The Gargoyle Chronicles: Board 62

Friday, December 11, 2009

Board 62

Board 62
Neither vulnerable

♠ Q J 10 9 8 4 ♥ 10 6 ♦ 7 6 ♣ A K 10

RHO passes. I open one spade. LHO bids two spades, showing hearts and a minor. Partner bids two notrump, and RHO passes. I correct to three spades, and partner goes on to four. This is getting tiresome. I wish partner would respect my signoffs. It's frustrating to have a choice of contracts to go down in but no way to go plus. West leads the ace of diamonds.

	NORTH ♠ K 6 ♥ A 9 8 7 ♦ 10 9 ♣ Q J 8 5 2

	SOUTH ♠ Q J 10 9 8 4 ♥ 10 6 ♦ 7 6 ♣ A K 10

West	North	East	South
		Pass	1 ♠
2 ♠¹	2 NT	Pass	3 ♠
Pass	4 ♠	(All pass)
¹Michaels cue-bid

Partner might have doubled two spades, but that could prove awkward. If the auction were to continue two notrump--pass--three diamonds, his pass would be forcing, and he doesn't really want it to be. Two notrump shows his values without creating a force at the risk of letting the opponents off the hook if they are in trouble. I approve of that choice, but he really should have passed three spades.

I'm off the ace of spades and three tricks in the red suits. Somehow I've got to avoid one of those losers, and it's probably not going to be the spade ace. East plays the deuce of diamonds at trick one. The way Jack cards, that means West has ace-king-queen. West shifts to the deuce of hearts. Ducking this isn't going to help. I rise with the ace, and East plays the jack. Normally, I would think he has king-jack doubleton. But I know Jack would drop the jack from queen-jack doubleton as well.

Is there anything I can do? Perhaps if I lead another diamond as though I need to ruff a diamond in dummy, East will hop with the diamond jack to play ace and a trump. From his point of view, I might have

♠ Q J 10 x x x ♥ K x ♦ x x x ♣ A x

in which case that would be the right defense. This illusion requires West to have begun with six diamonds. Otherwise East will know I don't have three. But I don't see anything else to try.

I play a diamond. East hops with the jack. Aha! I play low. West isn't about to give his partner the chance to make a mistake. He overtakes with the queen and cashes the king of hearts. Down one.

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

At the other table, South opens two spades, weak. Two and a half honor tricks and a good six-card suit doesn't look like a weak two-bid to me. If honor tricks are too old-fashioned for you, you can count playing tricks. Six playing tricks is a full trick better than a typical weak two-bid. Or you can count losers. A weak two-bid has eight losers; an opening bid has seven. This hand has seven. It looks like an opening bid to me however you choose to evaluate.

West bids four diamonds (leaping Michaels), showing the red suits, and East corrects to four hearts. Four diamonds strikes me as an overbid. I was curious if I was alone in this assessment, so I tried to find some guidelines in the literature. Surprisingly, I could find no specifics. Every reference I found simply describes leaping Michaels as showing "a good hand." I prefer more definition than that. My partnership notes say that advancer is expected to make a move toward slam with a fit and two cover cards. Since I might easily go down in game opposite that, I wouldn't bid four diamonds. East apparently doesn't agree with me, since he is willing to play four hearts in an inadequate fit rather than risk the five-level in their better trump suit.

Best defense beats four hearts three tricks. South can play three rounds of clubs, tapping declarer. Then, when North takes his trump ace, a fourth round of clubs allows South to uppercut the dummy. Pitching on the third club doesn't help.

I don't think I would find that defense, and neither did my opponent. He led the spade queen. Declarer pitched a club on the ace of spades and eventually lost two clubs and two hearts. Down one.

Me: -50
Jack: +50

Score on Board 62: -3 IMPs
Total: +144 IMPs

1 comment:

CraigBDecember 12, 2009 at 4:32 PM
One of the DC guys wrote an addendum to the original presentation of Leaping Michaels in the Bridge World. I think it was called "Liberalized Leaping Michaels." As you would guess, the article voted for using LLM on anything that breathes.

If you take the position that you are going to be very conservative about slam bidding when the opponents open the bidding, that's not a bad way to play. But with the cheese people open with nowadays, it seems better to be a little more constructive.

Perhaps the answer is that 2S-(4D) should be sound and 4C can be weaker since you have no room to make a mild slam try below game, but the other three possibilities can be "liberaalized."
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About This Blog

First, a word or two about who am I so you have some idea how seriously to take the advice you find here. I retired from tournament bridge in 1992 (coincidentally, the year my daughter was born). At the time, I had accumulated a little over 5000 masterpoints. I had won numerous regional events and had finished second or third in several national events. Annoyingly, I have never won a national event of any significance. (The qualification is necessary. I did win one national event of little significance.) My best result was second place in the Grand National Teams (with John Lowenthal, Michael Becker, Ron Rubin, Michael Rosenberg, and Brian Glubok). I have theories about why this is, but I won't bore you with them now.

I am still in contact with many of my friends from tournament days. So I still discuss bridge and, occasionally, still write articles for Bridge World magazine, some of which you can find reprinted here: Phillip Martin's Bridge Articles

I have always enjoyed writing about bridge and have, from time to time, considered starting a blog. I think there is a void in the bridge literature that I can make some attempt to fill. Bob Hamman has stated that most people play bridge by asking themselves what they should do. Instead, they should be asking themselves what is going on. Once you figure that out, what to do will often suggest itself. I think he is right about that, and I think bridge literature is partly responsible. Bridge books and articles focus on the unusual and the spectacular. They can get you in the habit of looking for opportunities to shine, which isn’t what you should be thinking about.

The late John Lowenthal, my partner for years, was perhaps the king of doing the unusual, especially on defense. But he always found these plays by being alert to what was going on, not by simply looking for opportunities to do something unexpected. If declarer spurned a finesse John expected him to take or failed to attack a suit that John expected him to attack, John would ask himself why. Frequently, the answer to this question would reveal the entire deal. Then John could be creative and think about finding some way to deflect declarer from the winning line. And, often, he succeeded.

What I am going to attempt to do in this blog is to show by example how one should think about the game. The focus will be on process, not on results. How do you figure out what is going on? How do you try to conceal what’s going on to the opponents? How do you try to clarify the position to partner? These are the skills that separate the expert from the intermediate player more than the ability to execute a backwash squeeze. And, for this purpose, almost any deal can provide material for discussion.

What I propose to do is to play in BBO robot individuals and report on each deal in detail, focusing on the questions I ask myself and how I reach each decision. I will report on each deal, not just the ones I find interesting or instructive. This blog will probably not be of much help to a beginner, but I think it will be instructive for an intermediate player. And my expert friends will finally see what is going on inside my head when I’m in one of my interminable huddles.

I will be South, but, following convention, I will always make South declarer in the diagrams. Thus my reported compass direction may change from deal to deal.

I should point out that not all of my ideas are mainstream. I considered including a catalog of quirks, but I decided that was unnecessary. They will become apparent in due time.

The Gargoyle Chronicles

Friday, December 11, 2009

Board 62

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