Free Weekly Instant Tournament - May 10 - Board 7

Board 7
Both sides vulnerable

♠ A 3  ♥ A J 9 6 4 2  ♦ K Q 10 8  ♣ Q

I open in first seat with one heart. Partner bids one spade. I rebid two diamonds, and partner bids two notrump.

Three hearts by me should be forcing. If I were six-four in the red suits with a bad hand, I would rebid two hearts over one notrump, then remove two notrump to three diamonds. Bidding two diamond then rebidding hearts, sometimes referred to as an ABA sequence, should be forcing. Unfortunately, as I've discovered in the past, the robots don't understand this. To ensure we reach game, I have to guess whether to bid four hearts or three notrump. Four hearts risks catching partner with a singleton heart. But if we can't set up hearts, we may be unable to find nine tricks in notrump anyway. So I guess to bid four hearts.

Four hearts ends the auction, and West leads the four of clubs.

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

West	North	East	South
Robot	Robot	Robot	Phillip
			1 ♥
Pass	1 ♠	Pass	2 ♦
Pass	2 NT	Pass	4 ♥
(All pass)

Partner does have a singleton heart, but at least it's the queen. It appears I will lose a club trick, possibly a spade, and one or two trump tricks. Can I pitch my spade loser on the club king? I can if East doesn't shift to a spade at trick two. But if he does, I have a problem. I must decide whether to duck, hoping East has shifted from the king, or to hop and cross to dummy with a diamond to take my pitch. The latter risks setting up a diamond ruff for the opponents when they win the heart king.

Maybe I won't have to make that decision. If East has ace-jack of clubs, he may insert the jack at trick one and let me score my stiff queen. I play low from dummy. East, unfortunately, takes the ace. The good news is he shifts to the king of spades, solving my problem. I take the ace, and West follows with the five.

There is no lie of the trump suit where I can take all the tricks. Even if East has king-ten doubleton, I will still lose a slow heart trick to West. So there is nothing to gain by finessing. I might as well lead a low heart to the queen and hope the ten drops in three rounds. If so, I'll make five. If not, I'll make four.

I lead the heart deuce. West hops with the king, and East follows with the seven. West shifts to the four of diamonds. I win in my hand with the king and cash the ace and jack of hearts. The ten doesn't drop, so I make four.

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

Plus 620 is worth 86%. Some guessed to bid three notrump rather than four hearts. With help in both black suits, that's not an unreasonable choice, but it didn't work out here. Three notrump makes only three.

What is an unreasonable choice is the way some declarers played four hearts. They crossed with a diamond to take a pointless heart finesse. When the finesse lost, East scored a diamond ruff for down one. As we said earlier, the finesse can't gain. There is no reason not to lead a low heart from your hand.

I'm still not sure what East's shift to the spade king was all about. A low spade would beat me if I hopped with the ace. Perhaps East was worried I had a stiff jack and leading a low spade would set up a ruffing finesse against his king. But so what? Even if that happens, I'm pitching a winner. 

The only thing I can think of is that East wanted to retain the lead to make sure the defense played a second spade. He was afraid if he led a spade to his partner's ace, his partner would find something else to do, like try to give him a diamond ruff. But unless the robots have been given a major upgrade lately, they don't worry about solving problems for partner, so I doubt that's it. Robots need a verbose mode, where they explain what they were "thinking."

If East does shift to a low spade at trick two, what should I do? Ducking always works if East has the spade king. Hopping might or might not work if West has it. A priori, it's fifty-fifty who has it, so if I think the location of the spade king has no bearing on East's decision to shift, the percentage play is to duck. If I think it has some bearing but isn't necessarily determinative, then I have a much harder problem.

If East has the spade king, then, from his point of view, his partner might have the ace, which could make the shift necessary. And since I'm known to have at most three black cards, a shift from the king can't cost. So I see no reason why East should be reluctant to shift from the king. Accordingly, ducking appears to be my percentage play.

But we now know that it isn't. For whatever reason, East thinks he's supposed to shift to spade king when he has it. So if he leads low, he doesn't have it. Of course, I had no way of knowing that at the time. So if East had shifted to a low spade, I suspect I would have mistakenly ducked.