Board 1
Neither vulnerable
Neither vulnerable
| ♠ 5 4 2 ♥ 2 ♦ A 8 6 2 ♣ 10 9 7 5 2 |
Two passes to me. I open one diamond. LHO doubles, partner bids one spade, and RHO bids two hearts. In theory, pass by me denies three spades. But I exercise my judgment and pass anyway. LHO bids two spades. Jack calls this a "cue-bid," but I wouldn't play it that way. The one suit LHO can't have after doubling one diamond is diamonds, so three diamonds is clearly a cue-bid. Since I see no reason to play two cue-bids, I play two spades (or any number of spades for that matter) as natural.
Partner passes. If partner were sure he wanted a spade lead against three notrump, he would double. But he can't afford to double too aggressively. Doubling sometimes works to the opponents' advantage by allowing them to exchange information via pass and redouble.
RHO bids three hearts. I pass, and LHO bids four hearts, which partner doubles. Everyone passes.
Partner presumably has four hearts, which means he has five spades, else he would have bid one heart over the take-out double. Since he has at most four cards in the minors, perhaps I should try to give him a minor-suit ruff. While a low diamond lead might be the only way to do that, the percentage lead is a club, enabling me to give partner a ruff if he has a quick entry and a singleton in either minor.
On the other hand, going after a ruff may be the wrong approach altogether. If partner has natural trump tricks, as his double suggests, he doesn't a need a ruff. Pursuing one may be wasting a tempo. Trick one may be my last chance to get spades going before declarer can pitch his spades on minor-suit tricks in dummy. So I lead the deuce of spades.
| NORTH
Kate ♠ A 7 ♥ K Q 4 ♦ K Q J 3 ♣ A Q J 8 |
||
| WEST
Phillip ♠ 5 4 2 ♥ 2 ♦ A 8 6 2 ♣ 10 9 7 5 2 |
| West | North | East | South |
| Phillip | Kate | Jack | Stella |
| Pass | Pass | ||
| 1 ♦ | Double | 1 ♠ | 2 ♥ |
| Pass | 2 ♠ | Pass | 3 ♥ |
| Pass | 4 ♥ | Double | (All pass) |
I don't agree with the four-heart bid, since I don't think South's three-heart bid promised five hearts. Sometimes she is stuck and has no choice but to rebid her four-card suit. Three notrump at this point invites partner to correct, since North would have bid three notrump a round earlier with no interest in playing hearts.
Dummy plays the spade seven. Partner plays the ten; declarer plays the three. Hmm. Partner apparently doubles two spades even less aggressively than I do.
Partner surely has the heart ace, which gives us three tricks. We need one slow trump trick or a ruff to beat this.
Partner returns the six of spades, and declarer plays the eight. (Play the nine, Stella! The card you're known to hold.) I play the five, and dummy wins with the ace. Declarer plays the heart queen--five--three--deuce. Now the heart king. Partner takes the ace, and declarer follows with the seven.
If partner has another trump trick we'll beat this. The only holding he can have where a trump trick is in doubt is ten doubleton. In that case, he will return a spade to tap dummy, preventing declarer from finessing him out of his ten. Is there any danger of his being couped? I need to work out the details now so I know what my objective is. If partner can't be couped on best defense, I need to help partner out with the count so he doesn't make a mistake. On the other hand, if declarer can coup partner if she guesses his shape, I need to do what I can to obscure the count.
I can't work through the play trick by trick, since I'm not sure of declarer's minor-suit shape. But perhaps I don't need to. Whatever her shape, her general plan will be to cash winners, then ruff something to her hand to reduce her trump holding. At trick 11, she will be down to two trumps and some minor-suit card. She will need to lead that card to dummy to coup partner. But partner will be down to two trumps and a spade. Whichever suit declarer tries to use to reach dummy partner will be able to ruff. As long as partner doesn't ruff prematurely, declarer can't make this.
This wouldn't be true if partner had taken his trump ace on the previous trick. Declarer would be able to use the trump king for her entry to dummy at trick 11. Nice duck, partner. Since no deception is necessary, I play the club deuce.
As expected, partner plays the spade king--nine--four--heart four. Declarer plays the eight of clubs--six--king--ten. Then the club three--five--jack--four. The fact that declarer isn't drawing trumps suggests partner indeed has ten doubleton left. Declarer now plays the diamond jack--nine--seven. I take my ace. We have reached this position:
| NORTH
Kate ♠ -- ♥ -- ♦ K Q 3 ♣ A Q |
||
| WEST
Phillip ♠ -- ♥ -- ♦ 8 6 2 ♣ 9 7 |
EAST
Jack ♠ Q J ♥ 10 x ♦ x ♣ -- | |
| SOUTH
Stella ♠ -- ♥ J 9 x ♦ 10 x ♣ -- |
| NORTH
Kate ♠ A 7 ♥ K Q 4 ♦ K Q J 3 ♣ A Q J 8 |
||
| WEST
Phillip ♠ 5 4 2 ♥ 2 ♦ A 8 6 2 ♣ 10 9 7 5 2 |
EAST
Jack ♠ K Q J 10 6 ♥ A 10 6 5 ♦ 9 4 ♣ 6 4 | |
| SOUTH
Stella ♠ 9 8 3 ♥ J 9 8 7 3 ♦ 10 7 5 ♣ K 3 |
To have a chance to beat this, we must go after a diamond ruff, which means I must duck the diamond to preserve communication. Declarer then plays three rounds of clubs. Partner can't afford to let declarer pitch a diamond or he will lose his ruff. Therefore, he must ruff the club. Declarer overruffs, ruffs a spade to dummy, and plays the fourth round of clubs. If partner ruffs this, he has no low trumps left to ruff a diamond with. If he doesn't, declarer pitches a diamond and loses only the two red aces.
Partner could have beat this by force by shifting to a diamond at trick two, provided I duck. The difference is that partner now has three low hearts instead of just two. So he can ruff both clubs to stop the diamond pitch and still have a low trump left to ruff a diamond with when he gets in with the heart ace.
Should I find the duck if partner shifts to a diamond, or should I win the trick, playing him for a singleton? With a singleton, partner can force me to do the right thing by cashing the heart ace before shifting. If he doesn't cash the ace, I can duck with confidence playing opposite a reliable partner. Of course, this inference isn't valid playing with Jack. But ducking is still the percentage play. Declarer must have the club king. Her minor-suit spot-card distribution is much more likely to be three-one than to be four-zero.
Should partner have found the diamond shift? I don't know. It's hard to work out at trick two that there's no way to stop the trump coup. Better simply not to double. We needn't defend so perfectly if declarer doesn't know trumps aren't breaking.
I know some of you are thinking that I have no right to complain about the double after I opened one diamond. But I don't agree. It would be a different matter if the opponents had competed to four hearts over three spades. But they didn't. They bid this game on their own steam. What difference would it make if I had a full opening bid? The more high cards I have, the more shape they must have. You don't double a voluntarily bid game because you think the opponents have miscounted their high-card points. You double because you know something the they don't know and that you don't mind telling them. Ace-ten fourth of trumps may meet the first criterion, but it doesn't meet the second.
If you want to lay responsibility for partner's double on me, you will have a better chance convincing me if you place the blame on my second "psyche": the failure to make a support double. Since I would probably act over two hearts with ten cards in the minors, my failure to double strongly suggests that I have two hearts, which means the opponents are in a four-three fit. In that case, with ace-ten fourth of hearts and a ready-make tap suit, partner has reason to believe we are beating four hearts several tricks. (Just to be clear, I'm not saying I should make a support double, just that the failure to do so had unexpected consequences.)
It didn't occur to me until now. But I wonder if that's why partner returned a spade at trick two. If I couldn't have three spades, the deuce had to be a singleton. Not only did my failure to double two hearts trick partner into doubling the final contract, it tricked him into misdefending. Oh, what a tangled web we weave...
Our opponents did not double four hearts at the other table, so we pick up 2 imps.
Table 1: +100
Table 2: -50
Result on Board 1: +2 imps
Total: +2 imps
No comments:
Post a Comment