The Gargoyle Chronicles: Board 87

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Board 87

Board 87
Both sides vulnerable

♠ K J 3 ♥ 4 ♦ A Q J 7 6 3 ♣ 9 5 2

I open one diamond in first seat. Partner responds one heart, and RHO doubles. I bid two diamonds. This is passed around to RHO, who bids three clubs. I pass, as do LHO and partner.

I don't care much for the singleton heart lead. Who's to say partner can get in to give me a ruff? Even if he can, we may just be trading natural heart tricks for ruffs. Declarer seems to have a pretty good hand, so dummy may be short of entries and a heart lead may benefit his side more than our side. We seem to have the side suits pretty well bottled up. I have spades and diamonds, and partner has hearts. Often a trump lead is best in that scenario, so I lead the five of clubs. (This argument is more pithily stated in Lowenthal's Third Law of Opening Leads: The lead of a trump shows a side singleton or void.)

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

West	North	East	South
1 ♦	Pass	1 ♥	Double
2 ♦	Pass	Pass	3 ♣
(All pass)

Declarer plays the three from dummy, partner wins with the ace, and declarer drops the four. I guess partner did have an entry with which to give me a heart ruff, but it's still not clear it would have gained a trick. Partner goes along with my idea and continues with the eight of clubs. Declarer wins in his hand with the jack and leads the five of diamonds. I hop with the ace and partner plays the deuce. Surely partner doesn't have three diamonds. He wouldn't sell out to three clubs if he knew we had a nine-card fit. I assume he has ten doubleton and is reluctant to waste the ten.

I see nothing constructive to do. If partner has the ace of hearts in addition to my two spade tricks, declarer is going down, so there is no reason for a belated attempt to score a heart ruff. I might as well just exit with my last club and hope that refusing to break hearts for declarer was the right idea.

I play a club to dummy's queen, and partner plays the nine of diamonds. I suppose he's following the rule of playing the card you can't possibly hold. Declarer plays the king of diamonds, partner plays the ten, and declarer pitches the four of spades. Declarer wouldn't be pitching a spade unless he were 3-4-1-5. So to beat this we need to take two heart tricks.

Declarer plays the three of hearts--seven--jack--four. I hope that means he has ace-queen-jack-small. No, he can't have that. The heart finesse would do him no good with that holding, since he can't repeat it. His correctly play in hearts would be to try to drop the singleton king in my hand, so he would use his one dummy entry to take a spade finesse. He must have ace-king-jack-small, which means we're not beating this. My construction is correct. We take one heart and one spade, holding three clubs to three.

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

Why, partner, why? That's what happens when you break the Law. We go minus 110 when we should be plus 110.

At the other table, the auction is the same. West leads his singleton heart. He gets his heart ruff, but loses his natural heart trick. Making three for a push. This should have been a routine 6-imp pickup.

Me: -110
Jack: -110

Score on Board 87: 0 IMPs
Total: -101 IMPs

1 comment:

Phillip MartinJanuary 28, 2010 at 9:12 AM
I guess I would float the ten of diamonds. If West wins this, he can't beat me. If he ducks, I must admit I would probably go down. I considered adjudicating partner's charge down to 3 imps, but I decided to find out what actually would have happened. I reloaded the deal and declared three diamonds against Jack. He didn't duck, so the 6-imp charge stands. On second thought, I'm upping it to 7: 6 imps actual damages, and 1 imp punitive damages, just for breaking the Law.
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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

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Board 87

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