The Gargoyle Chronicles: Match 2

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Match 2 - Board 16

Board 16
Opponents vulnerable

♠ A 4 2 ♥ 5 4 2 ♦ 10 7 6 ♣ A Q 5 3

LHO opens one notrump (15-17); RHO bids two hearts, a transfer to spades. I pass. LHO bids two spades, which is passed around to me. Without spade shortness, I have no reason to balance. I pass, and partner leads the king of hearts:

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

West	North	East	South
			1 NT
Pass	2 ♥¹	Pass	2 ♠
(All pass)
¹Jacoby-transfer

We lead ace from ace king (an agreement I don't care for). So partner should have the king-queen of hearts plus an additional five to seven high-card points. I discourage with the deuce of hearts. Declarer plays the three, and partner shifts to the eight of clubs.

I can't imagine this is a singleton, not so much from the opening lead as from the fact that partner didn't act over one notrump. If it's a doubleton, it might be useful to retain communication. I can't afford to duck this altogether, since partner might have king-nine-eight or jack-nine-eight. So, when declarer plays the four from dummy, I play the queen.

Declarer wins with the king and returns the jack of clubs, partner following with the deuce. If I could trust partner's carding, I would win and give him a club ruff. The deuce should show that he began with a doubleton, since partner should give present count here. But I know from past experience that Jack doesn't know that.

It seems more likely that declarer is trying to drill an entry to dummy to lead a trump toward his hand, and he probably wouldn't do that with king-jack fourth of clubs, because the risk of running into a ruff would be too great.

Of course, a clever declarer might lead the club jack with the specific intention of stopping a club ruff. Since declarer is off the trump ace, he knows there is no legitimate way to stop a club ruff if one is available to us. So it costs him nothing to lead the club jack, hoping I'll duck it. I myself executed a similar maneuver on Board Two of the first match. But I don't think Jack is that clever, so I duck. As soon as I duck, a paranoid thought occurs to me. Could partner have switched to a second-highest eight of clubs from nine-eight fourth? If he did, perhaps my combination of plays will teach him not to do that again.

Declarer plays the heart ace--nine--seven--five, then leads the eight of hearts. Partner plays the jack, and declarer ruffs in dummy with the six of spades. Declarer then surprises me by leading the ten of clubs. I win with the ace, and everyone follows.

Obviously I was wrong about declarer's trying to force a dummy entry, since he made no use of his entry once he was there. Have I been hornswaggled? Did he sucker me into ducking the club ace so he could endplay me with it? Maybe Jack is cleverer than I thought.

Do I have a safe exit? A spade switch will cost a trick if declarer has queen doubleton. It's safe if declarer has the king. But it seems unlikely he has the king. If he does, why didn't he lead a spade toward his hand when he was in dummy?

How about diamonds? Declarer has at least seven more high-card points. He's surely missing a spade honor, since he hasn't touched trumps. That means declarer must have at least four high-card points in diamonds. So he has either the ace or the king-jack. Either way, it can't hurt for me to switch to a diamond. Accordingly, I play the six of diamonds--five--king--eight.

Partner plays the heart queen, and declarer ruffs with the seven. As a general rule, it's wrong to overruff with a natural trump trick unless doing so allows you to separate trump tricks that will otherwise crash. That doesn't seem to be the case here, so I pitch the seven of diamonds. Declarer plays a diamond to his ace and a diamond back to the queen. I ruff, and we still have two natural trump tricks for down one:

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

Declarer made it easy fo us by playing diamonds. But, in fact, he had no way to avoid the ruff. This was the position, with the lead in dummy:

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

If he plays spades instead of diamonds, I can hop and play a diamond myself, scoring a ruff whenever partner has the spade king or when declarer has king doubleton and can't reach dummy to play the third round of trumps. (On this particular layout, I don't even have to hop with the ace. If I duck, we will eventually score my long club.) Note that it would indeed have been fatal for me to overruff dummy's seven of spades with my ace.

Declarer could have made his contract by playing on diamonds earlier. Ruffing the heart to dummy accomplished nothing and paved the way to our reaching this end position. With best defense, I don't think he can make it after he takes that first heart ruff.

We get ten matchpoints. Four pairs made two spades. One other pair went down, and one pair went down a trick in one heart. Presumably South opened one heart and bought it. It hasn't been a lucky session for weak notrumps and four-card majors--at least not for those sitting the other direction. Fortunately, partner and I have been spared those problems.

Score on Board 16: +100 (10 MP)
Total: 137 (71.4%)
Current rank: 1st

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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

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Match 2 - Board 16

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