the Queen because you are missing the Ten.

    Lessons:

1. Opening a hand with 2C when one is 5-5 is often not the best strategy because if the opponents preempt, you may not be able to get in both suits and might have to guess at a high level what to do.  However, when one suit is spades, it is usually OK because spades can be bid at as low a level as the opponents allow with their (presumed) preempt. 
2. If your agreement is to bid 2D over 2C to show at least a king, then raising partner’s suit to the three level shows extras.  If you had just the king you showed when you bid 2D, you would bid 4S to show nothing extra. 
3. Making a PLAN is crucial to declarer play.  On this hand, it appears that 5 is pretty much guaranteed so declarer should look for ways to make 6.  Overtricks are very important at matchpoints. 
4. On this hand, declarer has two possible losers, a heart and a diamond.  It is possible if the ace of diamonds is onside, to see a way to make 6 by pitching your loser on the king of diamonds or if South ducks by playing the king of diamonds.  Either way leads to making 12 tricks. 
5. South has a difficult hand to lead from.  She chose the J of clubs because she had the JT and two smaller clubs.  Very reasonable.  However, if she had hit upon a heart lead, she would have been able to hold declarer to 11 tricks.  Again, opening leads are difficult.

Hand # 8, Friday Morning, 6/12/2015

This is a very interesting hand from a bidding viewpoint. Twelve North/South pairs played the hand - with 14 tricks off the top and just the A♦ to lose. However, only 4 pairs reached slam. What happened?

Probably every West opened 3♦ and North overcalled 3♥. After a pass by East, South's bid is crucial for reaching the slam. South can meekly raise to 4♥, but that would be a major underbid with this 17 point, 5 loser hand with great heart support. Say South tries keycard Blackwood with a 4NT bid. North will show 3 with a 5 Club bid (or a 5 diamond bid, if playing 1,4 - 0,3). Now South is concerned that there are 2 possible diamond losers off the top and might sign off in 5H. In fact, anticipating this very auction, the majority of South's did not even risk the 4NT asking bid. The 3♦ pre-empt scared South into meekly bidding 4♥.

How can South find out that there are less than 2 diamond losers (i.e., that North has the king or less than 2 diamonds)? There is a very useful understanding for situations like this where there is a danger suit and you want to find out if partner has less than 2 losers in that suit. Jump or raise to 5 of your major suit fit to ask a simple question: Partner can you control the second round of the danger suit? In this hand, a bid of 5 hearts by South would ask about 2 diamond losers and North, with either the king or a singleton (or void), should bid slam.

Wait, you say - what about the two missing black suit aces and the heart king? How can you know that partner has those cards? The answer is simple. Partner took direct action over the 3 diamond pre-empt. Since you don't pre-empt a pre-empt and the overcall is on the 3-level, North needs at least the top of an opening bid as well as a good heart suit. Try giving North a hand that can bid 3 hearts without both black aces and the king of hearts and you will have a hard time - unless you give North the ace of diamonds or a void in diamonds.

Lessons

1) Playing disciplined bids over pre-empts in the immediate position (don't pre-empt a pre-empt!) allows the partner of the pre-empt overcaller to confidently look for slam.

2) When there is a danger suit (either bid by the opponents or not cue-bid by your side), a bid of 5 of your agreed major suit asks for second round control in that danger suit. (If there is no clear danger suit, a bid of 5 in the trump suit says you are worried about the trump suit and asks for extra trump quality or length in order to make a slam.)  

Hand # 26, Friday Morning, 5/29/2015

Dealer East, Both VUL                                                                                          

East passed and South bid 1 Spade. It looks like a pretty weak opener!! If you use loser count (and assuming you will be in Spades) you can count it as a 6-7 loser hand - which means it qualifies as an opener (7 losers is considered an opener, so 6 is even better). If you use quick tricks, the hand only has 1 (normally it takes 2 to open). Point count is worse with only 9 high card points! No doubt some are preempting this hand instead of opening 1 Spade!

West passed and North decided there was nothing that could help more than Key card (0-3, 1-4) and bid 4NT. East passed and South bid 6 Diamonds. What did this mean? By an agreement many partnerships have, a jump to the 6 level shows a VOID in that suit and an odd number of key cards. North was thinking, "Really? Only 1?" It didn't take North long to realize that the hand belongs only in 6, but 6 of what? What if South's 1 keycard is the Ace of Spades? Should North bid 6 NT to protect his King of Clubs? Say South has the A of Spades and no Q of clubs. Then, with West on lead in a spade slam, there might be 2 quick losers. So, with as much information as could be gathered, North bid 6NT and was pretty confident that it should make with all the high cards in his hand. 

What if South had held 2 key cards (even number) and a void? Then he is to bid 5NT. 

The lead was a Heart with declarer immediately playing spades and getting the Ace out and then claiming. As is so often true on slam hands, there was nothing to the play, it is all in the bidding! If you get to the best contract, you win.

And win they did with a shared TOP in 6NT. Out of the rest of the field, 3 were in 6 Spades and 3 stopped in game making 6.

Lessons:

1. Use 6 of a suit over key card (4NT) to convey an ODD number of key cards and a void in that suit.

2. Use 5 NT over key card (4NT) to convey an EVEN number of key cards and a void (unknown suit).

3. Use your tools and gather all the information you can before deciding on your final bid. Remember that NT pays more in duplicate and can even be a safer place to play a slam (when declarer has a K to protect, for example, or the opponents might possibly have a ruff on opening lead)

Hand # 17, Monday Morning, 5/18/2015 

The bidding is 1D by West, 1H by East, 1S by West.  Now what should East do?  2H seems like an underbid and 3H seems like a little bit of an overbid because of the diamond void in partner’s opening bid suit.  However, I lean toward the slight overbid rather than, what seems to me, the large underbid.  Bridge is, after all, a bidder’s game.  After East bids 3H, what should West do?  What does East need for a slam?  Given partner has 6 hearts for her leap to 3H, the AQ of hearts would make the play for slam pretty good and partner has more high cards than just the AQ of hearts for her jump.  What about Axxxxx of hearts and the Q of diamonds?  That would be enough for 7 if hearts are 2-2.  Given those two hands that are minimal for the bidding, it seems that slam would be a decent proposition opposite most hands that East would have for her 1H response and 3H rebid.  Therefore, a leap to 6H seems reasonable.  Note that this is a 26 HCP slam.  What about a grand slam?  Given that partner is a passed hand, leaping to 7H seems like a bit of a stretch although if partner has the AQ of hearts, it wouldn’t be unreasonable and cold if partner has, in addition, the Queen of diamonds. 

Lessons:

1.  Points schmoints.   When you have a good fit and a source of tricks on the side, you can often make a game or a slam without the HCPs that are normally needed.  That is exactly what is happening on this hand.  You have a nice heart fit and a source of tricks in the diamond suit. 
2.  How do you bid the East hand in this example?  Partner has opened 1D, you have bid 1H, and partner bids 1S.   If you bid just 2 hearts, it seems a big underbid since you have 6 good hearts and the king of spades in partner’s second bid suit.  The downside is the void in partner’s first bid.   However, bidding 3H seems better as it will be good any time partner has support for hearts and if partner bids 3N, we have help in both spades and clubs. 
3. When you plan the play, it often is best to count losers in a suit contract.  However, sometimes it is easier to count winners.  In this hand, if you count losers, you have 5 (4 clubs and 1 spade) and deciding what to do with all of them will be difficult. 

Hand # 3, FridayMorning, 5/15/2015

This hand shows how hard it is to defend, especially with no information about partner's hand from the bidding. Declarer East played in NT 7 times and was only held to 8 tricks once when that is the par result for the defense! 

Assume that North makes the typical lead of the 10♦  and South plays the J♦. Declarer wins the A♦  and next plays 5 clubs. In order to hold the contract to 8 tricks, North and South must keep all their diamonds and continue that suit when North gets in with the A♠ . But, how is North to know his partner has such good diamonds?. The key lies in South's discards and the use of a convention that a number of club players already use.

The convention is known as Smith Echo and only applies against NT contracts. Smith Echo is designed for when you like partner's opening lead and declarer wins the first trick and you want the suit continued if partner wins a later trick. Since many times partner cannot tell from the spot you play on the opening trick whether you like the lead or not, a convention like Smith Eco can be very useful.

How does it work? After declarer wins the first trick she will set up or run her winners. The cards you play to declarer's first suit tell partner whether you want the opening lead suit continued. If you echo (i.e., play high and then low to declarer's suit) and you are playing Smith Echo, you are not giving count but instead, you are telling partner you like the opening lead. If you play low and then high you don't like the opening lead and would prefer a switch. 

Simple enough. Here's how it would work on the given board. On the second trick, declarer plays to the K♣ and you play the 9♣. When declarer plays to the A♣, you play the 7♣ (an echo). You are not signaling count - instead you have told partner you like diamonds and he should hold onto them. On the next three clubs, you discard all your spades. Partner can throw 2 spades (signaling his ace) and partner knows to lead a low diamond when he wins the A♠. The defense takes 4 diamonds and a spade and gets a tie for top!

Without this convention it is easy for North, not knowing where the K and Q of diamonds are, to throw away a small diamond when clubs are run or to switch to the K♥  after winning the A♠ .

Note that some partnerships who like the purpose of Smith Echo feel it works better to play high/low when they don't like the opening lead and low/high when they do. This form of the convention is called Reverse Smith Echo. If playing either form of this convention, let the opponents know when they ask about carding, leading or signaling in NT contracts. It also belongs on the convention card.

Is there a downside? Yes, you lose the ability to give correct count in declarer's suit - but that rarely matters. The primary downside is that you or your partner are likely to forget this convention the first few times it comes up. Almost everyone I know has! But, once you get over that, its benefits can be significant. 

Wednesday Morning, 5/6/2015, Hand #24

In the auction shown, East knew West's double of the 2H overcall was for penalties but, with equal vulnerability, chose not to try for at least a 3 trick set and instead bid the 3NT game. North dutifully lead the 4♥ and South won the A♥ and led the 10♣  which declarer won in dummy with the A.

It's a STAC game so the hunt for overtricks is even more important than usual. Declarer can count 9 tricks off the top with a possibility of a 10th trick if clubs split 3-3 (not an odds-on favorite, however). Also, based on the overcall, Declarer thinks it is more likely than not that South has the K♦.  Declarer first thinks about stripping South's hand of exit cards and then throwing South in with a heart - that would force a lead into the KJ of hearts or a lead away from the K♦.  This requires cashing the exact right number of clubs and spades and ending up in Declarer's (West) hand to lead a low heart. 

Declarer cashes 4 spades, pitching a low heart, and goes to the Q♣. The remaining cards in South's hand are the Q109 of hearts and the K103 of diamonds. Declarer leads the 6♥ and South is forced to either lead into the heart tenace or lead away from the K♦ around to dummy's Q - either lead giving declarer an extra trick!

What if South had a third club and only 2 diamonds - then he could get out a club avoiding the endplay. Now, however, with clubs splitting, declarer would have 10 tricks off the top. And we would have arrived at a very interesting end position. Putting declarer on the bottom, look at the 4 card position with the lead in dummy:

                                                                                       -

                                                                                       -

                                                                                       Q87

                                                                                        3

                                          -                                                                                 -

                                          -                                                                                 Q10

                                          J964                                                                           K10

                                          -                                                                                  -

                                                                                      -

                                                                                      KJ

                                                                                      A2

                                                                                      -    

When dummy leads the 13th club (remember, we are assuming clubs split in this possible ending). South must either give up a heart stopper or a diamond stopper and declarer throws the other suit and makes all the remaining tricks (for 2 overtricks).

But clubs did not split in the actual holdings. Could we still have played for this kind of squeeze ending instead of the endplay after the club lead at trick 2?  Assume declarer wins the Q♣ and gets out a low heart at trick 3 and South leads another club or a spade. now declare cashes clubs and spades and ends up in the diagrammed position, except that North has the J♣ and J96♦. The lead of dummy's 3♣  still squezes South even though North wins the trick instead of declarer!    

None of these possible or actual end positions are immediately obvious - but always look for squeeze or endplay opportunities to provide those critical duplicate overtricks.

Lessons

1. Overtricks are very important in matchpoints, so consider possible endplays or squeeze positions when planning your play. The best way to do this is to picture the 3 or 4 card end position you would like to arrive at and play your winners and losers to safely get to that ending.

2. Losing tricks at the right time to the right opponent is often the way to arrive at end positions that provide extra tricks,

May 1, 2015, Friday Morning of the Tournament, Board 7

There are several ways for East-West to reach four spades in this deal, perhaps the simplest being 1nt-2c-2s-4s.  This hand is about the play.  Specifically, how do you play the club suit for only one loser?

The answer. You don’t. You make the opponents play it for you.

South leads the king of diamonds. You win the ace. Do not duck!  You pull trump in two rounds, and then play three rounds of hearts, clearing the suit. Now you exit a diamond, which is why you didn’t duck. You needed an exit card.  Whoever wins the diamond trick has to lead clubs for you, or else give you a sluff/ruff. As long as you play for split honors in clubs, you will only lose one club. (Try it.)  Making five.

What if spades were 3-1? Same thing. You play a third spade. They win and cash their diamond, but once again will have to lead a club for you, allowing you to make your contract.

Lesson points:

1) Often, the best way to play a suit is to let the opponents play it for you. Sometimes, you can even force them to play it for you.

2) Keep this in mind on defense too. Don’t break new suits for declarer unless it seems necessary — (not always so easy to determine!).

Compliments of Pam LaShelle

Board 21 from the Thursday, April 16.   One suggested auction is 1C (E) – 1H – 3C – 3H – 3S – 4C – 4D – 7C.  

This HOTW is a bidding discussion since the play in the various likely contracts is trivial.  

East has an easy 1C opening bid.  West has an easy 1H response.  Now what?  East is really too strong to rebid only 2C and not quite strong enough (in HCs) to rebid 3C.   But with a 7 card suit and controls in all the unbid suits, East should rebid 3C.   Remember that East might have only 5 or 6 clubs for a 2C rebid, for example: AQx, x, xxxx, AKTxx.  With 7 good clubs and 15 HCP, 3C is a standout rebid.   Over 3C, West bids 3H to see if East can help in the heart suit.  But what if partner passes 3H?  3H cannot be passed because any bid over 3C is forcing to game.  Over 3H, East has a problem.  Since West might have only 5 hearts, he cannot bid 4H.   4C bypasses the lucrative (at matchpoints) 3NT so 3S seems a reasonable bid.  Can it show four spades?  No, because with four spades, East would have rebid 1S over partner’s 1H response.   West is not happy when partner shows stuff opposite his void but he has 3 clubs to the J and a really good heart suit.  West now bids 4C to set trumps.   East is encouraged and bids 4D to show a control in diamonds.  Now, West can practically count 13 tricks with clubs as trumps.  West would like to inquire about the strength of East’s club suit but there is no convenient way to do that.  So, West bids what he thinks the partnership can make. Of course, the play in 7C is trivial.  As it turns out, there are 15 tricks in clubs (or NT) when clubs break 2-1 and hearts break 3-2. 

   A much simpler auction leading to 7C includes the use of Exclusion Blackwood.  1C – 1H – 3C – 4S.  4S is Exclusion Blackwood asking opener to show keycards excluding the ace of spades.  Opener would respond 5D showing two key cards without the queen of clubs.  Now responder knows that opener’s club suit is good and bids 7C.  What about the known to be missing queen of clubs?  With 3 clubs to the J, the odds are very much in favor of picking up the queen of clubs if partner has only 6 clubs (any 2-2 or the stiff Q of clubs).  Of course, with 7 clubs, the odds move to overwhelming  

   Another auction leading to 7C would be: 1C – 1H – 3C – 4C (Minorwood).  What is Minorwood?  A way to ask for key cards in a minor.  The answers are either 1430 or 3014 whichever is your pleasure.  Let’s say we are playing 3014.  Then East would respond 4D showing 0 or 3 KCs. West would know that it must be 3 because with zero KCs, East cannot have a 3C rebid.  Over 4D, West can just bid 7C.  If your partnership is playing Kickback (another KC asking method) where 4D would be RKC for clubs, then over 3C, West can bid 4D and get the same answer of 3 KCs and bid 7C again.  This latter auction is much easier.   The problem with either KC asking auction is West’s spade void.  If partner has only 2 KCs does he have the AK of clubs, the two missing aces (one of which is wasted ), or the Ace of spades and the King of clubs?  Asking for aces or KCs with a void is not a good way to explore for slam.  

Lessons:

1.      Because we all play matchpoints most of the time, we tend to downplay the value of the minors.  However, when we are thinking of a slam, any bid and made slam is usually an above average score.   Playing IMPs, a minor suit slam is just as good as a Major suit slam. 

2.     When East rebid 3C, West’s hand became gigantic for clubs.   Now West can envision 7C because of his support and his great source of tricks in hearts.  All he has to do is either ask for KCs or convince himself that he has enough KCs to bid the grand slam. 

3.     Exclusion Blackwood is a very useful tool when you hold a void.  It allows the asker to determine if the partnership has all the required key cards for a small or grand slam.  Responder to Exclusion Blackwood excludes (therefore, the name) an ace in the (void) asking suit.  

4.     Minorwood and Kickback are convenient key card asking tools particularly useful for minors.  Minorwood is whenever the partnership is in a game force the asking bid is 4 of a the agreed upon minor.  Kickback is a bid of the suit above the trump suit again asking for KCs.

5.     Asking for aces or KCs with a void is fraught with danger.  If partner has all the missing KCs, then all is well.  The problem is when partner has less than all the missing KCs so that asker doesn’t know what KCs partner actually has. 

WednesdayMorning, April 8, Board 11

p - 1nt - p - 2c

p - 2s - p - 4c*

p- 4d - p  - 6s

all pass.

Four clubs was keycard for spades. Four diamonds showed zero or three. Since East had fifteen points of his own, and West promised 15-17, she couldn’t have zero keycards. So East correctly bid slam. More on the bidding later.

What happened at our table:

North led the king of diamonds.  West won, ruffed a diamond, led a club to her king, but when she tried to ruff another diamond the wheels came off. South overruffed and led the Q of clubs (just in case North and West each started with two.) North ruffed. Led another diamond. South ruffed, and led another club for North to ruff. Down three.

How should West have played.

The first thing you should do when you’re in a slam contract is count your winners outside of the trump suit. This will tell you how many ruffs you need. Here you have three hearts, one diamond, and two clubs. That’s six tricks. If spades break 3-2, you’ll have four more spade tricks, plus at least one ruff. Now you’re up to eleven. If the club ftnesse is working, you have all you need. If the club finesse is not working, you’ll need two diamond ruffs (or a 3-3 club break).

I think the best chance is to ruff a diamond at trick two, then cash the queen of spades, and lead a trump to your hand. Now you ruff the second diamond. If it is overruffed, you can fall back on the club finesse. If it is not overruffed, you lead a club to your hand and pull the last trump. You end up with six trump tricks, two clubs, three hearts, and a diamond.

A note on the bidding:

There’s a convention known as BAZE which works well for bidding slams, after the bidding begins 1nt - 2c - 2 of a major. It’s a bit advanced, but can be helpful if you want to add it to your bag of tricks.

Assuming the bidding begins 1NT - 2c - 2h.

   4c is keycard for hearts.

   4d agrees hearts, but is quantitative giving partner the option of bidding either four or six hearts.

   4nt is quantitative for either NT or spades. (If you’d didn’t have spades, you wouldn’t have bid 2c). It gives partner the option of passing, bidding five spades, bidding six spades, or bidding 6nt.

The problem with this treatment is that you’re giving up splinter bids, but BAZE has a solution to that. After 1nt - 2c - 2maj…  a bid of three of the other major agrees on the major bid by partner and says “I have shortness somewhere."

Examples:  1nt - 2c - 2h - 3s (agrees hearts, and has an unknown singleton or void. Partner now bids 3nt to ask where the shortness is.)

1nt - 2c - 2s - 3h (agrees spades, and has shortness somewhere). Partner now bids 3s to ask where the shortness is. 

As I said, this is a bit complicated, but can be important. For example, in today’s deal, the actual bidding at our table was 1nt - 2c - 2s - 4nt….  West correctly interpreted that last bid as keycard for spades, but how was she to know it wasn’t quantitative for no trump? Even if you don’t play BAZE in its entirety, it’s important to have some kind of agreement as to what’s keycard, and what’s quantitative.

Lesson Point.

While it is always important to make a plan it is especially important in slam contracts. Count your tricks outside the trump suit, and that will tell you how many ruffs you’ll need. 

Hand # 10, Wednesday, 4/1/2015

After the straight forward auction shown, East arrived at 3NT. The same contract was played by 13 East's with a result of making 4NT 9 times and 5NT only 3 times. Let's look at one of the times East was successful in making 5.

South made a 4th best lead of a low heart and North won the A and continued with the 9. Declarer could now count 10 tricks: 4 in spades, 2 in hearts, 2 in diamonds after forcing out the A and 2 in clubs. Possibilities for an 11th trick were: the 10 of hearts, East's 4th diamond or a third club.

Declarer started by leading a low diamond to dummy's Q and losing the diamond trick that had to be lost to North's ace. North played another diamond, won by East's K. Now declarer had all the rest of the tricks but 1 and started cashing spades. On the 4th spade declarer pitched the 4 of clubs and on the QH, declarer pitched the 6C. This was the 4 card ending with declarer (East) on the right and North on top :

                                                                                                                                                   -

                                                                                -

                                                                                87

                                                                                Q8

                                       -                                                                          -

                                      10                                                                         -

                                       -                                                                          J5

                                       A102                                                                    K7

                                                                                -

                                                                                J

                                                                                -

                                                                                J95  

Note that North has already come down to just 2 clubs in order to keep diamonds - otherwise, declarer's 2 diamonds would both be good. South still has 3 clubs, protecting that suit, and a high heart keeping dummy's 10 from winning.

Now declarer leads a club to the K and cashes the JD. South must still keep the JH and therefore has to throw a club. Both North and South could only keep one club and dummy's A10 of clubs take the last two tricks.

This setup where one defender has to hold onto a particular suit and the other defender has to hold on to a second suit, leaving a third suit unprotected for declarer to cash, is called a double squeeze. When the opponents cards are right for it, Declarer just has to have communication between hands and cash tricks in the right order and it works almost automatically. 

Is there anyway the defenders could have stopped the double squeeze after the heart lead? If North had switched to clubs at trick two and led them again after winning the diamond A, declarer would not have had the communication between hands to pull off the double squeeze. Alternatively, if North had let declarer win the first two diamond leads, declarer would not have been able to lose his second trick early and run winners for the squeeze. But, squeeze defense is perhaps one of the most difficult parts of defense and few North's would find these winning plays.     

Board 3, Friday March 27

 E/W Vul and S the Dealer

    S            W          N         E

    P            1S         P         2S

   3H           3S         P         4S

   P              P          P    

North leads the 7 of Hearts and declarer plays small off dummy. You know this is either a singleton or a doubleton as partner would not lead high from 3.

How many times do you wonder if you should finesse the board? This often happens on the very first trick, when it is critical that you get it right. Squirming in your chair won't help! Try to make some sense of the situation and ask yourself, "If Partner has a singleton, are you entitled to natural tricks anyway?" "Do you have an entry for partner to lead back to you for a second ruff if the lead is a singleton?" and "Is there another suit that declarer can run and dump his losers?" Also, consider that a doubleton lead is a more likely holding than a singleton.

Look at the first choice. With the AJT96 of the Heart suit you will be giving up at least 1 natural trick by going up with the Ace at trick one. If partner has a singleton you may get 2 immediate tricks. However, unless declarer has another suit to run, you are safe to finesse the board since going up with the Ace would set up 2 tricks for declarer!

The second question is whether you have a "fast" entry for partner to get back to you. The answer in this case is NO. Your King of Clubs is possibly an entry if partner has the Ace. Declarer did invite to game so should have at least 15 high card points. That leaves just 5-6 points possible for partner to hold. 

Lastly, we see no second suit for declarer to run to get rid of his Heart or Hearts.

So add this all up and playing the Ace at trick one is a losing play all the way around. Five out of 13 players most likely made this play to let 4 Spades make (it only makes 3 with good defense). Two defenders made the right play(and set 4 Spades) and the other declarers were in other contracts.

Declarer took full advantage of the Ace of Hearts play at trick one and later threw a losing Diamond on the Queen of Hearts to make his contract. He lost 2 trumps and the Ace of Hearts.

Not often that I tell on myself! I was "greedy" and grabbed the Ace of Hearts and led another for partner to ruff. Studying when finessing is "right" will hopefully stop this poor defense from happening next time!

 Lesson:

    1. Take your time and think about all the consequences  when you are finessing the board (or not).

    2. Realize that it is not always correct to finesse the board, however it is always a consideration.

    3. Try to figure out what will happen in both instances and think about declarer's bidding. Did he show extra points or minimum? Do you have natural tricks and does declarer have a long suit to run?

    4. If you are gambling that grabbing the Ace is right, you really should have a fast entry for partner to get back to you.

 _{Hand From Silver Ribbon Pairs at New Orleans Spring Nationals 2015} 

Dealer East, Both Sides Vul

The auction, starting with East, with explanations follows.

p   –   p   –  2C   –   p

2D*  -  p  –  2S    -   p

3C** - p   –  6S***  all pass

*waiting

** artificial, second negative

*** afraid partner might pass 4C (six clubs is a better contract)

The deal was played by Tobi Sokolow in the silver ribbon pairs at the Spring Nationals in New Orleans.

She took a reasonable shot with her slam bid despite the negative response from East, and was dismayed by the singleton spade in dummy. North led the ace of diamonds, which was ruffed. If spades failed to break 3-3 she would need the queen of hearts to fall doubleton. The good news was that spades broke. The bad news was that clubs were four-one, and the Q of hearts didn’t fall. After pulling trump, she took two rounds of hearts and two rounds of clubs and got the bad news. With no way to get to dummy, it looked like she had two losers, a club and a heart. But she had one last chance. If South, who had the clubs, also had the Queen of hearts, he could be squeezed out of his exit cards, and then endplayed. So she played off the rest of her trump, leaving this 3-card ending.

                               ♦ 1098

       ♥ 9                                                ♥ J

       ♣ Q10                                           ♦ Q    

                                                                                                             ♣ 9

                               ♥ Q

                               ♣ J7 

Notice that South was forced to keep those three cards. If he discarded a club or a heart declarer would have twelve top tricks. (The fact that he discarded the king of diamonds didn’t really help declarer, other than confirm that her plan would definitely work.)  She led a heart, and South was forced to give her the marked finesse in clubs.

As we have said may times in this space, good things can happen when you run your winners.

An important note on the bidding:

After a 2C opener, followed by a double negative (2H in a widely played system) the rule that most pairs follow is that the only bids below game that are passable by responder are 2NT, 3 of a major, or 4 of a minor. However, a new suit by opener is never passable. So in the case at hand, if opener had bid 4C over the artificial bid of 3C, responder should not pass. (Tobi didn’t trust me.) As another example of this, if you play 2H as your double negative, then after 2C – 2H a bid of 3H would be a “new” suit by opener, and should not be passed.

Hand # 20, Wednesday Morning, March 11, 2015

The Unit sponsored lecture on March 7th was on "Hold-Up Plays" (http://austinbridge.org/sbruce/lecture/Beth1503HoldUp.pdf) and Beth Tobias mentioned that one reason for declarer to hold-up and not win a trick was to "rectify the count for a squeeze". This is a relatively rare play, especially at trick one, and the lecture did not elaborate further on it or give an example. By chance, however, this hand, coming just 4 days later, illustrates this kind of hold-up play perfectly.

The auction shown highlights the value of a defensive pre-emptive bid. Probably every North bid 2 or 3 spades and no East/West pair was able to get to an excellent slam. At our table, West's bid of 3S asked East if he had a spade stopper and the bidding stopped at 3NT.

Declarer was disappointed that a spade wasn't led - which would have given him an extra spade trick he couldn't get himself because of the void in dummy. The lead of the K♥  instead of a spade was almost surely from length and the KQJ of hearts and declarer paused to consider winners before playing to the trick. Assuming the clubs would all score, declarer could count 11 top tricks. A 12th trick could come from diamonds if the J dropped or if declarer finessed the 10 successfully. So, at least 1 trick had to be lost and declarer ducked the opening lead to set up a situation where he didn't need to guess what to do with the diamond suit.

After the second heart lead (South leading the J to show he had KQJ), declarer won the ace and cashed 6 clubs and came to the A♦ in his hand. This was the layout at that point (with East on the bottom as declarer):

Note that North has already been forced to come down to only 2 diamonds in order to protect the K of spades. Next, on the lead of the A of spades, South must also come down to 2 diamonds in order to keep the Q of hearts. Declarer cashes the last 3 tricks in diamonds without having to worry about finessing or playing for the drop!

Try playing the hand without ducking the first trick and declarer has to guess the diamond suit in order to make 12 tricks. In addition, this line of play works even if the 10 of diamonds is replaced by the deuce. 

Lessons:

1) Before playing to trick 1, count your winners and losers and make a plan.

2) If you can safely lose all but one of the tricks you think you have to lose before running your long suit(s), do it! Good things may happen to make that additional loser vanish.

Hand # 15, Monday Night, 2/23/2015

Editors Note: This hand was contributed by a Club Master (Andy Hush) who has been playing at the BCA for a year and a half: Thanks, Andy, for the instructive hand and the write-up.

An early lesson in declarer play is that when you are short on trump, sluffing a loser is a great way to preserve trump without sacrificing a trick. This deal shows that even with an abundance of trump, sluffing a loser on defender's trick can pay great dividends. In this case, it even creates two new winners that later saves having to take a losing finesse.

On the opening lead of the 2 of diamonds, Declarer played the 9D from dummy, a clever play in its own right, causing North to cover with her Jack, won in hand by the Ace. The play of the 9 later proved crucial to declarer's strategy. Declarer (East) then led a high club, taken by North's ace. North dutifully returned a diamond to reach South's winner. Instead of ruffing and then drawing the last trump, East instead sluffed his only heart loser. The contract is now guaranteed. East gets to the board with the JC and cashes the Q and 10 of diamonds, discarding two spades. He has avoided the necessity of the doomed spade finesse.

Note how the offense's diamond holding did not look very promising at the start, but ended up yielding three important tricks.

Lessons:

1) Don't reflexively ruff a trick that defense would win. There may be a better option.

2) Allow defenders to set up suits for you. Let them cash their high cards early.

3) When a contract seems to hinge on a finesse, be on the lookout for a better option. 

4) The "loser on loser" play is a useful tool in a declarer's arsenal - especially when it also sets up tricks declarer can use later.

Hand 23, Saturday Afternoon, 2/28/2015 (Sectional)

Defending might seem humdrum holding the North hand after the auction shown. However, it pays to be on your toes and "give it all you've got"!

East/-West have a big Heart hand and arrive at 6 Hearts rapidly. Other pairs bid more slowly, since playing 2/1 the West hand can afford to rebid 2H knowing they are on a game force and the partnership could check for keycards before settling in 6H. In any case, along with many other pairs, this East/West reached 6H.

Now North had to find a good lead. When nothing looks too promising reverting to 4th best comes to mind and he led the 4 of Spades, taken by the stiff King in dummy. Usually the thought that crosses your mind after the lead is "whew" if it didn't cost a trick and this time was no exception. North noted that his partner played the 7 of Spades. What could this mean? It certainly is not a signal that he likes Spades and therefore should show the higher ranking suit other than Spades. Declarer now led the 10 of Hearts off dummy and let it float around to the King in North's hand. Back on lead again North now played the 2 of Diamonds (using the information from partner). Declarer took the Ace in dummy (partner signaling with the 10) and and played another trump to finish drawing trump. He then led a club to the Ace and North played the 3 and South the 8. Now another Diamond to his hand and another Club was led from the West hand. "Wake up North"!! Time to help partner win his doubleton Queen by playing the 9 of Clubs. Declarer sighed and played the Jack and South won his Queen!

You might ask why playing the 9 makes a difference. It's because it sets up the illusion that North could have Q93 or, otherwise, that South has 3 Clubs to the Queen. Does it work all the time? Of course not, BUT it is your proper and best hope to help partner in this situation. Did it contribute to declarer taking the Club finesse (which is the usual play missing 5 to the queen)? MAYBE. But, again, you did all you could to set up that illusion.

6 players went down in a Heart slam and most likely all took the Club finesse. Only 2 players made the slam and you sure don't want to be on the short end of that stick!! The difference is 12 match points for setting the slam down one and only .5 for match points if East/West make the slam. Two East-Wests were in 7 Hearts and went down two. That was worth 15.5 match points to the North/South pair!

Lessons:

1) When your hand is not award winning, don't give up - think what you can do to help partner.

2) When no other lead looks inviting, get back to basics and lead 4th best.

3) Playing  false cards and playing in tempo are part of good defense.

4) Signaling at every opportunity is part of the game, but of course partner must be watching and trying to understand what your discards mean and you don't want to signal "honestly" when it will help declarer more than it will help partner.

Hand # 5, Friday, 2/20/2015

East/West reached the reasonable contract of 4H nine times with the following results: made exactly 4 four times, went down 1 or 2 four times and made 6 once.  Once the standard lead of the Q of spades is made, however, if declarer plans and executes carefully, the conract should easily make 5.

Before looking at the play lets go over the auction. The bidding shown occurred at my table. North did not open a weak 2S bid because of the vulnerability, his weak spade suit and his very weak hand. In 4th seat West opened 1NT and East transferred to hearts and then bid 3C. Over West's 3H bid (showing 3 card support), East was happy to end the auction at 4H. 

Another possible auction would be for East to bid 3NT after the transfer to hearts since West would then correct to 4H if she had 3 or more hearts. But it is easy to understand why East was reluctant to bid NT with a void in diamonds. 

Now to the play after a lead of the QS. Declarer assumes from the lead that North also holds the J of spades. Should West cover with the K? If the lead is from QJx or QJxx it does not matter whether declarer covers or not. But if the lead is from QJxxx or QJxxxx it is important not to cover (if South has Ax, covering makes it easy for South to lead back to North's J and get a ruff on the 3rd round. So, West ducks and is rewarded when North's singleton A wins the trick. Now declarer knows she can make the next two spade tricks after trumps are pulled and if she leads from her hand. North on lead decides, based on the auction and his partner's lead showing 3 points in spades, that it is impossible for his partner to have the KC. So, he leads a diamond that declarer wins with a ruff in dummy.. 

Now, declarer is ready to pull trumps but must be careful how she does it. Carelessly playing the A first or second will leave declarer in dummy after trumps are pulled and declarer wants to be in her hand to cash 3 or possibly even 4 diamonds and then finesse the 10 of spades. S, declarer plays the K and Q of hearts and leads to the AH. After cashing the top diamonds and finessing the 10 of spades, declarer leads a club and has to score the KC. Result: making 5 hearts.

Lessons:

1. Consider carefully before playing to trick one as it is often at this point that a careless play can be costly.

2. Be careful with the order you cash tricks - this can be especially important when communication between the two hands is limited.

Hand #25, Wednesday Morning, 2/11/2015

This hand is a play of the hand  example where it is critical to make a plan before playing to trick one. 

First a comment on the bidding.  North has an easy 1C opening bid.  Most South's would respond 1H although there are bidding camps that would respond 1D.  Let’s assume the normal response of 1H.  Now North has a choice.  Should she rebid 1N with no spade stopper or rebid that nice 5 card club suit?  At matchpoints, 1N is the favored rebid since NT scores so much more than clubs.  However, it clearly could be right to rebid 2C. 

Now South has a decision to make.  Should South pass with that prime 10 count (A, AQ) or invite game?   At IMPs, I would invite game because of the possible game bonus.  But at matchpoints there really is no reason to bid 2N since the reward for making game is diminished at matchpoints compared to IMPs.  Actually, you might get a very good board making an extra overtrick in NT without the risk of going down at 3NT!

With an opening lead of the J of diamonds, how should you play to maximize the number of tricks you can make in NT?  Make a PLAN!  P stands for Pause to consider your objective.  L stands for count your winners or losers.  A stands for Analyze your alternatives.  N stands for Now put it all together.  With the diamond lead, you can count 3 diamond tricks, 1 spade trick, 0 or 1 heart trick, and a possible 4 club tricks by developing the club suit.   8 tricks or 9 if the ace of hearts is on side.  

There is a possible problem that needs to be addressed.  Unless the club king is doubleton on side, how do you plan to take 4 club tricks?  You can set up the clubs but you must make sure you have an entry to the club suit after it is set up.   You can hope the ace of hearts is on side but if it isn’t, then you have to find another entry to your hand.  The obvious candidate is the diamond king.  If you win the diamond lead in dummy and go about setting up clubs you will be fine.  A very simple concept but many people miss it, mostly, because they don’t pause to consider the whole hand before playing to trick one.  

Once declarer decides to win the first diamond in dummy, the hand almost plays itself.  Win the diamond.  Club to the T.  A of clubs, Q of clubs.  West will likely switch to the Q of hearts which North must cover or the defense will make 3 heart tricks.  When East wins the ace of hearts, she can see that there is no future in the heart suit because of the T964 in dummy and will switch to the king of spades.  Declarer will then take 4 clubs, 3 diamonds, and 1 spade for 8 tricks and an above average board.     

What about the opening lead?  Maybe it isn’t always best to lead from your five card suit.  On this hand, if East chooses a spade lead (K or 6), the defense will often come to 6 tricks: 3 spades, 2 hearts, and 1 club.  

Lessons:

1.  As declarer, make a PLAN even on the easiest of hands.  Many contracts (or overtricks) are lost at trick one because declarer plays before making a plan.
2. At matchpoints, the objective is not always clear.  One way to decide what your objective is, is to count your sure or easily developed tricks and let that be your objective. 
3. Having decided on the objective, think the hand completely through before playing to trick one.  Often the hardest part of playing a hand is making sure you have the number of entries you need to take the maximum number of tricks. 
4. At matchpoints, avoid playing a minor suit if NT is reasonably feasible.  The overwhelming score differential justifies some risk playing NT over a minor suit.

Hand # 13, Wednesday Morning, 2/4/2015

Bridge books and lessons do not instruct players how to bid wildly distributional hands. Perhaps that's why on this hand, where 7H makes on a correct spade finesse guess, only 6 out of 18 pairs (5 out of 12 in the open game) managed to reach 6H. Let's look the bidding problem East's hand poses and some of the possible auctions that lead to slam.

East could open 4H but that could be done on an 8 card suit to the QJ10 and nothing else. East does not have enough high card strength (according to ACBL limitations) to open 2C so East decided to open 1H planning to next rebid 4H showing a hand too good to just pre-empt an opening 4H. After South's jump to 5D, West has a difficult problem. It looks like East/West will have 1 diamond loser and possibly could have 1 or 2 heart losers if East bid on only a 5 card suit and, as expected from the auction, South is very short in hearts. So, despite feeling there might have been a slam in hearts or one of his black suits, West takes the safest bid and doubles. This follows a reasonable bridge aphorism that advises you to "Payoff to the Pre-empt" rather than bidding a possibly foolish slam.

Now, when East takes out the double and bids 5H, West's problem is solved: East must have very long and good hearts and West's hand has first or second round control in every suit. East can bid a fairly confident 6H.

Is there any other auction that would allow East/West to easily get to slam? There is an alertable convention played by a number of experienced club players designed to show hands like the one held by East. It is called NAMYATS (Stayman spelled backwards in honor of the partner of the convention creator, Victor Mitchell). Playing one simple version of the convention works like this: holding long, strong hearts and 81/2 or 9 playing tricks, you open 4C. With the same type of hand and long, strong spades, you open 4D. Playing NAMYATS, an opening of 4H or 4S is natural and denies the playing strength of a NAMYATS opening. 

After 4C (showing hearts), partner can accept the suit and close out the auction with 4H. If, however, partner bids the slot suit with 4D, he is showing at least mild slam interest. The same applies after a 4D opening showing spades. 

How, playing NAMYATS, do you open a standard pre-emptive 4C or 4D bid? You open 3NT and partner alerts you have a 4-level minor suit pre-empt and then bids 4 or 5 clubs and you correct, if needed. 

Now let's return to this week's hand. East has 71/2 heart tricks and an additional 1/2 trick for each K brings the total to an estimated 81/2 playing tricks. So, East opens 4C. After South's 5D bid, West is no longer worried about the heart suit and can confidently bid 6H.

Board 17,Thursday, January 29, 2015

                               N               E           S          W

                               p               1C         1D        1H

                               3D(weak)  3H         4D         X

                               p               p            p

Playing Matchpoints in the regular club games is a different game from Swiss teams and IMPs. Studying what you can do to improve your matchpoint game is an excellent way to improve your club game scores.

Here is a spirited auction with everyone non-vulnerable. Maybe it was the vulnerability that made for some pretty pushy bidding! Once the 4 level was reached it was automatic for West to double with 2 quick tricks.

The play was simple. The Ace of Hearts was led and East signaled high(playing upside down) with the 8 of Hearts to ask for a switch. West switched to the Jack of Spades and East took the top two Spades and played a Heart back through for the setting trick. Doubled the score read only +100 and what was that worth? Just about all the marbles! Another team had set 5 Diamonds down 2, so it was a shared top.

What are some things you can do when playing Matchpoints ?

 1. Make matchpoint doubles. These can occur when the opponents are trying to steal your bid or are pushing you and go to far. Instead of taking the push, double. 

 2. Push your opponents to the 3 level whenever possible by balancing whenever you can (especially when non-vul) - remember, if they have found a fit and stop at the two level your side is likely to also have a fit. It is much easier to set contracts in three than in two!

 3. Interfere with 1 No Trump bids by using DONT or any similar convention that allows you to stay at the 2 level and show your suit(s).

 4. Learn some conventions (Michaels, Unusual No Trump, Sandwich No Trump) that allow you to show distributional hands easily.

 5. Be a steady and dependable partner. This means discipline when bidding! Confidence in your partner can make your game fantastic and fun!

 Hand 21, Sunday, January 18

Opening lead: Two of spades.

This hand offers important points in bidding, dummy play, and defense.

Bidding

The bidding, as shown above, is how it went at our table but is not recommended. North correctly opened 1d in their system, and playing 2/1 South certainly had enough to make a g.f. 2c. North now bid 2h, which was not a “reverse” after a 2/1 response, although you can play it that way (discuss with partner). 

I do recommend however that the 2h bid denies holding five or more diamonds. With five or more diamonds, opener should rebid his diamond suit before showing a 4-card major.

In other words, here’s your list of priorities after 1d-2c.

    1. raise clubs with four or more clubs.

    2. Rebid diamonds with 5 or more diamonds

    3. Bid 4-card majors up the line.

    4. Bid 2nt.

South’s bid of 3d was a mistake. South would never bid this if she knew North denied five diamonds, but even without that agreement the bid grossly misdefined her hand. Her initial 2c response promised only four clubs. She has six clubs. This is one of the advantages of playing 2/1. She can rebid her club suit, promising six, and still be in a game force. N-S reached the correct contract of three no trump, nonetheless, so the misbid didn’t hurt on this deal, but it could on another.

Declarer play

This deal is about recognizing the “danger hand”.

Declarer (North) won the opening spade lead with the singleton ace in dummy. Clearly, he needs to set up clubs, but will have to give up a club trick along the way (unless someone has the doubleton QJ.) Here West is the danger hand. If West gets on lead, she can lead a spade and declarer could lose three spade tricks, to go along with the club, and the eventual ace of hearts. So declarer must somehow set up clubs, while making sure that the danger hand never gets on lead. Accordingly, he leads the 2 of clubs off of dummy, and when West plays the 7, North plays the 8. Now when East wins, she can’t hurt declarer by playing another spade.

Defense

Going back to trick one, East led the 2 of spades, and dummy played the stiff Ace. Which spade should West play?

It doesn’t matter whether you play standard or upside-down carding. The correct card here is the jack. This tells partner you have a sequence headed by the jack. It therefore denies the queen!

Now at trick 2, when declarer leads a low club off of dummy to the 8, East will win with the jack. Knowing declarer has the queen of spades, she needs to find an entry to West’s hand. Her best shot is to try a heart, but it is not without risk. The one thing she should not do is lead another spade.

Note the importance again of declarer ducking the second trick. If declarer had played A, K, and a third club, he would have gotten lucky and kept the danger hand off the lead, but on the third club, West could have signaled for the heart switch.

Question: If East finds the heart swtich, which heart should she lead? 

Answer: The highest one she thinks she can afford.

Here’s the rule. When you lead a suit against a no trump contract, and later regain the lead, if you lead a low card in a new suit, it means you want that suit returned. If you lead a high card in that suit, it means you want the first suit returned.

So what happened at the table? West did not signal with the jack of spades, and after East won the club, she cashed the king of spades, and led another spade giving declarer the contract. Furthermore, both East and West had trouble discarding on all the clubs, and Declarer made five, discarding all his hearts and winning the last two tricks with a low diamond, and a low spade. That was why I thought it would make a good lesson hand.

Lesson points:

1. Playing 2/1 after the bidding begins 1d - 2c, opener should bid as follows:

    With four or more clubs, he should raise clubs.

    With less than four clubs, but with five or more diamonds he should bid 2d.

    Without either of the above, he should bid a 4-card major.

    With none of the above, he should bid 2nt.

(Discuss this with your partner.)

2. When playing a contract, it is often important to recognize which hand is the “danger hand” and declarer should do whatever is practical to keep that hand off the lead. 

3. When partner leads, and you have a sequence in that suit, you should play the top of that sequence when you cannot beat dummy (or opening leader).

For example: If partner leads the ace, and you have QJ10, play the queen. Or, as here, when partner leads low, and dummy plays the ace, it is correct to play the Jack from J1098.

Caveat. You don’t want to do this when it could cost a trick. 

Note also, that you only do this when you are not trying to win the trick. For example, if we alter today’s deal so that dummy could have played a low card at trick one, then, holding J1098, the correct play would have been the 8, the lowest of a sequence. In that case, if you played the jack, it would deny the 10.

East opens 1H invoking the rule of 20.  She has 6 hearts and 4 diamonds and 10 HCP qualifying for a rule of 20 opening bid.  It qualifies for a rule of 20 opening bid in my restricted rules because I insist that a high card in a short suit is not counted unless it is an ace or a protected king.   I don’t count queens and jacks in my short suits when evaluating whether I should open a hand under the rule of 20. 

West, of course, is quite surprised with his 21 HCP and great 6 card club suit to hear partner open the bidding.  His questions now are which slam to bid and whether to bid a small slam or a grand slam.   Playing 2/1 game force, he bids 2C to tell partner the good news that we are going to (at least) game.  East rebids her 6 card heart suit although I would not argue with her bidding 2D since that is her second suit.  Now the problem.  How can West find out how good a heart suit East has so he can decide whether to play in hearts or clubs?  If East had rebid 2D rather than 2H, then West would be worrying about whether to play in clubs, diamonds, or hearts.   West supports hearts by bidding 3H even though he has only 2 because that is the best way to find out how strong East’s heart suit is.  Now hearts are trumps for purposes of RKC.  East has nothing to say even though West invited a cue bid (by bidding only 3H) because East’s opening bid is a minimum.  East bids 4H and now West can bid 4NT to find out about East’s heart suit.  East responds 5H, 2 key cards without the queen of hearts.  Now West knows that the heart suit is not suitable for a slam missing both a key card and the queen of trumps.  And, of course, a grand slam is out of the question because the partnership is missing a key card which may be, most likely is, an ace. 

West then settles into 6C which should end the auction.  How is East to know that partner wants to play clubs and not hearts that he presumably supported?   The answer is that she must trust partner since partner is the captain in this auction.

What if East opens 2H which many people may be inclined to do? Is a slam still possible?  And if you explore for slam and find you are missing too many controls, will you end up at the five level which might be too high?  If you bid 4N over 2H, you might very well end up too high if partner has, for example, KQJxxx of hearts and not much else.   It isn’t usually a problem to be at the five level but sometimes there is a ruff available to the defense which will scuttle a 5 level contract.  What to do?  There is a very handy tool called Preemptive Roman Keycard Blackwood as follows.  It is initiated by a bid of 4C (4D over 3C) and works over any preempt, weak two bid or 3 level preempt.  In this case, with partner opening a weak two in hearts, the asking bid is 4C.  Answers are in steps: 0 KCs, 1 KC w/o the Q, 1 KC with the Q, 2KCs w/o the Q, 2 KCs with the Q.  In this case, the weak two opener has two KCs (the king of hearts and the ace of diamonds) without the Q of hearts and so answers the fourth step: 4NT.  Now West knows what he needs to know to bid 6C and not 6H.  Very handy and not too difficult to add to your kit bag.  Notice that if East had responded 4H (1 KC without the Queen), the partnership can settle in a very comfortable 4H. 

Lessons:

1. When planning a bidding sequence, think about what you need to know so you can easily find out.  In this hand, the big hand needs to know the quality of the heart suit in order to decide whether to play 6H or 6C.   By establishing hearts as trumps for purposes of RKC, he can find out if partner has the Q of hearts.
2. If partner opens a weak two bid (or weak three bid) and you have a big hand, how can you find out what you need to know to decide whether to bid a slam and what strain to bid the slam in?  Preemptive RKC (sometimes known as "Poor Man's Keycard") is a handy tool which allows you to ask for controls and keep the bidding low whenever partner doesn’t have the controls necessary to bid a slam.  It is sometimes important to keep low in case the contract at the five level goes down. 
3. When planning the play, count your winners (or losers).   Even if you have enough winners (or few enough losers), consider a possible overtrick.  Overtricks can often be the difference between a good score and a bad score at matchpoints.  At IMPs, you don’t want to lose a match by 1 IMP because you were lazy. 
4. If your plan requires an extra entry and you don’t see that entry, take a close look at your side suit.  Sometimes, if you are careful, you can create an extra entry in that side suit by judicious play in that suit.  

Hand # 16, January 6th, 2014

Wildly distributed hands like this one produce fascinating results. In the open game, it was played 12 times in 9 different contracts ranging from 2S to 6S, with the repeated result being 4H (doubled twice and undoubled once).

The auction at my table is shown. West chose to pass his 10 highcard hand - possibly other West's chose to open 1D or a weak 2D bid but a pass is reasonable. I passed the 5-7-0-1 North hand because I do not prempt in 1st or 2nd position when I hold a side major of 4 or more cards - again I'm sure several North's chose to bid a large number of hearts.Next, East opened 1NT and West raised to 3NT.

With favorable vulnerability I now came in with 4H. East made a penalty double and West, looking at the vulnerability, showed his long diamonds with a 5D bid. Perhaps 4NT (natural) would have been a better choice as East, thinking the hand should have played in the better matchpoint contract of 3NT or 4NT, made a matchpoint bid of 6D. The reasoning East used was sound - if you think you already have a matchpoint disaster, why not try for a top by bidding a slam. However, in this case, 5D making would have been a good matchpoint result since only 1 pair played in a NT game.

Now lets look at the play in 6D. North led the QH and declarer won the A and pulled trumps and played the AS and finessed a spade in dummy. Two clubs were pitched on the K of hearts and the K of spades but declarer still had two losing clubs left and went down 1.

However, after a non-club lead, it turns out that declarer can make 6D utilizing an elegant pay known as "the stepping stone" . Here's how it works: declarer wins the AH and immediately plays all his trumps. When the last diamond is led, the cards are as follows (putting declarer on the bottom):

                                                                                                                   KJ1032

                                                               K6

                                                                                                                    -

                                                               -

                      Q876                                                                   5

                      J10                                                                      2

                      -                                                                           -

                      Q                                                                         AK943

                                                             A9

                                                             -

                                                             2

                                                             J875

On the lead of the 2 of diamonds North is under great pressure - if he pitches a spade declarer can bring home the whole spade suit with one finesse and make 7. If he pitches a heart, dummy's 6H will score the 12th trick. So, North must throw the QC. Declarer pitches a spade from dummy and plays the AS and finesses with the spade 10. Dummy has the KJ of spades and the K6 of hearts left. North has the Q8 of spades and the QJ of hearts. Declarer plays the K and 6 of hearts and North must lead a spade, giving declarer another finesse to make the slam!

This is a very rare play and very difficult to work out at the table. But it will succeed whenever North has 7 hearts and at least 4 spades to the Q. An expert declarer might picture this distribution as the reason North did not pre-empt at his first bid and play the hand this way. But, I would expect that more than 99% of declarer's would hope North had 2 or 3 spades to the Q and play the hand the way this declarer did.                                                 

Thursday morning, December 18th. Board 23

The bidding is how it went at our table, and while some of it is a bit unconventional, there are a couple of things worth pointing out.

East correctly bid her diamonds before her hearts. With a game forcing hand, you should bid your longest suit first.  While we all strive to play in the majors, sometimes the minor suit is right, and it is important to accurately describe your hand to partner. With a weak hand and the same pattern, I would bid the hearts first.

I don’t like South’s double. Whose hand is it? North couldn’t bid over one club, and South only has a five-count. Not only is he misleading partner, he’s telling the opponents how to play the hand.

Notice West’s redouble. This is a support double, showing exactly three diamonds. Some people only play support doubles if partner bids a major, but as shown here, it can come in handy after 1c - 1d, too.

Again, notice how South’s ill conceived double helped West. West would have had a difficult bid without the double. He couldn’t rebid clubs with only five clubs, and he couldn’t raise diamonds with only three. His only option would have been to bid 1nt without a stopper in either major. Yuck. He was very happy to get to redouble to show exactly three diamonds.

The rest of the bidding is not very scientific, but East took a reasonable shot at slam. Again, she was helped by South’s double. It didn’t sound like West had any wasted values in spades.

The play was fairly straight forward. East ruffed the second spade, led a low diamond, and when South showed out, she was able to pick up the trump suit. Making six.

After the hand was over, North said she wished she could have somehow gotten partner to lead a heart. Well, there’s a bid for that. It’s called a Lightner Double, named after Theodore LIghtner, who came up with the idea which works like this. If you double a freely bid slam, it asks partner to make an unusual lead. In most cases the doubler will have a void somewhere, and it’s up to the opening leader to figure out where it is. Sometimes it’s obvious, other times, not so much. In this case, South would have had no trouble finding the heart lead.

North was an experienced player and had heard of the Lightner double, but it occurs so infrequently that she didn’t think of it. It’s a shame, since she may have to wait another ten years before it comes up again.

Incidently, there is second version of the LIghtner Double, applicable when the opponents bid no trump. The double says “lead dummy’s first bid suit.” For example, dummy may have responded "one heart,"  on Jxxx of hearts, and you’re sitting behind it with AKQ109. Notice the opponents don’t have to bid slam, or even game, for the LIghtner double to be applicable. You just have to believe that you can set the hand if partner leads dummy’s first bid suit.

Lesson Points

1. If you use “support doubles” consider using them after 1c - 1d.

2. You should have a reason to bid. South’s double here was ill-advised. What was it supposed to accomplish.? .So they found their spade fit? So what?  It wasn’t their hand. It helped the opponents, both in the bidding, and possibly in the play of the hand.

3. Consider adding “Lightner Doubles” to your bag of tricks. For further explanation go to: 

http://www.bridgeguys.com/doubles/lightner_double.html

Board 28, Wednesday Evening, 12/10/2014

Here's a hand with both bidding interest and a choice of simple squeezes, double squeeze or strip squeeze endplay to make 6. Sounds very difficult but, when we get to the play, you'll see it's just a matter of placing cards and picturing the 4-card ending you want to set up. First let's look at the auction.

Ten North/South pairs played the hand, with only one, Dan Baker & Alick Einav, reaching slam with the auction shown. They were playing a strong club system so North's 3H bid was game forcing with possible slam interest and that made it easy for South to cue bid his spade ace and North to try keycard and bid the slam. Dan suggested that 2/1 players may also reach slam with the following auction starting with West: P - 1C - 1S - 2H; P - 2S - P - 2N; P - 3H - P - 3S; P - 4NT - P - 5H; P - (6H or 6NT) - P - P - P. In this auction 2S is an ambiguous cue bid - either looking for a NT stopper or heart support with better than game hopes. After South shows a spade stopper with 2NT, North's 3H bid is forcing and shows a hand better than just a jump to game earlier in the auction. As you can see, this is an auction that requires both partners be in synch with each other and it is easy to see why only the club system partnership got to slam.

Now assume you are in 6NT. You can count 11 top tricks. Where can a 12th trick come from? Perhaps the diamond Q will drop doubleton or someone with 4 clubs will pitch one when  you run your hearts. Are there squeeze possibilities that will force the opponents to give you that 12th trick? Dan analyzed the hand and came up with several different squeeze posititions declarer can play for. They depend on which defender has the length in clubs and/or the diamond Q (and all assume, based on the auction, that East holds the top spades other than the ace). We will start the analysis by looking at how to do a simple squeeze that forces East to give you a trick if he holds 4 or more clubs.

The key to a successful simple squeeze is losing your 1 loser early and then cashing your winners in the right order. So, declarer ducks the lead of the K♠ to lose his one loser and then wins the J continuation with the A. Now picture the 4 card ending you want to have - you will have all 4 clubs (AKxx) in your hand and dummy on lead holding 10♠ , -, J♦ , Q6♣ . East must hold the Q♠ and only has room left for 3 clubs. You then cash the Q♣ and go to your hand to cash the ace and king and your last small club is good because East was forced to pitch his 4th club. Can you get to that 4 card ending? Yes - just cash the AK of diamonds and then your 5 hearts.

But what if West has the 4 or more clubs? Then you have the situation where West has to hold clubs with the club threat over him and East still has to hold the QS with dummy's spade threat over him. Neither defender can hold onto diamonds - a classic double squeeze situation where each defender has a suit they haver to hold onto and that forces them to give up control in a third suit. Picture this 4 card ending with declarer down to  -, -, AK3♦ , 4♣  and dummy on lead holding 10♠ , 3♥ , J7♦ , - . On the lead of the last heart, West must hold onto a club, or the 4 in dummy is good. So, West comes down to only 2 diamonds and a club. Declarer pitches the useless club from his hand and East must next pitch a diamond, or dummy's 10♠ will be good. Declarer cashes the A, K of diamonds and wins the last trick with the 3♦! Note that you get to this ending by cashing the clubs first and then running the hearts (you leave diamonds alone, or, at most, cash only one in case a singleton Q drops). Try out these squeezes by laying out the cards and playing them as suggested, switching the 4 clubs from East to West to see what is really going.

There are other squeezes possible that involve the diamond Q - but, depending on who has 4 or more clubs, the two squeezes described above are all you need to know to make the hand. The problem is deciding which one to try - at worst a 50/50 guess as to which defender holds 4 or more clubs.

But there is a third, different type of squeeze that will suceed whenever East has the Q♦ independent of who has club length. And, given that East did overcall, it is reasonable to place that card with him. For this squeeze, you do not "rectify the count" by giving up a spade on opening lead. That is especially useful if North is playing in 6H, since East may have 6 spades and you can't afford to duck the opening spade lead or else next next lose a ruff of your A of spades. The key is placing the Q♦ with East and picturing this 4 card ending: South, on lead, holds 10♠, - ♥ , J74♦, - ♣.  East has to come down to Q♠ , - ♥ , Q86♦, - ♣. Declarer now "throws-in" East with a spade and East is forced to lead away from the Q of diamonds. Declarer wins the J♦ and then the last 2 tricks with the A and K. This kind of squeeze strips exit cards from a defender and then throws him in to lead away from an honor, giving declarer an extra trick. It is known as a Strip Squeeze Throw-in endplay. Fancy - but really no risk trying it of making at least 5. The key, as previously stated, is just picturing what the defenders hands will look like when down to 3 or 4 cards.

Lessons: 

1. Partnerships must decide which auctions are forcing and which invite or show slam interest. Otherwise, it is difficult to bid slams with hands and auctions like the one shown.

2. To squeeze opponents, look at your possible threat cards (cards that become winners if defender's choose to or have to pitch their cards in that suit) and picture what the defenders may be holding and what kind or 3 or 4 card ending you can come down to that forces them to make one of your threat cards into a winner. In general, the order in which you cash tricks will depend upon which defenders you place with the cards that stop your threats from being winners. Picture their card holdings and then picture a 3 or 4 card ending that forces them to give you a trick and see if you can cash tricks in such a way as to get that ending. If you can't, look for another possible defender's card holding that works and play for that.

3. Some types of squeezes do not require losing all but 1 of your possible losers early. In particular, if you can save one loser until you have squeezed all exit or winning cards from a defender and then throw him in, you can get an extra trick via an endplay.

The bidding is of interest.  East has a very strong but normal 1H opening bid.  South’s overcall of 2C is not recommended because it violates one of the main reasons one overcalls: to direct a lead and South is certainly not sure that she wants a club lead.  But that is what happened at the table.

West has three choices after the overcall: 3C, 4C, and 4H.  3C would show a limit raise or better and heart support and the West hand is certainly in that ball park.  4C would show shortness in clubs with heart support and enough for game and 4H would show the 5^th heart and distribution but may result in missing a slam.   West chose 4C as the best description of his hand.  After 4C showing shortness, East has no serious slam ambitions because 9 of her HCP's are in West’s shortness.   On the other hand, the AKQ of clubs are tricks which may be used to discard losers in the West hand.  East can envision a slam if West has some help in the diamond suit.  So East bids 4D. 

Now West is interested since he has help in the diamond suit and his club shortness is a void, not a singleton.   But West has already somewhat overbid his hand and probably should slow the bidding down a bit.  Then, if East makes another try, West is ready to cooperate.  West bids 4H, pass, pass to South.  Now South makes another egregious (in my opinion) bid by bidding 5C vulnerable versus not.  If West knew what East held in clubs, he would either pass or double himself.  But he cannot see through the backs of the cards so he bids 5D showing his help in the diamond suit.  East now bids 6H because the 5D bid shows what East is looking for to get to a slam.   

It is interesting to speculate what would have happened if South had not overcalled.  My guess is that the bidding would have gone 1H – 4C – 4D – 4H.  West might bid 5D over the 4D bid but I am guessing not.  It really was South bidding clubs twice that facilitated the auction to get to the slam.    

After the J of clubs lead, East pauses to make a plan.  Taking 12 tricks in Hearts looks like it depends on the diamond finesse.  Can East do better?  What if the diamond finesse is off?  Is there something that can be done to avoid losing a diamond?  Suppose the hearts are 2-1 (about 78%), then if you can get rid of the three diamonds in dummy, you can cross ruff taking 12 tricks: 5 hearts, 3 ruffs in dummy, 1 diamond, and 3 clubs for 12 tricks.  That is the plan!  So, pitch a diamond on the club lead.  Draw trumps in 2 rounds (they do break 2-1, thank you), pitch two more diamonds from dummy on the clubs, lose a spade, and cross ruff.  12 tricks.   Well done.   If hearts had not been 2-1, then East would have had to rely on the diamond finesse.  Thankfully, that wasn't needed this time.

Lessons:

1. Within one’s bidding agreements, there usually are choices to describe one’s hand.  In this hand, West had three very reasonable choices after South overcalled 2C.  West’s choice of 4C seems like the best description of his hand although the other two choices are certainly also reasonable.   
2. Do not overcall just to hear yourself bid.  One overcalls for three reasons: to disrupt the opponents’ bidding, to compete for the contract, and to help partner with a lead.  South’s overcall on this hand was pretty bad in that she certainly didn’t know whether she wanted a club lead or not and the vulnerability suggests prudence.  Although she was 7-4, the vulnerability was such that it made the 2C overcall very dangerous. 
3. When South followed up her silly (in my opinion) 2C overcall by bidding 5C at unfavorable, she put her partnership at serious risk.  However, it did cause West some angst in that he didn’t know what to do and was afraid of passing.   But now he could show his diamond help without risk by bidding 5D.  That was all that East needed to bid the slam.   This situation illustrates another reason why the 5C bid is silly.  It let EW exchange more information at no risk and get to the good slam. 
4. When making a plan, consider all options.  Finesses are 50-50 propositions which means that half the time they lose.  If you think you need a finesse, try to find an alternative.  Once you ask yourself that question, you might find a better line than a finesse.    

Tuesday, November 18. 2014, Board 36

West opened 1s, and sitting North, I had to decide how many diamonds to bid. I chose five. Everyone passed, and when diamonds split 2-2, I lost only one diamond and one spade.

After the hand, the East player commented I was lucky to find partner with his club holding, and also lucky that diamonds split. Agreed.

But was it a bad bid?

What if we switched the South and East hands? Then I would lose no spades, and no diamonds, but probably three clubs, unless the opening leader began by leading his two top clubs. In that case I would still make five. But either way, it would be a good result, since they could make five hearts. 

Agreed, this is a small sample size. We can all construct hands where five diamonds is doubled down three, when the opponents can’t even make game. We could also construct hands the other way, where each side is cold for a vulnerable game. 

These were the considerations I took into account when I made the bid.

1. Not only did I have an eight-card suit, but I also had a side four-card suit. If I was 8-2-2-1, I would have bid only 4d. it would also have been more difficult if my four card suit had been hearts. We could be missing a heart game.

2 Suppose I only bid four diamonds. How would I feel if the opponents now bid four hearts or four spades? This seemed quite likely, looking at my hand. In fact, a four diamond bid by me, would practically invite the opponents to bid 4s. If they did that, it would be wrong to now bid 5d. Once you preempt, you should not rebid your suit. The greatest value of the preempt is that it forces the opponents to guess at a high level. Don’t give them a second chance to get it right. Maybe they have bid too high. Maybe they should be doubling you. Or maybe they belong in slam. So you should bid the maximum you want to bid with your first bid, and then shut up.

3 What’s the vulnerability?

We were vulnerable, but so were the opponents. That means if the opponents can make game, I can afford to go down two, doubled. 

If they weren’t vulnerable, I probably would only have bid 4d. If they now bid game, at least I would have made them guess. Maybe they’re too high. Maybe they belong in slam. Besides, I have a partner. He heard me bid 4d at unfavorable vulnerability. He can still bid five if he thinks it’s right.

4. Am I preempting partner?

I would have felt better about my bid had partner been a passed hand. For all I knew we were bypassing 3nt or were cold for six clubs. Still, while I knew nothing about partner’s hand, I did know that my rho had an opening bid. It seemed more likely that my bid would cause trouble for the opponents than for my partner. Looking at his hand now, I’m sure he was not happy to hear my call. He was probably thinking that he wanted to play the hand in four hearts. That looks like it would be down one.

Lesson points:

1. Once you preempt, you should not rebid your suit later in the auction (unless forced to do so by partner.) So decide how high you want to bid, and then bid it with one bid. Factors to consider are the vulnerability, and whether you are preempting your partner.

2. Don’t be afraid to preempt. Even experts hate  it when they opponents preempt against them.

Hand # 24, Friday 11/14/2014

This widely distributional hand leads to several interesting bidding questions partnerships should consider. After a 3D pre-emptive opening bid by West, should North bid either 4C or 3S or pass? I play the immediate position after a pre-empt needs better than opening values to take action. But this hand, while only 10 high card points, has enormous playing strength if partner has a fit in one of the black suits. I felt, however, that ther spade suit was too weak to overcall with and bidding 4C risks losing the spade suit entirely. So, reluctantly, I passed after the mandatory 10 second pause. I can understand how other North's might have bid a black suit, especially if they do not adhere to a highly disciplined style of bidding in the immediate position after a pre-empt.

Partner, after 3D- Pass- Pass, bid 3NT - a strong bid! Sure that there was a slam, I bid 4C. This is a bid partnerships should discuss - is it natural with slam interest or is it an ace asking bid (Gerber or KeyCard Gerber). My partnership agreement is that it is KeyCard Gerber with, as long as no suits were bid, the 5th control being the KC.  Other partnerships may decide that it shows interest in slam with good, long, clubs.

South responded 4H, showing 1 or 4 controls. I did a quick count of outstanding points and realized partner could have a 19 point hand and still have only 1 control (something like AQx, KQJx, KQJ, Jxx, for example). So, I found a way to sign-off at 4NT and we played there. Another useful agreement to have is whenever your bid shows two possible levels of control (i.e. 0 - 3, 1 - 4 or 2 -5) and you have the higher value you must not allow the auction to stop below slam.

Those who play 4C by North after the 3NT bid to be good clubs with slam interest have a strong chance to get to 7C on this hand, which easily makes. What about 6NT? It was played 6 times and went down twice. Should it always make? The answer is yes, if South is declarer. Just count tricks and you see that immediately playing diamonds yields 2 spade tricks, 1 heart trick, 3 diamond tricks and 6 club tricks. If, however, you get a non-helpful club lead and you run clubs, you might squeeze your hand into pitching a winning diamond and go down. Just count tricks and immediately give up a diamond and claim!  

Lessons:

1) Have an agreement with partner about immediate bids after pre-empts. Are you going to play a very disciplined stye relying on your partner in the balancing position to protect you or are you going to play a looser style. In any case, agree not to pre-empt a pre-empt!

2) Also, agree upon the meaning of 4C after partner bids NT in auctions like this. If keycard, what K counts as a control, if any? If natural, is it always a forcing slam try?

3) Declarer should stop at trick 1 and count winners and losers. It may be too late to do this after you have run your long suit.

Saturday Evening Swiss , November 8, 2014

  No one Vulnerable,   Dealer South

                                                                 AK964

                                                                 JT8

                                                                 JT

                                                                 842

                       QT8                                                                 752

                       75                                                                    Q9642

                       Q9832                                                             AK4

                       T75                                                                 Q9

                                                               J3

                                                               AK3

                                                               765

                                                               AKJ63

                 S          W          N         E

               1NT        p          2H        X

                 p          p           XX        p

                2S        p            p          p

IMPS are far different from matchpoints and my partner and I were having a nice relaxing game. Bidding our partials and making our games along with some fun defensive hands. Along came this perplexing bidding sequence!

Everything was pretty normal (okay, my NT opener did have 2 unprotected suits) until my RHO (right hand opponent) made a X over the 2H bid.  My pass says "Partner I don't have 3 Spades so I will  pass right now". Now for the bid that made me think and think and decide that I had no idea what my partner's XX was! She surely didn't have Hearts since I had the AK3, what to do, what to do. I could bid 2NT with 2 Heart stoppers, but I am not so sure that isn't some kind of SOS XX. You know ...---... (Morse code for HELP). So I bid 2 Spades and that's where we played it making 6!

A  Heart was led and dummy played the Jack, covered by East and taken in hand with the Ace. Now the top two trump followed by another getting rid of all the trump in their hands and putting West back in the lead. West dutifully led another heart and it was taken on the board with the Ten. Now a Club finesse won and the Clubs were run discarding dummy's Diamonds. The dummy was good now and the hand claimed. Making 6 sounded pretty good.

Let's see how NT would do and it  is where the hand most likely would land if there was not double. Without the double West is leading a Diamond and East West will take the first 5 Diamonds. Now to compare..our opponents most likely were in 3NT down 1! Sounds good!      We went back to our partner's table after the round to find out that their opponents stopped in 2NT(making after our partners took the first 5 Diamonds). What a disappointment, but we still managed to win 3 IMPS(International Matchpoints). Every IMP counts and we won the match!

   Lessons:

     1) Many decisions made at the moment are puzzling, try to keep a level head and make what is a reasonable bid, even if you aren't sure what partner is doing!

    2) In a team game, part scores are just as important as the games and slams. Play hard!

Hand # 7, Thursday, October 30th 

The suggested bidding starting with West and skipping passes by North & South is 1H – 1S – 2C – 2D – 3C – 3S – 3N – 4C – 5C – 6C all pass. The opening lead was the Queen of Hearts.

Comments on the bidding: 1H, 1S, and 2C are natural. 2D is fourth suit forcing (FSF) to game. 3C completes West’s pattern. 3S suggests a (at least) 6 card suit. When West doesn’t raise, East is sure West has at most 1 spade. After West bids 3N, East bids 4C. What is 4C? I suppose it could be Gerber but I don’t think so since we are still searching for strain. Could it be Minorwood if we are playing Minorwood? Again, I don’t think so (for the same reason) because we are still searching for strain. Is 4C forcing? I have a rule with all of my partners that we do not get out of 3NT due to fear. Therefore, it is forcing. Now West just bids 5C because he doesn’t really have a great suit for a club slam. East then carries on to 6C hoping that partner has enough key cards to justify a slam. Note that if either partner had used some form of keycard, the slam would not have been bid because the partnership is missing two keycards.

On the given opening lead of the Queen of Hearts, the play for slam is excellent. Win the first two Heart tricks, discarding the T of diamonds from dummy. Now take the club finesse. If it wins, you have three chances to try to make 7: ruff out the king of spades, take a ruffing finesse for the king of spades, or set up hearts. It could also work to take a straight finesse so that if the spade king is on and no worse than 4 times, you will make 7. In any case, since you are missing two key cards, just making the slam rates to be a good matchpoint score. The actual line that takes advantage of all the chances (if clubs are 2-2) is to cash the ace of spades, ruff a spade, and ruff a heart. If the hearts are 5-2 (and therefore not able to be set up), then lead the Q of spades giving up a spade if necessary. Suppose that the opening lead is a low diamond to the ace. Now what is the best line to make the slam. First, you now must have the club finesse working so assume that. After the club finesse works, you have two chances to make the slam. You can bring in the spade suit without losing a trick or you can bring in the heart suit by ruffing hearts in dummy. I think the best chance is to set up hearts not risking losing a trick to the spade king. So, the line should be: draw trumps and, if in dummy, ace of spades, ruff a spade, AK and ruff a heart. You now know that whether the hearts are going to break. If so, ruff a spade, ruff a heart, and claim. If the Hearts do not break, lead the Q of spades out of dummy and guess whether to float it (ruffing finesse for the king) or ruff hoping the king will come down third. Since there are so many spades in dummy, you probably know by now what your chances in spades are.

Lessons:

1. Using FSF (to game) makes the bidding comfortable since both partners are committed to bidding until game is reached.

2. After FSF and partner not supporting your initially bid Major, if you bid that Major again, it shows 6 (or more) in that Major.

3. Have the agreement that you and your partner do not leave 3N to 4 of a minor out of fear. That is, after a game force and a 3NT bid, 4 of a minor is forcing.

4. Sometimes (as in the hand today) knowing how many keycards the partnership has is information that may not be valuable because you might not bid a cold slam.

5. In a slam, no matter how you got there and no matter how good a slam it is, take your best shot even if it risks going down more than 1. Once you are in a slam, it is unlikely to be any worse to go down more than one as going down exactly one. 6. Try to take advantage of all your chances. In the second scenario above, you want to be able to take advantage of the hearts and if they don’t work out, then the spades.

Hand # 5, Tuesday Morning, 10/21/2014

It feels great to make a daring and well thought-out play. Don’t miss your opportunities.

South didn’t exactly have a club stopper, but it’s hard to fault her 1nt overcall, especially since a one-club opener doesn’t promise a long club suit.

West led her 4th best heart, and declarer won the third round. 

Time to take stock. Declarer has twenty-four points between herself and dummy, and East opened the bidding. Based on the play so far, West seems to hold the queen of hearts, so nearly all of the remaining fourteen points should be in the East hand. That means the spade king should be onside, but club ace should be off.

Declarer then cashed four diamonds ending in dummy. At trick eight, she  led a spade to the queen. She cashed the ace of spades, and  got out a spade. East won the king, but was end-played, and had to give declarer a club trick. Making two. Well played.

East missed his chance. When South cashed the ace of spades at trick nine, East should foresee the endplay. (At this point he holds the K4 of spades, and the AQ10 of clubs). He is desperate to get West on lead, so his best chance is play the king of spades under the ace. If declarer has the jack, East gives up a trick in spades, but gets it back in clubs. But if his partner has the jack, then she will win the third spade, cash her good heart, and then lead the club through for him.

This really isn’t that difficult of a play to find, if you think ahead and foresee what will happen. If partner didn’t have the jack of spades, you still would have come out even (since you wouldn’t have been endplayed.), But when  it works, as it would have here, you can spend the rest of the day patting yourself on the back. You intentionally dropped your king under an ace, just like Bobby Wolfe would have done.

Lesson Points: 

1) When dummy comes down, it is a good idea to count points, and remember the bidding. This often will tell you where the missing high cards will be. (This is equally valuable for a defender as well as declarer. It will often tell you how many high card points are in your partner’s hand.)

2) When on defense, try to think with the declarer. You can often figure out her plan (if she has one) and foresee a few tricks ahead. This may allow you to come up with a plan of your own, to thwart her.

Hand #1, Wednesday Morning, 10/15/2014

Here is a small slam hand that has over an 80% chance of making. The field of 14 North/South pairs bid pretty well, with only 3 staying out of slam and 1 over-bidding to a grand. However, this was the less than 1 in 5 deal where the slam goes down and the timid bidders were unjustly rewarded.

Despite the unlucky result, it is instructive to look at an auction that arrives at this slam and makes use of a convention for bidding slams when your hand has a void known as Exclusion Keycard Blackwood.

After North opens 1 heart, South, with first and second round controls in every suit except hearts and at least a 9 card trump fit in hearts (and a 5 loser count), should think "I want to bid to at least a small slam - and if partner has very good hearts perhaps we can make a Grand. Is there any way I can find out about partner's keycards outside of diamonds?" There is a way and that's what Exclusion Keycard Blackwood is used for.

After a trump suit has been agreed upon a jump bid beyond game in a new suit starts the Exclusion asking bid. In the auction shown, the jump to 5D after partner's 1H opening sets hearts as trumps and is Exclusion Keycard Blackwood. You may choose to play exclusion only after a trump suit has been supported - but I would rather lose the 5D pre-emt bid (why pre-empt partner, especially at such a high level?) and play this bid as showing a void in diamonds, support for the last suit bid and keycard Blackwood with partner expected to ignore all keycards in diamonds.

The responses are: 1 step with 0 or 3 keycards, 2 steps with 1 or 4, 3 steps with 2 and 4 steps with 2 plus the Q of trumps. People who prefer to play 4-1, 3-0 keycard responses will reverse the meaning of steps 1 and 2. However, you will soon see that 3-0, 4-1 works better in this example.

Returning to the auction, 5D asks for keycards outside of diamonds. North responds 5S to show just 1 (the A of hearts). South knows a keycard in hearts is missing and settles for 6H. If North had shown the AKQ of hearts with a 6C bid, South would have bid a Grand slam in hearts. If, however, North had no keycards outside of diamonds, he would have responded 5H and South could have passed below slam - which would not be possible playing 1-4, 3-0 keycard responses.

As far as play goes, the hand analysis says that North can make 6H. How is this possible assuming declarer knows all the cards? He avoids playing trumps until he has played 4 rounds of spades (ruffing 2 of them), 4 rounds of diamonds (ruffing 2 of them) and two rounds of clubs. There are only 3 cards left and now declarer finesses the QH and East is in and has to lead away from the JH around to declarer's A10. Should declarer play this way? No, unless he knows East has a trump stack behind him. That's why it is often dangerous to double a game or slam and give away to declarer that trumps split poorly.

Lessons:

1. Exclusion Keycard Blackwood is a convention for asking for keycards with a trump fit and a void. It starts with a jump to the void suit beyond game in the trump suit. Partnerships may chose to use it on jumps after a suit has been bid but not supported - making that suit the trump suit by inference.

2. Recommended responses are: 1 step with 0 or 3 keycards, 2 steps with 1 or 4, 3 steps with 2 and 4 steps with 2 plus the Q of trumps - where there are only 4 keycards, since the A of the exclusion suit does not count. 

Hand #13, Thursday 10/8/2014 

Halloween is upon us and the moon must be full because we had a game full of slams. How full? Out of the  27 boards, five were slam possibilities (and they all make) !  North-South had three of the slam hands and East-West had two. What is the likelihood of this many slams? Well, it is the haunting season and so 18.5% of the hands being slam hands was not unexpected. However, of the 40 pairs who played these 5 slam hands, only 6 slams were bid - and one was a grand slam off an A cashed on opening lead! True, several of these slams depended on a card being on-sides. But, clearly, we are missing too many slam opportunities.

Isn't it true that when it is your slam hand, it is just so much fun! When you are on the "other side" and have no bid and have to try to come up with the winning lead, not so much hilarity.

My partner and I had one board where the opponent wrote a big "F" (this should stand for FIX) on his score sheet. It was board 13 shown above (hmm, a pattern here of halloweenish coincidences). My partner opened 1 Heart and I looked at my hand and it just felt like a slam was likely. Maybe it had been all the boards prior to this that were slams that got me "in the mood". I went directly to 4NT, and partner bid 5 Hearts. Do I care about the Queen of trump? Not this time, because I have 5 trumps! So I trotted off to 6 Hearts and the Ace of Clubs was led by South.  South then led a trump and partner pulled trump and claimed.

Not sure how the rest of the East-West players bid this hand, but not even one got to slam! With East's poor hand there is no way he is going to be interested even if you use a splinter bid. Short of a magic spell or 4NT you are not getting partner to  go to a slam. The points that West has are all PRIME (Aces and Kings)  and  the singleton is golden, so using Key Card here seems very inviting and necessary.  

I would feel worse about the FIX, however the fine pair we were playing against still managed to win with a 68.5% game! Way to go Jack Lacy and Mary Anne Laier! Happy Halloween!

Lessons:

1) Not all points are created equal, prime points are as good as it gets and should be considered as much more valuable.

2) When you hold 5 of partner's suit, the Queen ask is unnecessary.

3) When you hold the hand that "knows", then you need to push on. Straight unadjusted loser count says these two hands should make on the 5 level. However, having a 5-5 trump fit and "prime points" adds enough to make a slam reasonable or even cold. 

This board is an interesting one to bid.  1D is normally 4 or more diamonds but is only 3 if opener is precisely 4432.  1S shows 4 or more spades and enough to respond.  2C shows 4 or more clubs and confirms that 1D was 4 or more diamonds.  2H is fourth suit forcing (4SF) artificial and game forcing.  3H shows 4 hearts and completes the description of East’s hand to be either 1444 or 0454 or 0445.  3S shows 6 or more spades and suggests doubt about NT.  3N is the best (from East’s perspective) chance for game.   With a spade honor, East might have tried 4S rather than 3N particularly if he has doubts about playing 3N. 

Now the spotlight turns to South who must make an opening lead.  He knows a lot about the two declaring hands so should be able to choose a lead that is best for the defense.  A spade might be right, particularly if East is void in spades, but rates to help declarer set them up.  Both hearts and diamonds are likely to be dangerous so by default a club is probably best. 

With a club lead, the defense should prevail.  North will win the king and return a club to dummy’s ace.  Why should North return clubs and not switch to hearts which seems to be the obvious switch?  If the club ace is not removed from dummy, North can see that declarer will have time to set up spades and cash them.   If declarer needs spades to make 3NT, he will need two entries to dummy after he leads the first one, one to set up spades and the second to cash the spades.  After dummy wins the club ace, what should declarer do?  He can lead a high spade but has only one entry left to set up spades and, therefore, cannot cash them once they are good.  Basically, from this point, the defense should follow whatever declarer does to make sure they give nothing away so that declarer will go down at least one trick.  Declarer should be held to 3 diamonds, 1 spade, 2 hearts, and 2 clubs.  North will lead a heart when he wins the spade ace. 

If South leads another suit, we can imagine the declarer making the contract as follows.  On a spade lead, declarer has enough entries to set up spades and cash them.  On a diamond lead, declarer can win the lead in hand and lead a spade and again has enough entries to set up and cash spades.  In fact, if South leads the 3 of diamonds, he gives up a 4^th diamond trick.  And, given declarer’s heart holding, a heart lead will give up a third trick immediately or if South leads the Q of hearts, again declarer has enough entries to set up spades and cash them. 

Lessons:

1.  Listen to the bidding.  Often just based on the bidding, you can imagine the opposing hands. 
2. When choosing an opening lead, use your knowledge of the opposing hands to choose the most effective (or least damaging) opening lead.
3. When you win the opening lead as third hand, look carefully at dummy and remember what you know from the bidding so that you can choose the best lead at trick two.  On this hand, if North leads what seems like the obvious switch, a heart, declarer will prevail because he has enough entries in dummy to set up and cash the spades.  

Hand # 22, Austin Sectional Pairs, Thursday Morning, 9/25/2014

Ask experienced Bridge players - they will usually agree that defense is the most difficult and challenging part of the game.  So it gives me pleasure to relate how my partner (both in life and for this game) made an outstanding play that was needed for us to set a 3NT contract.

North was stretching with the final 3NT bid but thought it likely that 8 tricks were there with the expected club lead and, perhaps, partner might have a 9th trick with an A♥  or a K♠ . The opening lead was the Q♣ , ducked by declarer, followed by a club to the A and a third club to declarer's K. Now declarer played 6 rounds of diamonds, putting heavy pressure on East. Look first at the cards left in play after the 5th diamond was cashed  (North at the top):

	A96 ♥ J ♦ 5 ♣ -
J 8 7   K 10  - -	W E S T NORTH E A S T 22 SOUTH	K 3    A     -    Q J
	Q 10 5   Q 9   -  -

When the 6th and last diamond was played, East had to make a difficult decision. Look what happens if East discards a club - declarer gerts out the J♥  and East is in, cashes a club and has to lead away from the K♠ to give declarer her 8th and 9th trick. If East discards the 3♠ declater can play the A and drop the K, setting up the Q for a 9th trick. The only winning play East has is to discard the A of hearts, playing partner for the K. East made that play and when the J♥ was led to my K at trick 11, I could lead a spade and set the contract.

Opportunities for unblocking plays to avoid an endplay are not uncommon on defense. Making them is - so kudos for East avoiding a bottom on the board and achieving a tied for top.  

Wednesday Evening, BCA, Sept 10, 2014

This hand was played in the last round of the Wednesday night game.  North was Joe Black, who was playing with Greg Kania.  West was CG Bell, playing with his uncle, Steve Bruce.

With one round to go, Joe and Greg were in 2^nd place North South while CG and Steve were leading the East Wests.  

North opened 1S holding AKxxx, x, AQxxx, Kx and heard his partner make a “Modified Bergen Raise” of 3C, which showed 4-card Spade support and 7-11 points.

North now bid 3D to ask partner if they were on the top of their range (9+ to 11). North intended to bid game even if South was at the bottom of the range and intended to explore for slam if partner had the upper range hand.

South jumped to 4S, showing that he was on the top of his range.

North was now able to ask for Keycards by bidding 4NT (there are five keycards, the four Aces and the King of trumps).  They were playing “1430,” so South’s bid of 5C showed 1 or 4 Keycards.

North now bid 5D, which asked partner if he held the trump Queen or a 5 card fit (a 10 card trump fit with both the A and K is nearly as good as holding the Queen.

South didn’t have the Queen, but  did hold a 5^th trump, so he jumped to 6S.

North South were now on course to score 81% of the matchpoints for going plus 980 (6 ½ on an 8 top), but they got an added bonus when East didn’t cash the Ace of Hearts on opening lead, They ended up taking all the tricks and all the matchpoints (6S-N, making 7, +1010).

Half of the field of eight bid slam (only one of those made 7).

Of the four pairs that stopped in 4 Spades, two of them made 12 tricks and two of them made 13 tricks. 

The Ace of Hearts must have been led five times, while three times it was not.

Joe Black and Greg Kania had the right tools for the hand.  Modified Bergen Raises, Roman Key Card, and then a Queen asking bid.  A well-deserved top board for North-South.  They didn’t quite reach 1^st North-South, missing by less than half a matchpoint, but they did knock East-West down to 2^nd.

Hand # 4, September 9, 2014

Defense is difficult.  This hand illustrates a very valuable tool that helps the two defenders cooperate to win the maximum number of tricks. 

First, a comment on the bidding.  West has a normal 1D opening bid and North has an easy overcall of 1H.  East passes although I wouldn’t argue with a negative double even as weak as East is.  South has a normal raise to 2H and West doubles for takeout.  Even though West has only 3 spades, his distribution and strength argue for competing.  East bids 2S and now West passes knowing that East is pretty weak.  North competes to 3H.  I don’t like North’s bid of 3H because she has exactly what she said she had when she overcalled 1H.  Her heart suit is powerful but she has 8 losers outside the heart suit which doesn’t bode well for the 3H bid and she is vulnerable.  If the defense is careful, 3H should go down 2 which will be a bad board for North-South even if 3H is not doubled.

Against 3H, East leads her stiff diamond to West’s ace.  West can easily read that West has a stiff diamond since the 2 is the lowest diamond.  West is going to return a diamond for East to ruff.  Does it matter which diamond West returns?  West can tell East where her entry is by the size of the diamond she returns for East to ruff.  A low diamond will tell East that West has an entry in the club suit (the lower of the two remaining suits ignoring the suit being ruffed and the trump suit) and a high diamond will tell East that West has an entry in the spade suit (the higher suit).  And a middle diamond should say something like I don’t have a preference which suit you lead next since I don’t have a quick entry and I don’t know what your hand is.  On this hand, West should return the 4 of diamonds telling East that her entry is in clubs (the lower of the remaining suits).   East ruffs and returns a club as asked.  West wins the club Queen and returns the 6 of diamonds for East to ruff.  East leads another club to West who wins the king.  Now, West returns 8 of diamonds for East to ruff because the club suit is done and it is time to establish our spade trick.  Even if East cannot ruff the last diamond led because North ruffs high, the threat of East ruffing kills the fourth diamond in dummy so that declarer cannot discard her spade loser on the good diamond. 

Lessons:

1. Giving suit preference when expecting partner to ruff is a valuable tool to guide the defense.  On this hand, it is critical for West to show his club entries so that the defense gets the maximum number of tricks. 
2. Matchpoints is a very competitive game but sometimes one should not automatically compete.  If your original bid is a good description of your hand, then you should strongly consider not competing any more.
3. A good rule of thumb is to compete to the level of the number of trumps between the two hands.  One should still consider other factors like vulnerability and whether one’s hand is better or worse than already described.  On this hand, South might have bid 3H with 4 trumps (since she knew that North has at least 5 for her overcall) and when South doesn’t compete to 3H, North should conclude that South’s raise consisted of only 3 card support and, therefore, North should not compete to the three level with only 5 hearts.  

Hand # 8, Wednesday Evening, 8/27/2014

This looks like a routine hand with South playing in spades every time and making 5 or even 6 once. However, the hand analysis says it should only make 4 so it is worth looking at the play to see where all the defenses possibly went wrong.

First, a quick look at the bidding shown. South has a 4 loser hand and should go to game after partner supports spades. Five out of six pairs did reach game so that was not a problem.

West, at my table, led the J of clubs - the lead that should hold declarer to only making 4S. Any other lead and a club loser will go off on the third heart or else, if West leads the J of diamonds and East rises A to switch to the club king, declarer can use dummy's Q♦  to pitch his club loser. So which J10 minor suit should West lead? My thought is that declarer is likely to have less cards in my longer suit and any defensive winners might go away if the suit is not led. So, typically, I would also lead the J♣. However, one might also argue that leading the from the J10 shorter suit might find declarer with more potential losers in that suit that have to be attacked early. So, perhaps several Wests choose the J♦ lead allowing declarer to make 5♠ .

Now back to my table where West got off to the killing club lead. Declarer won the ace and played two rounds of trumps, ending in dummy. Then a heart was played to West's ace and a club was lead to East's Q. East was at a critical moment which we will return to later - but did not realize it and tried to cash a third club.

Declarer ruffed and knew making 5 was there if the heart 10 fell under the Q or J, allowing pitches of  both the diamond 3 and K. But, rather than play hearts immediately, declarer first played all his trump winners. Here's what the cards lokked like when the last trump was led by South:

                                                                           ♠  - 

                                                                           ♥  QJ9

                                                                           ♦ Q

                                                         ♣ -  

                                                                             ♠ -                                                                 ♠ -                                 

                                           ♥ -                                                                 ♥ 1087 

                                           ♦ J1054                                                          ♦ A 

                                           ♣ -                                                                  ♣ -

                                                                                     ♠  3

                                                                           ♥  6

                                                                           ♦ K3

                                                         ♣ -  

After South plays the ♦Q on the last spade, East must either throw a heart (setting up dummy) or the diamond ace, setting up declarer's K. East has been squeezed and declarer makes 5.

Now let's return to the critical moment when East won the club Q. East can count that declarer has 7 spade winners, 2 heart winners in dummy and the A of clubs - for 10 tricks or more unless East cashes the right cards at hat moment. East should play the ♦A and look to see if West signals the K. If not, switch back to the K of clubs. That maximizes the defenses chances to take tricks before declarer gets to win dummy's hearts. 

Lessons:

1) When you have all the rest of the tricks except one and chances for that extra trick often it helps to play off all your winners (usually trumps) to put pressure on the defenders. They may mistakenly throw the wrong cards and give you that trick (called a psuedo squeeze) or they may be, as in this example, legitimately forced (squeezed) out of a winner.

2) Defending against squeezes (and psuedo squeezes) is one of the toughest parts of the game. Counting declarer's winners and making sure you get what is coming to you is one of the ways you can avoid losing what looked to be a sure trick. 

Hand 24, Thursday, August 28  no one vul, West dealer

How many hands are decided at trick 1?  Many are decided by how you play one suit and how interconnected it is with another suit.

The auction was a simple one, 1NT in 4th seat by South (surprising that North passed with a rather nice 12). After East and West pass throughout, a Jacoby transfer by North into Hearts, transfer completed by South and North now bid 3NT. All pass. 

Now for a well thought out lead by West. Partner had the chance to double 2 Diamonds (transfer suit) and did not, so that doesn't look appealing. Hearts is definitely out with North announcing 5 of them. Clubs doesn't look so hot either with 3 to the 9, so west led a low Spade. The process of elimination is quite often what the leader must fall back on. 

Declarer played the Jack off the dummy and  east signaled with the 8 that he held 3 (upside down count). Spades look harmless, don't they? Why could it be important in this hand? Only if you are thinking way on down the road about your entries!! This declarer decided he wanted to be on the board and played the Jack of Spades! Do you notice anything? How many entries is declarer going to have to his dummy now? Such a little innocent play, but can be so very expensive! Declarer went to his hand with a Diamond and confidently led the10 of Hearts and West ducked. Declared now led the 9 of Hearts and again West ducked!

West absolutely needs to duck both of the Hearts to avoid  declarer making 11 tricks. What does West know about declarer's hand? Declarer should only have 2 Hearts because he chose to play 3NT rather than 4 Hearts

Now South led a spade to the Ace and played the Ace of hearts. However his entries were gone and he could no longer set up the heart and get back to them. Declarer did not get a bad board, but he also did not get a top board. He took 3 Spades, 3 Hearts, 3 Diamonds and 1 Club.

This hand's double dummy result is making 5. Working on your worst suit (Clubs) is seldom the way any declarer will go and that is the only way to make 5 (unless West covers the Heart!) Leading up to your Clubs 2 times will yield 11 tricks along with taking the Heart finesse 2 times. Declarer will take 3 Spades, 3 Hearts, 3 Diamonds and 2 Clubs.

If declarer has not used his 2 dummy entries he might decide to switch to Clubs after trying the Hearts. 

Two lessons in this hand:

1) Look at your entries carefully at trick one before you play to the first trick. Decide how precious they might be in either hand and preserve them if they are.

2) Use all your clues to decide on your lead. Just because you don't have many points doesn't excuse you from making a wise choice, after all, your partner is marked with some high cards!

Hand # 23, Wednesday Evening, 8/20/2014

First a comment on the bidding.  West opened 1C and North’s overcall of 1H created a problem for East.  He has a balanced 16 count but no Heart stopper.  What to do?  My partner solved the problem with a little white lie of 2D.  Why is this bid a little white lie?  Because 2D should show a 5 card suit but he has only 4.  There were other lies he could choose:  2H showing club support and at least a limit raise and 3NT without a Heart stopper.  No bid is perfect and partner’s choice of 2D is as good as any, in my opinion.  After that, the bidding was smooth resulting in 3NT by West.  

When dummy is put down, what is your plan?  Even though you have 29 HCP between the two hands, it is not obvious how to go about taking 9 tricks let alone an overtrick which is what one would normally expect with 29 HCP.  So, back to basics.  We have 7 sure tricks: 2 spades, 2 hearts, 2 diamonds, and 1 club.  We have chances for tricks by taking the spade finesse, the heart finesse (although on the bidding, I would expect that the heart finesse is not working), diamonds 3-3, and the club finesse (leading up to the queen, hoping that the king is with South).  In reality, there are only 3 possible extra tricks unless we can convince North to lead a heart.   Diamonds 3-3 is a 35.5% chance and with the opening lead, we might guess that it is less on this hand.  The spade finesse is a straight up 50%.  The club finesse is a little more complicated because South may have the king or North may have the king and if it is doubleton, we can get an extra trick there.  Given that analysis, my plan is to win the opening lead in hand and try the spade finesse.  After that, we can see what happens.  This kind of hand is one where you might make a plan and then have to modify it based on what you learn trick by trick.  Actually, that is exactly what happens with this hand. 

I played low on the diamond, South played the Q and I won the king and led a spade.  When North showed out of spades, I immediately learned that the spade finesse is not going to work J.  But I also gathered some valuable information.  With South having 6 spades and at most 2 hearts, we are beginning to develop a picture of the unseen hands.  I won the spade Ace in dummy and led a club toward the Queen.  South played low and now I went into the tank.  What does North have for her overcall?  The Q of hearts only.  The J of diamonds only.  No spade honors.  It seemed to me that North is very likely to have the club king.  Even with the club king, her overcall is suspect although we would all overcall 1C with 1H with her hand.  We just wouldn’t be very proud of the overcall.  So, I played 8 of clubs and North won the J.  Did you notice that South should have played the 9 (or T) of clubs so that either the Queen would be forced or South would hold the trick so that she could lead a heart through me?  North won the J of clubs and continued with the J of diamonds.  Still struggling for tricks, I ducked the diamond and won the next diamond with ace and South followed to both diamonds.  Wow!  All of a sudden I have an 8^th trick.  I cashed the 13^th diamond pitching a spade from my hand.  South pitched a spade and North pitched a heart.  No new information there.  But continuing our count of the hands, we now know that South has 6 spades, 1 or 2 hearts, 3 diamonds and, therefore, 2 or 3 clubs only.  In other words, South is either 6232 or 6133.  Therefore, North is either 0535 or 0634.  One thing this tells us is that the club king is not coming down doubleton.  What alternatives do we have if the club king is not doubleton?  We can endplay North so that North has to lead a heart to us for our 9^th trick.    OK, here we go. 

Cash the ace of clubs and a club to our queen and North’s king.  South followed to both clubs so we have now verified that North is 0634.  North has another club to cash but now must lead a heart into our AKJ for our 9^th trick.  Wow, what a struggle.  But with counting and a little bit of luck, we have overcome adversity.  What a sad tale it would have been to take only 8 tricks with 29 HCP between the two hands.  But if we hadn’t kept our eye on the ball every trick, we would very likely have come to that fate. 

Lessons:

1.  Make a plan on every hand.  In NT, count your sure winners and then see where you can develop extra tricks.  In this hand, although you had 7 sure tricks, it was not obvious where your 8^th and 9^th trick would come from. 
2. Be fluid in your plan.  As  you learn new information, you may have to modify the plan to accommodate the new information. 
3. When the obvious play is doomed to fail, consider how you might take advantage of that fact.
4. Count every hand.  Every hand.  By counting every hand, it will become easier to count hands where it is important to know what the opponents hands are.  Practice may not make perfect but it will make it easier. 
5. Sometimes you have to tell a white lie in the bidding because your hand does not lend itself to “normal” bidding.  When you have to do that, choose a lie that you hope will lead to the best possible contract.  

Hand # 27, Friday, 8/15/2014

The title of this Hand Of The Week could well be "HOW WOULD YOU BID THIS INCREDIBLE HAND?". Let's start with what happened at my table.

I held the South hand and elected to pass instead of pre-empting with my 7 card spade suit to the QJ8 and no outside cards. No one was vulnerable and I had the highest ranking suit so I thought I could wait and see who had what. A mistake, as it turned out.

In fourth position, East opened 2C and I now knew where most of the points were. I considered 3S but, with equal vulnerability, decided that 2S was enough obstruction. West passed - a bid that good players intend (and West was one of the best of the club players) as positive and game forcing after a 2C opener. West would have doubled 2S with a bad hand that could not have made a positive 2D response to an opening 2C bid.

North passed and East had a choice of bidding some number of clubs or hearts. Since any bid below game could not be passed by West, East chose to bid 3H. Note that his powerful 5 card suit could play opposite a doubleton, or even a singleton, for no losers a high percentage of of the time and, of course, you want to play in the major in a matchpoint game. The choice would have been more difficult If North, with good spade support and an outside ace, had chosen to raise partner's 2S bid to 3S, 

West had no difficulty raising 3H to 4H and it was up to East to place the final contract. Knowing West had a heart fit and a positive response to 2C was all East needed to take the gamble and leap to 7H - for a cold top!

Now let's look at the other 8 results on this board. Three pairs did not reach slam (playing in 5H hearts once and 5C twice). One pair reached 7C and 4 pairs played in 6C. So, reaching 6C was above average on a board that will make 7 in both hearts and clubs.

What went wrong on most of the auctions for this hand? Possibly the South hand made it much more difficuly by pre-empting 3S to start with and North could have raised to 4S to continue crowding the auction before East had a chance to bid. But East, with 1 one loser hand (!!! - have you ever held a 1 loser hand? - !!!) should never stop bidding below slam if partner is not forced to bid again. If the auction is up to 4S (or even 3S) when East gets his first bid he has to either cue bid or bid 6C or 6H (or even, if bold enough, 7C or 7H). The 3 pairs who stopped below slam obviously did not appreciate the full value of a 1 loser hand that could often make a grand slam in either hearts or clubs even if partner had no points and just 2 or 3 hearts and 2 or 3 clubs.You may never get a hand as good as East had again - so appreciate it and have courage.

Lessons:

1) A heart suit such as AKQJ4 will be playable as trump suit a majority of the time even it partner has as little as a singleton - so don't count it out in favor of a good 7 card minor suit when playing matchpoints.

2) When you have a very good 1 loser 2-suit hand start by promising yourself you will play in slam and then, if given the chance, look for a possible grand slam. Don't make a bid that can be passed out short of slam!

3) A useful agreement to have is that after partner's 2C opening is overcalled, a double shows a bad hand and a pass shows a hand that is game forcing opposite a 2C opener (a suit bid after the overcall instead of a pass or double shows at least a good 5 card suit with 2 out of the 3 top honors and probably slam interest).

4) Look for opportunities to obstruct the opponents bidding when you know it is their hand to make at least a game - but be careful when the vulnerability is unfavorable and your set may be worth more than their game.

This hand of the week could be sub titled a Tale of Two Bidding Sequences.  Since the play of the hand at any level spade contract is trivial as long as trumps are drawn as soon as possible, this Hand of the Week will concentrate on the two bidding sequences used at the two tables in a Swiss event at the Las Vegas Nationals.   

First, a comment on the lack of bidding by either West or East.  When dummy hit, I, as South, wondered about the fact that with 12 hearts between them, neither one chose to bid.  I decided (not that it made any difference to the play) that hearts must be 6-6 and the EW hands were as flat as possible with a 6 card suit.  In fact, one of EW must be 2623 and the other must be 2632.   

Let’s discuss the bidding sequence shown above.  South’s opening bid of 1S is normal.  North actually has three choices: 2C, 2N (Jacoby), or 4H (shortness).  I think partner’s choice of 2C is best since a slam (small or grand) will probably depend on the club suit.  South’s rebid of 2D is descriptive (remember that responder is captain and it is opener’s job to describe his/her hand as best as can be so that responder can decide level and strain).  2S by North sets trumps.  South continues with a 3D bid since it completes the description of his hand and leaves open the possibility of slam.  North now cue bids 3H and South returns the favor by cue bidding 4C (South thinks showing the club king is more important than showing the heart ace since partner has already cue bid hearts and fhe partnership accepted it was OK to cue bid kings).  Now the key bid in the auction is 5H, exclusion Blackwood.  This bid asks partner about key cards outside the excluded suit, in this case, hearts.  South answers 0 key cards and now North knows that they are missing the diamond ace and bids a small slam in spades.   As discussed above, no problem in the play as long as there is not a singleton diamond or club void lurking.   Nicely done, 6S bid and made. 

Now let’s contrast the bidding that went on at the other table.  Again, EW were silent.  South opened 1S, North bid 2C, South bid 2D, North bid 2S.  So far, exactly the same.  Now the train went off the track.  South bid 4NT (RKC).  South decided he should take over the captaincy and it cost him big time.  North responded 6D showing a void somewhere and an odd number of key cards (there are other ways to respond, based on partnership agreement).  South was in a pickle.  He had no way to know what void partner had so he had to guess.  Unfortunately, for South, he guessed diamonds and bid the ill-fated grand slam in spades.   Down 1 in a grand when your opponents bid and make a small slam is a big IMP loss.  I have some sympathy for South since his hand was gigantic opposite North’s bidding but he should not have taken over the captaincy when he could continue his description and allow partner to decide level and strain.  One other point: how did South decide partner’s void was in diamonds and not hearts?  Since he had only 1 heart himself, it is logical to think that North’s void is in diamonds and not hearts.     

Lessons:

1. Responder is captain until voluntarily relinquished.  If you adhere to this rule, it will save you much anguish. 

2. Opener’s job is to describe his hand as best he can and leave the decision about level and strain to responder. 

3. The first bidding sequence described is good since South was able to describe his hand very well and let North decide how to proceed.

4. Exclusion Blackwood is a nice tool when you have a void.  However, if you and partner decide to use this powerful tool, be sure you are in agreement on the responses.  I like simplicity: 0 KCs, 1 w/o the Q, 1 w the Q, 2 w/o the Q, two w the Q. 

5.The second bidding sequence is a good example of what might happen when you take the captaincy when it has not been voluntarily relinquished to you.  South found himself having to guess and made a reasonable but wrong guess on this hand.

Wednesday Evening, Hand 2, BCA, June 18th, 2014
 

Editor's Note: This fine hand write-up is a guest author submission from Steve Bruce.

I found this hand most interesting from a defensive standpoint, but it was also interesting because of the bidding and that it was played eight times with seven different results!
 
At my table my partner Passed the East hand, even though he was not vulnerable against vulnerable opponents and had a seven-card suit.  South was a bit light for a vulnerable 3 Spade opening, so he fudged and opened with a 2 Spade bid on his 7-card suit.  I was West and jumped to 3NT.  After North Passed, it appears normal for East to bid their seven-card suit – but it would not be the winning bid in this case.  6NT is a maker, even though the Defense has the Ace and King of Spades, and 4H can go down (and should, in my opinion).
 
At my table, South was on lead against a 4H contract and made a really nice lead of the 3 of Spades (this was after opening 2S).  The 2 of Spades was in Dummy, so this was the lowest Spade that South could have and could not have been “4th Best”.  It was a chance to use Suit Preference at Trick One.  South is hoping for the best – if his partner could somehow win Trick One, either by holding the Ace of Spades or by ruffing (if they were void), then he would like a Club returned (so that he could ruff it) - the unusually low spade lead was intended to convey that message.
 
North won their singleton Ace of Spades and fell from grace by not returning a Club.  But, assuming North catches on to what his Partner’s low Spade lead implied, he should now return a Club, like their partner requested, but they, too, have a chance to show Partner suit-preference (at Trick 2) by returning their highest Club, the Ten, which should ask for a Spade back from Partner.  South will ruff the Club return with their singleton trump, then cash the King of Spades and lead a third round of that suit.  Both North and East are out of Spades, but North can trump with the Jack of Hearts as East watches helplessly by.  This means that East will have lost two trump tricks (a Club ruff and a Spade ruff) despite holding seven trumps to the Ten-Nine-Eight opposite Ace-King-Queen third.  Ouch!
 
The hand was played eight times, with seven different results.  Seven times East played some number of Hearts.  The only duplicated score was 4H-E making 420.  The one pair that played in No Trump took 13 tricks (the Defense has to cash the Ace of Spades on the go or they don’t get it!).  The other seven pairs that played Heart contracts varied greatly in the number of tricks they took:  7, 10, 4, 12, 10, 13, and 11.  I can’t fathom how only 7 tricks were taken at a Heart contract, much less the one that took only 4 tricks, but 2H down one (7 tricks) and 5H down seven (4 tricks) were two of the contracts. 

Lesson

Suit Preference is a key tool and can even be used at trick 1! 

Wednesday Evening, 7/9/2014, Board # 8

A hand which has interesting lessons at every level from beginner to expert. An example of why Bridge is endlessly fascinating!

West opened 2H with 10 H.C. points mostly in "soft cards" like Queens and Jacks. East has great support but not really enough tricks to expect a likely game opposite a Non-Vul Weak 2-bid. However, East is sure the opponents have a spade fit so he bid 2NT (asking for an outside feature, typically an A or K) to stop the easy 2S opponent balancing bid. West, perhaps over in love with his soft 10 points, bid 3D (with only the Q!). West now assumed a two suit fit and bid 4H, ending the auction.

We'll start with what happened at the table. North chose to open the 4 of clubs and this lead gave declarer 2 club tricks - something he could not do on his own by leading clubs. Declarer now drew trumps and led to the QS. The defense won and returned a spade and declarer, after ruffing, had to play the rest of the hand losing only 1 diamond trick in order to make the contract. Declarer first finessed the club king and cashed the third club, eliminating all suits except diamonds and trumps in hand and dummy. Now, if any defender had 2 diamonds to the K, or if the K of diamonds was with South, declarer was home. He played the AD and all followed low. He played a small diamond towards the Q and South played the J. It was a time for West to think.

West decided that South was not likely to have KJx in diamonds - with that holding she might have gome up K on the second diamond lead. So, declarer played small and North could not overtake without setting up declarer's queen. South was on lead with only spades or clubs to play and the sluff and ruff gave declarer the contract! 

Now for the expert level analysis. South has to play the JD under the A to avoid being stuck in the lead and having to give declarer a sluff and ruff. Not easy to see at the table but there is really no holding where you have to keep the JD in order to set the contract. If you drop it under the A, partner wins the diamond play and cashes the setting diamond trick. 

5 Pairs played 4H and 4 of them went down - despite the fact that the hand analysis said 4H should make. Perhaps those players did not get a helpful club (or diamond) lead. North is better advised to play safe on opening lead with a heart. We will get to how declarer has to play after that leads eventually - but first let's look at ways to play the East/West diamond holding:

                                                                                              A983

                                                          K1074                                                             J2

                                                                                               Q65                                                                    

How can you play this diamond holding to lose only one trick and win 2? Lead the 9 from dummy and no matter what the right hand opponent plays you win two tricks (if he plays the J, you cover and later finesse for the 10, if he ducks, you lose to the 10 but later lead the Q and smother the J). When would you play the suit this way? Probably only after your left hand opponent has opened or bid diamonds in the auction. Then, you can win two tricks with this play whenever your right hand opponent has 2 to the 10 or J or a singleton 10 or J.

Finally, assume North makes a safe trump lead against 4H. How can declarer still make his contract (double dummy puzzle)? Hint: You have to remove spades and trumps and play diamonds as shown above for when South has a doubleton 10 or J. When North wins the diamond 10 or K (depending on what South plays after the 9 is led from dummy), he is end-played and has to lead clubs or give up 3 diamond tricks. Play out the cards and try it yourself!

Lessons:

1. On opening lead North should play safe and lead the 10 of trumps. Make an aggressive lead like a low club when you think declarer has an outside suit he will set up and then use to pitch losers. That is not the case here as you have length and strength in diamonds and spades - so try not to give away anything with your opening lead. As a side note, the club holding in these hands is sometimes referred to as "Frozen". That means, if either side leads the suit their side loses 2 out of the first 3 tricks. So both declarer and defense want to avoid leading clubs, if at all possible.

2. Declarer carefully elininated side suits before playing diamonds - the correct strategy to set up possible end-plays where you can get a ruff and a sluff.

3. South should see that declarer has eliminated side suits and the key play will depend on the diamond holdings. When the A of diamonds is played from dummy, South should stop and think and conclude that dropping the J is the only play that makes sense (if declarer has the Q10x or K10x dropping the J won't hurt and with declarers actual holding it is necessary to set the contract.

4. If you ever run across a similar diamond holding, but this time your left hand opponent has bid diamonds and is pretty sure to have the K, the way described in this writeup to play for a 10 or J doubleton or singleton on your right is worth remembering.

Hand # 19, Wednesday Morning (Regional Choice Pairs), 7/2/2014

With South bidding first, the auction went:      P    1D   1S   2H

                                                                      2S    P     P   3H

                                                                       P    4H    P     P