| ♠ 5 4 ♥ K 7 6 2 ♦ 10 8 7 4 2 ♣ Q 3 |
LHO opens one club, partner bids one spade, and RHO bids two diamonds. I pass, LHO bids two notrump, and RHO raises to three. Partner leads the five of clubs.
| NORTH ♠ K 10 9 ♥ A J 3 ♦ A J 9 6 3 ♣ 10 8 | ||
| EAST ♠ 5 4 ♥ K 7 6 2 ♦ 10 8 7 4 2 ♣ Q 3 |
| West | North | East | South |
| 1 ♣ | |||
| 1 ♠ | 2 ♦ | Pass | 2 NT |
| Pass | 3 NT | (All pass) |
Assuming declarer has a weak notrump, partner has at most ten high-card points. He should be leading his lowest club, since he is leading from length in the opponents' suit, but Jack doesn't know that. I'm going to assume the five of clubs is fourth best, probably from a five-card suit.
Dummy plays the eight, I play the queen, and declarer plays the six. It seems normal to return a club, but let me think about that a minute. There is no need to return the suit if it's running. Even if declarer has three spade tricks, he can take only eight tricks off the top. We can always cash clubs when I'm in with the king of hearts. The layout where it's necessary to return a club is where we need to establish partner's clubs while he still has an entry. Partner might have, for example,
| ♠ A x x x x ♥ x x ♦ x ♣ K J 9 x x |
Can it be wrong to continue clubs? Suppose partner has ace-king fifth of clubs. A club continuation certainly isn't productive in that case. It will establish partner's long club, but he will have no entry. Continuing clubs will merely set up a club trick for declarer. But is anything else any better?
Perhaps I can establish a spade trick by leading one spade now and another when I get in with the king of hearts. For that to help, however, partner's clubs must be entries. That means declarer must have a hand where he needs to play clubs himself to come to nine tricks. He has four diamonds tricks and two spade tricks. So if he has a four-card heart suit, he can drive my king of hearts and come to nine tricks without touching clubs. For this construction to work, declarer must have only three hearts. That's as far as we need to take this argument. Perhaps we can construct a hand where a spade shift is necessary, but it would be a waste of time. We can already tell such a layout would involve more constraints than the construction where a club continuation is necessary. So a club continuation is the better play.
I return a club--deuce--king--ten. Partner cashes the ace of clubs, dummy pitches a heart, I pitch the four of spades, and declarer plays the nine of clubs. Partner continues with the seven of clubs, dummy discards the jack of hearts, and I play the heart seven. Declarer wins with the club jack and cashes the queen of diamonds. Partner discards the three of spades. We are down to this position:
| NORTH ♠ K 10 9 ♥ A ♦ A J 9 6 ♣ -- | ||
| EAST ♠ 5 ♥ K 6 2 ♦ 10 8 7 4 ♣ -- |
Unless declarer has the spade jack, he has only eight tricks. He must have the heart queen, however, to come to an opening bid, so I'm about to be strip squeezed. If he cashes the diamond king, then ace of hearts, king of spades, and a spade to the ace, I have to stiff the king of hearts. He can then toss me in to lead into the diamond tenace. I can't get out of this.
Declarer cashes the diamond king, on which partner discards the five of hearts. He leads a diamond to dummy as partner pitches the six of spades. That's unexpected. He then leads the nine of diamonds from dummy. I see. He's correcting the count for a major-suit squeeze against partner. He thinks partner has the heart king. I win with the diamond ten and return a heart. Eventually I score my heart king for down one.
| NORTH ♠ K 10 9 ♥ A J 3 ♦ A J 9 6 3 ♣ 10 8 | ||
| WEST ♠ Q J 8 7 6 3 ♥ 10 5 ♦ -- ♣ A K 7 5 4 | EAST ♠ 5 4 ♥ K 7 6 2 ♦ 10 8 7 4 2 ♣ Q 3 | |
| SOUTH ♠ A 2 ♥ Q 9 8 4 ♦ K Q 5 ♣ J 9 6 2 |
If partner did have the heart king, this would have worked, provided declarer read partner's shape. If I return a heart or a diamond when I'm in with the diamond king, the squeeze plays itself. But if I return a spade, declarer must win in dummy and play a criss-cross squeeze. As is often the case with a criss-cross squeeze, he must guess which threat partner has established and cash his tricks in the right order.
I'm not sure why declarer adopted this line. The squeeze against me seems more attractive for a lot of reasons: (1) Even if this line works, he might guess wrong in the end position. (2) With more hearts than partner I'm a priori more likely to have the heart king. (3) I told him I had the heart king with my foolish signal of the seven of hearts. And it was certainly foolish, since partner had no decisions left to make. The only thing I can think of that suggests I don't have the king of hearts is my spade pitch on the third round of clubs. My reluctance to pitch a heart suggests ten fourth rather than king fourth. Are Jack's card-reading skills that sophisticated?
The auction is the same at the other table, and the play begins the same way. On the ace of clubs, however, East discards the deuce of hearts instead of a spade. Somehow, this pitch seems to wake declarer up. On the fourth round of clubs, he pitches the three of diamonds from dummy instead of the jack of hearts. He then leads a heart to the jack. This is a foolproof line. Whether the finesse wins or loses, he has nine tricks.
This deal points out another flaw in the way computers play. Humans can reason that this diamond suit doesn't necessarily produce five tricks and can look for a sure-trick line rather than counting on the suit to break. A computer doesn't do that. It deals out lots of random hands, and if it doesn't happen to deal out a hand where diamonds are five-zero offside, it never occurs to it that diamonds don't necessarily produce five tricks.
I'm sure that pitching two hearts from dummy worked 100% of the time on the set of deals declarer generated at my table. My teammate just got lucky in that the set of deals he generated happened to include at least one in which diamonds were five-zero. So he stumbled across the sure-trick line.
For practice, let's go back and see if we can indeed construct a hand where a spade shift at trick two is necessary. We were considering this layout.
| NORTH ♠ K 10 9 ♥ A J 3 ♦ A J 9 6 3 ♣ 10 8 | ||
| WEST ♠ Q J x x x ♥ x x x ♦ -- ♣ A K x x x | EAST ♠ 5 4 ♥ K 7 6 2 ♦ 10 8 7 4 2 ♣ Q 3 | |
| SOUTH ♠ A x x ♥ Q x x ♦ K Q 5 ♣ J 9 x x |
I win the queen of clubs and shift to a spade. Declarer wins in dummy and plays the ten of clubs. Partner wins and shifts to a heart. If declarer finesses, I can win and play another spade for down one. But if he guesses to play me for the heart king, he can rise, cross to his hand with a diamond, and lead the club jack, coming to nine tricks before our spade is established. So this layout doesn't work.
What if we give partner the nine of clubs? Now a spade shift surely beats him, since it destroys his entries for doing anything fancy. But is it necessary? What happens if I continue clubs? Partner wins and plays a heart. Declarer ducks in dummy. I win with the king. If I don't play a spade now, declarer will eventually have a black-suit squeeze against partner (after ducking a diamond to correct the count). So I must play a spade. Declarer wins in dummy, then cashes his diamonds. He is down to
| NORTH ♠ 10 9 ♥ A J ♦ 3 ♣ - - | ||
| SOUTH ♠ A x ♥ Q x ♦ -- ♣ J |
Ace and a heart to the queen squeezes partner. He must come down to a singleton club, allowing declarer to toss him in to lead spades. Note that declarer needs the queen of hearts as a late entry to his hand for this to work.
Can I stop this by ducking the first round of hearts? No. Declarer can simply cash king-queen of diamonds and his spades, then play ace and a heart. Now I'm endplayed. I score my long heart instead of partner's club ace. Then I must lead into dummy's diamond tenace. So we can construct a layout where the spade shift is necessary, but it's not easy. Clearly the club continuation works on more deals.
Me: +50
Jack: -400
Score on Board 60: +10 IMPs
Total: +148 IMPs
No comments:
Post a Comment