A little help required

Here's the hand:

♠	J T 9 x x x
♥	K x x x
♦	A K x
♣	-

and here's the auction:

North	East	South	West
1♠	/	/	X
2♣	?

You're the guy sitting East. Pass the first time is automatic. You might consider passing if North passed the double but that's been taken away from you.

What's going through your head, what things should a player consider, and where is all this going?
If you're the kind of person that needs more information make it up or, better yet, tell us how it's affecting your thought processes.

Not the expected auction

If everyone plays the same system the auction at every table will be the same won't it? I've heard this often from new players after getting their first taste of structured bidding. There's no good way to answer the question, I shrug and say something weak like "If we were all perfect you'd be correct". Ponder this hand from a week ago:

Vul: NS Dealer: South	♠ A Q 8 6 2 ♥ A 3 ♦ T ♣ Q 7 5 4 2
♠ 5 ♥ 8 ♦ A 6 5 3 2 ♣ A K J T 9 8		♠ J 7 4 ♥ Q J T ♦ K J 9 7 4 ♣ 6 3
	♠ K T 9 3 ♥ K 9 7 6 5 4 2 ♦ Q 8 ♣ -

It's the sort of hand that's likely to create swings. Dream up what you think might be a normal auction then consider what happened at my table.

Pass	There were people that opened my hand 1♥, 2♥, 3♥ or 4♥ but with four good spades I opted to pass. If forced I'll pick 1♥.
Pass	Maybe there was an Ace on the floor or he had some clubs in with his spade.
1♣	It's an endless debate and my partners on the 1♣ side. I don't have a problem with the principle but it's going to go wrong here.
1♦	Maybe not a standard action but not bad, definitely the least contentious action so far. West must be twitching at this point, after forgetting to open his big 6-5 shape everyone's bidding it for him.
1♥	Finally someone has to own up to a major and it may as well be me.
5♦	Ah there's that Ace.
Pass	Bet you wish you opened 1♠ now huh.
Pass	A little shell shocked.
5♥	Why me? If they have a 10 card fit we must have a 9 card fit somewhere. I'm pretty sure it isn't clubs and I'm on a guess in the majors.
All pass	Any takers?

The lead has to be a heart to beat 5♥. West made the understandable error of cashing the K♣ to have a look at dummy. If you're unlucky enough to catch a heart lead duck it, if West automatically continues you're in!

Doubled in 5♠

On the second board of a two board set after giving away a top on the first. You doubled a seemingly ridiculous 5♣ contract that wasn't. It made 12 tricks when "someone" misdefended. You hold this magnificent selection:

♠	Q T 7
♥	5
♦	A Q 4
♣	A K Q 7 5 4

and partner opens 1♠! There's not much you want to know about other than the three key cards you're missing, 4NT. 5♦ from partner showing 1 or 4 is a cold shower. Sadly you sign off in 5♠ which gets doubled on your left.
The opening lead is a small spade, partner plays small and lefties knave holds. Stomach churning I couldn't look away from the rest of the hand. That's right, LHO doubled holding ♠AKJ and no other tricks. Steaming profusely we drag out the score sheet:

Contract	Declarer	Result	N/S	E/W
6♠x	S	-2		500
6♠x	S	-2		500
5♠	S	-1		100
5♣	N	-2		200
6♠x	S	-2		500
5♠x	S	-1		200
6♠x	S	-2		500
6♠	S	-2		200
6NT	N	-3		800
6♠x	S	-2		500

That's right, freely bid to 5♠, caught an unlucky double, went down one, 78%.

Giving your mate a squeeze

We're all told to 'switch off' when we're dummy. To not pay full attention to the hand. It's a good habit to be in and it will help getting through long matches. A couple of nights ago I was doing just that but even through my haze of disinterest partner seemed to be doing something odd. The contract made, we scored it up, it wasn't a great board.

Later, after play finished there began a discussion on just how 3NT could be made. My partner had made and I remember some declarers managed an over. Here's the hand in question:

	♠ K Q J 9 ♥ Q 4 ♦ A T 8 5 ♣ Q J 7
♣ 2
	♠ 7 5 2 ♥ A K 7 3 ♦ Q 9 6 4 ♣ K 3

The goal is nine tricks in no trumps. To their credit the defence have made a good start; the objective is far from certain. The 2♣ indicates a 5 card holding given the defensive agreements. My partner won the K♣ to play on the suit without options, spades. The K♠ held at trick two but at trick three Q♠ fell to West.

At this point at many tables around the room West lost temperament. Throwing down the Ace of clubs all but concedes 10 tricks, yawn. Our West is not so nervous and continues a low club ensuring his partner holds an entry. To count up for declarer: 2 clubs, 1 diamond, 3 hearts and two spades make 8 tricks. The spades may break but that can come later. This was in fact the position:

	♠ J 9 ♥ Q 4 ♦ A T 8 5 ♣ Q
♠ - ♥ J T 6 ♦ J 3 2 ♣ A T 8		♠ T 4 ♥ 9 8 5 2 ♦ K 7 ♣ 6
	♠ 7 ♥ A K 7 3 ♦ Q 9 6 4 ♣ -

It appears that playing on spades, hearts or diamonds will eventually cede a trick. And as soon as you give them the chance the defenders will have the club suit. That is of course the point, if spades, hearts and diamonds are wrong the correct play must be in clubs. The Q♣ exit to West was simple enough for East but what to pitch on the fourth and fifth rounds of clubs?

The play is named as a suicide squeeze. Normally a squeeze involves cashing your winners to force discards but when you have none somebody else's will serve.

Discovery Play

A discovery play is just a fancy name that experts use to describe avoiding the problem. When you have a suit you can play two ways, maybe the classic:

♠ KJx - ♠ ATx it usually pays not to do anything about it until you have to. The idea being if you make the decision later you'll know more about the hand and be better prepared to make it. Maybe you'll discover you needn't do anything. There are other good things that can happen too: sometimes the defenders will help you out which is a "defensive error" or they'll have to help you out which is an "end play".


If all that happens is you learn a bit more then it's called a discovery play. Here's a hand I saw recently that provides an opportunity to discover something in 4♥:

	♠ A x x ♥ K T x x ♦ x x x ♣ K Q x
2♣
	♠ K x x ♥ A 9 x x x ♦ K x ♣ A x x

The black suit mirroring is a downer. You'll have to lose a spade and a diamond and you could lose another diamond and as many as two hearts. The question is are you going to play the heart suit cashing the Ace then King playing for no loser but you could lose two or will you take the safety play, finessing on the first round guaranteeing one loser?

Well find out! Win the club on the table and lead towards the K♦. If the King wins you can afford (and should take) the safety play. If the King loses the situation is more desperate and hearts will need to be kind.

Difficult to bid

Some hands have a quality to them that incites true hardship in their bidding. This is one such from a teams match I played recently. There are several problems to be avoided on this hand, lots of suboptimal contracts to fall into. If you step wrong setting the wrong strain you may not realise for several rounds of bidding.

♠ A x x ♥ x ♦ A K Q J x ♣ K x x x		♠ - ♥ A K Q J x x ♦ 8 x x ♣ J T x x

I'll postulate a few auctions to demonstrate the problem then throw it open for anyone to suggest a better way. It's never the same when you can see both hands but do your best. If you want to bid it as a partnership I suggest the following: write down the hands, email one to your partner and forget about it. Later discover the email, wonder what it's about then see if your partner kept the other. Or give it to your friends then rat them out here!

West	East
1♦	1♥
2♣	3♥
3NT	???

That was the auction at my table, it's unclear how either hand actually goes on from there. A spade stop is surely a sign of wasted values. I bid 3♥ to try emphasize the heart quality rather than using fourth suit forcing. An expert pair I gave the hand to bid it like this:

West	East
1♦	1♥
2♣	2♠	4th suit
3♠	4♣	agrees clubs
4♦	4♥
4♠	5♣
5♦	5♥
5NT	6♣	Grand try!

Marks for effort. They found out a lot about the strength of the suits and the suitability for slam but the strain is wrong. Unfortunately when you jump on the cue bidding merry go round you can't change strain... it's always another cue. The trumps just aren't good enough for 6♣ and even if you can pick them a 4-1 diamond break might see you conceding a ruff. Here's a relay sequence:

West	East
1♣	1♠	4+ hearts
1NT	2♣	and 4+ clubs
2♦	2NT	high shortage
3♣	3♠	0=6=3=4
4♣	4♥	3 controls
4♠	4NT	AKQ in hearts*

West can count 12 tricks in hearts or NT if the hearts are 3-3 but can't make any further useful enquiries. Passing isn't an option as 4NT won't make if the hearts don't work so West may settle for 5♦. Or they might feel lucky.

I believe the perfect contract is 6NT by West failing only to unfavourable red suit splits. 6♥ by West is close but may go down to a club ruff and by East could fail on a club through the King. 6♦ might appear to be as good as 6NT but you'll lose your lunch on a heart lead.

*Normally AKQ or none but given the spade void and West's controls there's no ambiguity.

Thank you!

To the members of Bowls Papanui and their president Mr Peart. They will for what may be the rest of this year be hosting the Christchurch bridge club on their premises. I've heard several stories of where the club has gone out of it's way to accommodate us and we are all very grateful.

I played on Tuesday this week gone and we had a turn out of about 25 tables or just over half of usual. Hopefully once the word gets around and our normal events and tournaments start back up again we'll get the numbers we're used to.

Make more contracts

How about if I told you there's a suit combination which if you play correctly will increase the chances of an extra trick by nearly 23%. Your eyes would probably glaze over and you'd fall asleep. This happens all the time though and you will make extra tricks.

This post is meant to be instructive. This means it'll break readers into 3 rough categories the A's who think this is obvious, the B's who are interested but will skim rather than read and the C's who will learn something. Hopefully there's a couple of C's out there and they can apply this.
So what's the suit combination? Well here it is;


♥ KQxx - ♥ Jxx
yep just that. It's of course the same if you shuffle some things around:


♣ KJx - ♣ Qxxx
how many times does that suit combination come up in the 3NT contracts you play? Lots. You might even have two suits like that.
Normally your chances of making 3 tricks in this suit is exactly 35.5%. That's the chance that both of your opponents hold three cards in the suit. To improve this at the cost of an entry lead twice towards the hand with two honours. The chances of catching Ax onside is 8.1%. Just one more thing from the arsenal of good players.

Critical errors

Through playing bridge we make mistakes. I make lots. When I make an error so glaring that my partners therapy is put back several sessions I write it down. After a while I collect a list and when a common theme arises I try to correct it. Lately I've noticed a particular error coming up more than I'd like. I bid too much on distributional hands where there's ample evidence it's wrong. This hand is the embodiment of the kind:

♠	-
♥	K J T x x x x
♦	A T x x
♣	K x

Vul against not and playing a serious teams match I held the collection above. My mind went into overdrive at the possibilities. There's so much potential here for making a big score. My partner was dealer and opened 2♠ which shows 5 spades and 4+ cards in a minor with weaker than opening values. The next hand passed and after tanking I made a stupid bid. 4♥. It's wrong. The worst thing is I considered 3NT as well which is even more wrong. Fortunately my poor decision making infected my left hand opponent and I avoided a red card.

♠ - ♥ K J T x x x x ♦ A T x x ♣ K x		♠ A Q J x x ♥ x ♦ Q x ♣ J T 9 x x

Here are the reasons why I bid 4♥:

1. I have a 7-4 shape and they're really powerful. Partner has shown values - I simply have to bid a game.
2. Vulnerable games are critical.
3. We're playing in a final - bidding the wrong thing could cost the tournament. Bidding too much is usually less bad than bidding too little.

And these are the things I need to think about to avoid such a critical error!

1. This is a misfit, while it's possible we do have a fit in diamonds it's more likely partner has clubs.
2. Distributional hands that misfit need roughly the same number of points as balanced hands to make game, I have 11 and my partner fewer.
3. Partner has stuck out his neck in spades at unfavourable. His spade suit will be of good quality and likely completely wasted if hearts are trumps.
4. I've wrongly classified the hand as one in which game is possible. Instead this is a scramble for any making spot, the desirability of vul games is irrelevant.
5. I spent too much of my time deciding between 3NT and 4♥ when they're both truly awful bids.

Some other thoughts: reason 3 isn't a bridge reason and needs to be eliminated also the match wasn't going that well and I wonder how much that affected my need to bid a game that might catch us up. There's no point in swerving on the highway to avoid catching a cold.

So what should I bid? 3♥ is non forcing and definitely an improvement, partner may raise with a good 5314. Of the less aggressive options pass and a correctable 3♣ I favour 3♣, it will always increase the number of trumps we have and when partner is 5-5 as here it might even make.

Perfect Cards

One of the most common things you hear in post mortems is "but what if you held".

A couple of years ago I went to a talk given by Ron Klinger to the current NZ youth bridge team. Ron is an Australian expert, teacher and author of many bridge books. Since he was in town the national association hauled him in to attempt the impossible, impart bridge judgement to youth players. We were at a bridge club in Wellington that looked like this:

Fort Knox (src Cliff)

Well maybe not exactly like that but if you walked down the right street with that picture in mind I bet you'd find it. In one example Ron gave us that has stuck with me we were given four hands, asked to evaluate them and given an auction rank them from best to worst. Problem was they were all the same shape and all had the same number of aces, kings, queens and jacks.

What he was trying to say (I think - maybe I missed the boat here) was that although it's very hard to find out if partner has perfect cards it is possible to recognise when you have them. Consider the following two hands and the auction below:

♠ A J T x ♥ Q x x x ♦ K x ♣ A x x

♠ A x x x ♥ A K x x ♦ Q x ♣ J T x

East	South	West	North
1NT	/	3♣	/
3♦	/	4♣	/
?

3♣ was a transfer to diamonds. Which of the two weak NT do you like the most?

Partner is 5-5 or 6-4 (maybe more) depending on your agreements. We didn't have any so I guessed at 5-5. That means he has 3 cards in the majors. How good is AJTx opposite one small? Or Qxxx opposite Ax. In terms of bringing in a slam these aren't good holdings. With the second hand however I can cover all of partners major losers and fill out his suits with my minors!

North	East	South	West
1NT	/	3♣	/
3♦	/	4♣	/
4NT	/	5♦	/
5♥	/	6♣	/
7♣

4NT is 1430 keycard and I refuse to believe he has none. 5♥ asked for the trump queen and 6♣ confirms he has it and some other stuff. We don't have the system detail to know but I suspect the stuff should be the K♦. 5 tricks in each minor and my three in the majors means the defence don't get any. I'll bid 7♣ though so in case we're missing the J♦ partner can ruff the third round of diamonds high before drawing trumps.

♠ A x x x ♥ A K x x ♦ Q x ♣ J T x		♠ x x ♥ x ♦ A K x x x x ♣ A K Q x

So not the best grand ever.
Nothing was breaking badly so we escaped to collect a welcome 11 imps.

Two roads diverged in a contract

The other night I played in what on the surface was a boring 3NT contract. It was at a home game as we've no bridge club but pulling together 4 teams to play a round robin of 10 board matches was a good effort. This hand came up in the first match and generated lots of discussion. How would you play it?

	♠ J x x ♥ T x x ♦ x ♣ A K Q x x x
2♥
	♠ K Q x x ♥ K x x ♦ A Q J x ♣ x x

Your auction was a rather messy 1♦ - 2♣ - 3N. It's not good but you have to live with it! The 2♥ lead is a "reverse attitude" lead. A low card means hearts is actually Wests suit rather than a prospecting 2 or 3 card holding. Playing small from the table East wins the Ace and returns the Jack; it seems right to duck as West may be caught napping. Not this time though, West overtakes and clears the suit.

If the clubs don't break the contract becomes a single track so lets presume we have 6 club tricks. Add to that a diamond and the heart we just banked takes us to within 1 trick of our contract. You can either take the diamond finesse or play a spade for your ninth. Which would you rather? Against good defenders can you expect to read anything into the pitches on clubs?

A new challange*

I was sitting at the bridge table a couple of weeks ago and came up with something brilliant*. Why not take two great games, bridge and yahtzee and combine them into one beautiful challenge.

For those not familiar with yahtzee it's a dice game. You roll five dice then choose a category like "3s" and you'd get three points for each three rolled, or four of a kind and you'd get the face value for any dice involved in a set of four. Here's the important part though, once you've used a category you can't use it again. So only once can you call something a full house.

What about a bridge event of 20 boards where you're allowed 20 bids. You can use them when you'd like but if you run out that's it. For further enjoyment* you could limit individual bids, 2x1♠, 3x1NT, 2x2♣ etc... Imagine picking up this hand and listening to partner open 1♠:

♠	x x
♥	A x
♦	Q J x x
♣	A x x x x

If you've only got one 2♣ bid left it might be wise to respond 2♦ lest you hold a gameforce sometime later. On the other hand the auction is likely to end in either 3♠, 3NT or 4♠ so maybe you should just pick one now to preserve bids for both you and your partner.

Further development and investigation is required to fine tune the bids available per board. Doubles are likely exempted otherwise seeing you bid a fine slam with your last bid the opponents could greedily sacrifice undoubled - but then, you might have bid the slam in fewer calls.

*For some definitions.

Card Reading

Card reading is one of the most important skills of any good declarer or defender. Ignoring the little cards is like going hiking without a map. Or pants. You either get hopelessly lost and don't know why or someone seeing your crimes against decency is suitably taken aback.

Card reading is the art of using your or your opponents lead and carding conventions to best advantage. Here's a hand from an old tournament that I was replaying against Jack: You're the declarer after opening a weak 1NT:

	♠ 4 2 ♥ J 7 2 ♦ A J 9 7 3 ♣ J 8 3
2♦
	♠ A T 8 7 ♥ A K 9 4 ♦ Q 4 ♣ 6 4 2

The opponents are playing 4th highest leads.
The first thing to notice is that this problem is never going to be about guaranteeing a contract. Like so many weak NTs this will depend on a bit of luck and the defence starting blind.

Given the auction there's no reason to expect that West would lead from a 3 card holding so we can be reasonably assured that the 2 is a true 4th. Secondly the most superficial analysis indicates that there must be a higher expectation of tricks in diamonds by playing small rather than the Ace. We must always score two diamonds if we duck but may only score one if we rise.

That's all that card reading gets you at this stage. After than you need the discipline to use it. You play the 3♦ off the table and East plays the King. You can write down the diamond suit: Txxx - Kx! It's a simple matter to drop the Q♦ under the King, win the heart return (that defensive error we needed) and finesse the 9♦ to take 4 diamonds, 2 hearts and a spade.

A chance to display your cleverness: the contract is doomed if East follows small to trick one rather than hoisting the King, is this merely a curiosity or should East get this right?

Bridge in the meantime

The Christchurch Bridge Club is broken. There some cracks in the masonry, a couple of doors won't open because the building is resting on them and the carpark has rippled and blistered. I'm not even allowed to go there and take pictures to post showing you how broken it is.

This is a photo I took on the day of the earthquake of a major road less than a block from the bridge club. For those who know Christchurch this is Fitzgerald Ave between Kilmore and Bealey. If one of those cracks goes under your building it's stuffed regardless of how well it was built.

Anyway what I'm trying to get to is I've been playing bridge against Jack (v3.01 - the ancient edition). It's always an experience playing bridge against a robot. I waiver between trying to control the machine and getting frustrated because that's not how you play bridge and actually playing seriously. Every so often though it makes a catastrophic blunder to ensure it's mechanical nature isn't in doubt.

The little 1 and 2 by the doubles would say "Penalty double" if I waved the mouse at them.