Match 2 - Board 12

Board 12
Our side vulnerable

♠ K 3 ♥ Q 6 4 ♦ A K 3 ♣ A K 10 6 2

Three passes to me. I open one club. LHO overcalls with one spade, partner doubles, and RHO passes. I bid two notrump, and LHO bids three spades. What's this all about? He wouldn't pre-empt in first seat, and he wouldn't pre-empt over my one club opening. But he's willing to bid three spades opposite a passing partner in the middle of a strong auction?

Partner bids three notrump, which ends the auction. West leads the queen of diamonds. Maybe he didn't pre-empt because he has a two-suiter? A seven-five pattern perhaps?

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

West	North	East	South
Pass	Pass	Pass	1 ♣
1 ♠	Double	Pass	2 NT
3 ♠	3 NT	(All pass)

Was this opening lead a mistake? At first glance, it appears to be immaterial. I don't have the tempo to set up a heart trick and a spade trick. And hearts can hardly be three-three.  So, unless the heart king is unexpectedly onside, it appears I make exactly nine tricks after either a spade or a diamond lead. Unless, that is, I can get East to return a spade instead of a diamond when he wins the heart king. Perhaps that's not so unlikely. If East thinks I have ace doubleton of spades instead of king doubleton and if West has either five diamonds or queen-jack-ten-nine, then East must shift to spade to get his partner off the endplay. Let's hope East appreciates that fact.

What I can't afford to do is to cash clubs early.  If I give West a chance to discard, he will discard low spades to tell his partner that he doesn't need a spade shift.  I play a low diamond from dummy, East plays the four, and I win with the ace.  Normally I would win with the king to leave open the possibility that West has led from ace-queen-jack, but in this case I want to make sure that East knows diamonds aren't running. Maybe at a high level this is wrong, since East may wonder why I didn't make the normal play. But if he's that smart, more power to him.

At trick two, I play the four of hearts, and West follows with the eight. I play the jack from dummy, and East wins with the king. As I hoped, East shifts to the spade nine. Making four.

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

Should East have solved this?  He knows I have the ace and king of clubs once I don't attack clubs.  If I have the heart queen, then I have 16 high-card points outside spades.  The spade ace would give me 20 high-card points, enough for a two notrump opening bid. It's true that I've been known not to open two notrump with a perfectly normal two notrump opening bid. It's also true that I might not have the heart queen. I might, for example, have a 2-2-3-6 pattern and be ducking a heart to correct the count for a strip squeeze. But if, in the post mortem, East offered either of those as the reason for his play, I would suspect him of thinking it up after the fact. More likely, he simply didn't take the time to construct the hand he was playing for.

There is a wide variety of results on this board: three notrump making three or four; five clubs making five (Making five? Yes, I guess it does, thanks to the blockage in diamonds. A Morton's fork coup in hearts followed by endplaying West.); and four spades doubled, down two. The booby prize goes to the North-South pair who played four hearts, down one. Actually, I'm surprised there's only one of those. Three spades--pass--pass--double / pass--four hearts seems as if it would be a popular auction.

Only one other pair made four notrump, so this result is worth 11 matchpoints.  And a totally undeserved 11 matchpoints, since I misplayed it. As Gal points out in his comment below, the very same Morton's fork that enables five clubs to make enables me to take ten tricks in notrump by force.

Score on Board 12: +630 (11 MP)
Total: 108 MP (75%)

Current rank: 1st