Free Super Sunday Daylong - May 29 - Board 4

Board 4
Both vulnerable

♠ J 10 9 5 4 3  ♥ --  ♦ A K 7  ♣ A 10 9 2

Partner opens with one heart in second seat. I bid one spade, and partner bids two hearts. I have ace-king ace and a six-card major with internal solidity. So when partner opened, I wasn't planning on stopping short of game. But his bidding and rebidding my void is not encouraging. And my own suit isn't worth much without a fit. So I change my mind and bid an invitational three spades. Partner passes, and West leads the club five.

	NORTH Robot ♠ -- ♥ A J 7 5 3 2 ♦ Q 4 2 ♣ K 8 6 4
	SOUTH Phillip ♠ J 10 9 5 4 3 ♥ -- ♦ A K 7 ♣ A 10 9 2

West	North	East	South
Robot	Robot	Robot	Phillip
Pass	1 ♥	Pass	1 ♠
Pass	2 ♥	Pass	3 ♠
(All pass)

This seems quite high enough. I'm starting with at least four spade losers. Since the robots don't like aggressive leads, it's likely the club five is from shortness. If so, I have a club loser as well. That means I'm probably not making this.

Can I manage to lose only three spade tricks? If West has two honors fourth of spades, then maybe I can get him to play those honors on the first two rounds. Then I can duck out his partner's stiff honor.

I cover the club five with dummy's six. (Edgar used to do that--usually with a comment like "Just in case." So I continue the tradition.) East plays the jack and I win with the ace.

The spade jack is more likely to induce a cover than the ten or nine. So I lead the jack. West takes the king, I pitch the heart deuce from dummy, and East follows with the spade deuce. 

West will probably continue clubs if he began with a doubleton. He doesn't. He shifts to the diamond  three. So the lead was probably a singleton, and he is now trying to put his partner on lead for a ruff.

I want him to believe it's possible his partner has a diamond entry. If he has king-queen-fourth of trumps, perhaps he will be afraid to duck my next trump lead for fear I have ace-jack-ten-nine sixth and am trying to sucker him out of his ruff. If so, he will hop and lead another diamond. Then I will win and lead a low trump to East's stiff ace. If East doesn't give his partner a ruff, I can draw the last trump and lose three spades and a club. If he does, I can then pitch a club on the heart ace and avoid a club loser. 

I want to win this trick with the card that will leave open the possibility that East has a diamond entry. Which card will do that? The ace or the king? If I were missing the king, I might play the queen on this trick, so playing low and winning with the ace suggests I have the king also. If I were missing the ace, however, I would always duck in dummy. So the king is the right card to conceal my holding.

I play low from dummy. East plays the jack. I take the diamond king and lead the spade ten. West plays the six. Too bad. Either he didn't fall for my ruse or he doesn't have a trump honor. I pitch the heart three from dummy, and East wins with the spade ace. He then shifts to the heart four. I ruff as West follows with the heart eight.

This is the current position:

	NORTH Robot ♠ -- ♥ A J 7 ♦ Q 4 ♣ K 8 4
	SOUTH Phillip ♠ 9 5 4 ♥ -- ♦ A 7 ♣ 10 9 2

My only chance now is that someone has a stiff queen of trumps, although it's hard to imagine that's the case. I lead a low trump--eight--heart seven--spade seven. It appears I'm going down one.

West leads the five of diamonds, and East ruffs dummy's queen with the spade queen. He now surprises me by shifting to the club three. That gives me a club trick, and my last club goes on dummy's heart ace. Making three.

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

What was that club shift all about? Did East really think his partner had a trump left? And even if he did, what difference did it make? He was always scoring the club queen so long as he didn't lead the suit.

I suspect he thought his play didn't matter, so he just chose a card at random--a mistake I've certainly made before. Perhaps he thought this hand was impossible, since I would never bid three spades with 12 HCP. But what hand did he think I held instead? I suppose it's possible he wasn't playing me for any specific hand. Maybe once the universe of possible deals gets pruned down to an empty set, the robots simply play at random. Faced with such a problem, humans can rethink their assumptions and reconsider layouts that they previously thought were impossible. Perhaps robots, as they are currently programmed, can't do that.

Plus 140 was worth 96%. I can't take credit for making this, since that was all East's doing. But I can take credit for not overbidding and forcing to game. Minus 100 would still have been worth 76%, since most pairs got overboard.