From The Desk of GIB

You reach a non-vulnerable 3NT in an uncontested auction (better not disclosed) after partner opens the bidding and are greeted by the lead of ♣ T. You discard a heart and your RHO plays ♣ Q. Plan the play.

Dummy
♠ Q94
♥ K9743
♦ A8753
♣ —

You
♠ A87532
♥ Q
♦ KQJ
♣ KJ3

GIB wins the first trick, cashes two top diamonds from hand, and, noticing the 3–2 break, overtakes the last diamond with ♦ A. Then GIB cashes the two good diamonds. LHO discards two clubs, while RHO discards two hearts and then a club. Now what?

The right play, according to GIB, is now to lead ♠ Q and run it, which—witnesses to this deal might remember—is what I did. I had in mind an avoidance play against RHO, which ultimately aims at setting up a spade trick.

In the actual layout, LHO wins with his singleton ♠ K and returns a heart to put the contract one down (double-dummy best defence).

Double-dummy 10 tricks are available at notrump if declarer plays a low spade to his ace after cashing all his diamonds, so GIB would go down (as did I). So go celebrate, all you double-dummy junkies.

(LHO's cards are ♠ K ♥ A65 ♦ T64 ♣ AT9642. RHO's cards are: ♠ JT6 ♥ JT82 ♦ Q875 ♣ 92.)

Xridge - Men

Scott Prashanth Summers (Cyclops) was trying to fight his distraction and concentrate on development of his mutant powers. He has been distracted by telepathic interaction with Jean X Gray. Cyclops looked at his partner Guthi Logan (Wolverine) his cards with his adamantium claws. The bidding was brisk until this point.

Cyclops held:

-Void-
AKT9xx
K8xx
Qxx

Bidding so far uncontested was (all non-vul)
1D-1H
2c-?

Cyclops was thinking, thought was his mentor Professor X would do at this situation. Then his thoughts wandered to Jean X Gray. Then he saw his partner wolverine's claws sharp edges. They were aching for some action. As though that was an inspiration, he called 6D. All said pass.

Analysis: The mutant pair is playing modified precision club. 1D opening promises no diamonds at all. But the 2C rebid confirms at least 9 cards in minors. If partner had 4Ds and 5Cs , its better to play in a 4-4D with the 5-3 as a potential source of tricks. If partner has 5Ds and 4Cs, there should be entries to cash those juicy hearts, which look rather easy to establish - entries being the only question. there could be two key cards missing, but is there a convenient way to ask for them?

How about a 4th suit force? If you are looking for a 3 carder heart, its not so useful as this partnership raises with three cards on unbalanced hands and tends to rebid 1NT with all balanced hands. 9 cards in the minors implies its not a balanced hand - so unlikely opener has 3 hearts. there is no point trying for a 6H, the short trump hand can't take the spade ruffs. So 4th suit force should be with an intention of setting diamonds as trump and investigating slam. Ok-a?

If you are a regular partner ship, and have agreements on void wood, its the best. I expect the auction to go like this: 1D-1H; 2C-2S; 2NT-3D; 3S* - showing spade king and (no heart honour?). Will you still push for a slam with that hand? Will 4S still be void wood? Confusing-a?


Q1) Do you agree with Cyclops's bid - the blast to 6D?
Q2) after 4sf and setting Ds as trump, in that sequence with 3-1-5-4 and spades and hearts being KJx and Q what will you respond over 3D ?
Q3) will 4S be void wood in that sequence? 1D-1H; 2C-2S; 2NT-3D; 3S*

The play:

-Void-
AKT9xx
K8xx
Qxx


KJx
x
AJTxx
A9xx

Lead: small Spade.

Quick analysis: Do not discard anything from dummy - you are in danger of losing a trump trick. just ruff the spade in dummy. Establishing hearts seems to be the best plan.
If hearts break 3-3 and trumps break 2-2; there are tricks all over the place. 5 trumps, two spade ruffs, 5 hearts and a club - 13 tricks.
If hearts break 3-3 and trumps break 3-1; you can still make 12 tricks and may be even 13 if the Q dropped and RHO has the 3 carder trump.
If hearts break-4-2 and trumps break 2-2; can make only 12 tricks; 5trumps + 2 spade ruffs + 4 hearts + 1 club. (don't consider Ace of spade dropping/being played on J)
If hearts break 4-2 and trumps break 3-1; most interesting case: Now the heart spots become important. The analysis of that will call for another post I think. So I leave it you junta!

Opener's hand - choice of rebid

Note the choice of rebid - there is a close call between 1NT and 2C. So far - Vinoth and Prajwal answered that they will rebid 1NT; SP, Ashok and I say 2C.
I think if you the rebid is 1NT, there should be methods to make sure partner doesn't push to heart game thinking there is at least a 2 carder with the opener.
Playing 2-way checkback there is a lot of advantage but can it address this problem?

PS: I hope you all got the references to X-Men characters.

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.