Board 123

Board 123
Neither vulnerable

♠ 9 3 ♥ A K Q J 2 ♦ K J 10 5 4 ♣ 9

I open one heart in first seat. Partner responds two clubs, and RHO bids two spades. I bid three diamonds, LHO raises to three spades, and partner bids four hearts. RHO bids four spades.

Partner's two-over-one followed by his bidding game has created a forcing auction. Since I've bid two suits, partner would be entitled to expect a singleton spade if I were to make a forcing pass. Not that I would be tempted to pass even if that weren't true.  Our defensive prospects look pretty good.  Partner has clubs, and I have the red suits.  It's hard to see where declarer's tricks are coming from. I double, everyone passes, and I lead the nine of clubs.

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

West	North	East	South
1 ♥	Pass	2 ♣	2 ♠
3 ♦	3 ♠	4 ♥	4 ♠
Double	(All pass)

With five trumps, a stack in dummy's suit, and minimal spade support, North was probably not too happy to hear his partner's four spade bid. Declarer plays the ten of clubs from dummy, partner plays the queen, and declarer follows with the six. Partner switches to the seven of hearts, and declarer plays the three. So partner bid four hearts on a doubleton! I guess he intended it as a transfer to four spades. He got them.

I doubt partner has four diamonds, else he would have bid four diamond rather than four hearts. That leaves declarer with at least four diamonds, so it seems right to cut down on his ruffs. I switch to the three of spades. Yes, I know. Lowenthal would have led that at trick one. (Lowenthal's Third Law: The lead of a trump shows a singleton or void in a side suit.) He's probably right, too. With all three side suits bottled up, I probably should have led a trump initially.

Partner takes the spade ace and continues spades. Nice of him to have the spade ace, saving me from my trick one error. Declarer wins in his hand and plays a club to the jack and ace. Partner shifts to diamonds. Declarer plays the queen. I win with the king, and declarer has the rest. He can pitch one of his diamond losers on a club and ruff the other. Down two.

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

Four hearts isn't a bad contract. But I don't have the communication to pick up the diamonds, so it appears I was destined to go down. We've collected 300 on a phantom. Still, our teammates may do the same thing. It's hard for South not to bid game once his suit gets raised. One can easily construct layouts where both four hearts and four spades are making.  Perhaps the knowledge that the diamonds are stacked behind him should slow him down.  But it's easy to say that once you see the full deal.

Not to quarrel with success, but partner's four heart bid was a little strange. Perhaps he was overly concerned that his two club bid wasn't game-forcing (or even "almost game-forcing") and thought he had to do something, since his hand was better than it might have been. It's true he might have a tad less, but opposite a red two-suiter his hand is still better suited for defense than for offense. In fact, if one of his hearts were a spade, I would double. So, with this hand, I see no reason not to suggest that we defend by passing, even though pass is arguably not forcing.

In general, I think players worry too much about whether their passes are forcing or not. Pass here says "I don't have enough offense to bid, and I don't have enough defense to double." Who cares whether it's forcing? If partner chooses to defend but isn't willing to double himself, how many tricks do you think you're going to beat it? So you collect 50 instead of 100. Big deal!  If you're beating it several, partner will double whether he thinks your pass is forcing or not.

At the other table, the auction begins the same way, but East does pass over two spades. Since in Eastern Science Fiction pass is clearly forcing, it's an easy choice. South passes and West bids four hearts, treating his solid five-card suit as a six-card suit.

North can be pretty sure that he doesn't want to hear his partner bid four spades, but not so sure that he can risk a double. He does have a surprise, but there is no reason the opponents can't have extras on this auction. The surprise may simply mean they make four instead of five. In fact, for all he knows, East isn't even through bidding.

But East is through, and, fortunately for our side, so is South. Of course, it makes little sense to bid four spades now. If South was going to bid it, he should have bid it on the previous round to put pressure on West.  Not only is bidding four spades at this point poor tactical bridge, it's also poor partnership bridge.  If partner has to worry about your doing such things, he will more inclined to make questionable doubles like the double that I'm sure crossed North's mind.

North leads the jack of spades. Declarer has no convenient way to take a club finesse for a spade pitch, nor does he have reason to believe he should. It appears he may be able to hold his losses to a spade and two diamonds. Taking taps in his hand might not be such a good idea anyway. Perhaps he's better off conceding a spade and using dummy's trumps to stop the third round. So he ducks the first spade, wins the spade continuation with the ace, and plays a diamond.

South hops with the ace and shifts to a trump. Declarer wins and cashes two more high trumps, on which South pitches two spades. Declarer can now play a club to the queen, pitch a diamond on the club ace, and play a diamond to the jack, holding it to down one. Instead, he lays down the king of diamonds. North ruffs.

North then shifts of the four of clubs. Any other club would guarantee down two. After the lead of the four, however, declarer can once again get out for down one. He can ride the club to his nine, draw North's trump, then concede a diamond. Of course, this risks down three. So, not unreasonably, he rises with the club ace and plays a diamond, losing a diamond and another ruff for down two.

We pick up 9 imps, bringing our loss back into the single digits. We needed this result, although I can't claim we deserved it. The main cause appears to be partner's questionable four heart bid. But sometimes questionable actions work out. If they didn't, we would learn to stop making them.

Me: +300
Jack: -100

Score on Board 123: +9 IMPs
Total: -8 IMPs