Sapan's magic

Sapan Desai is a star player and probably one of the few in that age group in India who can play competitive bridge at the world level. Prajwal witnessed his awesome game play skills on BBO.
Here is the deal.
Plan your play on the lead of Heart Q.



Even on the friendly looking lead, there don't seem to be enough tricks.
Looks like the lead is from Qx, so even if we guess the spades correctly (which is easy) we are one trick short.

Here is the full deal.

Here is how the play went.
Heart Q to King.
Spade to the King
Low club from dummy. RHO plays the T and then King; LHO follows with 4 and 5.
Low spade from RHO. (remember the Dbl)
Sapan perfectly chose to finesse. Reaching this position....

Now the crucial part of the play.
Sapan cashed Ace of diamond
Spade to the Ace. ( RHO's distribution is now known 3=4=2=4 or 3415?)
Heart Jack, all following.
low heart to Ace, ( LHO discarding a small club)
last heart is ruffed in hand (LHO pitches another club)
now, small diamond! from hand
LHO must have thought declarer has the Queen of Diamonds and is playing for his partner to have Kx and played the Ten. Too bad, RHO won the Q and was endplayed into playing a club allowing the trumps to score seperately.
The crack is in cashing Ace of diamond as early as its safe making it difficult for RHO to unblock. If he had played the trumps and hearts and then tried this, RHO will figure out to unblock.
Bravo Sapan!

Prajwal and I think its a masterpiece indeed. But Vinoth disagrees, dismissing as a simple play. We are all eager to see him pull out such feats. :P

Tolani hands: #2 Sachin, an inspiration for bridge as well

Equal vul at IMPs you pick up this nice collection and are pleasantly surprised to hear your partner open 1H.
AKJx / Q8xx / Kx / Axx

You bid 2NT, Jacoby, and your LHO butts in with 3D. Partner passes and RHO ups the ante with a 5D bid. Now what? Double? 6H? 6NT?

At my table Tota chose 6H. At the other table Prajwal bid 6NT. Which do you think is better?

I would say 6NT. If partner has one small card in D, 6H may be better but mostly it won't make a difference. But if he has two small cards in D, 6NT will be the right spot.

Unfortunately, as the cards lie, 6H makes easily after the DQ lead, whereas 6NT is in a spot of bother (in both cases I am assuming the hearts come through without the loss of a trick). Prajwal went down, and as we were discussing the hand later while watching Sachin score up a century on the way to a win against England, inspiration struck him and he figured out the line to make it. Well, late is better than never I guess! Look at the NS cards and tell me, how will you make 6NT on a club lead, given the bidding and assuming you can cash five heart tricks.

Win the club ace and lead a low heart (not the queen!!) for a finesse. The king pops up so you happily take the ace and run your hearts, pitching a spade. Now cash a high spade and run the clubs, pitching a - diamond! Here is the end position:


I hope you have been counting west's diamond discards. If he comes down to the bare diamond ace, you can throw him in to lead into your spade tenace. If he comes down to three diamonds, you know to finesse the spade. If he comes down to a spade and two diamonds, the position is trickier. Do you try to fell the SQ, or do you take a spade finesse? Well. Look at west's face and decide :)

Cheers,
Prashanth.

EDIT: Anindya's comment made me realize that this hand came up at matchpoints and not IMPs. Not sure how that would affect the decision to bid 6H or 6NT.

Tolani hands: #1 The Other Side

I'll put up a couple of interesting hands that turned up at the Tolani Grand Prix.

It's the teams event and vulnerable against not, you pick up this ragged 11 point hand:
AJxxx / Qxx / xx / Axx

Do you open? Most people would say no. But holding a five card major, vulnerable at IMPs I am opening all 11 point hands. I open 1S and Tota, holding 18 HCP and four card support, drives to slam. He confidently tables dummy and I put on my best poker face and say "Thank you partner."

You are in 6S. Look only at the North-South hands and tell me, what are your chances? The lead is a low diamond; jack, king, small. Back comes a trump.

It looks like we need the diamond honours to be split to have any kind of a chance. A club can be ruffed in dummy and a heart can be thrown on a diamond, leaving us still a trick short.

I figure that the lead ought to be from diamond length. So if west has the king of hearts to go with Qxxx(x) of diamonds, he should be squeezed on the run of the trumps. I duly pull trumps, eliminate clubs, cash the ace of hearts (Vienna coup) and run the trumps.


I pitch hearts from dummy and the opponents throw away their clubs. On the last trump, west pitches the H10 without any apparent discomfort. So either east has the DQ (which I thought unlikely as he won with the DK on the first trick), or the HK, and my heart begins to sink.

But wait! East is squirming in his seat. After a long pause, he throws the HK. West had led from Qxx of diamonds, so east had to guard the fourth round of diamonds as well as the king of hearts. The squeeze I had planned had worked, but on the other side!

I cash the HQ and I have a choice of taking the twelfth trick in hearts or in diamonds. Tota comments, "When you opened 1S, looking at my hand I thought 6S would be easy." I shrugged and scored up +1430, expecting to find the opponents in game. But no, they too had bid the slam. Only, they went down! I asked if the lead had been a heart (which kills the contract) but no, the lead had been a trump, which does not change the chosen line of play. So that was a well earned 13 IMPs.

Cheers,
Prashanth.