Match 2 - Board 19

Board 19
Opponents vulnerable

♠ 9 8 5 ♥ Q 10 7 5 ♦ K ♣ A 10 8 7 5

I pass in first seat. One diamond--pass--one spade to me. I double. Jack disapproves of this double, claiming it shows a better hand. Nonsense. A singleton, nine cards in the unbid suits, and eight losers? I'd be happier if the king of diamonds were the deuce, but you can't have everything.

LHO bids two diamonds. The opponents are playing support doubles and redoubles, so this bid should deny three spades. Personally, I think that a non-jump rebid of your suit should deny three-card support for partner even without competition. Jack does not seem to agree, however. (Perhaps that's a reason not to double. If your opponents play more sensible methods with competition than without, perhaps you should stay out of their auction.) RHO bids three hearts. I'm not sure why. Perhaps two hearts would have been non-forcing. LHO bids three notrump, and RHO bids four spades, ending the auction.

RHO is probably 6-4-2-1. With the king of diamonds onside, I'm in danger of losing the club ace if I don't cash it. But is that the best lead? If partner's diamonds are good enough to keep the suit from running, it might be right to lead trumps to protect my heart tricks. This would be a tougher decision if dummy could have three spades. In that case, it might be right to lead a trump at trick one, retaining the club ace as an entry. Declarer would win the trump lead and ruff one heart, but would be unable to return to his hand to ruff a second heart. When I got in with the club ace, I could remove dummy's last trump. But, since dummy holds at most two trumps, I probably don't need to lead trumps at trick one. I can always cash the club ace, then switch to a trump at trick two, holding declarer to one heart ruff. Failure to lead a trump at trick one will cost only if the club ace gets ruffed or if we have a heart entry, which would enable us to prevent even a single ruff.

I lead the club ace and see the following dummy:

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

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

I don't care for the three notrump bid. I would have bid three spades. One of the reasons to play that two diamonds denies three spades is so that you can give a preference with a doubleton. King-ten doubleton of spades looks like a more important feature to me than queen-nine third of clubs, especially when partner might have club shortness.

Partner plays the club three, and declarer plays the king. I have two attractive defenses. I can lead a heart, hoping partner has the heart ace, or I can lead a diamond, hoping partner has the trump ace. Does the latter defense even work? Declarer can win the diamond ace, then pitch his remaining diamond on the club queen to stop the ruff. But he is now left with two heart losers and no way to dispose of them. If he ruffs them in dummy, he can't stop me from scoring a trump trick.

Which ace is partner more likely to have? His discouraging club suggests tolerance for a heart shift. At least it would if I could trust him. With the spade ace and nothing in hearts, partner should encourage at trick one to say that the "obvious shift" is the wrong defense.

If you'll allow me to hop on the soap box for a moment, here's a good example of how suit preference at trick one can get confusing. With queen third of clubs in dummy, I think most people would play partner's card as attitude: high to suggest a club continuation and low to suggest a heart shift. But what if dummy had the club king? In that case, some would play East's card as suit preference. Attitude makes no sense, they say, when no more club tricks are available. So partner would play a high club with the heart ace and a low club (asking for a diamond shift) with the spade ace. But who says a club continuation makes no sense just because you have no more club tricks? To give just one example: what if partner has the diamond king instead of you? If declarer has a singleton diamond and a doubleton club, a club continuation at trick two, killing the entry to the diamonds, might be necessary. How does partner suggest that defense if his card is suit preference? Should his card be attitude if continuing the suit to kill an entry is an option but suit preference if it isn't? So he plays low to get a heart shift in the first case and high to get a heart shift in the second? Why make things so hard? Why can't a low club always ask for the "obvious" heart shift, while a high club says do something else. Partner may not always be sure what that "something else" is. But most of the time he can work it out based on other clues.

Jack's way of signaling attitude, unfortunately, isn't very helpful. His signal pertains to the suit led, not to the "obvious shift" suit. So all I know from Jack's low club is that he doesn't have a high club honor. To solve my problem, I must rely on the a priori odds. Partner has three sevenths of the outstanding hearts and a quarter of the outstanding spades, so he is more likely to have the heart ace than the spade ace. Accordingly, I shift to the five of hearts.

Partner plays the king, and declarer wins with the ace. I guess my shift didn't matter. If partner has the heart king, he is unlikely to have the spade ace. Declarer plays a spade to the ten, which holds. At that point, I can simply concede:

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

The opponents came awfully close to missing a good slam. Make South's club king the diamond king, and slam is virtually cold. I doubt South would have bid any differently.

Let's change South's club king to the diamond king and see how the auction should go. It would be easier if South could bid two hearts over two diamonds. But we have to accept South's three heart bid as a systemic given. As we've already said, North should bid three spades, not three notrump, over three hearts. At that point, it seems fairly routine for South to bid four diamonds. But that's Humpty Dumpty syndrome. Since South is looking at a hand where he would like four diamonds to show a diamond card and slam interest, it's easy for him to forget that's not what the bid means. South knows the partnership has found a trump suit, but North doesn't. So four diamonds simply continues the search for a playable strain.

♠ J x x x x ♥ A K Q x ♦ K x x ♣ x

is a possbile hand.

That's not to say you can't bid four diamonds to probe for slam. But it does mean partner isn't going to react the way you would like him to. He will not be cooperating with your slam probe; he will be selecting what looks to him like the best trump suit. If you think that information will help you in your decision, go ahead and bid four diamonds.

Personally, I don't think partner's reaction to four diamonds will be of much help. In fact, I have hard time imagining any sequence where you can get meaningful cooperation from partner. You have a one-loser trump suit, a fitting card in partner's suit, and sufficient controls in the other two suits. Any slam try you devise will make it sound as though you're missing one of those features. As a practical matter, I suspect it's best simply to bid Blackwood and drive to slam opposite two key cards. All you need in addition to two key cards is the diamond queen or the heart king. That doesn't seem like too much to hope for.

We get ten matchpoints for minus 680. Since three notrump making six was a popular spot, the opening lead was crucial. We would have received two matchpoints had I not led the club ace. We are back in the lead.

Score on Board 19: -680 (10 MP)
Total: 151 (66.2%)
Current rank: 1st place