Think a little more!

Last night on BBO I typed "Thinking..." a couple of times and when I made the contract Anusha prompted "So thinking works :)". Well of course thinking works, and the lack of forethought can end up losing your board. Case in point, this board came up a couple of boards after the "thinking" board and this time I didn't think much:




Anusha had opened a heart but led a diamond. As you can see, lazy play result in a quick -1. I should have immediately realized that if she had a 5-carder diamond to go with her 5+ cards in hearts, I wouldn't have time to set up all my tricks. Accordingly I need to play her for a singleton or doubleton club ace. This would require some careful entry management:


- Win the DA
- Cash the SK and the SQ. If they break 3-2, overtake the SJ with the SA to generate a second entry.
- Lead a club up to the J. If Anusha doesn't play the club ace, I play the CJ and duck a club back.


This gets me 3 club tricks if she has a singleton or a doubleton club to go with 4 spade tricks, the DA and one trick in whichever red suit they attack.


What if the spades break 4-1? Now I can try to sneak a finesse of the S9 and hope that Vinoth doesn't realize he has to hop up with the S10. But for a legitimate chance of making, I have to hope for diamonds 4-3 which would give me time to set up a heart trick and end up with 4 spades, a heart, 2 diamonds and 2 clubs. So it depends on how sleepy Vinoth looks ;)


Finally, how can I improve upon the line if the club ace is with Vinoth? Duck the first round of diamonds and take the second. Now he doesn't have a diamond to return; if he returns a heart, we gain the tempo to make the contract.


Cheers,
Prashanth.

Bowring Squeeze

This hand came up in the recently held Karnataka State Championships in Bengalooru's Bowring Club.

I'll present the North -South hands ( no need to rotate the deal; South was actually the declarer ;p) Opponents do not bid at all; so auction & Vul don't matter. [Assume you are playing IMPs, though the deal came up in the MP event ]

954
K4
AK3
A9873

A6
AQ95
Q974
Q62

The lead is spade 3 to which RHO plays the Ten.
Plan your play.

If you decide to play a low club to the Queen, it loses to the king ( RHO plays the 4 of clubs) and the opponents cash - hold your breath - three rounds of spades (lucky, spades are 4-4) State your two discards from hand and one discard from table.
Say RHO keeps the lead at trick 5 and returns heart 2, 5, 8 to dummy's King. There is no way clubs will yeild 2 tricks. The ninth trick can come if Diamonds break 3-3 - how will you go about playing the cards?
If you play Club Ace at trick 6, you'll see Rho discarding a Heart.
Figured out the distribution of the whole deal?

Here is the hand RHO held.

QJT2
762
JT62
4

Also, do you see how this comfortable position is broken?


Cheers
Guthi

Co-operative coup

Remun is one of the fairly regular Chennai bridgers who's family has been playing bridge for 3 generations. He is known for the 4 card major system that he favors. Like other gold age bidders, Remun is not fond of using too many conventions but his card play and defense is immaculate. Those who have played against him will know about his excellent table presence. For the second time I played in his team this year at Lotus Club, Ernakulam. We had horrible run at TO4 and Pairs. I partnered Prajwal in Pairs. BAM turned out well, which our team won with 92 while the second score was meager 76.

The only highlight of TO4 event was a deal that Remun played. LHO opened 1D, P doubled, RHO bid 1H and Remun holding ATxx Jx Jx ATxxx jumped to 4S to hear 3 passes.

LHO led QH and dummy tabled,

xx

AKTxx

AQxxx

K

Remun is not the man of strip squeeze or crocodile coup.. but he is an expert in "co-operative coup", a term coined by himself to refer to impossible contracts that he makes with some help from defender; here it was in the form of the lead.

Seemingly hopeless contract of 4S was played with high confidence by Remun. The QH lead was won with the A in dummy and a low S was let run. LHO who won the trick, returned another H. The J in hand won the trick and R played A and low S, to notice Q and J of S crash. LHO returned a club. R won in dummy with the K and played AH discarding C from dummy. RHO was forced to ruff with the K, who returned a D. After finessing the Q, R discarded all the club losers on H and claimed the contract.

Bravo! Always nice to make impossible contracts in miserable trump fit.

Slam Bidding

Years pass by with us still trying to get the hang of slam bidding. Each person has his own idea/ style of bidding, which doesn't make any sense to the partner at the other end.

I was playing on bbo today when I came across an interesting deal. As dealer, P opened 2C (strong). The bidding went as below:

2C-2D-2H-2S-3H-4C-4D... Let me stop here for a moment and review the auction.

2C is strong; 2D is GF waiting bid; 2H is puppet to 2S; 3H is showing 6 H.

Question 1: What is 4C here?

I think it has to be cue. Assuming 4C is cue, 4D should be cue by p. I held xx xx KJTxxx Kxx. I felt the need to show p that I had nice D values which could be useful to make a slam. Hence, I made a call of 5D. His 5H bid became the contract.

I was totally shocked to see that his hand was Ax AKQxxx AQ Axx. Clearly P didn't get what I wanted to convey with my 5D bid. Otherwise, he wouldn't have missed a grand.

I was about to discuss this with Guthi to know what would have happened if I was playing with him; in the process, I realised there were some more basic misunderstandings between us.

Question 2: Would you show the D suit after 2C opening (in our system by bidding 3C )?

In my opinion is that it affects p's bidding space, hence should bid 2D unless u have a good suit of your own and would like to set it as trump. (KQT 6 carder will do)

Question 3: After 4C cue, should opener bid 4H with minimum hand for 2C opening even with controls both in S and D?

(Guthi, could you explain your point on this?)

Question 4: Could someone throw light on voidwood? Is 5D in the sequence I gave played as voidwood?

My understanding is voidwood is a jump bid after trump has been set. In the above case, 5D bid after 3H would be voidwood.

The Right Spot

Jubilee Hills Tournament '09 had quite many interesting deals to learn from. Let me start with a small bidding deficiency that came up when KRV-D.Vijay pair played against Kachchu and Co. in the Pairs Finals.

Kachchu held Ax; T9xxx; xx; KJxx opposite a NT opening by partner. A transfer and 2NT invite landed the pair in 3NT as partner accepted the invite. Result was 3NT-1. Partner's hand was J9x; KQx; AKQx; Qxx. On a S lead, there are 3 spades, a H and a C loser. While, 4H has a good chance even on S lead. Either J H on side or D 4-3, contract is home. KRV with a smile commented "Kachchu! If only you had shown your unbalanced hand with 4 card club, you would have been in the right spot". Though he did not suggest any system for that. It's not difficult to frame one.

This is what I suggest: After a transfer and 2NT invite, when NT bidder has maximum, he can use 3C enquiry for finding the right spot.

1NT - 2D

2H - 2NT

3C - ? 3D - one 4 card minor suit

- 3H is relay over which 3S is 4 card C, 3NT is 4 card D

3H - 3=5=3=2

3S - 3=5=2=3

3NT - 2=5=3=3

This system also helps when the NT opener has a 5 card minor, 5 of a minor might be the right spot while 3NT has a suit open.