What Do You Lead?

Holding ♠ KT2 ♥ QT82 ♦ 874 ♣ AJ9, you find yourself on lead, after your LHO raised your RHO's vulnerable opening (standard) 2 NT to 3 NT. What do you lead?

Assuming that the play after the lead is made will be double-dummy, it's possible to determine by simulations the best lead. Make your choice before reading on.

The average IMPs scored per deal for various leads(compared with the other table, where the opening lead too was double-dummy) are, with 500 hands sampled: ♦ 7/♦ 8 = −1.28; ♦ 4 = −1.30; ♥ T = −1.60; ♥ 8 = −1.77; ♥ 2 = −1.78; ♥ Q = −1.88; ♠ T = −2.02; ♠ 2 = −2.19; ♣ J = −2.54; ♣ 9 = −2.62; ♠ K = −2.89; ♣ A = −3.01.

I'd say the results are somewhat surprising. Noteworthy is the fact that even with the best lead, you're giving away an expectation 1.28 IMPs. The hand given is from Frank Stewart's column for yesterday.

I hope to analyse “perfect leads” of this sort in a more systematic way and blog about it.

Prajwal's Flamboyance?

Prajwal bid to a grand slam in clubs after Vinoth (his partner) had shown a balanced hand in the range 22–23 HCP, holding ♠ xxx ♥ xx ♦ Ax ♣ Axxxxx. At the table, the consensus seemed to be that it was an overbid. But was it?

The auction had revealed that all keycards and the ♣ Q were there (which gives Vinoth ♠ A, ♥ A, and ♣ KQ). Vinoth had also denied the ♥ K. Question: Knowing just this much, with no possibility of knowing anything else, is 7 ♣ the right bid for responder?

I ran a simulation with 500 hands (where Vinoth, in addition to the conditions mentioned here, is forced to hold at least 7 controls, which is the average for a 20-point balanced hand). The frequency table for tricks was: 13 - 56.4 %, 12 - 39.8 %, 11 - 3.4 %, 10 - 0.4 %.

You need slightly more than 60 % chances to bid the grand. That suggests that it was an overbid, but close enough. Remembering that this is double-dummy analysis, perhaps one can make the case that, at single-dummy play, it is in fact the right bid?

And just in case you're wondering what happens if Vinoth is the type of guy not to care whether he has 7 controls, the simulation with 6+ controls reduces the chances only slightly.

DKC in action

Take a look at this slam hand from yesterday.




Bidding commentary:

1H: 11-15, 5 carder

Sapan made a disciplined pass. Not strong enough for a diamond overcall. Not long enough for a diamond preempt.

2C: Natural, game force

It's interesting that Guthi chose to bid 2C rather than Jacoby 2NT. I would have chosen the latter.

3C: 4 card support, does not promise extras

3H: Showing heart support

3S: Showing a better than minimum hand and a 3 card spade fragment (question: how do I bid holding 4504?)

I love these shape-showing bids as compared to control-showing cue bids. One can always cuebid controls later.

4NT: Forget about cue bidding controls. Show me keycards. In hearts and clubs both!

We are playing double suit RKC (DKC for short) in double agreement situations. Guthi's hand is much improved by my 3514 shape (likely I have no values in diamonds, in effect we are playing with a thirty point deck). He bid 4NT intending to:
1) If I bid 5C showing 4 of 6 keycards, bid 6H
2) If I bid 5D showing 3 of 6 keycards, stop in 5H
3) If I bid 5S showing 2 of 6 keycards and the club queen, go and bang his head on the wall. Or my head.

5C: 4 of 6 keycards

Now Guthi knows my entire hand. Literally. My shape, my honours. There is space left for one more major jack somewhere which is anyway inconsequential.

6H: Only needs the club suit to come through, a good enough percentage to bid slam.


Play commentary:

Opponents led and continued diamonds for me to ruff. I pulled trumps and cashed the top spades to get an idea of opponent distribution. Sapan came up with one heart and two spades, so assuming he does not have a 7 carder diamond he must have a 4 carder club.

Here I made a mistake and forgot to unblock the 9 of hearts in dummy. So when the time came to play on clubs the situation was:


If Vinoth's club is not Q or 10 I am in trouble thanks to my lack of forethought. Fortunately the cards were friendly and we made the slam.

Do you:
1) Think slam should be bid on these cards?
2) Like/Dislike the bidding sequence?
3) Have any ideas on how I should bid holding 4504 shape?

Cheers,
SP.

Use of scientific bidding

Quite often you play a board where some of your bidding gadgets actually serve their purpose. You end up playing in the right contract, getting a yummy swing. One such thing happened recently on BBO. It was One of the regular BBO nights for me, with an irregular partner (as usual).

It’s good to use bidding space available to communicate with your partner and find the right spot to play in. The bidding on the table went like this.

2♣- various strong hand

2♦- waiting bid ( 2♥ would be double negative)

2♥- Kokish relay

2♠- Forced bid

2NT- 24-25 balanced hand

3♣- Puppet stayman

3♦- Denies 4 carder ♥

3♥- Check for 4 carder ♠

3♠- Shows 4 carder ♠

Amazing! All the bids from 2♣ to 3♠ were utilized and N can almost write down the various hands that S could have. Time to check for Key cards! SP bids 4NT RKC (1430); 5♣ is the response. Now what? which is the playing spot? 6♠... 6NT...

Stop guessing! N bids 7♠. A 75% slam converted to a 25% Grand slam. (apologies for the crude evaluation of percentages). 17 imps down the drain.

“Partner you had a lousy 24-25 hand!” SP declared.

Postmortem revealed that even with the best hand that South could possibly have (as per the bidding), 7♠ is just about 75% (may be a little lesser).

Don’t worry about the 17 imps! With the use of a scientific approach you are bound to get back the imps lost (provided you make use the information from the bidding).

Know your Zia-isms

The following hand happened on BBO yesterday:


Srini bid a psychic 3H (or semi-psychic considering it was 3rd hand) and left me stuck for a bid. Double would be for takeout, and if I pass it is unlikely that partner will balance at this high bidding level and vulnerability. So I looked again at the vulnerability and bid a brave 3NT. Or foolish, depending upon whether it makes or goes down.

"Nice dummy," commented Hamiko.
"I am a World Class dummy," declared Vinoth.

Hamiko led the 9 of hearts covered by the jack and the ace. Srini backed a low diamond, which I ducked around to the jack. A diamond went back to the ace and a low diamond was returned.

Long Pause #1.

Srini has preempted with A8xxxx so I reckon he must have some redeeming distributional feature, like a side 4 carder in diamonds. If that is the case, Hamiko has Jxx or QJx. The former looks more likely on this defense so I insert the 10. It loses and Hamiko exits passively with the final diamond.

Long Pause #2

So he didn't have a side 4 carder after all. Perhaps he did it because of spade shortness, trying to stop us from finding our 4S contract, in which case it worked, but I can still make 3NT by taking the spade finesse. But for now let me bide my time and try to get a better idea of the distribution.

So I play AK of clubs and run the hearts. Srini plays the ten and jack on the clubs. On the hearts Hamiko discards two clubs and a spade. The queen of clubs hasn't shown itself so I pitch the club from dummy arriving at this position:


If Srini had started with JT of clubs and xx of spades, the SQ will pop up from Hamiko's hand (it's a show-up squeeze) so I play SK and a low spade. Unfortunately the SQ doesn't appear.

Long Pause #3

There are now only two possibilities: Srini started with QJT of clubs and a small spade; or JT of clubs and Qx of spades. Which is more likely?

At this point I get reminded of a paragraph I read in Zia's book. Zia suggests that whenever you are considering a semi-psychic weak two or preempt (from lack of high cards in the suit, too few points, too many points, one fewer card, whatever), the scales should tip in favour of making the bid when you hold Qx (or even Qxx) in a key suit. The opponent will invariably finesse into your hand, as opposed to finesse through your hand, or play for a drop if you'd made a simple overcall. Srini is an expert player who knows his Zia-isms; also x A8xxxx Axx QJT has too much offense to be psyching 3H, so I decide to play him for Qx in spades.

I put up the spade ace and sure enough, the queen drops. 3NT made.

"I don't know why you were thinking so much. It was a simple enough show-up squeeze, no problem for a player at your level," commented Vinoth.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The next time I made a tough contract, I threatened him into saying "wdp".

Cheers,
SP.