Free Weekly Instant Tournament - August 30 - Board 4

Board 4
Both sides vulnerable

♠ 6 3 2  ♥ A Q 8  ♦ K 6 2  ♣ A J 8 7

Three passes to me. I open with one club. LHO overcalls with one heart, partner bids one spade, and RHO raises to two hearts. 

Partner has shown at least five spades by responding one spade instead of making a negative double. So some think there is no need to play support doubles here. I disagree. In a competitive auction, it's important to know how many trumps you have. Distinguishing a three-card raise from a four-card raise helps partner know how high to compete. For once, the robots agree with me. They play double here as support-showing.

I double, and partner pulls to two spades, ending the auction. RHO leads the three of hearts.

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

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

If I duck and LHO inserts the nine or ten, should I consider repeating the finesse? Might East play the nine or ten while holding the king? Yes, he might. If his partner has the jack and I made the gutsy play of ducking, playing the king costs a trick. And even if I hold the jack, ducking won't cost if I have a useful pitch on the third round of hearts.

West can solve this problem for his partner by leading a high heart when he doesn't have an honor. He can't afford to do that if he might have a doubleton. But, once he has raised, the lead of a low heart should promise an honor. 

I duck in dummy, and East takes the king. I should play the card I'm known to hold. Which card is that? West knows I hold the jack, but East knows I hold the deuce. So "the card I'm known to hold" depends on which defender you're talking about. In general, you should prefer to conceal your holding from the stronger hand, since the weaker hand is already largely in the dark. So I play the deuce.

I have two finesses to take in the side suits. I can avoid one of them by pitching on dummy's heart. But I need to guess which finesse to take. Fortunately, East solves that problem for me. He switches to the seven of diamonds. West will take his ace, and I can now pitch my club on dummy's heart.

But West doesn't take his ace. He inserts the diamond eight. What hand is he playing me for? Perhaps something like this:

♠ ? ? x x x  ♥ J x  ♦ Q x x  ♣ x x x

If I hold that hand, West is right to duck. If he takes his ace, I get two diamond tricks and can pitch a club loser, so the defense scores only two tricks in the minors. If he ducks, they get three.

What if you add the club king to that hand? Then ducking is right if the club queen is offside: The defense takes two minor-suit tricks instead of one. But if the club queen is onside, ducking makes no difference. The diamond ace is the only minor-suit trick the defense can ever take. Make the clubs ten-nine third and we reach a similar conclusion. Ducking gains if both club honors are offside and makes no difference otherwise. 

In short, ducking gains only if I have a club loser to pitch on dummy's hearts. Since West is taking a risk that he will lose his diamond ace altogether by ducking, he must think that is possible. As we have seen, when West holds the club queen, that is less apt to be true. So there is some inference he doesn't hold that card.

Am I confident enough of that inference to play for queen doubleton offside rather than take the finesse? I'm not sure yet. I'll worry about that when the time comes.

I take the diamond king and cash two hearts, pitching my last diamond, reaching this position:

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

If I play a spade and East plays low, which card should I play? East holds the heart king and, presumably, both minor suit queens. He could have either the spade ace or the queen, but not both, else he would have opened the bidding. So I needn't worry about his holding ace-queen third. The relevant holdings are ace-small, queen-small, ace-ten third, and queen-ten third. The nine works if he has queen-ten third (one case), the jack works if he has queen-small (one case), and the king works if he has ace-small or ace-ten third (two cases). So the king is the percentage play.

As it turns out, I don't have to make that decision. When I play a spade from dummy, East plays the ace.

East shifts to the diamond queen. I ruff, and West drops the ace. East would have shifted to the diamond queen rather than a low one at trick two if he had queen-jack, so the jack must be on my left.

I cash the king of spades. West follows with the ten, and East discards the ten of diamonds. If I'm right that East has the club queen, could it be dropping? That would give East

♠ A  ♥ K 10 x x x  ♦ Q x x x x  ♣ Q x

He might have opened the bidding with that hand. Anyway, I don't have to decide yet. I might as well exit with a spade to West's queen and see if the opponents help me out. They do. East discards the club four on his partner's spade queen. I'm not playing East to pitch a club from queen third. So I'm taking the finesse.

West switches to the six of clubs. I play low from dummy. East plays the nine, and I win with the king and play a club to the jack. It holds, and I make four.

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

Plus 170 is worth 93%!

My initial assumption about the club queen was wrong. I was right in a sense. It's the fact that West holds the club queen that makes his duck a mistake. Move the club queen to East's hand and the duck doesn't cost. But perhaps West didn't know enough about the layout to realize that.

At most tables, West did take the diamond ace. But at those tables, he had more information. Some Norths passed over two hearts, declining to show their three-card spade support. Now, when South balanced with two spades, West knew he had six spades. Other Norths raised to two spades, showing four-card support they didn't have. This prompted South to make a game try of three spades. Now West was perhaps more inclined to place declarer with the club king. 

In neither case did this information make taking the ace 100%, but it was apparently enough in West's opinion to tip the scales and make it the percentage play. 

The moral? Don't lie when you're going to be dummy. Your lie will be exposed soon enough, and it could backfire in the auction. (Lie all you want if you're going to be declarer. The robots don't even consider the possibility that you are lying and will often make plays that can't possibly gain simply because they don't see how they can fail.)