The Gargoyle Chronicles: Board 117

Monday, March 15, 2010

Board 117

Board 117
Our side vulnerable

♠ K 10 8 5 4 3 2 ♥ 10 ♦ J 8 5 ♣ 9 4

Partner passes, and RHO opens one notrump. The vulnerability isn't going to keep me from bidding. It's just going to slow me down a little. I content myself with a mere two spades. That should be safe enough. If partner has spade support, I doubt I'll mind being raised to whatever level he chooses to raise to. If he doesn't have spade support, I don't expect to hear from him, since he couldn't act in first seat.

LHO bids three diamonds (forcing), and RHO bids three notrump. LHO bids four notrump, which my opponents insists on playing as Blackwood. RHO shows an ace, then two kings. LHO signs off in six notrump.

If partner has queen doubleton of spades and a probable entry, I would expect him to double this. Since he didn't double, I'm going to defend passively. I lead the nine of clubs.

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

West	North	East	South
		Pass	1 NT
2 ♠	3 ♦¹	Pass	3 NT
Pass	4 NT²	Pass	5 ♦³
Pass	5 NT⁴	Pass	6 ♥⁵
Pass	6 NT	(All pass)
¹Forcing to game
²Ace asking for no trump
³1 or 4 aces
⁴King asking
⁵2 kings

Once again, North held a perfectly good quantitative four notrump call, which Jack's fondness of Blackwood prevented him from making. Dummy plays the eight of clubs, partner plays the queen, and declarer plays the three. Assuming partner has the king of clubs as well (you never know), then he has at most a queen unaccounted for. If we assume that it is the heart queen (the most favorable assumption), declarer has six diamond tricks, two black aces, and three heart tricks via a finesse. He needs one more trick. If he has a fourth heart and a third club, he will be able to squeeze partner in hearts and clubs for his twelfth trick. It seems our only real chance is that declarer is missing a threat in one suit or the other.

Partner shifts to the six of spades, declarer wins with the ace, and I encourage with the eight. Declarer plays the deuce of clubs to the ace, partner playing the five. Since we know declarer has the jack of clubs, that means he has a club threat. I have to hope he has only three hearts. Declarer plays the three of diamonds from the dummy. Partner plays the seven, and declarer plays the nine. Well, now. I suppose declarer thought I was likely to be three-one the other way in the red suits. I win with the diamond jack and cash the spade king. Declarer takes the rest. Down two.

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

Since declarer held the eight of hearts, he didn't need the squeeze. But he did need to pick up the diamonds. He should have read my Bridge World article The Majority Rule. I'm known to have nine cards in the black suits (assuming I didn't completely lose my mind when I bid two spades). According to the Majority Rule, it's right to finesse East for the diamond jack only if a four-one split still leaves him with a majority of the hearts. It does not. A four-one diamond split leaves North with three of the six hearts. If I were known to have ten black cards, declarer's play would be correct. This is a minor flaw in Jack's method of calculating odds. Since he calculates odds empirically from a sample rather than analytically from the entire population, he will occasionally reach the wrong conclusion through sampling error. In the long run, these errors won't matter much, since the second-best play he chooses will be only slightly inferior to the best play. Sometimes he can even get lucky. The second-best play might succeed when the best play fails. This time, however, his error was costly.

At the other table, South opens one heart, and West passes, which seems awfully timid. If I can make a simple overcall over one notrump, surely Jack can afford to pre-empt to the same level over one heart. North bids two diamonds, and South bids two notrump to show his strong notrump. North bids three hearts, and South bids three notrump, denying a fifth heart. North raises this to six. I've taken Blackwood off my teammates' card to keep them from using it in auctions like this, but they still don't seem to have figured out how to use a natural four notrump to invite a slam.

Having failed to make a discovery bid to help him with his lead, West has no reason not to choose the five of spades. Declarer wins with the queen and plays a heart to the ace. Seeing West's ten drop, he plays a low heart to his eight. West pitches the deuce of spades. Declarer cashes the diamond king then plays the nine of diamonds to the queen.

Declarer makes an overtrick and we pick up fifteen imps. We're back in the game.

Me: +100
Jack: -1020

Score on Board 117: +15 IMPs
Total: -7 IMPs

2 comments:

Arik PerlmutterMarch 15, 2010 at 9:57 AM
With respect to the next to last paragraph - as D cannot split worse that 4-1 (both opps followed suit to the first D trick) there is no way declarer is going to lose more than one trick in D. Hence playing the D Q on the 2nd round is right regardless of the spots being played thus far.
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Phillip MartinMarch 15, 2010 at 1:14 PM
Thanks for the correction I seem to have had a blind spot. I've update the text accordingly.
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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

Monday, March 15, 2010

Board 117

2 comments:

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