The Gargoyle Chronicles: Board 88

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Board 88

Board 88
Neither vulnerable

♠ A J 8 6 5 ♥ 8 ♦ K J 6 5 ♣ J 10 9

Partner opens four hearts in second seat. Everyone passes, and West leads the ace of clubs.

	NORTH ♠ A J 8 6 5 ♥ 8 ♦ K J 6 5 ♣ J 10 9

	SOUTH ♠ K 7 ♥ A J 9 7 6 4 3 2 ♦ 3 2 ♣ K

West	North	East	South
		Pass	4 ♥
(All pass)

I don't care for partner's four heart bid. I'm not sure what's wrong with one heart. But this seems like a reasonable enough contract. I need to bring hearts home for one loser, and I need to guess the diamonds. I don't have much to go on for the diamond guess. The opening lead doesn't tell me much. Clubs is the opponents' longest suit, so the club ace isn't an unexpected lead. I play the nine from dummy, East plays the three, and I drop the king. West shifts to the deuce of spades. This, too, is totally expected. West would probably knock out dummy's spade entry whatever he was looking at in diamonds.

My best chance to guess diamonds is to lead the suit as soon as possible, before West knows how many diamond tricks he needs to beat this. Suppose I hop with the spade ace, play a heart to my ace, and play a diamond, intending to finesse the jack if West plays low. West may well hop with the ace for fear that I have something like

♠ x x ♥ A J x x x x x x ♦ x ♣ K Q

If he hops even part of the time, it boosts the odds of this line's working to better than 50%. It's not clear that I can do any better than that by postponing my diamond play. What can I learn that will help me? West, on the other hand, can learn a great deal. Once he knows he must duck, my chance of success reverts to 50-50. Often declarers postpone a guess like this on principle without any reason to believe that they will learn anything useful. Of course, it's OK with me that declarers have this tendency, since it makes the tactic of leading the suit early more likely to work. A defender may reasonably place you with a singleton precisely because you didn't postpone the guess.

It is important, however, that I conceal as much of my hand as possible to maximize the chance that West will hop with the ace. I can't afford to ride the spade around to my king, nor can I afford to come to my hand by ruffing a club, revealing that I have a singleton instead of king-queen. (Though I would certainly prefer to do that if I could. By playing a heart to the ace, I give up the chance of picking up the suit when there is a singleton ten on my left.)

I play the spade ace from dummy; East plays the four. I play a heart, and East plays the ten. That's good. He would split with king-queen-ten, so I'm no longer giving anything up by rising with the heart ace. I play the ace; West plays the five. I lead the deuce of diamonds, and West comes to the rescue by hopping with the ace. Trumps split, so I make four.

	NORTH ♠ A J 8 6 5 ♥ 8 ♦ K J 6 5 ♣ J 10 9
WEST ♠ 10 9 2 ♥ K 5 ♦ A 10 9 8 ♣ A Q 5 2		EAST ♠ Q 4 3 ♥ Q 10 ♦ Q 7 4 ♣ 8 7 6 4 3
	SOUTH ♠ K 7 ♥ A J 9 7 6 4 3 2 ♦ 3 2 ♣ K

I would have gone down had West ducked, so I have some hope of picking up a game swing on this board.

At the other table, South also opens four hearts. My teammate chooses to lead the ten of spades. Declarer rides this around to his king and cashes the heart ace. I would hate to be West. Surely he must consider dropping the king. If declarer has

♠ K x ♥ A J x x x x x x ♦ x ♣ K x,

unblocking the king guarantees down one. Unfortunately, the customary inference that partner rates to have the heart queen because declarer didn't take a trump finesse isn't necessarily valid here. Add the heart queen to declarer's hand above, for example, and I doubt he would win trick one in dummy to take a heart finesse. He has better things to do with his one dummy entry than to take a 20% shot at picking up the heart suit.

Rightly or wrongly, West chooses not to drop the king. Declarer continues with a heart, and West wins. Again, West has a difficult problem. I see logic both in a spade continuation and in a low diamond shift. But my teammate decides to try to cash club tricks instead. I suppose he does this to discover how many diamond tricks he needs. If he can cash two clubs, he will know not to duck the diamond ace. If he can cash only one club, he will know he has to duck the diamond ace. The problem with this line, aside from the fact that it gives up on beating the contract when declarer has king doubleton of clubs, is that it marks him with the diamond ace. Surely he wouldn't play clubs from his side if he thought his partner had an entry.

West plays the club ace, East plays the three, and declarer drops the king. Apparently suspecting declarer of some super-diabolical falsecard, West plays the club queen. Declarer ruffs this and no longer needs to guess the diamonds. Making four for a push.

Me: -420
Jack: -420

Score on Board 88: 0 IMPs
Total: -101 IMPs

1 comment:

Phillip MartinJanuary 28, 2010 at 1:31 PM
He generates a set of random deals and leads what works most often. If he generates a different set of random deals, he might lead something different. He might sometimes do something different in the middle of the hand as well, though, since he has more information, that happens less often.
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About This Blog

First, a word or two about who am I so you have some idea how seriously to take the advice you find here. I retired from tournament bridge in 1992 (coincidentally, the year my daughter was born). At the time, I had accumulated a little over 5000 masterpoints. I had won numerous regional events and had finished second or third in several national events. Annoyingly, I have never won a national event of any significance. (The qualification is necessary. I did win one national event of little significance.) My best result was second place in the Grand National Teams (with John Lowenthal, Michael Becker, Ron Rubin, Michael Rosenberg, and Brian Glubok). I have theories about why this is, but I won't bore you with them now.

I am still in contact with many of my friends from tournament days. So I still discuss bridge and, occasionally, still write articles for Bridge World magazine, some of which you can find reprinted here: Phillip Martin's Bridge Articles

I have always enjoyed writing about bridge and have, from time to time, considered starting a blog. I think there is a void in the bridge literature that I can make some attempt to fill. Bob Hamman has stated that most people play bridge by asking themselves what they should do. Instead, they should be asking themselves what is going on. Once you figure that out, what to do will often suggest itself. I think he is right about that, and I think bridge literature is partly responsible. Bridge books and articles focus on the unusual and the spectacular. They can get you in the habit of looking for opportunities to shine, which isn’t what you should be thinking about.

The late John Lowenthal, my partner for years, was perhaps the king of doing the unusual, especially on defense. But he always found these plays by being alert to what was going on, not by simply looking for opportunities to do something unexpected. If declarer spurned a finesse John expected him to take or failed to attack a suit that John expected him to attack, John would ask himself why. Frequently, the answer to this question would reveal the entire deal. Then John could be creative and think about finding some way to deflect declarer from the winning line. And, often, he succeeded.

What I am going to attempt to do in this blog is to show by example how one should think about the game. The focus will be on process, not on results. How do you figure out what is going on? How do you try to conceal what’s going on to the opponents? How do you try to clarify the position to partner? These are the skills that separate the expert from the intermediate player more than the ability to execute a backwash squeeze. And, for this purpose, almost any deal can provide material for discussion.

What I propose to do is to play in BBO robot individuals and report on each deal in detail, focusing on the questions I ask myself and how I reach each decision. I will report on each deal, not just the ones I find interesting or instructive. This blog will probably not be of much help to a beginner, but I think it will be instructive for an intermediate player. And my expert friends will finally see what is going on inside my head when I’m in one of my interminable huddles.

I will be South, but, following convention, I will always make South declarer in the diagrams. Thus my reported compass direction may change from deal to deal.

I should point out that not all of my ideas are mainstream. I considered including a catalog of quirks, but I decided that was unnecessary. They will become apparent in due time.

The Gargoyle Chronicles

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Board 88

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