That unlucky 5

Playing in our weekly IMPS game the other day, I did one of my usual overly aggressive things and opened 3S (NV vs NV) on the following 2S hand KQJ643 JT Q653 8 in first seat. I felt the Spades were a little good and the 2 suited nature added to the offensive value, hence the bump to the 3 level.

The auction was quick after that, double by LHO, all Pass. So much for wanting to head for the 3 level I thought.

The opening lead was the 2 of Spades and pard put down a dummy I really probably did not deserve, 87 K9xx Kx Kxxxx, but was very appreciative of. Ok, so I am off 4 Aces, that does not mean I am down yet, but kind of cuts into the wiggle room a little. And with that hand, partner may question my bidding a little more than usual if I don’t come close or make this one.

So the first question is, what was the Pass of the Double on. I am assuming the rest of the Spades, so that means RHO has AT95 in his hand, making the Spade suit real interesting. Although a Spade lead is normal on these auctions, it looks like that might not have been the ripper here, with the interesting spot cards. The other question is, does RHO have much other than those Spades? I expect not much, since that leaves LHO with a probable 3 Aces and a couple of Queens for the double. I am sure there might be a stray Q in RHO’s hand, but I think on initial evaluation, I am going to play LHO for the majority of everything else, and RHO for only the Spades.

RHO covered the 8 of Spades with the 9 and I won my K (std philosophy here, always try to win with the highest of touching honors, as it tends to disguise your hand from at least 1 opp). I am really not happy with the line I took, as I think the opps could have beaten me if they thought about it a little more. I decided I needed to shorten my Spades for a probable trump coup, since I thought I needed to ruff a Diamond on board. I actually led a Diamond at trick 2, and LHO won the A and returned the 9 to boards K. I now led the K of Clubs off board, effectively requiring RHO to be 4243 to make the hand, and some help. I got it when RHO won the A of Clubs and returned a Club for me to ruff. When I led the J of Hearts and LHO played low, I won the K, ruffed another Club, cashed the Q of Diamonds, and led the 4th Diamond. When LHO pitched, I could claim by ruffing and leading another Club off board, scoring all my Spades minus the A.

The opps best chance to beat me is by killing my entries before I shortened my trumps. Win the A of Clubs, cash the A of Hearts, and lead another Heart. At this point, I would be forced to take the Heart hook, since I would not have the entries for a trump coup now. Turns out, everything was friendly, RHO had the distribution I needed, and the Q of Hearts was onside. So I think I was always destined to make the hand.

After the fact, I decided that leading a Club to the K at trick 2 was probably better. Assuming LHO wins the A and returns one, I can ruff, and lead the red suits up now, making on most distributions that RHO has. And if LHO ducks the A of Clubs, when the K holds, I can ruff a Club back to my hand and again lead red suits up, plus I have an extra trick to play with. Of course, if any of the A’s are offside, and RHO gets in to lead a second Spade, I have a lot more work to do, but it was a good day.

At the other table, the contract was the same, 3S doubled, but I do not know the auction to get there. Declarer lost his way though, and went down 1, so we wound up with a nice pickup.

The reason for the title is the small spot card RHO has vs the 6 in my hand. After the Spade lead, I can always pick up the Spade suit for 1 loser. But if you exchange my 6 and RHO’s 5, then on many lines, I require the trump coup to have any chance.

aaargh

Playing on BBO with a pick up partner last night, I had the kind of hand that always haunts for a while afterwards. My partner picked up this hand with us Vul and the opps NV, Q97 AQ74 J64 A54. I opened 1C in first seat and he bid 1H, I bid 2S, and I think I would bid 3C with this hand, trying to find out where to play it. Instead he bid 3S, which might work out and might not. I bid 4S. I think his hand calls for a move forward here, he has an opener opposite a reverse, but how, since he painted himself into a corner. And how do you even know the Spades are the right suit. I think at this point, I would bid 5C and hope for a 5D bid from partner, but he bid 4N, KC. I answered 5H (2 without the Q) and he jumped to 6S.

The opponents were not on our side and unsportingly cashed the AK of Diamonds for down 1 on the go. Fortunately Spades were 3-3, so AK84 opposite Q97 came in for no losers, for only down 1. My partner merely said unlucky, sigh.

Here is the full hand.

I still feel I have a reverse, it is just wether I should bid 2S or 2N over the 1H bid. I thought with the Qx of Diamonds, 2S was more descriptive of my hand. I looked later, and almost everyone bid 1S on the same auction with my hand, so I guess I was wrong.

The worst part was the scores on the board where it was played by other people. Of the 16 times it was played, 7 of them were in slams, 1 6S, 1 6C, 1 6H (!), and 4 6N. It was set twice of those 7 times. And of the 3 6N that made, they were all played by E, so South did not lead his 5 card Diamond suit. The other bad part was that 3N went down twice, both times by E. In each case a Diamond was led, and declarer put up the Q of Diamonds (!) at IMPS no less. At least in those cases, some justice was served.

I think the main part of this hand is the E hand has to tred carefully on this hand, even with an opener opposite the reverse. The 4333 distribution and effective 3 small in the unbid suit are not wonderful holdings. Even with a reverse, the hand may not play were anywhere, and you need partner to take a Diamond cue-bid to head for slam anywere. That is why I said I liked the 3C bid, trying to get partner to bid 3D. On this hand, you will probably hear 3H now, and you can bid 3S or 3N over that. At least that gets the core features of your hand across, and lets partner move on if they can.

What Defines a Good Slam

Playing in our weekly IMPS game, you have this interesting hand come up. Vul vs Not, you hold KT93 T75 AKQ8 AT. Playing weak NT’s, you open 1D, and over partners 1H, you bid 1N showing a strong (15-17) NT. Partner bids 2D (GF Stayman) and you bid 2S, then over partners natural 3D, you show the 3 card Heart support with 3H. Partner bids 3S, now what?


It is starting to sound like partner has a near mirror image of your hand with 3442 (could be 3541, but will bid 4H later if that is so), presumably with a good hand, since he is taking the slow road to find out where we should play, but how good is his hand? Assuming a Spade card for 3S, along with good Hearts since he has nothing in Diamonds, and presumably not much in Clubs since did not hear 3N here. So can the Hearts be solid, which would be required to have any good play in a slam, something like Axx AKQJ xxxx xx, with this auction. Even Axx AKQx xxxx xx, would make 6D against the odds, with quite possibly 3 losers.

I think this is a very hard hand to get correct with any kind of reliability, since how do you find out what partners 4th round in a specific suit is like. At the table, I actually jumped to 5D at this point, hoping with the right hand, partner would go on. After the fact, I think that a bid of 4C at this point is better, since I do not have to have a control in that suit. And then over partners whatever bid, now bid 5D.

On to partners actual hand, and whether this counts as a good or bad slam. He held Qxx AKQJ xxxx xx, close to what I needed, but Q instead of A of Spades. So the slam depends on picking up either the J of Spades, or guessing an Ax with either opp once Diamonds are 3-2. So all in all, not a good slam, probably coming in around 26-27%. Turns out Diamonds were 3-2, and based on the lead and pitches, I played RHO for the length in Spades, and thus the J. All of this worked so we did make +620, and I am still happy I was not in the slam, since I would have had to think about that a lot more than it required in 5D. But the final definition that is sometimes hard to argue with is whether it makes, and since this one did, it is OK, not up to good, but not as hopeless as some I have got myself into.

Don’t You Hate it When You Get Things ‘Almost’ Right

Playing in our IMPS League Weekly Game, I had a neat defensive problem come up that while we almost succeeded, the patient wound up dying anyways at the end.


Our Vul opps got to 3N on the simple auction 1H-1N-3N (4 card majors, 1N is not forcing). Partner led a Small Club, and the Club suit was

       Q9xxx
KJx              Tx
         Axx

I won the A, and led my middle Club back, declarer inserted the J, losing to the Q, and partner returned a 3rd Club, clearing the suit and setting up 2 tricks for us. The only problem remaining was to get partner in to cash them.

The interesting part of the hand is the battle in the Heart suit between declarer, having to set up a third trick in the suit, vs us, trying to force an entry to my partners hand to cash Club tricks. The other 2 suits are irrelevant to the story since they were going to provide a set (5) number of tricks for declarer, or enough tricks for us to set the contract, there was no way for declarer to set up any more tricks in those suits.

The Heart suit was, with the spots being of prime importance:

      K98
742       AQ65
      JT3

Declarer won the third Club in hand, and led the 7 of Hearts, partner put the 9 on this, a somewhat unusual card, and declarer played the Q. I survived the first hurdle by pitching the J of Hearts on this. (If I play low, declarer can always play for this position and keep partner off lead by leading up to the Heart A, and ducking if partner plays low, I will not be able to duck any longer) Declarer now came back to hand in Spades, and led a low Heart. Partner, worried about me having JT doubleton of Hearts, played the K now, forgetting that declarer never raised Hearts on the auction, something he probably would have done with 4, even if they were bad. Declarer played the A of Hearts on this, and I made the same mistake that partner did, playing declarer for 4 Hearts rather than the actual position, and did not follow through with pitching the 10 of Hearts.

When I played the actual low Heart, declarer came off board with a low Heart, hoping for something good, and it came up when I had to win this trick, giving declarer a lucky third Heart trick and the contract.

I really found this hand annoying for myself, since I had found the pitch of the J of Hearts under the Q, then did not follow through with the subsequent pitch of the 10, leaving the 8 of Hearts as the boss Heart for partner to cash the 2 Club tricks.

Of course, this might have been a little easier with the 8 of Hearts at the first Heart trick, but that does not really matter. When partner played the 9 and the K, I have to play him for the 8 as well, since there is no way for me to beat the contract if I win any Heart trick. Since it is IMPS, an overtrick from pitching the 10 of Hearts is not really going to matter.

At the other table, it was played from the other side, so there was no Club lead, so out partners easily made an overtrick with more time. This could have allowed us a big swing in the match, instead of winning 1 IMP.

How Good of a Suit Do You Need to Play In It?

Playing IMPS in a pickup team match on BBO, you pick up this hand NV vs Vul, Q AKQJ87 J6 AT92. Partner opens 1S in 2nd seat and you bid 2H. Partner now jumps to 3S.

At the table, I was not sure where we should play yet, so I bid 4C, hoping partner could make a Diamond Cue-Bid. Partner decided to be nice today, and bid 4D, over which RHO decided to wade in with 5D. I was hoping I was right on partners hand now, that he had a good Spade suit and the A of Diamonds, so I jumped to 7 Spades (Not Hearts), since I thought it might be easier for him to get to his hand in Spades, than me to get there in Hearts on a Diamond lead. Turns out this was important, since partner held AK98742 96 A Q63.

We actually got a Club lead, but on the normal Diamond lead, 7H has no play, while 7S is still cold on the 3-2 Spade break.

The other thing I was considering was 7NT, which is what they played in at the other table, however on the same Diamond lead, it eventually went off 3 tricks. Nice to win 17 IMPS every once in a while.

To Bid or Not to Bid

Playing in our weekly IMPS league, had a few hands come up that presented problems (opportunities) for all involved.


The first hand, you pick up this hand all Vul. A A54 J8xxxx xxx and hear it go P, 1S, 2S (Michaels) to you. You decide not to take a call here, and it now goes 3H, 4D, 4H back to you. I think this is a pretty easy 5D call here, which goes, P, P, 5H back to you, so what now?

First, do you even know who is sacrificing on this hand, or is anyone? The person on your right must have a pronounced 2 suiter to be bidding this way, and partner is probably fairly distributional as well. You have 2 fairly sure defensive tricks, but negative defense in Diamonds. (I count negative defense when you have a holding that will subtract from partners expected defensive tricks, here you do not expect to cash very many Diamonds) I would expect that you will beat 5H about 50%-75% of the time based on the 2 tricks that you have and 1 hopeful trick from partner.

The next question is, what are your chances in 6D? If you receive a Heart lead, and partner can pull trump and set up Spades for Club discards, fairly good, but will you receive a Heart lead on this hand? Give partner a hand like KQxxx --- AQxxx Kxx and you are a favorite for 6D, since 2 Clubs can not cash, even with less in Clubs, you would make on a Heart lead. However, I would expect a 6D bid will not receive a Heart lead in many instances, so would not count on those versions very often. All in all, I would bet that it is about 50-50 as to whether doubling 5H vs bidding 6D is better, and the payback on 6D is a lot higher, so the nod has to go in that favour. At the time, I thought 6D was a funny bid, but looking at it in retrospect, it is probably a close choice.

In reality, it is the winning choice, 6D goes down 2, but 5H was not going down on this hand. Rho was 1-7-0-5 with the AK of Clubs. At the other table, the auction went 1S-4H, and the 1S bidder did not take any action over 4H.

The next hand, All Vul, you pick up T9842 A5 AQJT6 J and hear it go 4H in first seat on your right, your bid? This has put you under tremendous pressure, and it is usually right to get in the auction with a good 2 suiter, but does this Spade suit qualify you? Think about what you would bid (in tempo remember) and I will tell you what happened at the 2 tables next.

At my table, my RHO bid only 3H, giving me almost the same problem. I decided this hand did not qualify for any sane bid, so passed, which went P on my left, 4C by partner, P on my right. I bid 4S, which went Double, P, P back to me. I did not relish running to partners suit with a singleton, I was not sure he would thank me, so decided to sit it out, at least partner would not have to play it. The opening lead was the Q of Hearts and partner put down an amazing hand, A65 3 87 AQTxxxx. The K of Diamonds was onside, and the defense made a small error in the Spade suit, allowing me to make an overtrick for +990 and a loss of only 7 IMPS.

Finally, you pick up xx KQT8xxx Ax Kx and open 1H in first seat, all Vul. Partner bids 2C over this and you rebid 2H, partner now bidding 2S, back to you.

At the table, my partner decided to slow things down with a 2N bid here, which got raised to 3N. Worried about being able to take 9 quick tricks after the expected Diamond lead knocks out his A, he opted to run to 4H, which bought the contract. The opening lead was the K of Spades, and this dummy tracked, A9xx --- Q9x AQT9xx.

Partner ducked this trick, and won the A on the Q of Spades continuation. He came to hand with the K of Clubs to play the K of Hearts, won by the A on his right, and he ruffed the Spade continuation (A Diamond switch would have been nastier). He now continued the Q of Hearts and when the 9 dropped under this, was able to drive out the J, win the now Diamond continuation, pull trumps, and run the Clubs for making 4. 3N was definitely easier though.

At the other table, this hand decided to bid 3H over 2S on the same start to the auction. He now received a 4H bid, a bid I really like, but decided that if partner had Heart support and a good hand, he had a great hand. 6H was not a success.

Those Pesky Opponents

Playing IMPS in our weekly game, had 2 interesting hands come up where you have to judge what level to play a hand in a competitive auction, always one of the toughest parts of the game. As the title suggests, why can’t the opponents get out of our beautiful auctions and allows us to make our own errors in our own way.

On the first hand, No one Vul, you hold AJx ATxxx J A9xx and hear it go 1S on your left, double by partner, pass on your right. This is certainly a GF hand, so you decide to start with 2S to at least start to set up a forcing auction. Partner bids 3D over that, and you now show Hearts with 3H. Partner bids 3S over that, so now what?

At the table, this hand bid 4C, and partner bid 4H, again back to you. What do you know about the hand. Partner has Diamonds and Hearts (presumably 5/6-4), and a good hand, due to the 3S bid on the way to 4H, and should have short Spades (since I can not see a 3S bid on this auction on 2 small missing all those A’s).

Since you have all A’s and the 5th Heart, I think you have to take another call here, if not just drive to a slam. At the minimum, a 4S call to invite moving forward. At the table, this hand passed, stating afterwards they were worried about what LHO (A solid bidder usually) had for the 1st seat opener.

In actuality, there is almost nothing to the play. Partner puts down x Qxxx AKQxx QJx. On the Spade lead, you win, cash the A of Hearts, the J of Diamonds, and a small Heart. When Hearts are 2-2, you can claim, and have lots of play even if Hearts are 3-1, as long as opener does not have the singleton. At the other table, they had an uncontested auction and did not reach the good slam, so it wound up a push board, but had chances for an easy 10 IMPS.

The second hand, you are Vul against Non-Vul opps (as we call it, terrorist vulnerability), with AQx AKx Jxx Qxxx, no spot cards. Partner opens 1D in first seat and it goes 3H on your right, your call.

I think this is a very tough problem, you have a good hand, but too much of your strength is in Hearts, and you do not have a 4th Spade or any shape. When I held this hand, I thought the choices were between Double and 3NT. And the problem with a Double is what am I going to do when/if partner bids 4S over it, I will be essentially guessing on where and at what level to play the contract.

I finally decided to just bid 3N at the table, which ended the auction. Partner also had a problem hand, and took a while before passing. We had a long discussion afterwards on what or even should he can bid over 3N, with no firm conclusion. Basically the 3H bid was perfectly timed to give us no room to both show extra values for our previous bidding. Partner held Kxxx x KQTxx AKJ, so slam was a claim, just giving up the A of Diamonds on a perfect fit. We also decided that the most likely person that can move on this hand is this hand, which can bid 4H over 3N, under the assumption that 4N is safe and is to play. On this hand, 4H will easily get us to some slam, pretty much all of which make.

As for the original problem, there was some discussion at the bar after about the merits of Double vs 3N, and a few of the Doublers said that over 4S they would basically give partner a choice of slams, 6D or 6S. I think this is being far too optimistic, what is partner to do after the auction 1D (3H) Double with something like Kxxx x AQxxx Kxx or worse Kxxx x AKQxx xxx except bid 4S, and this will create a very poor slam. The more I think about it, the more I think 3N is the only viable bid over 1D (3H), anything else leaves you really guessing. And if partner can not move over 3N on some hands, you may have to accept that sometimes pre-empts work.